Personal Demon

LUCAS: 18

“SO WE ANALYZED THE DNA and blood samples.” Warren kept his gaze on his notes, clutched in both hands. “Let’s start with the DNA. The requisition says it’s supposed to be from two magicians. But, well, sir, we didn’t find any sorcerer genetic markers.”

“They’re human?” Paige said.

“Um, we aren’t sure.” He laid the pages down, his gaze lifting as high as my cheekbones. “We’re running more tests. I wasn’t comfortable bringing you preliminary results, but I thought…”

“I’d want to know this right away. Yes, thank you. So we have two samples, from possible supernaturals-”

“Probable, sir.”

“Probable. Of one or more unknown types-”

“One, I believe. They share over 50 percent of their DNA in common.”

“They’re brothers?”

Paige pushed her chair back, getting to her feet. “Over 50 percent means full brothers, right?” She opened my satchel and took out a file folder. “Then I’d say we somehow got the wrong samples, because genetics can do some wonky things, but there’s no way these two guys-” she put the kidnap photo on the table, “-are full brothers.”

Beside it, she set the close-ups of their faces that I’d requisitioned from the computer lab. Even if one looked past the obvious coloring and ethnicity differences, there was nothing in the two young men’s faces to suggest familial relationship.

“Hey, that’s Jason.” It was the younger of the researchers. She turned to the other woman and poked a finger at Jaz’s picture. “Doesn’t that look like Jason?”

The older woman glanced at me first. Only when I nodded did she walk over. She peered at the photo, then, after another glance at me and a reciprocal nod, she picked it up and studied it.

“It looks like him, but the eyes aren’t right. Or the mouth. And the hair’s curlier.”

The younger woman took the photo. “Yeah, I see it. This guy’s even hotter than Jason.” An embarrassed giggle as she handed the photo back to Paige. “Sorry.”

“Who’s Jason?” Paige asked.

The younger woman opened her mouth, but her colleague beat her to it. “He worked in the library. Grunt work mainly-running books and reports around, filing them back on the shelves. Then he was transferred to…”

“Security division,” the younger woman said with a sigh.

The other woman cast a knowing look at Paige. “Some of our younger staff were quite taken with him. Not that it did them any good. A sweet kid, but he kept to himself.”

“Do you remember Jason’s last name?” Paige asked as she swiveled her chair to the computer behind her.

“Dumas. But he isn’t here anymore. He left about six months ago.”

Paige paused, the human resources directory on the screen, and looked over at me. I was already on the phone. As I spoke to the HR department, I typed in the proper access codes.

A moment later, Paige was sending a page to the printer. She retrieved it and set it in front of the women.

“Is this the guy you knew as Jason Dumas?”

They nodded. The staff photograph showed a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, with a somber face, dark eyes and dark wavy hair, fashionably long.

This man was not Jaz. But there was little doubt he was a relative. A close one.

I moved the two head shots side by side. “Jasper and Jason.”

“Jaz and Sonny,” Paige murmured. She picked up the kidnap photo of Sonny. “But there’s no way, even with prosthetics, that this guy could be-” She pulled over her laptop. A minute of frenetic key tapping. “The answer isn’t in there-” She waved at the books littering the table. “It’s in here.”

I moved behind her. On the screen was the interracial council database.

“Armen Haig,” she said.

“Armen…?”

“I have to call Elena.”