“So, what happened?” Eric asked. “I don’t see any armies of Shifters.”

Kellerman shook his head. “The prototypes didn’t last. Too unstable. The project got cut because they didn’t produce results fast enough.” Derision entered his voice. “The government was too shortsighted.”

“How do you know about what went on here?” Iona asked. “You were wandering through Area Fifty-one and stumbled across it?”

“No, I stumbled across it researching Shifters,” Kellerman said with a touch of his usual arrogance. “When I was put in charge of the Shifter council a few years ago, I did my homework on them. I found a file on this project, parts of it declassified because it was forty years old. I looked into it. I had ideas for how to make the project actually work, so I put together a team and got permission to research what people had done here. They had good ideas back then, but not the technology to implement them.”

“And when you had to combine Shiftertowns,” Eric finished, “you saw an opportunity to take fresh DNA and other samples without anyone being the wiser. So you thought. Graham was going to notice when some of his Shifters went missing—why did you think he wouldn’t?”

“They took too long,” Kellerman said impatiently. “The whole transfer and tissue harvesting was supposed to take only an hour or so. I’m surrounded by idiots.”

“Tough break,” Eric said. He understood why Kellerman used the compound in the desert for the blood taking—it was closer to Shiftertown, and he’d never have gotten permission to haul twenty cages of Shifters into Area 51. He’d have his researchers take all the samples there then transport them to this facility later.

“How did you get that other compound built?” Eric asked. “Without anyone being the wiser? No one noticed?”

“I didn’t have to build it. It was already there. Researching the effect of radiation from the nuclear testing sites, or something like that. Another project that got defunded, and the buildings left there for me to find in another file. Temporary buildings just means they get left until someone remembers to take them down. I appropriated the place for my purpose.”

“But you didn’t get enough?” Eric asked, letting his voice go deceptively soft. “So you thought taking my sister and her newborn was a good idea?”

“Again, I’m surrounded by idiots,” Kellerman snapped. “I have a nurse on staff at that clinic who supplies me with samples from time to time. She called my researchers. They decided they couldn’t pass up the opportunity to study a Shifter baby, especially one that was half-human. So she drugged them and had them sent here. And once more, they took too long. They should have had them back to you by now. Scientists are like children with ADD. They get fixed into their experiments and forget what time it is. They wouldn’t change their socks if no one was there to tell them.”

As he finished, Eric took the magazine out of Kellerman’s gun and crushed it in his strong, half-shifted hand. Bullets rained harmlessly to the floor, most of them bent. Eric then twisted the pistol in two in front of Kellerman’s face.

Eric dropped the broken pieces of pistol. “Well, my friend, you won’t have to worry about your pet scientists anymore. We’re closing you down.”

“You don’t have that much power, Warden,” Kellerman said, still too confident. “You’ll be arrested for abducting me, probably executed. And everyone in this room with you. Except Ms. Duncan. She’ll go to prison for aiding you, and her mother will likely lose her nice business.”

“I’m not a Shifter,” Reid said quietly.

Kellerman jumped. The Fae had remained in the shadows, and now he leaned against the elevator’s doorframe. “I used to be a cop before I resigned,” Reid said. “Believe it or not, abducting Shifters is against the law, and experimenting on them is too.”

“I wasn’t experimenting on them,” Kellerman said quickly.

“No, you were harvesting from them,” Eric said, anger in his voice. “To make a new species of Shifter. It didn’t work before. Why did you think it would work now?”

“I told you. Technology has improved in the last forty years.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Reid said. “Shifters were never bred by men in the first place. They were created by the Fae, in Faerie. The Fae used genetic engineering and technology, sure, but also a good dose of magic. That, you don’t have, and you never will, thank the Goddess. That kind of magic doesn’t work outside Faerie anyway.”

“Fairies?” Kellerman laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Fae,” Reid corrected. “Or hoch alfar, as my people called them. Evil bastards. It’s interesting to me that, no matter how bad you are, you’ll never be as evil as the high Fae. You’re too petty and full of yourself.”

“My backup should be here any minute,” Kellerman said angrily. “You are the overconfident ones. You’re going down. Fae, my ass.”

“Why don’t you demonstrate, Reid?” Graham suggested, sounding eager. “Show him a little Fae magic.”

Reid shrugged. “Nah. Waste of energy.”

“Aw,” Graham said. “You’re no fun.”

Kellerman looked Reid up and down, then back at Eric, his fear not as great as it should have been. “The fact that you stand around without clothes and don’t notice proves you’re animals. No one cares what happens to you, in the long run. Remember that.”

And there were many Shifters, Eric though silently, who didn’t care what happened to humans. Humans walked a knife-edge, and they didn’t even know it.

“What do you think?” Eric asked Graham. “Burn the place to the ground before we go?”

“Sounds good to me. Lots of acetylene and gas around here. Make a nice little inferno.”

Kellerman looked at the faces surrounding him. Eric saw him realize that they weren’t joking—Eric, for one, did not intend to let this building or anything in it remain.

“You f**king bastards,” Kellerman said hotly. “This is years of work. Science. And money. My money.”

“Can we stop talking?” Graham asked. “And start torching?”

“Wait.” Iona stepped forward. “What about Eric? What did your files on Shifter research tell you was done to him?”