INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (21 page)

That SOB set me up. He planned to reach this point all along.

“My brother’s blood,” I answered
François
but I kept my gaze riveted on Bran, aware my breathing had gone shallow, my muscles ramrod stiff. “You want me to do blood magic, black magic to find Van.”

He nodded, aware of what blood magic meant. A slippery slope that might start slow and seemingly easy, but always ended in a bad place—a very, very bad place.

“And if I say no?”

“Then your brother will be used and discarded like so much dead meat.” And, in case he hadn’t jammed the knife in deep enough and twisted it, he added, “Your choice.”

CHAPTER 49

Van was cramped in a fetal curl against the cold cement floor. Old, blood soaked straw stinking in his nostrils, a fever raging through him. But it was more than a fever; sweats, the shakes, teeth chattering, wave upon wave crashing against him. But it was the dreams, the nightmares that hurt the worst. Alex walking toward him, then running, calling his name, but he couldn’t reach her. He’d stretch his hand, watch as the skin morphed into fur, the nails into claws and then see her expression. The horror and repulsion that had him skidding to a halt.

But that was wrong. Alex knew what he was. Knew what all the males in his family were. So it made no sense. Unless it wasn’t what he was but what he’d done that made her reject him. And that’s when he’d look around and see the limbs and blood scattered at his feet. His father’s sightless eyes staring up at him though his head was nowhere near his body. And the other pieces were his brothers, Jake and Luke and even Simon, torn apart and savaged.

Had he done that?

Alex’s expression told him he had. But sometimes the vision shifted and he was wading through the corpses of children, screaming and retching. He couldn’t. No way.

“Yes, you can Mister Noziak, take another sip,” the voice urged him. Jean-Claude’s voice.

Van cracked open one swollen eye.

The doctor knelt beside him, but the man wasn’t alone. Two men stood beyond him, one with a tranq gun pointed at Van. The other though was the more deadly, the power-broker.

“See, Jean-Claude, you have exaggerated the threat to our guest here. He is not a total beast. Not yet.”

Jean-Claude shook his head, holding a small vial in front of Van. “You must eat this. It’s only soup. Your sodium levels are too high and you need the liquids.”

Van’s growl through closed lips was his only response
. His last element of control. If he was dead they’d use another poor schmuck to do what they intended to do, but it wouldn’t be him.

“See what the problem is?” the doctor said, his voice terse. “Shifters require more nutrients than humans but it’s the liquid levels I’m most concerned about. His sodium level is already at 164.”

“Which means what?” the power-broker sounded bored, more than concerned.

“He only has a few hours to live, if that much.”

The power broker leaned forward, kicking Van’s shoulder with Italian leather shoes. “We need him for tomorrow. It’s too late to find another carrier.”

The doctor threw up his hands. “
Oui
! It’s been what I have been saying.”

“Can’t you give him the drug and tell him to drink?”

“We are too close to the time of the experiment. I can’t administer the drug, give a suggestion and in less than twelve hours administer more of the drug and a different suggestion. This is not a puppet we are dealing with here.”

“A shame.”

A tense silence reigned except for the sound of the doctor’s heart beating, the power broker inhaling deeply and the gun-holding one grinding his teeth. The broker spoke at last. “You can force water down him via an IV can you not?”

“Yes, but—“

“Then do it.”

“To insert a fluid line we must tranquilize him. I can’t guarantee that he will not be sluggish for tomorrow.”

The broker laughed, a low, humorless sound. “Not a problem. With what we have planned for him he won’t have to be fast, just deadly.”

Van shook his head, trying to lift it as he did.

“
C’est la vie,”
the doctor murmured, waving his hand behind his head.

“No,” Van mouthed, “Don’t—“

The dart struck his left shoulder with enough force it spun Van over and flipped him on his back.

The last thing he saw was the doctor leaning over him, whispering, “Forgive me.”

CHAPTER 50

François
was the one who joined me in the open space where I was marking chalk clockwise on the floor to create my power circle.

“Need any help?” he asked.

I glared at him, knowing it really wasn’t him I was angry with.

“He wouldn’t have you do this if there was any other way,”
François
murmured, leaning against the nearest wall, his pose meant to look relaxed, the strain in his muscles betraying the opposite.

I ignored his words and leaned back on my knees, deciding to take whatever time I had to figure out something that was bothering me. “What exactly are you?” I asked, no heat to my words.

“I’m surprised you’ve been able to wait this long to find out.”

I raised my hands palm up toward him. “If you’re not comfortable sharing, I can understand that. It’s your business.”

“It’s not that.” He looked away, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. I actually expected him to tell me to take a flying leap, or the British equivalent, but instead he shrugged. “I’m a didi-shifter.”

“A what?”

