Ling Mai turned in her chair and punched a button on her cell phone. The knock on the hotel room door came immediately, as if someone had waited in the hall for the summons.
Stone crossed to open the door, but only after acknowledging Ling Mai’s nod. Only years of compartmentalizing his emotions kept his face straight as he swung the door wide to a gangly young man who had barely hit puberty. The kid stood almost eye-to-eye with Stone, but a weak breeze could topple him. He had that whole nerd air about him, dandelion blond hair, a large Adam’s apple, hunched shoulders that might someday fill out, and limbs that looked barely attached. Human? Or something else?
“Come in, Hercules,” Ling Mai called, waving the newcomer forward.
Hercules? The kid had been damned from the start with that kind of moniker.
The boy-man edged closer to the door jam, squeezing himself past as if Stone had bared his teeth. On second thought, a well-developed sense of self-preservation was probably the only thing the kid had going for him.
Stone gave him a what’s-up chin nod, having no idea what Ling Mai had hidden up her well-tailored sleeve. But if this was going to be the team’s deep, dark secret, they were all in a worse level of hurt than he’d imagined.
“Miss Mai,” the kid stammered, scuttling across the floor, putting as much distance as possible between him and the biggest predator in the room—Stone.
First mistake. Stone was a badass and was okay with that. But Ling Mai played in a league of her own, way above Stone’s pay grade.
“Mr. Stone—” Ling Mai did the introductions.
“Stone?” A shit-eating grin bloomed on the kid’s scrawny face. “As in Stoner?”
“No, kid, not like that. More like rock hard and not budging.” Stone’s expression wiped that look off the nerd’s face in less than a second.
Ling Mai continued, “This is Hercules. He’s—”
“Herc,” the kid stammered, his gaze ping-ponging between the director and Stone. “Everybody calls me Herc. It’s easier.”
Was this kid for real?
Ling Mai canted her head as if being interrupted by a snot-nosed kid was an every day occurrence.
“As you wish, Herc.” Ling Mai sounded like she was at the Queen of England’s court, and Stone found his first glimmer of a smile since … well, since Vaughn had been hurt and Alex killed. Ling Mai continued in her formal, prissy tones. “Herc has been tasked with creating tools to help the team against preternaturals.”
Stone snorted. “He makes gadgets?”
“Technically, no.” Herc focused on Ling Mai. “According to design critic Reyner Banham, a gadget is a small self-contained unit of high performance in relation to its size and cost, whose function is to transform some undifferentiated set of circumstances to a condition nearer human desires. Whereas what I develop are offensive and defensive tools designed to increase the life expectancy of a weaker being against a stronger being.” He ducked his head before adding, “I specialize in human-preternatural interactions.”
Stone unclasped his arms. “Fine, kid, whatever. You make shit that kills the bad guys.” As if this punk would know a preternatural if he tripped over one. This was the best Ling Mai could find?
“Well, technically––”
“Forget it, kid.” Stone wiggled one finger between himself and Ling Mai. “The grownups have to talk. Why don’t you disappear for a moment.” It wasn’t phrased as a question.
The kid’s eyes tightened before he looked to Ling Mai. At her slight nod, he didn’t cross to the door he’d come in, but turned on his heel and headed to the spare bedroom. Stone didn’t know who or what this kid was, or if he could hear through walls, but it didn’t matter. Protecting his team was Stone’s responsibility and trusting that to a wet-behind-the-ears punk was not in the plans.
As soon as the door closed, Stone marched to where Ling Mai sat, her back straight, her expression closed. She raised one hand to halt him. “Before you make a wrong judgment, you should know he’s half fae.”
Didn’t care. Fae were not known as fighters. Slick, sneaky bastards, yes, but not warriors. It took a soldier, with experience, to know how to stop another soldier.
Before he could spit out his objections, Ling Mai stopped him. “Give him this opportunity.”
He looked at her, then at the door, snatching a second to get the frustration growling through him under control. Hot heads didn’t win arguments and he meant to win this one.
“You willing to stake another team member’s life on that … that kid?”
