INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (3 page)

CHAPTER 7

“Bran!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, not knowing where he was or if he’d even answer.

“You called?”

Damn him, he was right behind me. Leave it to a warlock to scare the pants off me in the middle of a smack down with a dozen preternaturals. I straightened and glanced at him over my shoulder.

“I need your help.”

He arched one arrogant brow that made me want to slug him. But I didn’t have time. Now.

“I need to link.”

“Because?”

Oh for the love of the Goddess could he be more difficult?

“They’re going to die.” I waved my hand toward my teammates. “Unless we can do a freeze spell.”

“We?”

“Yes, you and me.”

“Last time we did you killed my cousin.”

Only a warlock would bring that up at a time like this. A quick look forward told me Jaylene was down on one knee and Mandy wasn’t far behind.

“Fine. I’ll do it myself.” Which I couldn’t and we both knew it. For one thing I didn’t have the spell to the freeze time part, only the containment part. And no way did I have enough power alone to stop so many people. I hadn’t even been able to hold a Were tiger and a baboon at the same time.

But if I did nothing they’d die.

Turning my back on Bran I stepped forward, narrowing my eyes and sucking in a deep breath to calm my racing heart.

“Seriously, Alex, you’re going to try this alone?”

I ignored him. It wasn’t like there were a dozen powerful magical creatures lining up behind me to help.

Balance. Focus. Intention.

Skip the time element and go for the containment spell even if it failed last time.

Exhaling slowly I started the chant,
“Continere. Continere. Continere.”

“You’ll kill yourself,” he mumbled behind me, his words ice cold.

“Save you the trouble,” I shot back, my tone telling him to back off. I meant it.

Only days ago he’d promised to kill me if I didn’t track down and apprehend Vaverek. Well I couldn’t do that without my team
. But more than that these women had become my friends. Okay, not all of them, but some of them and as long as I could breathe I wouldn’t let them die. With or without the help of one arrogant, stick-up-his-butt warlock.

Even as I inhaled to continue the chant I heard him. “Alright.”

I exhaled, relief flooding me.

Then he added, “But only because I still need you to track down Vaverek.”

“Of course.”   I said it in a smarmy voice, but he’d earned that. But he just stood there. I shot him a what-are-you-waiting-for glance. “We don’t have a lot of time. Could you get started?”

He tightened his jaw then nudged me aside to focus his Celtic blue gaze on the mess before us.

“Hemma, hanna, druia.”
He chanted, a low, deep baritone, the words so ancient I didn’t know their origin, but I could feel their punch. Right in the solar plexus.
“Hemma, druia, sanctum.” 

That was it. If he manipulated time just a smidge I could do the rest.

I pushed forward until my shoulder brushed his and joined my voice with his, “
Continere. Continere. Continere.”

Like a wind tunnel beginning its process of morphing into a killer tornado I could feel the power tugging, building, but it wasn’t enough, not near enough.

I willed Bran to try harder, work faster, do something more and then I felt it, the sweet siren song of power calling my name.

Like a childhood rhyme the words thrummed within me, taunting me. I didn’t have to rely on Bran. I had everything within me and more.

No. My father’s voice echoed through me. Never, Alex. Remember your promise.

But here? With good people’s lives on the line, he’d understand. He’d have to understand.

He’s not here.
This wasn’t my dad but another voice whispering around me. A calming voice. Feminine. Nurturing.

Mom?

It’s okay Alex. You were given the gift to use it, not hide from it.

But?

Do not be afraid. I’m with you.

And just like that I knew what I would do. What I had to do.

Swallowing deeply I stood taller and started pulling from Bran’s magic. Making it my own.

Adeo. Adeo
. Agero. Adepto.

Come. Come. Increase. Acquire.

“Don’t, Alex,” Bran whispered at my side. “It’s too dangerous.”

What did he know? He didn’t care about me. He just wanted to use me.

Listen to yourself. I’m here with you. You’re not alone.
The woman’s voice again. It had to be Mom. Who else could it be?

I steeled my own voice as I continued.

Suscipio. Solvo.

Receive
. Break free.

I pulled words I didn’t know I knew. Was my mother really here? Helping me?

Singluaris. Praesentia presencia.

Free the power.