“We used to be called splitters but we’re now politically correct and using the technical jargon for dissociative identity disorder individuals. Get it? Didi-shifters.”

I’d heard of splitters but thought they didn’t really exist, sort of like the boogeyman. But come to think of it all of us in the warehouse were bogeymen to a lot of humans. Splitters though were the stuff of legends, sort of a cross between a shifter/Were and a chameleon. Because they could assume different animal shapes historically they were very adept as assassins and liquidators. Which tended to make them loners and very wary.

“Repelled?” he asked, and I could hear him bracing for my response.

“You’re talking to a shamanistic witch,” I laughed. “Who am I to cast stones because you’re something rare and unusual.”

His shoulders relaxed as he replied. “That’s a nice way to put it. Rare and unusual. Not what I usually hear once someone figures out how much of a face-ache I am.”

“Face-ache?”

“You know, a freak, screwed, outside the pale.”

I gave him a get-real look. “It’s not like there’s all that many any of us can share what we are with, so I wouldn’t waste any more time worrying about it.”

He laughed and scratched his head. “Truth is I don’t spend much time worried that the shifters will reject me, which they tend to do, or the Weres. That’s their problem.” He nodded his chin toward the closed door to the room. “He helped with that.”

“Willie?” I asked even as I guessed the real answer.

“Nah. Bran was the first git to not bat an eyelash when he found out. He treated me like his mate from the first and hasn’t ever changed.”

Obviously he knew a different side of Bran than I did. But I bit my tongue. Instead I asked, “So can you shift into other forms than a dog?”

“ I have to stay in the canidae family,” he said, “ But since that includes all canines; wolves, dholes, coyotes, jackals, and foxes, there’s enough variety to keep life interesting.”

I bet. I knew my shifter brothers were canis lupis, the Grey Wolf, and that they tended to look dow
n on dogs in part because dogs—canis lupus familiaris—were a subspecies of the Grey Wolf. The worst thing you could call a wolf shifter was any variation of the word dog. I learned that early, and often with my brothers. Not that it kept me from using dog-face, or stop me from telling them they were doggin’ it. Yeah, I was a glutton for punishment that way.

“So do you choose what you shift into?” I asked.

“Sometimes. Other times I let myself go and what I become is what I become. I’ve never let myself down.”

Speaking of letting someone down, my thoughts boomeranged back to Bran
. No surprise there.

I went back to drawing my line, taking a deep breath to calm my emotions. Any spell involved intentions, including one as simple as a scrying spell. But this wasn’t a casting like I’d used to find the doctor, this one used blood, which immediately catapulted it into the tread-lightly zone.

As I drew my circle I was drawing my safety zone, separating what was within from what was without. If I brought strong negative emotions with me into the creation of the sacred space, I was calling forth negativity from the world around me. The last thing I needed or wanted.

“Aren’t you drawing that in the wrong direction?”
François
asked, as I scooted forward about a foot at a time to create the nine-foot circle.

“It’s drawn clockwise for invocation, counterclockwise for banishing.” I released a breath as I sat back on my heels. “Don’t want to banish Van but call forth his location.”

Not that using the banishing spell might not be perfect for certain others. Speak of the devil, as I heard footsteps join
François
. I didn’t have to look to see who’d come in, I knew in my gut. Though it was funny that I didn’t often hear him move.

“We brought the material you wanted,” he said, setting a paper bag near me, being sure not to cross the circle. Even though warlocks were kith and kin of witches our magic was different, and often at odds with one another
. Which described Bran’s and my relationship to a T.

I still didn’t acknowledge him. Petty of me, but hey I was the one about to plunge headfirst into a world I vowed never to venture. But then I’d broken other vows. Not to practice magic, period. Then not to ever use the spell to usurp others’ abilities. Look where those vows got me.

Right here, on a concrete floor in a cool room as the waxing moon hovered high in the sky outside the room’s only window.

With another calming breath I realized that with each breath I inhaled I was holding tight to my anger, but the exhales allowed me to release a little of my frustration, and my fear.

Time to pull on my big girl panties and admit none of this was Bran’s fault. It was mine. My choices created this outcome. Not his.

Releasing another sigh that started somewhere near my feet, I knew I was doing this for myself. If selling my soul to the dark side helped me save Van, then so be it.

I reached across the chalk line and pulled the bag closer, reaching inside for the four candles and setting them aside. Who knew they could find four different colors on short notice in the heart of Paris. The mugwort, sage, burdock root and cedar in small plastic baggies I moved within hands’ length to my right. The last item was in a fancy container; French sea salt.

I looked up at Willie who smiled and shrugged. “I didn’t know what kind of salt you needed. Figured the fancy stuff might help more.”

“Thanks.” It was a nice gesture and I knew it came from a good place within him. “Can someone get me a small bowl of water?”