Ling Mai nodded. “I am.”
Stone stepped closer, lowering his voice, aware that anyone who knew him for more than a day, understood that the quieter he spoke, the angrier he was. “I’m not. “
“Without knowing anything about him except his age?”
“Creating a defensive weapon for someone to stop a charging Were or blood thirsty vamp was not something handed to anyone who had never faced either.” Before Ling Mai could interrupt, he continued, hammering home his point. “That’s the real world out there.” He jammed a finger toward the windows. “Not the latest role-playing fantasy game.”
“What would it take for you to give him a chance?” Ling Mai’s voice was controlled. Not that he expected less. She was a Jedi master of control. Didn’t make her right though. Not in this situation.
“Pit him against a pissed off Were or shifter,” Stone countered. She wouldn’t. He was counting on the fact Ling Mai wouldn’t kill a kid. It was more suicidal than what she’d done to the team so far, and even the director had to have a line she wouldn’t cross. “Put his life where his mouth is and then we’ll talk.”
Ling Mai shrugged. “So be it. You set up the Were or shifter and we’ll see how Hercu … how Herc’s weapons work.”
Chapter Five
Forty minutes later, Stone was still shaking his head and grinding his teeth. No way did he want to hurt the kid. Even if Ling Mai’s protégé was swaggering like his namesake, Hercules.
Ling Mai had rounded up the remaining members of the IR team; those out of the hospital, which meant Jaylene; Mandy, still cradling her recently broken arm; and Kelly, looking like a loud boo would cause her to turn invisible and wink out. The director had also found the team a private gym called the Centre de Danse du Maris on rue Temple Street. It looked like it was used more for dance but the space was all theirs, which meant no exposure to the general public for the two shifters Stone had recruited to prove Hercules didn’t have a clue how to counter fighting preternaturals.
“Go easy on him, guys,” Stone murmured to Jacques, a deathstalker scorpion who Stone had met on a mission in the Empty Quarter of northeastern Yemen. The fact neither had expected to survive gave Jacques the reason to reveal to Stone what he was when he needed to shift to heal from some nasty shrapnel embedded in his back. When Stone didn’t bat an eye, their friendship was sealed. Jacques then saved Stone’s life by getting the both of them the hell out of Dodge, and Stone had repaid the favor in a dark alley in Singapore a year later.
The kid probably expected a four-legged, furry creature so let him get a taste of the real nasties out there. Lisa, to Stone’s left, was a shifter rhinoceros, and she looked like it even in her human form—tall, square-shaped, and all muscle. In her rhino form, she had terrible eyesight, but was wickedly fast and big enough to take out most obstacles facing her. Especially a quaking, clueless kid.
Lisa was the wife of another of Stone’s ex-Special Ops buddies. Stone never had discovered what her husband was, except brave enough to take a woman on who could drink half the squad under the table, and bench press the other half afterwards. In fact, Lisa would have been a great IR asset, except her husband would never go along with the idea.
Stone hoped Hercules knew how to jump high and fast because if Lisa shifted, the contest would be over in seconds flat. Plus, Ling Mai might owe the dance studio/gym a hefty sum for repairs to their space.
He raised his arms to get eve
ryone’s attention. “Team, move to the viewing area. Now.” Last thing he wanted was more injuries to his remaining squad. He nodded at Ling Mai who hadn’t moved an inch. “Director, that includes you.”
“I prefer to remain on the floor,” she murmured.
This was the challenge working with women. They weren’t always logical. Now there’d be two civilians on the floor and in harm’s way.
It was her skin. But that also meant he’d be standing nearby, in order to keep the kid, and now the director, both safe. It was going to be harder having a divided focus but he’d dealt with worse.
The plan was for Jacques and Lisa to use their strength and agility to teach the boy a few lessons. They were to remain in their human forms, but even in those shapes they were warriors who possessed extraordinary strength. But Stone had learned a lot about plans in the military and the first lesson was if-a-plan-could-go-wrong, it would.
