Personal Demon (Otherworld 8)

"That looks like Sonny."

Karl crept to the garden railing, his head up, sampling the wind. He stepped back into the shadows with me.

"I think you're right."

The figure had his back to us, and was leaning against the corner of the bench, chin on his chest. "He could be sleeping."

"Possible."

I knew there was a more likely explanation. If Sonny had gone through all that trouble to avoid being seen, he'd hardly nap in a public park.

"I'm going to take a closer look," Karl said. "I need you to stay here, Hope."

"I will."

He glanced my way. "I mean it."

"I know. I'll wait here where I can see him, and if he moves, I'll hit my panic button to warn you."

"Good."

As he moved away, he stopped and looked back. His lips parted, but he shook his head. Before I could say anything, he was gone.

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..."