I was planning out my argument when my cell phone rang. When I saw the call was from Adam, I felt a rush of mingled relief and irritation.
I answered the phone, practically shaking with outrage. “Isn’t there some kind of rule that you have to be available by phone at all times?” I snapped. Saying hello is highly overrated.
“I am,” he said simply.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!” An exaggeration, but it sure felt like hours.
I could almost hear him shrug. “My office has my emergency number.”
I reminded myself to stop by his office and thank the whining asshole who’d answered the phone for all his “help.” “Where are you? I need to talk to you. Now.”
“I’m at home. I’ll be at your place in twenty minutes.”
“No, I’ll be at yours in two. I guess you didn’t hear me knocking.”
“Oh. That was you?” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I was, uh, busy.”
“I’ll bet,” I muttered. “How’s Dom?”
Adam hesitated. “He’s fine,” he finally said, but there was something funny in his voice.
I wanted to ask what was wrong, but there was no reason to talk about it on the phone when I was right around the corner. “Whatever,” I said, figuring I’d grill him about it in a couple of minutes. “I’ll be there in a few. And just so you know, I’ll have Brian and Raphael with me.”
“Wonderful,” he said sourly. “I’m in the mood for a party right now.”
“Don’t get pissed at me! If you’d answered your phone when I first called, this would have been a lot simpler.”
“Whatever,” he said, and I guessed that funny voice was supposed to be mimicking mine. His impersonation could use a little work.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, at least nothing that wasn’t so snarky it would get us off on even more of a wrong foot, so I just hung up and waited for Raphael.
Raphael must have been alarmed by my call even though I’d told him I wasn’t in any more trouble than usual. He showed up in less time that it would take me to cover half the distance. People had gathered at the bus stop, and though like typical city dwellers they were all pretending they were the only people around, I knew full well we couldn’t afford to talk about the situation in anyone’s hearing. So when Raphael strode toward me with the obvious intention of giving me the third degree, I jerked my thumb toward the corner.
“We’re going to Adam’s,” I said, and started moving before he had a chance to reply. I felt his eyes boring into the back of my head, but I did my best to ignore it. Brian fell into step beside me, and moments later, I heard Raphael hurry to catch up.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” Raphael asked when he reached my other side.
I wished Adam’s call had come just a couple minutes earlier so I could have avoided Raphael’s company, but I supposed if he was to serve as one of Lugh’s advisors, it was for the best that he come along. Besides, if he’d been following Lugh’s orders, maybe he’d found some more information about the Houston facility. And maybe the information I’d gotten could fill in some of the gaps.
“When we get inside,” I answered. I still felt like Raphael was staring holes in me, but I refused to confirm my suspicion by looking at him.
Adam was waiting for us when we arrived. I didn’t even have to knock. It looked like he’d dressed in a hurry. His T-shirt was only haphazardly tucked into his jeans, his feet were bare, and his hair was mussed. He gave Brian and Raphael each a long look, then opened the door wide enough to let us in.
When Dominic was playing hostess, any conversations that took place in this house happened in the kitchen, usually accompanied by food. But there was no sign of Dominic now, so Adam directed us to the living room instead. I hoped Dom was upstairs wrapped in blissful post-coital slumber. However, Adam seemed pretty tense, and I worried about what that might mean.
Much though I wanted to ask about Dom, he couldn’t be my first priority at the moment. So instead, I forced myself to stay on topic and explain to Adam and Raphael what had happened.
I wasn’t surprised when there was a long silence after I’d finished. I sure wished I could read their minds like Lugh could read mine. And I sure hoped Adam was enough of a cop to want to help Claudia’s daughters, even if sticking his neck out for them might not be in Lugh’s best interests. After all, Lugh didn’t seem to have any objections to the idea of mounting a rescue. Or if he did, he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could bully me into keeping out of it.
The silence went on a little too long, and like an idiot I rushed to fill it.
“I didn’t find out about all this until this morning,” I said, then squirmed a bit, knowing no one was going to like hearing what I had to say next. “All I knew last night was that Claudia had ‘fired’ me and that some goons thought beating me up would make me back down.”
Adam fixed me with one of his black looks. “What did you do?” he asked, and I tried not to wither under his preemptive disapproval.
“I, um, stopped by The Seven Deadlies.”
Brian looked vaguely ill at the mention of the club; Raphael looked worried; Adam, predictably, looked furious. I wondered if talking fast and loud would keep the boys from letting me know what they thought of me right now. I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try.
“I figured Shae knew more than she was telling us, so I had a little chat with her.” Adam looked like he was about to kill me, so angry I caught the faint glow in his eyes that meant his demon was shining through. I kept talking, though my instinct for self-preservation suggested now would be a good time to run like hell. Adam has a very effective death glare.
“I found out that Tommy’s been paying her to procure women for him.”
That surprised Adam enough to dim the glow in his eyes. “Come again?”
There seemed to be more oxygen in the room now that he wasn’t glaring at me like that, and I heaved a sigh of relief. “She apparently can get a great deal of information about her regular customers. Tommy wanted her to find him women whose families have a history of hereditary cancer. And it sounded like he specifically selected ones who might be a bit careless about their birth control.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Raphael, seeking any clue that this meant something to him. Unfortunately, he has an effective poker face, unlike mine.
“She doesn’t know why, but I can make an educated guess.” This time, I faced Raphael full on. “Care to tell me your theory?”
He lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “I haven’t gotten any new information since we last spoke, if that’s what you’re asking. But it does seem pretty obvious that Tommy’s trying to spread his genes.” He looked thoughtful. “My guess would be that Houston had more success with their project than I’d realized. Tommy must be a pretty valuable specimen.”
“He’s not a specimen!” I snapped. “He’s a human being. And don’t give me any bullshit about how he’s not human because you demons have been mucking with his DNA.”
Raphael held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “I wasn’t going to. What we call him doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the Houston project was successful enough that they want to spread his genes in the human population.”
“Are you sure that’s what it means?” Brian asked, startling us all, I think.
“What do you mean?” I asked, turning to face him. “I’m just wondering. . They’re keeping their human subjects captive in or around the facility somewhere. Even if they’re keeping them in the most inhumane conditions, they’d need a lot of room to have a viable breeding population. Maybe now that they’ve had some success, they need to introduce a little more genetic diversity.”
Raphael was nodding. “You could be right. We definitely had trouble with that at The Healing Circle. We tried to manipulate the DNA as much as possible to counter the effects of inbreeding, but it got progressively harder with each new generation.”