Phoenix Inheritance

by Corrina Lawson

  “Because, in retrospect, everything Charlie’s ever said to me about when he talked to animals has been accurate,” Renee said. “Now that I know he can really do it, I’m inclined to believe him. If Odin was scared of this man, he’s dangerous.”

  “That’s good logic,” Daz said. “I’m just surprised you’re taking to this telepathy so well.”

  “Anything that helps my son,” she said.

  “I agree too,” Beth said. “Obviously, I can’t read Odin’s mind, but what he transferred to Charlie indicates this master wanted Odin to bring Charlie to him. And the cat was definitely scared of this man.”

  “Who wants to take my son?” Daz gripped Renee’s hand tight and stared at the monitor. Alec had joined Charlie to play with the blocks. Someone wanted his son. And someone had also entered New Jersey over a year ago, on a mission from Rasputin. Could the two events be connected? But how could Rasputin know something about Charlie that his parents hadn’t known?

  “Wait, forget about ‘who’ for a second. How could this mysterious man give a cat orders?” Renee asked.

  “Damn good question,” Daz said. “Sounds like we have another animal telepath on our hands.”

  “I agree,” Beth said. “I believe the ‘mean man’ was speaking to Odin telepathically, like Charlie does.”

  “So it’s someone who has abilities just like Charlie,” Renee said. “Why would he want Charlie?”

  “I can guess.” Daz stood and stared at the monitor. He knew Alec was in there and nothing got past Alec. He knew the Institute was safe. But it didn’t make the fear for his son’s safety go away. “Best-case scenario, this mean man could’ve recognized Charlie as a kindred spirit and wanted to be closer to him.”

  “A very warped kindred spirit,” Renee said.

  “Yeah. Unfortunately, I think we’re closer to the worst-case scenario: someone wants to take Charlie for his ability and control him.”

  He looked at Beth.

  She nodded. “Like my kidnappers wanted to do to me when I was his age.”

  Renee walked over to the monitor to stand next to Daz.

  “I know, it’s illogical to think I’m somehow protecting him better by standing over here.”

  “But it helps.” He put her arm around his waist. Instead of objecting, which he half-expected, she put her head on his shoulder.

  Someone wanted to steal their son.

  Never.

  “This is my fault. What I do is putting our son in danger,” Daz said.

  “How could this be your fault?” Renee asked.

  “Some enemy of the Phoenix Institute is after my kid,” he said.

  “What enemy?” Renee asked.

  He tapped his shoulder. “The guy in Germany. He took me hostage. Beat me. Burned me with his hand alone. And I got away. He’ll hate that. He’d want to get back at me.”

  “Was he an animal telepath like Charlie’s mean man?” she asked.

  “He was a psychic. Who knows what else he could do? And he had a legion of followers. We thought he’d gone underground but apparently he just changed tactics. We recently found he’s been watching the Institute for over a year and that he has an operative in this area. Shit.”

  “Daz.” Renee put her hand on his face to get his attention. “Get past your guilt. Beth just said that this man probably wants Charlie for his psychic ability. How could this enemy of yours even know about him?”

  “That’s a very good question.” Daz’s eyes narrowed. Had his captor read his mind during the torture? Daz had thought they were after information about Alec and the Institute but what else had they plucked from his brain?

  “We’ll get answers.” Beth rose. “I won’t let anything happen to Charlie or either of you. This kind of situation is another reason the Phoenix Institute exists. We train people in their abilities. But we also protect them.”

  “Thank you,” Renee said.

  Loki head-butted her knees. Renee leaned down and hugged him.

  “You’re not alone,” Beth said. “Everything we have, we’ll use to keep you both safe. And we will find out who did this.”

  “Damn straight we will,” Daz said.

  “So what’s next?” Renee asked.

  “You don’t have to do anything except stay here safe with Charlie,” Daz said. “This is my specialty. I’ll come up with a plan.” He was going to have to put all that leveling-up training to use, along with all those new weapons. He was going to crush the person after his family.

