Night Shadow (20 page)

that this woman could feasibly be here to see
Alex.
Lexi’s heart did a little

hop and skip of annoyance. Of course she could be here to see any of the

men. But Alex was the most obvious. He was the most intel igent, the best

looking, and damn him, the sexiest member of the team. What woman

wouldn’t want him?

What woman would consider betraying the organization she worked for to

keep her lover’s secrets?

She narrowed her eyes as Lark bent over the coffee table to pour tea from

a fat white teapot painted with purple pansies into a matching, gold-

rimmed cup. The tea service, the plate of cookies, and the silver milk and

sugar servers hadn’t been there a second before.

The wizard straightened, holding out the translucent cup and saucer.

“Tea?”

“I don’t dr—” She paused as Lark raised a pierced eyebrow. “Sure.” Lexi

took the saucer, a little bemused.

“Oh, this outfit isn’t suitable for tea, isn’t suitable at all.” Lark was

suddenly wearing a flouncy, gossamer sheer, freaking baby-pink party

dress. She’d kept the knee-high black boots. Pale pink feathers, woven

into her long hair, wafted around her head like the snakes of Medusa as

she moved.

Lexi sank into an easy chair with her unwanted tea. “The team is

working,” she told her visitor curtly. She had things to do and problems to

resolve. And a report she didn’t want to make to be made. She didn’t

believe in procrastination. Putting things off was a waste of time and

counterproductive. She took a sip of the steaming tea and burned her

tongue. She hated tea. It tasted like wet tree bark.

She set the cup and saucer on a nearby table. As much as she’d like to

put off her report until midnight, she knew she had to call it in now. She

had no choice.

“I’m not here to see the men. I’m here to hear your report,” Lark told her,

reaching out her hand. A cookie, on a doily-covered plate, materialized on

her palm.

“Shortbread,” she told Lexi, her teacup hovering within easy reach while

she took a bite. She brushed away a crumb with a finger tipped in black

nail polish and weighted with a heavy silver ring. Every finger on both

hands bore at least one ring, most of them three or four. The woman

apparently liked jewelry as much as she liked Goth makeup and the color

black. “My fave. Al right, then. Let’s have it.”

Lexi felt as though she’d fallen down the proverbial rabbit hole. “Have

what?”

“Today, I’m representing the Wizard Council, darling. We work with T-

FLAC’s Internal Affairs division when it comes to the psi unit. Your report

on Alexander Stone. Is he, or isn’t he, a rogue operative?” Lark sipped her

tea, waving the other hand in a circular “speak up” motion.

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Night Shadow

Lexi’s mind went a mile a minute. She didn’t doubt that Lark was who she

said she was. But she found, despite her own pep talk, that she wasn’t

ready to report Alex’s actions. Not yet. Not now.

“Untangle the emotion of it, lovey. Just tel me what you know. For

example, why are you
here
when the rest of your team is at the Sydney

Opera House, looking for the bad guys?”

“I don’t have to cal in until midnight.” Lexi hated that she sounded as

defensive as she felt. Not good. Relax. It’s not as though the other woman

could read minds . . . Her blood ran cold. Or could she?

The other woman tapped a short, black-lacquered fingernail against her

cup. “What happened at the Opera House this morning?”

Shit shit shit.
“I’m not sure.”

“Yes, you are.” The playful lady of the manor was gone. This woman, this

wizard,
wasn’t dicking around. What did she know?

Lexi’s palms felt damp. “I’m—Alex and Ruben Ginsberg got into a brawl

backstage. I didn’t see who started it. The end result was Stone stabbed

Ginsberg.”

“And killed him?”

Lexi bit her lip and nodded.

Lark’s hair cascaded down her arm as she tilted her head. A flock of pink

feathers floated in the air to drift to the floor. “You observed this?” She

sipped her tea, watching Lexi over the gold rim of her cup.

Lexi felt sick to her stomach, remembering the two men circling each

other backstage. Their faces contorted with anger, their Ka-Bar knives

flashing as they feinted and parried. Why had Alex been so angry? She

could have dealt with Ginsberg herself, he must’ve known that. “The fight?

Yes.” It had been brutal, and had terrified her. She’d known as soon as

she’d come across the two men fighting that one of them would end up

dead.

Lark put down her cup. “You’l file a written report, of course.”

Lexi nodded. A lump in her throat made swallowing difficult. She felt the

ridiculous, and nearly unfamiliar, urge to cry. Something she hadn’t done

since she was four and realized how damned useless it was. Keeping very

still so that she didn’t betray any of the turmoil she felt inside, she said

quietly, “His actions must have been justified. He’s not an impulsive or

violent man.”

“You know this about him, do you now?”

Lexi thought of the blood dripping down Alex’s throat from Ginsberg’s

knife. The blood seeping into the fabric of his pants from the thigh wound.

Even in such a short time he was bruised and battered. The fight had been

brief and violent. “Yes. I
know
that about him. Whatever happened, I’m

sure there was a valid reason for Stone’s actions.”

Pink feathers fluttered. “Hmm.”

Lexi sipped the tea she didn’t want to give her something to do. It hadn’t

improved by getting cold. She put the cup down. “What’s going to happen

to him?”

Lark rose, the delicate layers and folds of her dress falling about her

leather-clad ankles like rose petals. “Alex? This is a serious accusation, of

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Night Shadow

course. We’l investigate it further. Ginsberg’s body wil be autopsied.

Were there any other witnesses?”

“Y—No. Just me.” She wasn’t sure she’d recognize, or even
find
the two

guys she’d seen briefly during the fight.

“Hmm.” Lark murmured again, then disappeared.