Both
François
and Willie scrambled. I shouted after them, “Preferably a stone or hand potted bowl if you can find one.”

There was a mumbled, “Will do,” echoing from the kitchen area.

I rose to my feet, brushing chalk dust from my hands against my jeans, only too aware that this was a fairly large room yet with only Bran and I in it seemed too small.

I finally found enough backbone to look at him and wished I hadn’t. There were times when Bran would walk into a room or I’d see him after being away from him for a while and I’d get that knee to the solar plexus take-my-breath-away response. Totally unbidden and mostly unwelcome but damn, there it was.

Maybe it was the thickness of his midnight hair, or the slash of his cheekbones, the lean length of him, the breadth of his shoulders, heck, it was a hundred small details that made my legs weak and my stomach tumble over and over.

And I could hate him for that, even as I hated myself more. He was warlock, enemy to witches, and thus enemy to me. But why couldn’t I remember that like any sane witch?

He stepped close, too close, sucking all of the air from the room. I’m not sure if he meant the move as threat or something else. I wasn’t ready for either. Just as I opened my mouth to growl at him he raised one hand to brush his fingers along my cheek as his other hand slid to my waist. All thought fled.

Instead all I did was feel, the roughness of his fingers taking a slow leisurely path from brow to cheek bone to jaw
. When had just a touch sent me headfirst into a freefall? He so did not play fair.

He started to speak, his voice hoarse and guttural, “Alex . . .”

Damn him. Just when I needed all my wits about me he scattered them like so much dandelion fluff. I cleared my throat and stepped back, desperate to put some space between us. Something to keep me from drowning. Or begging.

We both spoke at once.

“Why’d you . . .“

“I shouldn’t have . . .”

We both stopped and I waved him on. He looked like he’d prefer to swallow his tongue but he cleared his throat and said, “I know what I’m asking you to do here. I should have been more forthright about this being a possibility when we left the hotel this afternoon.”

And that’s why he kept turning my world topsy-turvy. Warlocks didn’t offer apologies, because they’d have to admit they were in the wrong. Yet that’s exactly what he’d just done. How could you fight a concession? More not playing fair. At this rate he could write the handbook on how to mess with a woman’s head. And heart.

I angled my head to look at him, really seeing the cost of his words. He was mage-born which meant he understood the price of black magic. Most warlocks and sorcerers not only went down the path of black magic, they raced toward it, arms wide open. White magic was benign and helpful for life’s small things, sort of the Band-Aid on the world’s dings and bruises. Black magic was the opposite. If you had an owie white magic would make you feel better. If your femoral artery was cut you called on black magic. You’d save your limb but lose your soul in the process.

I glanced away, looking at the circle, stilling the beating of my heart. Bran knew since he’d returned from the Council meeting earlier that we’d end up here. I think that’s what bothered me the most. He knew but hadn’t been honest enough to say up front, hey, remember how you used me yesterday? Well, payback’s a bitch.

But that’s not what I really wanted to say. I was afraid. For him, for me; if the Council acted against him. If we couldn’t find Vaverek. So many ifs I was swallowed whole by them. The words on the tip of my tongue scared me. Scared me more than what I was about to do.

Thankfully
François
and Willie returned before I had to come up with a nice lie – one of the kind that started with,
it doesn’t really matter.

“
François
thought this should be cold water but I figured warm water would be nicer to put your hands into.” Willie clutched the bowl in his wide grip. “If that’s what you’re going to do.”

“I am.” I smiled at him. A sight he obviously wasn’t used to, or maybe because it’d been twice in a row, but he ducked his head as if I’d patted him, or scared the crap out of him, disarming him before I attacked.

Okay, reputation well deserved.

Before I reached out to grab the bowl I erased a portion of the chalk line with the toe of the fancy shoes
François
had given me only yesterday. They sure didn’t look like pricey designer shoes anymore.

I set the bowl in the middle of the circle as I grabbed the candles and thrust them toward
François
. “Here I need these set in the following directions—To the south, place the red one; North, the brown; West, the blue, and orange in the east.”

François
handed two to Bran, one to Willie and they all set them out as I re-chalked the line and returned to the middle where the bowl of water and the bloodied napkin rested on the floor. I kept my eyes averted from it but it was like a lighthouse beacon pulsing at me, warning me of danger.

As if I didn’t know that already.

“When I say so I want you to light the candles.” I took a deep breath before adding, “No matter what happens you must remain absolutely silent and stay outside the circle.”

“What’s going to happen?” Willie asked.

“If all goes right I find the general area where Van is.”

“And if not—ow, I was just asking,” he snapped at
François
.

It was Bran who answered, though. “Let’s focus on making sure all goes right.”

I bet the guys who took up bomb disposal heard the same comment on their first day of the job. Because that’s what it felt like right then. I faced a ten-ton bomb with shaking fingers.