  “We’ll call in all our resources, but please stay here with Charlie until we sort this out, Renee,” Beth added.

  “Okay,” she said. “You don’t have to talk me into it. Whatever keeps Charlie safe.”

  “In the meantime, we need to get Odin here, so Charlie can quiz him more about the mean man and I can get a clearer picture of what’s going on,” Beth said. “There is a good side. With Charlie staying here, I can get a jumpstart on his therapy.”

  “And you leave getting Odin to me,” Daz said.

  After he made sure Renee and Charlie were set up in their own rooms at the Institute, Daz and Alec headed back out to Renee’s house.

  Charlie had pleaded to come with them, claiming they wouldn’t catch Odin without him but there was no way Daz was going to allow his son to leave the safety of the Institute right now, not with one, maybe two hostile unknowns out there: Rasputin’s man and the one who controlled Odin. Possibly they were one and the same but it never hurt to plan for two enemies rather than one.

  Alec, with his TK, should be able to grab a cat, no matter how uncooperative, and together, they could handle any other problem.

  They’d figure out who was behind it and then…

  He gripped the steering wheel tighter. Then someone would pay.

  “You think Rasputin is behind this?” Alec asked.

  “He’s the one with an organization behind him, and I assume he knows about all kinds of psychics. And he sure knew a helluva lot about us before we even knew he existed. Plus, he has someone on the ground already.”

  Daz rolled his shoulder, wishing the damn burn would stop itching. He’d taken the job of accompanying Richard Genet to Europe to start a dialogue between the Phoenix Institute and Richard’s immortal court. He hadn’t expected to encounter a very much alive Gregori Rasputin or that the Mad Monk had a hard-on to destroy Alec and the Institute. Taking Daz captive and torturing him had been the first step in Rasputin’s war. No, not the first step. The shot one of Rasputin’s people had taken at him had literally been the opening salvo in this war.

  Daz owed his life to Richard and his lover, Marian Doyle, but Rasputin had disappeared after their explosive confrontation in Germany. They’d been watching and waiting for him to make a move, but Daz never expected Charlie to be part of it.

  “I’m sorry your son got dragged into this. It’s me Rasputin seems to be after. I feel responsible,” Alec said.

  “Save the guilt.” Because Daz had enough for both of them. “Rasputin is the one who’s responsible, not you.”

  “Okay.”

  After that, there was silence. Daz barely noticed the road crews working on the power lines on the main roads. But as they turned off the main road to a country road that led to Renee’s home, Alec spoke.

  “Daz, did it occur to you that it’s a weird coincidence that your son has psychic abilities and you happen to work in a place that knows these abilities are real?”

  “Yeah, it’s a weird coincidence but what else could it be? What are you getting at? That Rasputin was involved somehow?”

  “No, not him. Lansing.” Alec paused as he reached ahead of them with his TK to toss a large tree branch out of the road. “You know how he was obsessed with finding as many psychics as possible, even to the point of trying to create them.”

  “And?”

/>   “Lansing hired you after Charlie was born, right?”

  Daz nodded, slowly, catching on to where this was going. “You think Lansing somehow knew that Charlie was psychic even back then?”

  “I bet Lansing knew there was a possibility Charlie could be psychic. He was obsessed with genetic codes. Look how he tried to duplicate his own genetic code, except his DNA was too degraded. It would be just like Lansing to check the genetic codes of everyone he hired, including you. He knew what he was looking for in the DNA. He would have known if you carried any genetic markers for psychic abilities.”

  “That seems horribly possible.” Not for the first time, Daz cursed himself for not delving deeper into Lansing’s background before accepting his job offer. But if he’d done that, he’d have never met Alec. “Is this something you found in Lansing’s records?”

  “No, nothing about you in particular, but we did finally decode an encrypted file that included the genetic markers that Lansing believed were important for psychic abilities. In all his records, it’s a continual obsession with him. With you, he not only got a good trainer for me but had an excellent way to keep an eye on your son, in case Charlie developed any abilities.”

