Chapter Two
I didn’t know where I was. Didn’t care really. Only thing that mattered was holding absolutely, perfectly still. That way, the pain didn’t crush me. Had someone sliced off my neck? Was that why it hurt so bad?
I was Alex Noziak, at least I was pretty sure I was. If it’d null the pain to be anyone else, I’d switch places in a heartbeat.
I could have sworn I was standing on tiptoes in the middle of a croc-infested swamp, and any movement, even as small as a breath, meant more unbearable pain: screaming, sweat-producing, please-Great-Spirits-let-me-just-die kind of pain. I had no idea what had caused it. I just wanted it to go away.
Beyond my closed eyes, a bright light blazed. Cool, recycled air kissed my skin, kicking up goose bumps, but not enough to shiver. That’d kick-start the hurt. And everything was about stopping that damn pain. A pungent scent wafted past. Sort of sour and antiseptic at the same time. The infirmary at the IR compound?
Nah, this space felt larger.
A morgue?
Could be. But if so, shouldn’t I be dead?
Wouldn’t that be my luck. Dead for all eternity and trapped at the same time.
Voices murmured in the background. Low, bee-humming sounds that just were. I ignored them. Ignored everything except holding back the pain.
I must have blacked out, again, because the next thing I knew, the voices had come closer, beside me.
Nothing as vulnerable as being a woman, lying flat on your back with male voices arguing near by. But even that wasn’t going to make me peel open my eyes, especially when I heard a low, gravelly voice with a French accent.
“It’d be better to kill her. Now.”
What?
“Killing her will be the safest for us. The most merciful.”
Screw you, Frenchie.
“So she’s not dead?” Another guy speaking. Younger. With an Irish lilt.
“Close.”
Close only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades, French fry! I might feel like dying but there’s a world of difference between the wanting and someone else pulling the plug.
“Then you must keep her alive.” Colin Farrell. That’s who the voice sounded like. You go, Colin! Death sounded like an option, relief from the burning pain, but that’d be my choice. Not some stranger’s.
“Doctor. Your assignment is to keep her alive. Is that clear?”
A pause.
Listen to Colin, Doctor Frenchie. He knows best.
“I have no idea what will happen if I do,” Frenchie said, his voice very low.
What was going on?
“She’s a very powerful witch.”
Someone else kept telling me that. Who was it? An image swam before me. Tall, dark and very, very deadly. Enemy? Yeah, that felt right. Almost.
“Save her, Doctor, or you die.”
Way to go, Colin! Take that, Frenchie.
“And if she turns into an aberration?”
Me? Not going to happen. I already was one. Trust me, part witch, part shaman, all screw up.
“I need her alive and fully functioning. Make that happen.”
“We have the other—”
Other what? Or who?
“I don’t want to hear about the other. This is the one I’ve chosen.”
Why didn’t that make me want to cheer again? Who wouldn’t want to be chosen? And by Colin Farrell, or at least a Colin Farrell voice. But there was something off. I couldn’t grasp it. The pain was building again, a solid wall of fire growing hotter and hotter.
“I shall try,” murmured the Frenchman.
“Don’t try. Do.”
“Is there no other way?” Frenchie asked.
“She’s the one who will let Zaradian through. We must use her.”
Who was Zaradian? And use me to do what? If my head wasn’t already exploding, this conversation was igniting it!
The Colin voice was walking away. Good. I think. But I didn’t want to stay with the French doctor. I wanted to think about the other one. The one who had called me a powerful witch. Dark blue eyes. Even behind closed lids, I remembered them. Sexy. Seductive.
Glaring at me.
“I’ll check in the morning.” Colin voice. “Keep her alive.”
Some voice within me whispered. Your choice, Alex. Live or die, it’s your choice.
Another tidal wave of pain spiked through me, and all I could think about was how much easier it’d be to let go. Release the human shell. Something told me that there was more than physical pain to face if I didn’t.
