Page 24 of Atlas and the Traitor

Another text came through.For Pati. —L.

Lucy.

How had she gotten his number? What had she overheard? Questions continued to cascade, his mind racing, and he turned back for the motel room door.

And stopped short.

Did Lucy know who he really was? Or did she think he was someone else? A suited someone else? If he needed to be Evan, he couldn’t go in wherever Lucy was sending him with Robin. Or wearing his kilt. They’d lose the advantage of surprise and deception.

But could he afford not to take Robin? Simon would probably be dead if not for Robin; maybe even Atlas. What if Lucy was being held hostage? What if someone had taken her phone and used it to set him up? To send him into a trap?

He needed to thread the needle, to account for both possibilities. Which meant he needed a suit and a head start, and then he’d call in backup.

Seventeen

In the shadow of Tuyshtak, The Corners was a small crossroads village inhabited mostly by the indigenous Miwok. Atlas had rarely strayed this far east. Vincent’s criminal doings had been largely confined to YB and Talahalusi. The one time he’d ventured east, to try and steal power from a coven in hiding, it had ultimately led to his death.

Aiming to avoid a similar fate, Atlas withdrew his phone from the pocket of the suit he’d stolen out of another guest’s motel room and texted Robin the address of the single-family home he found himself standing in front of. Not the industrial warehouse, saloon, or other commercial building he’d expected. Atlas pushed gently at the aura surrounding the ranch-style home and the generous lot it stood on; no magic that he could detect. He walked up the path to the front door as casually as possible while glancing through the plate glass windows on either side of the front porch. No sign of Lucy, no sign of anyone home, as far as he could tell. No answer to his knock either. Thankful for the cover from the juniper and laurel trees that surrounded the house, he slipped around the side, checking for open doors and windows, peeking through them for any movement or motion detectors in the usual places. Seeing none, he ported himself inside.

And breathed a sigh of relief at not sensing any magic inside either. Ears and eyes open, he slowly worked his way through the home. The house was older but well kept, everything neat, no clutter, no pictures, no personal items whatsoever, the drawers and closets empty. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see a For Sale sign in the front yard. It certainly didn’t look like Lucy or anyone had been here in some time. Didn’t feel or smell like it either, the air stale and cool, no heat on since the temps had begun to drop.

Why had Lucy—or someone—sent him this address? Who did this house belong to? What did it have to do with Pati Miwra? He shot off a text to his excavator as he made his way back to the kitchen, then exited out the back door, only the detached garage left to check.

He approached with caution, the structure behind the house similar in style but not in condition. The windows were papered over, the gutters were full of leaves, and cracks snaked through the structure’s exposed foundation. He tried to lift the debris-covered roll-up door. Locked. He circled around to the side and found the single step to the side door broken. The lock on the door, however, was not. Modern and high-tech, its keypad glowed red. He wasn’t getting past that in fast fashion, which meant he’d have to port inside blind. Always a risk. He circled the structure, looking and listening for any signs of life. Still nothing, and the state of the place lent itself to the same conclusion. Likely the house was for sale and the owners had shoved all their belongings in the garage, which would be torn down when sold. He contemplated waiting for Robin. The coyote would probably know how to get past the lock, and if there was someone inside, he’d have backup. But it was a small building, one car at most; there couldn’t be that many people in there. Atlas could handle them, or at least hold them off long enough for Robin to reach him.

He lifted a hand and snapped.

Into darkness.

Remaining in one place, he extended his senses, listening and smelling, then tentatively poking for any other magic in the space. Finding none, he spun up his own globe as potential defense and to light his surroundings.

The interior of the space was far more akin to the door lock than the structure’s exterior. A high-tech monitoring setup like the command room that had been in Vincent’s compound lined one wall, a weapons cache the one perpendicular to it, and Atlas assumed the jut out in the far corner was a bathroom given the bed on the other side. The final wall, though, was the one that drew his attention, that called him closer as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

An entire wall covered in pictures—of the Shaw family.

Some were the same posed-type shots that Atlas had grown up seeing around the house, including the one of his brothers currently in his pocket. But more were the sort that had been taken at a distance, by someone watching. There were family shots, solo snaps, pictures of each of them at work. Atlas struggled to take it all in, heart pounding, chest tightening, as his gaze bounced from Evan in various states of evil, including standing next to the giant Atlas had killed in LP, to his own arc in photos, from good to evil to seemingly evil, to Cole sneaking into Vincent’s compound, what would ultimately prove a life-altering turn of events, to Canton with an arm around a green-haired Mary, the two of them trailing a blue-haired Icarus somewhere, and then a different shot, with Mary standing in between Canton and a snarling Icarus, his fangs extended. Before he could wonder long on when exactly that photo was taken, what exactly had transpired before and after that snapshot in time, his gaze strayed to the last collection of photos, the biggest.

Of his father.

At home, in town, at church, at Cole’s funeral two weeks ago.

What the fuck was this? Whose was this? Holding his globe aloft, he made another slow sweep of the space, his gaze passing then speeding back to a familiar sight on the weapons wall.

A crossbow he’d seen a week ago in La Purisima—on the hunter’s shoulder.

Was that who this place belonged to? Was the hunter not after magical beings in general, but the Shaws in particular? Was his father the ultimate target?

He needed to have a much longer conversation with his excavator, and he needed another set of eyes on this. With Nature and Chaos on the brink of full-out war, a third-party variable like this was the last thing Atlas needed.

Lifting his phone, he switched the camera to video, held his globe close to the wall, and made a slow survey of the photo collage first, then standing back in the center of the room, made a slow circle to capture it all.

Finished, he clicked back to the text he’d sent Robin earlier and sent another:ETA?When it remained on Delivered, not switching to Read, he figured Robin was on paw. He moved to extinguish his globe and snap back outside, but stopped himself short, one photo in particular calling him back. He snatched it off the wall, pocketed it with the others, then, putting out his globe, ported himself back onto the lawn.

And into the enemy’s hands.

Eighteen

They were waiting for him on the lawn. Three henchmen this time, a bobcat shifter who was new to Atlas and two humans he recognized from Dyami’s casino. They’d been dressed as dealers that day, but their bulging biceps and thighs had given them away as more than croupiers.

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