Paige had her arms crossed, but she didn’t look angry.

“That was stupid,” Adam said. “Really stupid.”

“Not arguing,” she said.

I stepped forward. “It was just a hug.”

“Oh, that’s not the issue,” Paige said. She jerked her thumb at Adam. “He knows the issue.”

Adam glanced at me. “I should have told them about us. Responsibility fail. Big responsibility fail.”

“Again, not arguing,” Paige said.

“I could have told you guys, too,” I said.

Adam shook his head. “This one should have come from me.” He looked at Paige. “I am sorry. Savannah and I talked, and we agreed you should know. We just … with everything … we hadn’t gotten to it. I know you’re not going to be happy about the whole thing—”

“I never said that. He’s the one who’s not going to be happy.” She gestured at Lucas, now disappearing into the tent. “I told him it was coming. He thought I was ‘misreading the situation.’ Pfft. After eight years, you think he’d know enough to trust me on that sort of thing, and to accept that as brilliant as he is, he has absolutely no emotion-reading skills whatsoever.”

She smiled at Adam’s expression. “What, you didn’t think I’d figured it out? How long have I known you? I can even tell you when things changed. Last year. After Savannah saved your butt on that that demi-demon case in Ohio. Am I right?”

“Um, yeah.”

“So you knew and didn’t tell me,” I said to Paige.

“Of course I didn’t tell you. I figured it would happen when you were both ready. If that took a few years, well, given the age difference, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. This is fine, though. The maturity gap isn’t that big.”

“Thanks,” Adam muttered.

She grinned at him. “You’re welcome. You’re still in deep shit with Lucas, and I’m not fixing that for you. This isn’t the time to fix it, but making a start wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“Got it.”

He loped off.

Paige put her arm around my waist as we followed. “Happy?”

“Very.”

She squeezed me. “Good.”

I glanced over. “Lucas is not so happy.”

“He’s just worried you’ll get hurt. Adam doesn’t have a good track record—or any track record—at committed relationships. But I know Adam wouldn’t start this if he didn’t plan to give it his best shot. He wouldn’t dare.”

“Too much to lose. Friendships, his job …”

“Sure. But he also knows I have developed a very nice repertoire of spells. All of which I’ll use to kick his ass if you get hurt.”

I laughed, and we walked toward the tent.

SLAM’s compound was some kind of old bomb shelter, surrounded on all sides by a couple of hundred feet of rocky, fallow ground. Beyond that? Cornfields. Thousands of acres of cornfields owned, as Adam said, by some conglomerate that largely seemed content to just let it grow. And had also been content, I guess, to sell or lease the shelter and the surrounding patch of land.

All this meant that we had no obvious way of getting in. There was a road … which ended at a twelve-foot electrified fence. The fence had a gate, but since we’d started monitoring, it had only opened twice. Once when a van left the garage, another when one arrived. Young guys with machine guns had met the vehicles, made everyone get out for a search, then let them go inside the garage. Presumably, the bomb shelter entrance was under it, but there was no way of getting close enough to use heat scanners and see how many people were guarding the entrance.

So infiltration was proving problematic for the Cortezes. The fact that the Cortezes insisted on infiltration, rather than attack, was proving problematic for the Boyds. Hence the teleconference when everyone really had better things to do.

I could see the Boyds’ point. We’d found ground zero for this movement. The leader was inside, along with presumably everyone capable of disseminating that virus. There were no human observers for miles. So why the hell weren’t we storming the place, killing the guards, and piping deadly gas into the hole? Oh, right, there was a kidnapped woman down there. One woman. A small price to pay to contain this virus.

Lucas could have played the sympathy card. This wasn’t just a woman, she was a valued ally, a friend who’d stuck around to help the cause, knowing she was in danger, a pregnant woman whose husband now lay at death’s door.

He could have played the political card. This woman was a member of the werewolf Pack. Mated to a Pack brother. Carrying his child. The Pack had fought at the Cabals’ side since the beginning of the crisis and to tell them that this woman was not worth any extra effort would be … unwise.

But Lucas knew which arguments would work. Fear and self-interest. This woman? She’s the daughter of Lucifer. She’s carrying his grandchild, quite possibly the first he’s ever had. Did they really want to kill her? Kill her child? Had they already forgotten what Balaam did to Thomas Nast for merely arresting his grandchild? Demons didn’t do well with disrespect.

Finally the Boyds agreed it was best to examine all other avenues first. We had the exit road covered by covert ops teams, so it wasn’t as if the folks stuck in the bunker could escape.

Nast troops—Sean’s men—would be arriving soon. A contingent of St. Cloud security and espionage agents were on their way, too. A rare show of cross-Cabal support. Fat lot of good it would do, as Clay muttered. I silently seconded him.

It didn’t matter how many fighters we had. A brute show of force wouldn’t get us into the compound. It just meant we’d have a hundred or more armed men milling about, bored and spoiling for a fight. The rival Cabals could start scrapping at any moment.

Lucas and Paige left to consult with the ops guys. Jeremy and Clay went with them. Adam and I didn’t. Group strategizing wasn’t really our thing. Besides, they didn’t invite us.

FORTY-ONE

So we blew off some steam. No private sessions. We’d learned our lesson on that one. Instead we ran a circuit in the corn.

“I think we could do it with spells,” I said. “Cause a distraction, then Lucas, Paige, and I go in under blur and cover spells.”