Bran glanced at me, a frown knitted between his brows, but neither of us could speak. It was taking everything we had to weave the magic.

A heady rush washed against me so that I braced myself so I wasn’t   pulled, not only from Bran but all the other non-human abilities around us
. And there were a lot of preternaturals in the street.

I stood statue-still in the nexus of a power vortex as I reveled in the potency roaring through me. Dangerous to everyone around
. But not me.

This is what you’re meant to do.

The woman’s voice. I nodded, accepting.

Biting my lip till I drew blood, I tasted the copper taint and zeroed in
. Thrice called, thrice to contain.

“As thou be, so now change. Thought to image. Image to bind. Bind to blood let.”

I raised my hands skyward, aware of the swirl of grit and particles from the destroyed outdoor café whirling around us. One of the demons and two of the fae paused in their forward assault to look around them.

But they wouldn’t be in time, because like a psychic vampire I tapped into their power too.

“Continere. Continere. Continere,”
I shouted, feeling free, truly free.

A crack of thunder roared across the sunny day. A flash of white-gold light. Everyone on the street froze, then dropped, unconscious.

Even as my arms flopped to my side, drained, I caught a quick movement out of the corner of my eye. From the second story window the twitch of a lace curtain fluttered and fell into stillness.

Vaverek’s apartment
.

I sank to my knees and knew the worst. Whoever, whatever he was, he now knew my secret. He knew how powerful I could be, harnessing others, willingly or not. He knew there are only two things to do with a weapon like me.

Use me or destroy me.

CHAPTER 8

“I don’t know what you did, or how you did it,” Mandy groused less than an hour later, cradling her still healing arm with her good one. “But next time do it without the splitting headache aftermath.”

“You’re welcome,” I mumbled, still too exhausted to even fight verbally with her. It wasn’t the weariness weighing my bones though that was bothering me, it was the fear roiling through my stomach. What had I done? My arms trembled and I wiped sweat from my face as the Spring day chilled my skin.

As if echoing my thoughts, Stone limped up, glaring down at me. “You want to explain what the hell just happened?”

“We won?” I couldn’t raise my gaze to his. My father had warned me about this, exposing my freakish ability. The first time my dad had seen me lose my temper and manipulate others’ abilities he walloped me a good one then found me a witch mentor. I was barely fifteen, and that lasted about three months.

Second time I forgot and let my fear drive my actions, I’d ended up in prison. And today?

Today the team knew I was a loose cannon.

Why the hell I couldn’t have just waited, seen if Bran could have stopped time long enough to extract my teammates and get the hell out of Dodge, or Paris?

Now even he had vamoosed, no doubt as wary of me as my teammates were. By the Spirits, they were smart to be.

I had to be the savior and throw caution to the wind. As if. And who was the woman speaking to me?

Too many questions, not enough answers.

“Talk to me, Noziak,” Stone demanded, his voice ratcheted back to a low throttle. He looked wrung out, but then fighting a vampire at full form was not easy and he was far from full form
. “Tell me what you did here?”

What he was really asking was what kind of scary freak are you and should we cut our losses now and send you back to prison? I could read between the lines.

I’d taken their power from them. What was the price going to be for that? There would be a price and I wouldn’t be able to hide from it.

Stone had been the one who’d rounded up the dead preternaturals and disposed of them
. But why did they all die? Had my sucking their power killed them? A question that I could tell was bothering Stone, and me. Connecting what I’d done to those deaths meant I was going to be out of the agency so fast I’d get whiplash. But that was better than what could happen to me if the Council of Seven learned I was what I was.

Talk about being between the rock and a hard place.

The Council was ruled by seven beings who’d earned a seat for life and who held ultimate power among all the preternaturals, non-humans and magic-endowed people like me. The Council’s sole function was to keep the knowledge of non-humans from humans and sometimes that took draconian measures.

Not that I was losing any grief over the Weres, demons, fae and other assorted beasties that we’d just contained. It had been a near call that we were the victors and not being carted off in body bags, what pieces of us that would have been left.

At least that’s what I told myself. I was glad to be alive and glad my team was alive too, but I wanted to spew out everything in my stomach just thinking about the ramifications of my actions. I was still shaking from the use of so much strong magic. Or was it from the lure of holding such power over others; too much power, seductive and still calling to me. This made black magic look like child’s play.