If Herc pissed them off, or hurt them, not that it was likely, there was no telling what they would do. Shifters, once they morphed into their animal forms, became those animals. Only the most powerful, or well trained, could be restrained at that point, and Stone wasn’t about to let anyone die because of a stupid test. Especially a kid.
“Hercules, is there—”
“Herc,” the kid interrupted, tossing a hank of his fuzzy, yellow hair out of his eyes. The grin splitting his face was a telltale sign he had no idea what he was about to come up against.
Amateurs. Stone hated dealing with amateurs and now it seemed like he was surrounded by them.
“All right, kid, it’s your neck. If Jacques or Lisa shifts, there’s no stopping them. Is that clear?”
“C-crystal.” At least the boy had enough sense to choke on the one word reply.
“Which means you high-tail it out of here,” Stone added, not wanting any should-have-told-him scenarios.
“I got it.” Herc shrugged and it took everything Stone had not to walk over and shake some sense into the boy.
Stone glanced at Ling Mai so she knew exactly who he was speaking to. “If at any time you want to call halt to this f … fiasco…say the word and we’ll stop.” If possible. Shifters, once riled, were not an easy bunch to calm down.
She gave him a slight nod. He hadn’t expected more.
He turned his attention back to the kid. “You know what you’re supposed to do?”
Herc, or whatever he wanted to be called, gave a solemn nod. “I’m here to prove I have created a weapon to stop them.”
“I’d settle for slowing them down,” Stone clarified. “No heroics.”
“This ain’t going to kill us, is it?” Jacques whispered out of the side of his mouth.
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Stone shook his head, already braced to pick up the pieces after this FUBAR spun out. “On the count of three then.”
He moved to stand near Ling Mai. Always a good idea to save the head of operations. “One.”
Jacques and Lisa shook out their shoulders, widened their stances, and lowered their heads.
“Two.”
Herc flapped his hands before him as if preparing for a typing test or shooing off buzzing bees.
Bloody amateur.
“Three.”
As if choreographed, Jacques and Lisa split, flanking Herc from across the room. The kid blinked, hard, then bounced on the balls of his feet, his tennis shoes squeaking on the hardwood floor.
“If he dies, it’s on your head,” Stone reminded Ling Mai as both of them stepped back.
“He won’t.”
Lisa edged closer to the wall, creating more floor space between her and the boy, snagging his attention as Jacques stealthily and quietly moved closer on his side of the room. Classic misdirect.
Stone didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until one of the team in the upstairs viewing area, out of danger but still very much part of the exercise, coughed loudly. A little too loudly as the kid jumped.
But at least it broke his concentration enough to catch Jacques creeping up on his left flank.
Stone frowned and shot a quick glance toward the peanut gallery, before focusing on Lisa, who, step by step, edged closer.
Do something, kid. Anything.
But Hercules just stood there, a plucked pigeon waiting to be someone’s dinner.
That’s when Stone realized what the kid was planning to do. Wait until the shifters actually shifted into their animal selves to prove himself.
Idiot. Taking them out in their human forms was enough of a challenge. If he waited for them to shift, he was signing his own death warrant.
Stone decided to end the potential blood bath before it got started but Ling Mai’s hand to his arm stopped him. “Give him a chance,” she murmured, not looking at Stone but keeping her attention on the kid.
Fuck the monkey, a child was going to die.
Jacques must have decided the same thing as he did a flying leap, in his human form, going for a take down tackle.
Herc must have had a stronger sense of self-preservation than Stone gave him credit for as he flung himself sideways, sending Jacques slamming his shoulder into the nearest wall.
Small point to the kid, but it wasn’t going to last long, especially as he hadn’t used any weapons.
Lisa wasn’t waiting around for her partner to brush himself off. Like a pro, she took advantage of Herc’s distraction and sprinted across the short gap of gym floor, sliding into Herc’s legs like a baseball All-star into home plate.
The kid flipped head over ass and landed face side down on the hard floor.
“Ouch,” Stone whistled, knowing that at the very least the kid was winded, if he didn’t have a few broken bones. That should smack some sense into him.