  “Shit.” Alec was right. “So that’s why he recruited me. I didn’t apply for the job. I didn’t even know it existed.”

  “Exactly. Then the question becomes how he knew to check your DNA in the first place. It’s like you were on his radar already somehow. You ever run across him?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but now I’m going to double-check every job I ever did.”

  “At least he’s dead now and can’t hurt you or Charlie.”

  “There’s that,” Daz said.

  “And whatever angle he was working on you, Lansing blew it because when I broke from him, you backed me and not him.”

  “It took me too long,” Daz said.

  “You’re the one who keeps harping on that, not me,” Alec said. “When push came to shove, you backed me because we were a team.”

  “I should’ve never needed that shove.”

  “Let it go,” Alec said. “I have.”

  Not until he could make up for it, Daz thought. Just like with Renee, he had to put things right.

  “Anyway,” Alec said, “the point is, if Lansing knew Charlie could be psychic—”

  “Then people working for him could have known too. And those people could be out there still. They might be behind this, not Rasputin.”

  Alec nodded. “Yeah. Or it could be the people who grabbed Beth all those years ago.”

  “It’s all guesswork right now,” Daz said.

  “Until we get the story from the cat.”

  Alec said that with such seriousness that Daz glanced sideways at him. They both laughed.

  “A cat. A damned cat,” Daz said.

  He pulled his car into Renee’s driveway. Nothing had changed from yesterday save more of the snow had melted. Alec pointed to the remains of the van. “I should move that or Renee won’t be able to pull her car out of the garage.”

  “Wait until we get the cat.” Daz searched around the garage and found the dog carrier that Renee told him was there. He held it up. “This is a little big but Odin won’t be able to slip through the bars on the doors.”

  “Now, we just have to get the cat inside it. Uh, I don’t have much experience with cats. Will this be hard?” Alec asked.

  “Let’s just say your TK will come in handy otherwise we’ll get scratched up pretty good, especially given Odin’s a stray who doesn’t seem fond of anyone except my son.” Daz pulled his gloves tight, just in case. “Let’s start looking in Charlie’s room.”

  He unlocked the door from the garage to the mudroom. Daz froze. Something was off. Movement when there shouldn’t be any.

  A crash echoed through the house. Daz set down the crate and drew his Glock. He glanced over at Alec.

  Alec nodded, knowing what to do. He closed his eyes, focused on sending his TK through the house, using it as a kind of radar to find whatever was moving around. Alec would also be able to sense size and weight and know if they were dealing with the cat or something else.

  He tapped Daz’s shoulder, pointed to the right and signaled threat.

  Intruder, not cat. Damn.

  Daz gestured at Alec to go right, while he went left. Alec passed through the mudroom and to the hallway. Daz cut through the kitchen toward that entranceway to the living room, on full alert. He strained to hear the smallest sound. He homed in on the rustle of clothes and the low growl of a cat.

  It could be that Odin’s master had come back for the cat for some reason. Maybe he knew the cat could identify him.

  Daz turned the corner into the living room, his weapon up and ready. A man all in black, wearing a long coat, held Odin in his arms.

  “Put the cat down, get on your knees, hands on your head,” Daz ordered.

  The intruder stared at Daz with unnerving dark eyes that held no irises. Daz suppressed a shiver. Rasputin’s people had the same kind of eerie stillness in them, and the immortal Mad Monk had the most terrifying stare of all. Fuck. This was the worst-case scenario.

  “Why should I obey you?”

  “Because you’ll be dead if you don’t,” Daz said. Let the guy talk. They’d find out more if the intruder felt he had the upper hand. When it was time, Alec would take him out.

  “Do you really want to save this grungy animal?” The gravelly voice sounded as if were scraped over sandpaper. There was a trace of an accent, possibly Eastern European.

  “He’s my cat.”

  “No, he belongs to me. As does your son.” The intruder advanced a step.

