INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS)

by Buckham, Mary

  For real? Or another way to undermine Van?

  “Till tomorrow.” The man touched a hand to the brim of his hood before walking out of the cell, followed closely by the doctor and the human.

  Van tugged at his restraints, knowing it was useless, and only earning the stench and pain of them burning deeper into his skin.

  Whatever was going on he’d find out tomorrow. And if these people had involved Alex they’d rue the day they were created.

  CHAPTER 24

  Jeb Noziak was awakened by an insistent knock on the door. Philippe? With news of Van or Alex?

  He threw off his bed clothes though it’d been less than an hour since he’d gone to bed. His attempts to reach either of his children on the astral level had failed. Something was blocking them from his awareness. Not a simple cloaking spell that any hedge witch could produce but more like a jammer. He’d never encountered anything like it before, which didn’t make him a happy man. Especially after what he’d learned from Pádraig’s files earlier.

  Alex had a lot to explain to him once he found her. A whole lot.

  The knocking became louder. More frantic.

  “I’m coming,” he called out, grabbing a bathrobe and tightening the belt around him. He didn’t bother with turning on a light as he could see as well in the dark and the room was familiar enough.

  “What is it?” he asked, his voice a near snarl as he recognized Pádraig standing in the hallway, his hair mussed, strain bracketing his face. “Where’s Philippe?”

  ”He’s dead,” came the abrupt reply. “The Tunisian has run off.”

  What? Shock roared through Jeb. Not possible. Then he remembered Philippe’s earlier words, about the previous attempts on his life. But why?

  The Tunisian? Oh, yes, the butler. But what did the butler have to do with Pádraig’s news?

  “What happened?” he demanded, stepping into the hallway. “An accident?”

  The younger man shook his head, his face looking pale beneath the glare of lighting. Every lamp in the house must be switched on as if to scare away the night threats. But if what Pádraig had said was true, the worst had already happened.

  When Pádraig didn’t respond, Jeb steered him toward the library, and once he’d been seated, slumping forward in the chair, his head in his hands, Jeb grabbed a bottle of Jameson’s and splashed a liberal amount in a crystal glass.

  “Drink this,” he urged Pádraig. “Then we’ll talk.”

  It took the younger man two gulps to down the whole glass. Jeb kept his surprise to himself. Shock did different things to different people.

  “Tell me what happened?” he repeated, the minute Pádraig appeared stable.

  “They think he was poisoned.” Pádraig’s eyes showed far too much white, like a spooked horse, but Jeb couldn’t wait.

  “By who?”

  The Pádraig shook his head, holding out his empty glass. Jeb rose to pour him some more, frustrated at the delay.

  Only when Pádraig swallowed the next full glass did he continue. “There are names swirling around. Innuendos. Accusations. It’s a bloody arseways cockup.” His Irish accent as well as slang had increased. A sure sign of distress. He glanced up as if noticing Jeb for the first time. ”They’re on their way here. The Guards.”

  At Jeb’s frown he added, “Un policier. The coppers.”

  Jeb got the message, but still he pushed for details. “Now?”

  “Oui.”

  “But why?”

  “Philippe was well connected, within the Council and outside of it.” Pádraig ran a shaky hand through his hair. “He made a lot of enemies. Now everyone is a suspect.”

  The man was distraught, speaking wildly. Surely the French police would have to search Philippe’s home, ask questions of his friends, but Pádraig was indicating more was at stake.

  Jeb leaned forward to ask for more details when the front door knocker boomed through the house.

  “They are here.” Pádraig jerked upright as if Nazi jackboots were beating down the entrance, looking for him.

  “What are you afraid of?” Jeb wanted to shake him, seeing the flash of blue light cleaving the night outside the window. “Tell me now.”

  “For all our sakes, say nothing about your daughter,” came the stunning response.

  “What about Alex?”

  The young man shook off Jeb’s hand and straightened his suit.

  “Tell me about Alex.” Jeb pressed harder. “Now.”

