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.”
My lip curled with distaste. “So what you mean is they’re sending out Tommy to act as a stud, and most likely if any of those women get pregnant, they’re going to suddenly disappear, never to be heard of again.” Bad enough that the demons were raising humans as lab rats. At least those humans wouldn’t know any better. But to snatch some unsuspecting pregnant chick and stick her in some kind of sick breeding facility. . I shuddered and gave Raphael another glare of disgust. His lips thinned, but he had no answer for my accusation.
“So what about the cancer?” I asked. “Why does Tommy want girls with cancer in their families?”
“I don’t know,” Raphael answered, “but I can take a guess. It may be that they’re trying to harness and accelerate the rapid cell division that comes with cancer. If they can make the cells divide at super speed, then maybe they can heal faster.” He shrugged. “It’s sort of what we do when we heal our hosts now, only we’re limited by what the human body is capable of.”
I shook my head. “Remember when you were trying to tell me how breeding these hardier hosts was actually to those hosts’ benefit?”
Raphael squirmed a bit and didn’t look at me. “I could be wrong. I’m just guessing what the significance of the cancer is.”
“Doesn’t matter! There’s no way it’s good for anyone to have their chances of getting cancer genetically increased. We are so exorcizing that damn demon.” I no longer cared if it was illegal. If it was the last thing I did, I was sending that creature back to the Demon Realm. It sure would be nice if I could just kill it, but much as I disapproved of Tommy’s life choices, I wasn’t ruthless enough to burn him to death to kill the demon.
Adam shook his head. “No, we are not.”
I shot to my feet, an indignant response on my lips. Brian, who was sitting next to me on the couch, grabbed my arm and hauled me back down. I was so surprised I just sat there and stared at him.
“I doubt jumping up and down and yelling is going to be very effective,” Brian said reasonably, though far be it from me to be reasonable when my dander was up.
I wasn’t sure who I was most pissed at right now, Brian or Adam. I chose Adam. I stayed in my seat as I prepared to ream him out, but he beat me to the punch.
“If Tommy suddenly shows up sans demon, who do you think is going to be the prime suspect?” he asked, sounding as reasonable as Brian.
I clenched my teeth. I already knew that, had already made the same argument to Claudia. But, damn it, I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing! I had to stop that demon from making any number of women into broodmares with cancer-riddled children. And I had to stop his buddies from hurting Claudia’s daughters.
My heart pounded with my fury, and my nails dug into my palms as I tried to think of an argument that would convince Adam and company that it was okay to perform an illegal exorcism. After we gently convinced Tommy’s demon to tell us where the children were, that is.
“So maybe he shouldn’t show up sans demon,” Raphael said, and we all turned to him. His expression was studiously neutral, but I thought I detected a hint of excitement in him.
“Explain,” Adam urged.
But I was pretty sure I knew what Raphael was about to say, and it was hard to hear him over the sudden pounding of my heart.
“I agreed to move out of Andrew if I felt safe enough to do it and if we could find me another host. I believe Lugh and I have reached a formal peace, and that Morgan wouldn’t kill my host just to send me back to the Demon Realm. It therefore occurs to me that Tommy could fulfill the latter requirement for me. After all, considering his rather extreme prejudices, I expect he is not faring well with his current demon and is unlikely to be intact after an exorcism.”