  “Stop,” Daz said through gritted teeth.

  “You didn’t want your son from the start, Montoya. He’s an obligation to you. And his mother is overwhelmed by him. He’s much better off with me. Us.” The intruder smiled again.

  They were only words. But this guy said them in the same way as the guys who had tortured Daz in Germany. The fear flooded back, and the memory of the searing agony from the hand pressed into his shoulder sent cold sweat down Daz’s back.

  Alec appeared at the other side of the living room, one hand raised. “Surrender.”

  The intruder raised one dark eyebrow. “No.”

  The cat sprang from his captor’s hold, ruining Daz’s line of fire. He sidestepped, only barely missing Odin’s claws. The cat hit the floor and skittered away. Daz fired but the shot went wide.

  The intruder chuckled, an unnatural sound.

  Alec flicked his hand. The enemy flew backwards into the fireplace, and hit hard. Daz’s little paper origami figures floated to the floor.

  “Stay right there!” Alec ordered. The fireplace poker flew into the air. Alec moved a finger and the poker pressed against the intruder’s throat.

  They had him.

  Daz and Alec stalked forward, wary. This could be a trick. It’d be safer to just shoot this asshole but they needed to know why he was in Renee’s house. Charlie’s future depended on catching not only this guy, but whoever he was working with.

  A roar sounded from outside. The intruder grinned.

  A roar?

  A large, brown bear burst through the glass door that led to the deck, flinging sharp shards all over the living room.

  Daz threw up his hands to protect his face. A bear. A freakin’ bear! Fuck, did it have to be a bear again?

  He kept his eye and his gun on their captive. This had to be a calculated distraction. He wasn’t going to fall for it.

  Alec tackled the bear, sending him and the crazed animal to the floor. Daz had to jump out of the way of flailing claws, giving the intruder an opening. The asshole took off and ran outside through the hole just created by the bear.

  Fuck.

  Daz vaulted over the co
uch and leapt through the broken glass door to the ruined deck. Though he was a few seconds behind his quarry, the debris in the yard worked to his advantage. Instead of making a clean getaway, the intruder’s black trench coat snagged on a branch from a fallen tree.

  Daz jumped to the top of the deck’s railing, aimed, and fired. The intruder crumpled to his knees as blood spread over his lower left leg.

  Got you.

  “Firefly, you okay?” Daz yelled.

  “Uh, we’re having a stare-off,” Alec said. “Damn, he’s bigger than the ones in the zoo. Or maybe he looks bigger because he’s out in the open.”

  If Alec was making jokes, he wasn’t in immediate danger. Good.

  Daz sprang from the railing to the yard, carefully picking his way toward the man. His quarry clutched his leg and screamed something in another language. That had to be Russian. This was definitely connected to Rasputin and his people.

  And they tended to travel in packs.

  Daz scanned the yard, Glock ready to fire, searching for other enemies and ignoring the wounded man’s curses and screams. Or perhaps he was pleading. Not that Daz cared.

  The intruder took a swing at him as soon as Daz was in arm’s length. Daz clocked the motherfucker on the jaw. He crumpled, hands wrapped around his wounded leg.

  But his eyes stayed focused on Daz.

  “You bear our saint’s mark. He will kill you.”

  Those utterly dark eyes stared up at Daz, as if they could see right through him.

  Saint’s mark. The handprint scar. Daz dug his fingers into the intruder’s coat and put the gun against the man’s throat. “What’s your name? Why are you here?”

  The ebony eyes stared, unblinking. Daz felt cold sweat drip down his back again. It was like this guy’s brain wasn’t really there. Wait, he knew that look. Beth got that faraway look when she was communicating telepathy. Daz punched him again to break his captive’s concentration and sever his telepathic link. “Tell me who’s at the other end of your conversation.”

  “We’ll take all you have, including your son.” The intruder stuttered out the words, went limp and his eyes rolled back in his head.

  Dammit. Fuck.