  “She’s the chief suspect.”

  “For what?”

  “Killing Philippe. That’s what.”

  CHAPTER 25

  I wasn’t sure where we were but Bran seemed to know what he was doing as he punched a key code into a discreet panel near a metal door. It looked like we were in an industrial area, or maybe a former industrial area, with rows of low brick buildings looking boxy against the skyline.

  François pushed open the well-oiled door. A scent of cement floors and damp wafted toward me but it didn’t smell old as much as empty.

  When he went to reach for a light switch, Bran stopped him. “Wait till we’re all inside.”

  I guess that meant I wasn’t moving fast enough.

  Bite me.

  My feet were shredded from who knew how many miles we’d trekked. I was freezing as the dress François had picked out for me—which worked fine in a packed crowd—was paper-thin against a Paris April night, and I had to wrap my arms around my upper body to keep from shivering.

  Still I shuffled in after François, trying not to smack into him in the darkness that was worse than outside even as Bran left the door open. A small shaft of moonlight leaked into the room but it wasn’t enough to show me anything.

  “Where are we?” I whispered. “If this is your place, won’t they be looking for us here?”

  I knew which “they” I was most concerned about. The take-no-prisoners Council.

  “Owned by a friend,” he mumbled as he trod past me. Leave it to a warlock to be able to see in the dark. And then his words struck me. A friend. As in blonde with mile long legs and a French accent?

  Why I should care right then was beyond me, not with the other crap I was dealing with. Still it pricked. “She won’t be back soon will she?” I asked.

  “Who said it was a she?” he said somewhere deep inside the stygian space. I could have sworn there was a smile beneath his words.

  So I kept my mouth shut.

  François leaned closer to me, brushing my shoulder as he whispered, “Betrayed yourself that time, didn’t you luv?”

  His accent was pure British right then. And all snark.

  I didn’t have time to tell him where he could stuff it though as a whiff of something came my way. Familiar.

  François tensed beside me. This time I was the one leaning in close to him. “Were.”

  There wasn’t time for more as a large shape came hurtling from the shadowed doorway and slammed into François and I like a bowling ball set on stun.

  We both sprawled forward, in opposite directions.

  Two things saved us. The first was the Were remained in human form, in spite of his preternatural scent. I was lucky as I could smell both Weres and shifters, even in their human forms. The second, he seemed to pause, as if he was hesitating. Or waiting for something.

  Either way, as long as he remained human we might survive.

  If Bran joined us we might stand a chance, but even as I was saying my thank yous for having a warlock along, a second shadow spend past me and toward the kitchen.

  Now I know why the first one waited. Backup.

  “Were,” I shouted, giving Bran as much advance warning as possible, which wasn’t much as I heard a hard wham, the sound of two solid masses colliding.

  Not going to be a lot of help from that direction.

  François was a shifter, which could usually take on a Were of equal size and weight. But François in shifter form was a poodle. Not the kind bred in World War II as attack do
gs, but the frou-frou kind, look-at-me-aren’t-I-something kind.

  Which left me and my scant training as a fighting agent. Since we were barely into our second month of Krav Maga at the Agency that wasn’t saying much. But I held one advantage; being raised with four brothers who thought street fighting was a basic form of communication.

  They were right.

  I rolled to my side then paused, as if hurt. I was winded, but only a fool gave up before the real fight ever began. My eyes adjusting to the darkness, could see the Were’s shape come after me again.

  A quick twist and sweep of my lower body tripped him. This time he was the one splatting across the floor. I was on my feet again before he scrambled to his knees. Unlike him I wasn’t going to give him the chance of getting close enough to do serious damage.

  I rocked from foot to foot, wishing I’d had my anathema dagger, my ritual knife with me, but the cocktail dress I was wearing didn’t have a scrap of fabric to hide it. Go figure.