Suddenly, I understood Scarlett O’Hara. As a child, I’d never liked her, maybe because she fell for such a lightweight guy and then screwed over everyone to get him. Puhleeze! But now I understood her. Her line, the one about tomorrow. I’ll think about where I am and how to get away from here tomorrow.
If I was still alive.
Chapter Three
By the time Bran reached the warehouse he’d left less than twenty-four hours earlier with Alex, Francois and Willie, dusk muted the weathered brick facade, softening the lines of the industrial area, pulling the deep browns from the sluggish tributary of the River Seine that flowed nearby. No one was about as he pulled his vehicle near the door, but he took no chances. The warehouse turned residence worked as a safe house when he needed a space to hide out without any direct ties to him. Before Alex came along, he’d used it as a release from business pressures. Leave it to her to shatter even his sanctuary.
Though it’d been his choice to join forces with her, and much as he’d like to stay angry, it was mostly anger at himself. He was the one who’d messed things up, not protecting her, not as he’d promised.
He paused by his car and cast a quick cloaking spell before entering the building. Mon Dieu, it seemed like a lifetime ago since he’d left.
A noise coming from the kitchen caused him to pause. “Francois?”
“Non, c’est moi.” Willie, a recovering Were and friend of Francois’s, popped his head from around the corner. Switching into flawless English, the Were continued, “I didn’t know if we’d see you again. If you had survived.”
Then he nodded toward Bran’s bloodstained shoulder, his pupils contracting as his body stilled.
A Were’s instinctive reaction to blood. The less control he held over his animal self, the easier to revert to basic drives. Blood meant meat and meat meant food reaction. It said a lot that Willie was able to check himself, and he pulled back, shaking his head.
“Where’s Francois?” Bran asked, keeping a reasonable amount of distance between himself and Willie, who was more Francois’s friend than his. Plus, no matter that Willie had founded his own recovering Were Foundation; too much stress, hunger or emotion could easily snap any Were. Which explained why there was only one member of We’re Not, the foundation’s tongue in cheek name. That member being Willie.
“I expect him back any moment. He went out for more steak.”
Feeding a Were and a Didi shifter, which is what Francois was, took a lot of protein, especially after the battle they’d all been in that morning.
As if Bran’s thoughts hit Willie, the Were paused, scarfing down the last of the prosciutto in the fridge, and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry about Alex. Getting, you know … you know. Killed.”
“She’s not dead,” Bran snapped, moving to a bar stool closer to the Were but still on the other side of a concrete eating island, a barrier that could only slow, not stop, a determined Were.
Willie’s eyes widened. “But I thought—”
“You thought wrong.”
“Our aristocratic friend is a romantic,” another voice chimed in as Francois pushed the front door open.
Bran had known Francois, easier to remember him by his undercover name than to blow his identity as an MI-6 agent, since the two of them had met at Oxford and discovered they each had secrets to hide. Francois had looked much the same then, slender, urbane, debonair, as he was getting the stuffing beat out of him by a c
ouple of town bullies who didn’t like Oxford toffs. Little did they know, that if Francois had let his Didi shifter self go, there’d have been a lot more blood and gore, and it wouldn’t have been Francois’s. Bran had stepped in, just before that moment, using a little warlock slight of hand to teach the thugs a lesson. The beastie blokes didn’t know what’d hit them. Francois did, and a lifelong friendship was born.
Now, Francois stood just inside the doorway, one brow arched, eyeing Bran with the practiced eye of an undercover agent who’d seen too much. “You look like shite.”
“Exactly how I feel,” came Bran’s mumbled response. He was wiped out but refused to give into the exhaustion, or the pain, riding him.
“Alex?” Francois asked as he quietly closed the door behind him.
Bran eyed him. “I was hoping you had news. You see anything after I left?”
Francois shook his head, adding a quick, “Doesn’t mean she didn’t walk away, just that I didn’t see her.”