I hunched over on a curb near the demolished café. How did I undo what had just happened? Hope only Stone was aware of the ramifications? Pray to the Great Spirits that the others had been too busy fighting to know exactly what went down? Sneak away now before Jaylene and Vaughn joined us?

  Kelly was already sitting to my left. She couldn’t see the destruction around us, because as a side effect of her ability to turn literally invisible, for every minute of transparency she experienced, she was blind for double the time once she popped back into corporal form. She might accept what I’d done but I doubted the others would.

Vaughn and Jaylene had just checked Vaverek’s apartment, which had been sanitized, but they were standing far enough away with their backs to me that I could make a dash, if my legs could hold me.

“Thought your intel was supposed to be good,” Mandy continued to grumble at my side. But at least she was shifting the conversation away from my magic spell casting. Stone’s look said he wasn’t finished with me yet, so I’d better enjoy my reprieve.

Trust me, Mandy couldn’t kick me any harder than I was kicking myself
. “Technically Vaverek
was
in that apartment.”

“So you say.” Mandy shot me one of her patented WTF looks. “But your informant didn’t share he was there as bait. I thought your warlock wanted to track down Vaverek.”

“He does.”  I ignored Mandy’s first statement. I doubted that she wanted to hear that Bran had warned us, only it was almost too late. And he didn’t want Vaverek except as a means to another end. And Vaverek was dead once Bran had the intel he wanted.

Keep talking about Bran, not about what I’d done.

“Lay off her, Mandy,” Stone said. “Some ops go belly up.”

I glanced at him, not sure I’d heard him right. The kick-ass and take-no-prisoners instructor was giving me a break
? Or a small, additional reprieve before he struck?

My shoulders sagged as I fought to keep my stomach contents down.

Mandy eyed him too, but before she could verbally launch into him he surveyed the street and spoke as if to himself. “Vaverek must have damn good intel to know who we are and that we were coming.”

“Could he have used a seer?” I asked, not wanting to look at the other possibilities, especially ones involving warlocks betraying us. One warlock in particular.

Or maybe it was Bran who had set us up to see if I could do what I just did?

By the Mother Goddess that made things worse.

Stone glanced away, examining the street as if seeking insights there. “Vaverek had enough lead time to empty the street of humans and bring in reinforcements. These weren’t bodyguards, but a group specifically assembled to stop us. To test us in several ways. Which is why they had us surrounded before we even tumbled to them.”

I glanced at the silver ring on my finger, designed to alert us to the presence of preternaturals. Sort of an early warning device. “Why didn’t the rings work?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

“I’m going to make sure I find out,” Stone promised with a tone that said when he did it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Find out what?” Vaughn asked as she and Jaylene walked up and joined us. All of us looked pretty worse for wear, except her. I swear the woman had to be non-human to look that put together after battling preternaturals
. I willed her not to bring up what happened at the end.

Bless her heart, she didn’t, though she gave me a smooth look that said we’ll-be-talking-later.

Not if I could help it.

“The set up this morning was too good, too orchestrated and too smooth to be reactive,” Stone replied, rubbing one hand along the back of his neck. “Vaverek, whoever the hell he is, has some good inside connections.”

“Didn’t we already know that?” Kelly was the only one amongst us, other than Vaughn, who might call Stone on something and not regret it for the rest of her life. “Alex brought the intel from her last assignment that suggested Vaverek was involved with something called the Seekers.”

“Something or someone,” I mumbled. “All we know after nearly getting killed is that Vaverek is a stronger adversary than we thought, has more resources available than we assumed, and is willing to risk a dozen preternaturals to find out our strengths and weaknesses.”

“Nice summation.” Jaylene nodded, arms crossed. “I’d say Vaverek one, the IR Agency zero. Even with whatever Alex just pulled off.”

I shook my head, regret making it hard to even spin back a response.

“So what now?” Kelly looked around as if trying to read our expressions behind her still-blind eyes.

No one answered right away. Though I noted everyone kept their gazes averted from mine.

I stood to shake off my lethargy. Noziaks don’t mope. Well, not for long. All I managed to accomplish though was to set off the bongo drums in my head.

I squared my shoulders before I spoke. “Jaylene’s wrong.”