As if called, Herc turned his head, the grin wiped from his face, blood streaming down his nose, but not out. Yet.
Lisa was already scrambling to her feet, putting the kid on the defensive and crab-scrambling backwards on hands and feet until he twisted and jumped up, looking a little more scared and a lot more wary than a few moments ago.
Good. Maybe that’s all they’d need to do. Stone stepped forward, assuming the kid would be raising his hands to signal a time out. But it seemed geeks named for Greek heroes were made of sturdier stuff. Or stupid, as Herc squared his shoulders, raised his chin and glared at Lisa.
A smile spread across Lisa’s face. One of those now-you-die looks soldiers recognized when arrogance met experience. Greek god or not, the kid was going down.
Jacques hadn’t been standing still either as he circled around, closer to Lisa now, the two of them forcing Herc into the nearest corner. Two walls would be at his back but he’d also be wedged like a block in a bung hole. Hard lesson, but then those were the kind that stuck with a man. Which Herc would be one day, if he survived.
Acting more like a predator leopard than his scorpion self, Jacques pounced first, rushing low and lethal.
Herc braced, as if he could hold against a full-body tackle, but just as Jacques reached him, the kid leaped up and forward, over Jacque’s back and into a hard bounce and roll on the floor.
Impressive.
Except he ended up in a squat, right in front of Lisa.
She threw herself at him, a smothering tackle that should have flattened him. Except he did the unexpected again. Instead of curling into a ball to protect his vulnerable head and neck, he rolled backwards, thrust his hands and feet upward, using Lisa’s own momentum as she hit him to rocket her over and behind him.
Someone had taught the kid a few self-defense moves.
Lisa slammed into the hardwood floor, violently enough to have cracked her noggin, if she were just human. She’d braced her fall with her hands, saving her head, but snapped her right wrist with an audible crack.
This time, Stone shrugged off Ling Mai’s hand as he stepped forward, ready to call the exercise over. One shifter was already hurt. Herc hadn’t stopped anyone, or showed any weapon that could halt either shi
fter.
“Exercise finished,” he called, heading toward Lisa already cradling her wrist.
But like a red flag to a bull, pain tended to trigger an immediate response in a lot of shifters, including Lisa. Rhinos tended to be live-and-let-live animals by nature, but not if threatened or provoked. Herc had just managed to push both buttons.
From where Stone stood, he could already hear the involuntary morphing of Lisa into her Rhino form. Pain to her signaled a possible threat and that’s when rhinos became volatile.
Jacques, being closer to Lisa, moved to her side, as if wanting to halt her morphing, but once started, there wasn’t a lot anyone, human or non-human could do.
A shifter changing was a painful, messy business, even to watch. Bones erupting from skin, churning muscles ripping and rearranging, the tear of skin replaced by fur or shell or, in Lisa’s case, by a hide several layers thick.
The horror on the kid’s face was worth the price of admission, but not if he was creamed for agitating Lisa more. Stone would bet dollars to donuts Lisa wasn’t going to remain stock still after she shifted. If Herc stayed splayed on the floor, remaining frozen, he might be safe, as rhinos couldn’t see worth squat, but they would attack based on scent or smell.
“Freeze,” Stone shouted to Herc, already moving toward Lisa to make an alternative target. “Stay right where you are.”
Leave it to the kid to disregard a direct order as he scrambled to his feet.
Rhinos looked like slow, lumbering beasts but they could outrun the fastest human, especially in short bursts, which was as fast as you could get in the gym. If they were in the wild, a tree might work. Here, evade and escape were the only options.
Lisa finished her transformation and just standing still, she took up a hell of a lot of room. Single-horned head lowered for charging, she bared her sharp lower incisors, which rhinos used to slash and gore, and pawed the floor once before attacking.
This time it was Stone diving toward the floor to tackle Herc out of the way of Lisa’s massive three-toed hooves, the same pads shaking the whole damn building. Together they rolled in an ungainly lump toward the nearest wall, with enough space to breathe, but just barely.
INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) Page 3