"Well, excuse me if I'm still a bit wigged out by my near-death experience yesterday! Maybe I didn't exactly want to rush back to the place where I watched you decapitate a demon!"

I sighed. "Okay, you're right. And it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you're still safe. Where's your aunt? I'm surprised that she was even willing to let you out of her sight after what happened. I thought you'd be under house arrest."

"Well, that was originally the plan, but I refused to stay put."

"Mia, that's not smart-"

"I'm not going to sit in my room and read Tiger Beat while people are getting attacked by monsters."

I swallowed. "Okay, fine. So Cassandra took you into the city and dropped you off at the library. What then?"

"She was supposed to pick me up after work, but she never showed up. I waited outside the building for, like, almost two hours. Then I got a bit freaked out-I didn't want to go in there.

So I called Derrick."

Thank God I'd written down our personal numbers on that card.

"Good. That was the right move." I started the car. "I'm coming to meet you guys at the restaurant, okay? Then we'll go back to the lab together and see what's happened to your aunt."

"Cool." She was trying to keep the tremor out of her voice, but I heard it anyway. "I'm glad you guys are here."

"Don't worry, Mia. We'll figure this out. I promise."

"Okay."

"Can you put Derrick back on?"

"Yeah, sure."

A second later, I heard Derrick's voice. "Red Leader."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, how are you really? Is the restaurant safe?"

"Of course. It's Retro-Queer night at Celebrities. Any demon comes within a mile of this place, they'll get their ass kicked by an army of 1950s drag queens wearing curlers. And some drag-demons, too, which is always refreshing to see."

"Fine. I'll be there in ten minutes. Order me-"

"I know, I know. A hot chocolate and a piece of pineapple cheesecake with extra graham-cracker crust. And if they don't have pineapple-"

"Derrick." I was breathing fast. I'd been worrying all day long, and now it was building into volcanic anxiety. "I don't know what to do."

"Neither do I. Just get over here."

"Selena can only watch our backs for so long. If Marcus sees us all together again, you and I will lose our jobs-or worse. And Mia will end up in a foster home. It already looks like we're compromising this case."

"You said it last night-what choice do we have?"

I closed my eyes. "Let's try to keep this very quiet. Just surveillance. If this lab ends up being a crime scene, we can't get near it. We'll just let the CORE do its business, call it in, and take Mia home."

"Right." I could feel that Derrick was rolling his eyes. "Because our lives always go that smoothly."

I clicked off the cell phone, and put the car into gear. If I hurried, I might be able to make it to the restaurant in time for one last dessert before my life was officially ruined.

SemTec Laboratories was on the fourteenth floor of an office building on West Georgia, all shimmering glass and concrete. It reminded me of the HSBC building with the revolving steel pendulum that whooshed over your head. Derrick had called it the corporate phallus once, which was pretty funny until one of the security guards heard us. We left shortly after. I did my banking with a credit union now.

Standing outside the main entrance, shivering a bit in my inappropriate spring jacket, I felt like my brain was about to explode. I had so many questions, and none of them seemed even remotely answerable. I'd thought that Cassandra was assigned to protect Mia-to be her bodyguard and jailor at the same time-but why would she just up and vanish like this? If Mia was her precious cargo, why abandon her?

"What time does your aunt usually pick you up?" I asked.

"Six thirty-sometimes seven, if work runs late." Mia was wearing a black Misfits hoody, an old pair of men's jeans, and combat boots. It's not like I wanted to see her in Juicy Couture or something, but it would have been comforting if she acted even slightly like a thirteen-year-old girl for once.

"And she didn't phone you or anything?"

She shook her head. "I even called the house, but nobody's home."

"Or nobody's picking up," Derrick added.

Mia turned to him. "What-you think she's tied up in the kitchen or something? Like she's being held hostage?"

"Way to be calming, Derrick," I murmured.

"I just don't think we should rule anything out."

"Well," Mia said, "I checked the parking lot, and her car's still there. So she must still be in the building."

"Is there some way you can sense her presence?" Derrick asked.

"Not unless she's standing in front of me." I sighed. "We already know that she can disguise her-" I glanced quickly at Mia. This didn't seem like the right time for the "Hey, your aunt's a big hell-demon" speech. I swallowed. "I mean, it would just be confusing anyway. I couldn't tell if it was actually her."

Mia frowned at me, but said nothing.

"This doesn't make any sense." I was grinding my teeth again. A bad habit from childhood.

"No part of me wants to go in that building."

"Are you kidding?" Mia grabbed my shoulder. "If my aunt's in trouble, then we've got to help her. What if one of those Thyroid demons-"

"Vailoid," I corrected.

"Whatever. What if they've captured her?"

"Somehow, I don't think that's the case."

"Tess." Her eyes narrowed. "You're not telling me something. The last time somebody didn't tell me something, you had to shoot a guy with detachable fangs-remember?"

"We're still trying to fix the drywall," Derrick said.

I made a face. "Let's just say it's complicated, okay? Cassandra is definitely involved in-whatever you're involved in."

"Thanks, Nostradamus-could you fuzzy that up a bit?"

"Okay, look." It was my turn to glare at her. "We're going to go in there, and we're going to help your aunt. I just don't want you to be surprised if-"

"If what?"

I swallowed. "Just be ready for anything, okay?"

"Fine." Her gaze was level. "Let's do it, then."

"Listen to MacGyver-mini over here," Derrick said.