  Behind me I could hear François shifting. Changing body shapes was a lot like changing complicated clothes with Velcro and zippers; there was always some noise in the process. Maybe he could snap at the Were, and between us we could contain him. No way were we going to take him down. Not alone.

  But the thumps and crashes in the other room indicated Bran wasn’t going to be free for a while.

  The Were stood, arrogance riding his stance. He was a good foot taller than me, wide across the shoulders, and a good thirty pounds heavier if his shadow was anything to go by.

  Double crap.

  Stone had better be right about what he’d taught us so far about Krav Maga.

  I hopped back as if on the defense before shifting direction and springing toward the Were, one foot extended to hit him in the family jewels followed by a quick elbow jab as he doubled over and grunted.

  Linking both hands together as a battering ram I followed with a hard chop to the back of his neck. But even as he fell he lashed out at my knees and gave them a solid thwack.

  I crumpled. Now we were eye to eye, or more my eyes reached his shoulders but I was close enough I could smell his fetid breath and hear his growls.

  Only a quick feint to the right saved my shoulder from his next swing and off balanced him. Now he was toppling forward, across the top of me.

  My twist was useless as he used his weight to bench press me into the cement floor, one arm across my windpipe, choking me.

  Couldn’t. Breathe.

  Where was François? Even a doggy lick would help!

  Time to get down and dirty, Noziak style.

  My arms were free so I snapped them up, using thumbs to gouge his eyes. He rocked back with a howl of rage, which allowed air to rush into my lungs. Thank the Great Spirits.

  But I was only getting started.

  Pulling myself forward as if doing a crunch I curled my hands into fists and pounded his eardrums. When he pulled his hands from his face to cover his ears I used the old palm of the hand as a battering ram to his nose.

  Blood geysered over me. I wanted to gag but there was no time.

  He was off balance enough for me to rock back and forth, dislodging him enough for me to crabwalk backwards.

  Were’s were strong fighters but they relied too much on their size and power. They also relied on turning from human to animal form. Which meant when remaining human if they didn’t take out an opponent right away, they started flagging.

  Plus I was quick. To survive in the Noziak household agility and speed were ingrained into me.

  I wasn’t sure why the Were hadn’t changed into his animal self. Once he did I was toast and getting a Were pissed was a sure fire way to make him morph.

  I rolled to my knees, looking for the next attack when I heard a low growl rumble beside me.

  Not another.

  Bracing I reared to my feet and scrambled backwards, away from both bulky shadows until my back and shoulders hit a wall. Not pleasant but at least there was one avenue of attack cut off.

  The growls increased but all I could see was a huge animal, at least as tall as my waist, casting greater darkness as it moved between me and the Were.

  Wiping the sweat stinging my eyes I froze in a standing position. Not that it was going to save me, but between the instinctual response of freeze, flight or fight, the last two seemed like really bad options.

  The animal wasn’t charging me. Instead the Were beyond the growl was suddenly scampering backwards.

  Bad idea. I could have told it that running only ratcheted up the aggression of an enraged animal. But I was chugging too much air to have any left over to save someone who just tried to kill me.

  Hands braced against my knees, I watched as the growl shifted into a mastiff, the biggest damned dog I’d ever seen in my life.

  A quick look around didn’t show me François, but no way was this animal the MI-6 agent. He’d been a poodle last I’d seen him and shifters couldn’t shift into more than one animal. Could they?

  Not that I’d ever heard of and I grew up with a shifter father and four shifter brothers.

  Maybe the dog just wanted to take out the biggest threat before finishing me off as dessert. Or Bran could have conjured it, though the sounds from the other room made that less likely.

  Either way, silently cheering on Fido, I slowly shuffled toward the door, trying not to bring attention to my movement. But it seemed like the Were had other ideas.

  He started changing, too. His high-pitched scream stopped me in my tracks. He sounded like a cougar.

  One of the bad things about Weres is that their animal forms are not normal-sized, they are super-sized, as if big, scary, bad ass Weres need any extra fighting mojo.

