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"I wouldn't bet on that - we think Gautier's one of them. The death head, in fact."
He glanced at me sharply.
"Yeah," I added. "We figured out some of the history. But it'd be nice if you took some time out of your busy schedule to fill in the blanks."
"If Gautier is the death head, then Jin knows you're a guardian. That makes it even more important that you stay away from him."
"He doesn't know."
"You cannot be sure - "
"I can, because the one thing Gautier wants, besides power, is my destruction at his hands. He'll give up his soul, he'll give up control of his body, but he won't give up that."
"You'd trust your life on that fact?"
"Yes." I glanced back at the house. "If we snatch Maisie, they'll just think that you took her out."
He studied me, his features carefully neutral. It was a look I'd seen many times before - usually right before he told me some lie.
"Maisie Foster is an extremely powerful sorcerer. It will not be easy to take her out."
"Even so, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to remove her from the scene than one of the dragons, wouldn't it?" It was a question aimed more at Rhoan than Quinn. I had no doubt that, between me and Quinn, we could handle Maisie, but I didn't want to do anything without official approval.
"Capture her, you mean?" Quinn asked.
I nodded. "I'm sure Jack will want to chat with her."
"She will never 'chat,' nor could Jack or the Directorate contain her."
I raised my eyebrows. "Why?"
"Because, as I said, she is an extremely powerful sorcerer. Magic cannot be contained by psychic powers or technical devices."
"But it can be contained via other means?"
"Yes." He hesitated. "To be honest, I do not think the effort worth it. She will die before she tells us anything about her master."
"John Kingsley is her half brother, not her master."
"John Kingsley no longer exists. Nor do any of the other men inside that house. They are merely living breathing receptacles for the spirits of evil."
Jin and that blond man I'd seen in the fitness club might be just shells, but the creepy spirit I knew as Gautier was still well and truly present. I shivered, and tried to ignore the fact that I'd been fucking something that didn't even belong on this plane of existence.
"But how can spirits march in and take over someone's body like that?"
"Magic. Blood magic." He looked at me. "And they need regular, willing sacrifices to maintain their existence."
"Hence the bodies we're finding." And the reason they were going after those with extreme sexual tastes. "Why willing victims? A sacrifice is a sacrifice, isn't it?"
"The dragons may need the taste of pain, despair, and the fear of death to feed, but the god of darkness himself grows strong on the acquiesence to evil."
"That doesn't entirely make sense considering his dragons feed on pain, despair, and death."
"But Angra Mainyu is the god of darkness, the eternal destroyer of good. He feeds on the enjoyment of darkness and death."
This was all getting a little weird for me. "However much these people enjoy pain, I can't see how they'd willingly go to their death. Have you seen what he does to these people?"
He hesitated. "Yes. But the desire for pain is often a growing one, and these people are carefully pushed to crave more and more, until only death will bring them the ultimate satisfaction."
