Um, all right.
Kat cleared her throat. “We won’t be here long, but please, we really need to see him.”
“Sorry,” Mountain Man replied.
Sighing, I tipped my head to the side. Obviously, Luc was here. “There’s got to be something that we can do to convince you.”
Mountain Man raised a brow and waited.
I smiled, and the bouncer’s brows rose even further, but before he could respond, his cell phone went off. He pulled it out of the pocket of his overalls. “What’s up?”
Kat elbowed me, and I glanced down at her. “What? It was working.”
The bouncer laughed. “I ain’t doin’ much. Just talkin’ to a douche and a pretty lady.”
“Excuse me?” I said, surprised.
Kat choked out a laugh.
Mountain Man smiled broadly and then sighed. “Yep, they’re here for ya.” There was a pause. “Sure.” He clicked the phone shut. “Luc will see you. Go in and go straight to him. No dancing tonight or whatever it was the two of ya did last time.”
I didn’t need to even look at Kat to know she was blushing, because what we’d done last time on that dance floor sure as hell wasn’t just dancing. Placing my hand on her lower back, we started toward the door.
Mountain Man stopped me with a wink as he handed over a business card. “Ya not normally my type, but I can make an exception.”
I took the card with a smile and then ushered a gaping Kat inside. “Told you.”
Kat snapped her mouth shut and faced forward. Like last time, the dance floor was packed, but we skirted the edges, heading straight for the hallway.
Standing at the door to Luc’s office was Paris. He nodded at me and then stepped aside, opening the door, and the scent of peaches welcomed us. I focused right on the couch. Luc wasn’t there. The stacks of hundreds were gone, but Luc was behind the desk, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
“Please sit.” Luc didn’t look up as he waved at the nearby couch.
Kat glanced at me, and then we went to the couch. She sat close to me, her leg pressed to mine.
“Heard you guys didn’t get very far at Mount Weather last time.” Luc closed the laptop after a moment and then folded his hands under his chin.
“About that.” I leaned forward. “You didn’t know about the onyx shields?”
Luc’s weird purple eyes met mine, and there was an intellect to them that was far beyond his age. “I warned you that there may be things I’m unaware of. Even I don’t know everything about Daedalus. But I think Blake’s on the right track. He is right about everything being encased in a shiny blackish-red material. Perhaps we did build a tolerance so we were not affected by the onyx shields.”
“And what if that’s not it?” Kat asked.
“What if it’s not? I have a feeling that’s not going to stop you from trying again. It’s a risk, and everything has risks. You’re lucky you got out of there last time before anyone realized what happened,” he said. “You get another chance. Most people don’t.”
“You’re right,” she said. “We’re still going to try.”
“But not knowing all the perils ahead seems unfair?” He tucked a strand of brown hair back, his expression impassive. “Life’s not fair, babe.”
I stiffened. “Why do I have a feeling there’s a lot you’re not telling us?”
Luc’s lips formed a half smile. “Anyway, you came here for a reason other than those onyx shields. Let’s get to the point.”
Annoyance rose. “An unstable hybrid attacked Kat.”
“That’s what unstable people do, hybrid or not.”
“Yeah, we figured that much, but she was my friend.” Kat drew in a shallow breath. “She gave no indication that she knew anything about the Luxen. She was fine, got sick, and then came to my house and went nuts.”
“You didn’t give any indication you know ET didn’t phone home.”
What a little asshole.
“I get that, but this was out of the blue,” Kat argued.
Luc leaned back in his chair, kicking his legs onto the desk. He crossed them at the ankles. “I don’t know what to tell you about that. She may’ve known about the Luxen, got hurt, and some poor sap tried and failed to heal her. Or the Man pulled her off the street like they do at times. And unless you know some darn good torture techniques and are willing to employ them on an officer of Daedalus, I don’t see how you’ll ever know.”
“I refuse to accept that,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “What happened to her?”
Kat’s hands balled into fists. “She’s no longer…”
“Ah,” Luc murmured. “She did the whole spontaneous combustion thing? Sick. Sorry about that. A twisted history lesson for you—you know all those unexplained cases of spontaneous combustion throughout history?”