“About what?” Mandy stepped forward to defend her ally. I had to give her credit for being willing to mess with me after what she’d seen me do.

“It’s Vaverek two, IR Agency zip.” I let my gaze rest on each of them individually, even sightless Kelly before I spoke again. “Vaverek is still holding my brother hostage and Van’s time is running out.”

“If he’s still alive.”

Leave it to Chiquita-girl to stick the blade in and twist.

“Yeah, if he’s alive.” Like it or not I had to agree. Every hour that Van remained a prisoner meant that whatever torture he was going through would be successful. And once that intel was extracted, Van was no longer needed.

Think about him. Not me and my screw up.

My brother knew a heap-lot about the preternaturals who worked with humans, particularly in Europe, even if those humans didn’t know who, or what, were rubbing shoulders with them. Expose those non-humans and all hell would break out; pogroms, witch-hunts, mass stakings of anyone assumed to be a preternatural. The Council of Seven would no longer be able to hide the existence of non-humans and neighbor would be eyeing neighbor worldwide.

“You look like you have a plan.” Vaughn’s voice shook me from my dark thoughts. “It’d better include all of us.”

Not what I wanted right then. What I had in mind was better accomplished witch-to-warlock. Alone. “Yeah, I do.”

“Going to share?” Jaylene nudged.

“Vaverek may have won this round.” I scuffed my beat up shoe against the sidewalk, wondering how I was going to get what I wanted, a free hand, only make it seem like someone else’s idea. “But there are five of us, six including Stone.”

“Don’t forget Ling Mai.” Kelly came to her feet.

Jaylene snorted. “Yeah, she’s a nuke all on her own.”

Ling Mai was the head of our agency and Jaylene was right. Our secret weapon working behind the scenes.

“So we have seven to one.” I was just warming up. “Surely between us we can find and nail this bastard.”

Mandy played devil’s advocate. “Paris is a big city.”

“But we’ve already destroyed a city block and the morning’s still young.” Use humor to deflect them from looking too closely at what I wanted to do, which was a solo mission.

Stone stepped into the mix. ”You’re saying let’s get a move on it.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Play to our strengths. Ferret out where this guy’s hiding. How he connects with the troop he sent after us. Rattle some people.”

Stone shrugged, then shot a lightning fast, and sexy grin at Vaughn. “Princess, you should have some contacts here from your days as an ambassador’s daughter.”

“Damn right I do,” she purred back. “Bet I get a lead on Vaverek before you do.”

“You’re on.”  Stone had to have some Irish in him to rise to the bait that easily. Either that or there was an unstated sub-bet going on, not that I needed the details.

But at least two of them were heading out on their own. Three left to take care of.

“I don’t know a lot of French but I do know the underbelly of a city.” Jaylene stepped forward. “I’m sure I can shake loose something.”

“I can help,” Mandy said, looking resigned. “I speak French.”

We all glanced at her. Chiquita had hidden depths. Who knew?

“What about me?” Kelly piped up. “Once I get my sight back I should be able to do something.”

“We need a coordinator. Someone we can all report to who will also be able to track all of us so no one runs into another Vaverek ambush.”

“Playground monitor?” she replied with a small smile.

“Call it what you want, we still need you.” Leave it to Vaughn to make a crap job sound like the lynchpin position. “We’re stronger as a team. Less risky for all of us.”

“I agree,” Stone added, looking straight at me. “Now’s the time to use what we have together. No individual heroics.”

He looked at me in particular but waited until each of us nodded in assent. My nod must have been the least impressive, and Stone’s frown indicated he’d noticed. But he said nothing.

“I’ll go back to the Campanile then.” Kelly’s tone saying she’d make the best of being stuck at the cheap hotel we were staying at while the rest of us went hunting.

Stone threw a kibosh into my plans by clearly announcing, “Alex, you head out with Mandy and Jaylene. There’s safety in numbers.”

Yeah, right, as if I didn’t know what he really wanted—them to keep an eye on me. I guess I should have been grateful that he didn’t pull me off the team right then and there. On the other hand, knowing Stone as I’d come to know him over the last few weeks, I bet he was giving me just enough rope to hang myself.

Then he added, “Just in case your warlock was the one who set us up here, I want zero contact with him. By anyone.”