  The mastiff stood at least three feet at its shoulders and weighed maybe a hundred and fifty, two hundred pounds. His growl echoed down my spine one low octave at a time.

  Now this was officially a dog and cat fight.

  I swallowed but my throat was too dry, and too clenched to help.

  What now?

  CHAPTER 26

  Jeb listened to the rise and fall of voices in the next room as he rested his hands flat on his knees. They looked at ease to the police officer who was sitting across from him with an expressionless face, but Jeb knew better.

  What did Pádraig know about Alex? The question ate away at Jeb’s stomach lining as he waited to be interrogated. And he had no doubt it would be an interrogation too, in spite of the formality and low-key approach of the officials so far.

  What had Alex done? Did it involve Van? Which was the only reason Jeb could think why she might be in Paris. And why couldn’t he reach out to Van? The last was the most worrisome issue as Jeb had always been able to reach his sons across distances, to see them and make sure they were all right. But not since Van had disappeared. He refused to accept that his son might be dead. If he was, Jeb could have found Van in the spirit realm.

  But Jeb had never been able to track Alex in either the spirit world or distance viewing her in the physical realm, though they both carried shamanistic abilities.

  That was his fault. Not her abilities but her lack of experience using them. After Aideen had left him, and the way she’d left him, created a hole so large within him it was all he could do to get through each day. For the first year or so he was the walking dead. Then he threw himself into his farm and raising his sons. As shifters he understood them and he knew as a shifter himself, how much training they needed to keep their animal selves and enhanced human abilities hidden from too observant human eyes.

  He hadn’t realized till later that he’d left Alex to fend for herself. What did he know about pigtails and dresses, not that she wore either. As for her magical abilities, what he understood about witchcraft he feared. Better to have her with no understanding of magic than to follow down the path Aideen had travelled.

  At least he felt that way until Alex had been twelve or thirteen, coming into her abilities in a willy-nilly fashion that posed a dange
r to herself and anyone who crossed her temper. Another trait she’d inherited from him.

  So he’d found Siobhán MacAuliffe, the closest witch he could track down and she was half a day away in Montana. He hadn’t liked the idea of his daughter being trained by an Irish witch but Alex had needed someone to mentor her. Not that Alex had agreed. By the Spirits she’d put up a row. But he’d made up his mind, so off they’d gone to Missoula.

  He almost turned right around when he discovered MacAuliffe wasn’t Irish at all. She was Chinese. He’d understood her need to hide in plain sight but a witch was a witch. Or so he thought.

  Alex lasted three months before MacAuliffe discovered Alex’s secret abilities and called for Jeb to come fetch his daughter. It was a long, silent ride home.

  He’d failed his daughter then. He wasn’t about to fail her again.

  If he could only figure out where she was, what she was up to, and how he could help.

  CHAPTER 27

  Before I had a chance to do anything the Were cougar threw itself at the mastiff and fur began to fly.

  I pressed myself harder against the wall as if to become invisible, but that was only going to last until one or the other of the animals survived. Then I was the next target.

  If only I could cast Bran’s freeze spell. But I couldn’t. I also didn’t have candles, or herbs, or markers to create runes. Talk about so sorry out of luck.

  Focus. What did I have?

  As if called, the white light of the waxing moon leaked through the doorway, spreading its finger of light in a wedge shape along the floor.

  It wasn’t a full moon but I had to take what I could get.

  So what spells could work via words and intention alone?

  The cougar’s screams increased. If I didn’t stop them soon both fighters would be dead.

  I didn’t know where the mastiff came from but it had saved me from the Were so far, least I could do was save it back.

  As long as I didn’t kill us both.

  I had it. A modified bully spell. The kind to repel a bothering bully. Sure it was meant for the playground, and a Were was a lot larger than any bully I had ever met but it was easy, quick and I knew the spell by heart. Thanks again to my brothers who, being on the wild side, made their share of enemies. Enemies that tended to come after me as an easier target. Until they ran into this incantation.