Bran knew what his friend was doing. Giving hope. But Bran wanted more than hope. He wanted certainty and there was only one way to get it. “I’m heading back to Versailles. See if I can find some answers.”
“That a smart idea?” Francois kept his voice neutral, his expression blank, as he slid a wrapped meat package towards Willie. “Isn’t the Council a little too interested in you to be showing your face around there?”
Bran’s barked laugh didn’t fool anyone. “Interested? Nice word for looking for a scapegoat to blame their mess on.”
“That’s my point.” Francois angled his chin toward the Were already unwrapping the meat. “Let Willie go check the place out. See if he can follow a scent trail.”
Willie nodded, but Bran wasn’t sure if it was because he’d just exposed the bloody, raw steak or was agreeing.
“I appreciate the help but don’t want the Council to make either of you a target. This is my mess to clean up.”
His and Alex’s, but that was neither here nor there until he discovered what had happened to her.
He thrust one hand through his hair before he spoke again. “I think I might have a day, maybe two, before the Council comes down on me like the proverbial wrecking ball.”
“I didn’t know they started an enforcement arm,” Willie mumbled around his first bite of raw meat, blood trickling down his chin.
“Not enforcement as much as elimination,” Bran explained.
At Willie’s confused look, Francois continued, “Guilty until proven innocent. The Council employs the best fae assassins.”
“They’d seriously kill you?” Willie sounded as disgruntled as a Were denied food.
“In a heartbeat.” Francois nodded, before turning and spearing Bran with a piercing look. “Which is why it’s even more imperative that Willie heads to Versailles. Not you.”
“My fight,” Bran protested, hearing the weariness in his own voice as he stood, then grabbed the kitchen divider to steady himself.
“You’re a right mess.” Francois stepped forward, his distress revealed in his upper crust British accent. He grabbed Bran’s arm and steered him to the couch.
Bran appreciated the gesture, though nurturing wasn’t Francois’s forte. More calm, collected and cutthroat. Sitting down helped still the dizziness washing over him. He cleared his throat before he trusted his voice. “I plan to use a cloaking spell as much as possible.”
“Which takes an enormous amount of energy,” Francois shot back. Willie nodding his head in the background.
Truth be told, the shoulder was bleeding again. Bran might be able to accelerate the healing process with a spell, but Francois was right. He couldn’t be using two spells for opposite means. Even he wasn’t that good.
“Fine.” He glanced at Willie. “I’d appreciate your taking a quick run out and look around.”
Willie gave a one-finger salute before jamming the last of the steak in his mouth.
Francois’s shoulders eased a bit as he tucked his hands in the pockets of his tailored slacks. “I’d go myself, though Willie is a better tracker …”
“I hear a but?” Bran braced himself.
“Home office called me. Some big hush-hush crisis is coming down.”
“Aren’t they all?” Bran leaned back against the cushions, using the movement to hide his disappointment. He’d counted on having Francois’s help for at least a day or two longer.
“Sorry, mate. If there was any way—”
Bran raised his hand as he closed his eyes. “Appreciate what you’ve already done.”
“First moment I can, I’ll return.”
“Thanks,” Bran mouthed the word, even as he knew the MI-6 agent would be too late. What was coming down between Bran and the Council was going to happen soon. Fast and furious.
Better to say their goodbyes now. Plan for the worst. Hope for the best. Even if there was little hope.
As if following his dark train of thoughts, Francois offered, “If you can find Alex, she can back up your story.”
“Oui.” Bran knew he was tired when he reverted to his childhood tongue. Finding Alex alive was a long shot. As long a shot as expecting her brother Van to remember enough about his captivity to convince the Council that Bran had nothing to do with drugging and using him.
A right old cock-up, as his da would have said.
“I’m heading out then,” Francois’s voice came from far off.
Bran cracked open one eye and raised a hand. “Thanks, mate. For everything.”
It was a final farewell and they both knew it.