I stared at the door. "She's right. It's now or never. Are we ready?"

Derrick drew out a Colt .38 revolver, the "detective special, " which Selena had signed out for him. I assumed that she'd chosen the .38 Special because, despite having only six shots, it was small and accurate. All I had was my athame, but I figured that if it couldn't protect me, neither could bullets.

"Holy crap." Mia stared uncomfortably at the gun. "Are we going to save my aunt or blow her up?"

"This is for the demons," Derrick said. "Not for her. Mia's right. It's time to do this." Holding the revolver with the barrel pointed up, he gently cocked the hammer back, chambering the first bullet.

"You are so butch right now," I said.

"Shut up. You know I can't hit the broad side of a barn with this thing."

"I could try-" Mia began.

"Oh no," I said. "No touching guns for you."

"Oh, like he's some kind of arms expert."

"I trust Derrick not to blow my head off. Maybe my arm, but not my head."

Derrick glared at me. "Can we just go in now?"

I nodded. "Yeah. We're as ready as we'll ever be, I guess."

The front door was locked, and had a magnetic card reader. That didn't pose too much of a problem, though. I laid the athame against the reader, and channeled a brief spike of earth materia from the ground. It passed through my body with a sharp jolt, and the athame flared green for a moment. Tendrils of electricity crawled across the mechanical components of the door. The light on the reader flicked from red to green, and I opened the door with a satisfied smile.

"You gotta teach me how to do that," Mia said.

"It only works on some electronic locks. And I'm not about to teach you how to break and enter, sweetheart."

"I guess you guys have way tighter security at HQ, or whatever you call it."

"You mean at the lab?" I grinned. "Actually, we use a similar keycard system, only it's a mystical hybrid thing." I reached into my purse. "The electronic keys look pretty much like your standard swipe card, but they're attuned to your body's biometric readings-" I frowned. "Where the hell did I put my keycard?"

Derrick gave me a look. "Did you stick it in your other fanny pack?"

"Very funny." I practically dumped my entire purse out in the parking lot before I was ready to accept the inevitable.

It's gone.

"Okay, I'm not panicking about this," I said, keeping my smile. "I must have just-left it on the nightstand or something. I mean, it's only a biometric reader that's keyed to my DNA, right? I'm sure they can just order a new one-"

Mia's eyes had gotten very wide. "Holy crap, Tess. You're screwed!"

"I am not-" Finally, I snapped my purse shut and closed my eyes. "It's fine. Everything's fine. And shut up, Derrick."

"I didn't say anything."

I put my hand on the door. "You were thinking it-and it was bitchy."

The lobby of the building was completely empty. Not even a security guard. It didn't add up-the building had thirty floors, but no security guards? Unless they were all taking a coffee break, which didn't seem likely.

"This can't be good," Derrick said.

"Let's not panic yet. Mia, do you know where your aunt's office is?"

She shook her head. "I've never been past the lobby. All I know is that the lab is on the fourteenth floor."

"Great." I walked up to the elevator and pushed the button. The doors opened with a soft hum.

Derrick stared into the empty elevator. "This doesn't seem right, Tess. It's too easy so far."

I exhaled as we stepped into the elevator. The doors closed behind us, and Derrick pushed the button for the fourteenth floor. The elevator began to climb silently. It was one of those brand-new ones that didn't even seem to be moving. Not like the elevator in Derrick's apartment, which felt like you were riding up SplashMountain.

The doors chimed, then opened. It was definitely a lab- a lot like the one I'd seen at Moonbase, only much bigger. There were stainless steel tables filled with diagnostic equipment, shelves of test tubes and petri dishes, and a whole bank of computers against one wall. There was also a laptop sitting on a table in the far corner, and something was flickering across its screen. It looked quite a bit like our serology lab. It also bore a discomforting resemblance to the chamber that Lucian had shown me, where they were keeping Patrick, the magnate potential.

I walked over to the table for a closer look, but I couldn't make much sense of what was happening on the monitor. There was a timer in one corner, which had reached zero. The words "polymerase chain reaction" were flashing across the screen, and underneath that was a double helix with parts of each strand numbered and labeled. There was a gauge of some kind in the right corner that read "hematocrit volume," and next to that the number "0.87."

There was also a microscope next to the laptop. I reached into my pocket and slipped on a pair of plastic gloves. Then I took the glass slide from underneath the microscope stage. There was a splash of blood on the slide-a sample. "DNA testing," I said. "PCR-the short tandem relay test. Not as thorough as some of the other tests, but quicker. Derrick, come look at this."

He peered at the computer screen. "They're doing some sort of ABO typing as well.

Hematocrit has to do with blood chemistry, but I don't know much more."

"DNA testing?" Mia stared at me. "Aunt Cassandra said that she spent most of her time developing artificial sweeteners. "

"That's not what this lab is for," I said. "This is a serology facility-they analyze blood here, and other bodily fluids." I tried to peer down the hallway that led past the tables, but the light was dim. Great. At least when the demons started crunching my bones, I wouldn't have to watch.

Something crawled across my neck. I resisted the urge to cry out, and willed myself to stand still, listening. It was a genetic signature of some kind. I didn't know who it belonged to, though. Could be another mage. Could be a fire-spewing demon.

"You feel it, too?" Derrick asked.

I nodded. "Cassandra."

"Maybe."

"It's got to be," I said. "Nothing else makes sense."