Lexi stared at Lark’s empty chair. “Hmm?! What the
hel
does
hmm

mean?”

“Fuck me,” Daklin muttered after Kiersted repeated his story. They were

meeting in the staff cafeteria of the theater where they’d had a quick

lunch and discussed their options. “Impossible.”

“No shit.” Kiersted chugged his soda and lobbed the can across the room

into the recycle bin. “First words out of my mouth when we materialized

at the safe house.”

Alex blew out a hard breath as he stood. “You’re
sure
?”

“As death and taxes. Checked and
triple
-checked,” Kiersted answered, as

he, Lu, and Daklin rose as wel . Lunch had been a quick sandwich and an

unpleasant twist of a conversation.

Kiersted continued. “No mistaking it. Deader than a dodo. I teleported the

body to HQ. Let
them
try to figure it out.”

Alex started walking, and the men fel in with him. “Lexi didn’t kill him. I

was there for the end of it.”

“
I
was there for the end of it, too,” Kiersted reminded him as the doors

swung closed behind them. “The dickhead was very much alive, although

not kicking, at the time of teleport.”

Ginsberg had been frozen, so, yeah, no kicking. And he hadn’t goddamned

stabbed
himself.
“I called in my report. They’l get back when they know

something.” The whole fucking incident was il ogical. Lexi out of control.

Ginsberg dead. The vision. Al of it right in the fucking middle of an op.

If it wasn’t so serious, he would have been amused. Because if Lexi had

been pissed at Ginsberg, it was nothing compared to how pissed she must

be right now cooling her jets at the safe house.

Alex pushed the thought of Lexi from his mind. She was at the safe house

because that’s where he knew she was safest. And if that made him

sexist, he didn’t give a flying fuck. He didn’t ever, in this
lifetime,
want to

see her that badly hurt again. “Lu. Fil us in on the school situation.”

Alex was taking that extremely realistic visit/vision seriously. Why he’d

had the flash was stil a mystery. But his gut said it was important.

The other man took out a hand-drawn map of Sydney as they walked.

“You said the kids on the bus looked about ten or twelve, right? So a

primary school. That eliminates half the schools in the area. The uniforms

eliminated the government schools. These—this one, this one, and these

three are intercity schools. You said suburban. This here might be the

one—”

Alex tried to read the scrawl. “Jesus. Where’d you learn to write? Give me

some street names, let’s see if I picked up any more than images.” Alex

scanned the short list of schools and their addresses. “That’s it. Kilgetty

Points Public School.” He felt a rush of anticipation. “Daklin? Stay or go?”

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Night Shadow

Daklin met his gaze. “Go. Locals have this covered. My gut tel s me this

isn’t the target.”

“What about Stone?” Lu asked casually. “She’s got every right to expect

to be with us on this all the way.”

Alex didn’t needed reminding. “She was out of control.”

Kiersted considered it for a moment. “An anomaly. Something Ginsberg

did might have aggravated her? Don’t know. But she’s a member of the

team, and as such, she belongs with us.”

Alex wanted her with him. And the men were right. Lexi belonged with the

group. “I’l go get her.” He turned Lu’s map right side up. “Meet you here

in this park in ten. Stick together, and for God’s sake—if anyone else

suddenly starts behaving out of character, freeze and assess for possible

instant teleportation to HQ.”

There was a first time for everything. This was the first time Lexi had ever

been invisible. It was pretty damned cool, really. Sure, she was still pissed

off at Alex, but he got points for bringing her back in on the op. And

double brownie points for letting her experience invisibility. She had a

little vertigo from the teleport, but other than that she felt great. The five

of them stood across the street from the single-story Kilgetty Points Public

School building.

“Too quiet,” Alex said softly into his lip mic and directly into her ear. He

stood right beside her, and she felt the heat of his body against her bare

arm. When he’d come to get her at the safe house he’d offered no

explanation for his earlier behavior. He’d waited while she went to her

room to get her backup Sig, offering no freaking explanation for not

returning her Glock either. She wanted her weapon back. Both had been

handcrafted especial y for her.

She’d strapped her Ka-Bar into a shoulder harness, a smal fighting knife

to her ankle, holstered the Sig, and then gone back to give him a

bel igerent glare before he’d teleported them to join the team. The knife

wounds he’d sustained in his altercation with Ginsberg were practically

gone. Just a few thin red lines to indicate the other man had tried to cut

his throat.

Alex could have died on that stage. Died and not known how she felt . . .

God, Alexis. Get a freaking grip. Working here!

Lexi scanned the unnatural y quiet surroundings, opening all her senses.

Pretty. Clean. The school was on one side of the street, the park

surrounded by modest homes on the other. The lawns were all wel

manicured, flowerbeds wel tended. She’d gone to a similar school, and

lived in a similar neighborhood when she’d been eleven. Carson City,

Nevada. Her parents had opened a T-shirt shop there.

The house had been a rental, and they’d only managed to pay the rent for

five months before the shop went belly-up and they’d skipped town. But

she’d enjoyed the community, and loved the teacher.

Forget the trip down memory lane, Stone. Look for clues.
Anything. It was

an advantage that they could see and not be seen. There was definitely

something off here.

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Night Shadow

“Too quiet,” he muttered again.

Alex was right. It
was
too quiet. The end-of-school bell had rung seconds

after their arrival six point nine minutes before.

But no children burst through the double red front doors to fil the line of

small school buses, or dashed out to catch their rides. On either side of

the wide, tree-lined street, mothers and a few fathers waited in their air-

conditioned vehicles for the kids to come out.

“No birds singing,” Lexi observed. The silence was unnatural, eerie. The