Chapter Four
“This agency is finished,” M.T. Stone snarled, surprised he managed to get the words past the rage clawing through him. Ops that went FUBAR were one thing. Ops that were suicide missions were another. “I’m not sending out any more recruits until they’re prepared.”
The IR, for Invisible Recruit, Agency Director, Ling Mai, calmly set down her Mont Blanc pen and turned from the paper she’d been notating. She looked at home in this Parisian hotel, the Hotel Le Meurice. Elegant, cool, remote. The room’s shades of blues and white complimented her Anglo-Asian features, highlighted the blue-black tones of her hair swept back from her face, the fineness of her bones. She could have been about his age, mid-thirties, or a very young fifty. Hell, when she was in her seventies she’d probably look the same way. If he didn’t know better, he’d have guessed he was the only one controlling deep emotions. With Ling Mai, you had to look closely to see she battled her own demons, metaphorically, not physically.
“Define prepared, Mister Stone.” Her voice sounded as calm as a lake. One teeming with ghost sharks and giant squid just beneath the surface.
He paced across the room. Large by hotel standards, with an obstacle course of satin-striped couches, velvet chairs, and coffee tables as well as a white grand piano. His hands curled, wanting to toss all the crap through the nearest window. To destroy something, anything. One team member dead. One near enough. Wasn’t going to happen again.
His back to the director, he stilled his voice until he matched Ling Mai’s, word for word. “Sending humans against preternaturals is a recipe for disaster. The fact these women are barely trained as agents compounds the problem.”
“A challenge, Mister Stone, not a problem.”
It was tempting to release a crude snort. He wasn’t here to play semantics games. He was here to save his remaining team members. Turning to face the director, he made sure to keep the length of the room between them. “We’ve already lost one. Two are on the injured list.” He didn’t have to spell out Mandy and Vaughn’s names. Ling Mai knew he’d just returned from the Hôpital Pitié Salpêtrière, where Vaughn was receiving the best care possible. Not that it was enough. He added, “And that’s not counting what occurred to Alex.”
“I too am mourning Miss Noziak’s unfortunate death,” Ling Mai murmured.
There were undertones beneath her words but Stone couldn’t pin them down. Alex and Ling Mai had butted
heads more than once, but the death, or technically the disappearance and presumed death of their only op with proven preternatural abilities, was a tactical disaster. Without her skills, they’d have to rethink their whole approach to fighting preternaturals.
Ling Mai’s voice broke through to him. “I have taken several steps that will address your concerns.”
She’d surprised him. Ling Mai wasn’t a dense woman. Far from it, she could be cold, calculating, and ruthless. Every move she made was layered with strategic awareness. What Stone hadn’t expected, though, was her easy acquiesce to the problem at hand. Finding, training and equipping more recruits would take time and money, a lot of both. Up until now, Ling Mai’d had the agency operating on a short-term mentality. Preternaturals threatening to expose their existence to humans had forced her, and through her, the Invisible Recruit Agency, into several immediate crises. A jump-first, learn how to swim later approach.
So why the sudden about face?
“What steps are you taking?” he asked, knowing he sounded wary. Screw it, he was wary.
“I’m bringing on board an additional recruit whose skills should compliment the team.”
He crossed his arms. “Meaning?”
“You’ll see when you meet her.” Ling Mai’s brow arched, as effective a communication as shouting is-that-enough?
“A start.” Maybe. “A recruit strong enough to go up against the strongest preternaturals is the minimum I’d expect.” Having at least one agent capable of fighting preternaturals was a step. But only a small step.
Ling Mai offered a sharp smile that would have had most people stepping back. Stone wasn’t most people. “It’ll be your responsibility to see that she can.”
He nodded, but held his thoughts. The new woman might know how to fight, but in any animal kingdom there were stronger animals and lesser animals. Give him someone with some fighting skills or preternatural talents, a fae, one of the lesser demons, even a Nondi pixie, and he could work with her.
“What about equipment for the existing team members? You send David up against Goliath enough times and Goliath will win.”
INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) Page 2