“Eduardo and I talked about it. Eduardo was doing odd jobs for Clan Heavy and also helping me with the legal filings. That would all disappear. Jim needs my dad to maintain his power base. I don’t have a shred of doubt that if my dad made a stink, my job with the Pack would evaporate, too.”

“Your mom would kill him,” Curran said.

“Yes, she would,” George said. “But it would be after the fact, and the argument would be that it’s already done and Jim couldn’t rehire me because it would make him look weak and indecisive. So I began to quietly cash out my investments, and Eduardo rented a house in the city and registered with the Guild.”

The Mercenary Guild was the largest for-profit magic cleanup agency in Atlanta. When people encountered some dangerous magic beast or problem, they called the Paranormal Activity Division first, but cops in post-Shift Atlanta were overworked and stretched too thin. In some cases people called the Order of Merciful Aid next, but dealing with the knights meant giving them complete authority. When the cops couldn’t come out and the matter was either too minor or too shady for the Order of Merciful Aid, you called the Guild. They did bodyguard details, they did magic hazmat cleanup, they did search and destroy—they weren’t picky as long as money was involved. I’d been a member of the Guild for nine years now. It used to be a good place to earn money, but since the death of its founder, the Guild had gone to hell in a handbasket.

“How did he do at the Guild?” I asked.

“He did well,” George said. “He said some people gave him trouble, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.”

Eduardo would do well at the Guild. He fit the type. When people called the Guild, they wanted to be reassured, and a six-foot-four man muscled like an Olympic medalist wrestler provided a lot of reassurance. Some of the regulars would screw with him because they didn’t like competition, but the Guild zoned the gigs. Each merc was assigned a territory within the city and if a job fell into that territory, they automatically got it, so while the rest of the mercs could run their mouths and hassle Eduardo, there wasn’t much they could do to keep him from earning money.

“I think Dad figured us out,” George said. “Last week Patrick came to talk to Eduardo.”

I mentally riffled through the roster of Clan Heavy shapeshifters for Patrick. He was Mahon’s nephew, a carbon copy of his uncle with a matching attitude and size.

“He told Eduardo that what he was doing was wrong and that if he cared about me, he’d leave me alone and not tear me away from the family.”

Curran grimaced.

“Would Patrick do something like that on his own?” I asked him.