Night Shadow (31 page)

Probably thirty minutes. Maybe less.

While Lexi had kept guard over him, he’d been aware of her every breath,

her every light touch as
he’d
watched over
her.
Hel , be real. He hadn’t

wanted to waste what could possibly be their last few hours together.

Idiot.

“No. I see you didn’t,” Lark said regretful y. “I’m sorry for that. But

hopeful y this wil be over sooner than later.”

“Yeah. Hopeful—” He squinted against bright sunlight streaming through

wide windows as suddenly they stood in a sunny kitchen. A large wood,

stone, black iron kitchen with a fireplace big enough to roast a cow in. Ah.

126

Night Shadow

Just as he’d suspected, Gabriel Edge’s castle on the plains of Montana.

Nice to know where the fuck he was.

Lucas and Simon sat at the table, nursing mugs of coffee. Jesus, it was

good to see them. Good to be together again. Good, God help him, to

know he wasn’t alone in this. “Morning, fel ow Borgs.”

“What’s a Borg?” Lark asked fol owing him, her high-heeled boots clicking

on the tiled floor.

“It’s a reference to the television show
Star Trek.
” Duncan, wearing jeans

and a thick cream sweater, indicated the half-empty pot set in a fancy

Italian coffeemaker.

“We have new intel,” he announced, pushing away from the counter to

join the others at the table. “Want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Christ. I thought we got a pretty large dose of bad news last night.”

Lucas reached for the pot Alex had brought to the table with him. “What

the hel . Go ahead and hit us with the bad first.”

“I don’t know how to tel you guys this, other than flat-out. None of you

are ful wizards.”

Simon paused, his mug halfway to his mouth. He put it down on the

scarred kitchen table very careful y. “You’re kidding, right?”

Impossible. Alex knew he and his friends were ful wizards. They couldn’t

have gotten into T-FLAC/psi if they weren’t. “We were tested.”

“We don’t have Half Trace,” Lucas, who could pick out a Half from a mile

away—literally—pointed out.

“You’re not Halfs either,” Duncan said grimly. “Each of you is technically a

third.
For all these years, Knight has been able to manipulate your

powers, and your Trace signals, to indicate that you’re ful s.”

Alex couldn’t wrap his brain around the concept of not being who he

believed he was. The last shred of his identity turned to confetti. Thirty-six

years of lies. And if he wasn’t a wizard, then what the fuck was he? Just a

manufactured freak?

Sunlight bounced off the snowy grounds outside the thick castle walls,

flooding the warm, homey kitchen with light. His vision dimmed and

everything looked bleak and gray.

This was inconceivable. Impossible.

Fucking bul shit to the tenth power. “No mistake?” he demanded, mouth

dry. He tried making sense of this latest blow. Duncan Edge shook his

head.

From Lucas’s shel -shocked expression he was thinking the same thoughts

as Alex.
“Why?”

“Genetically?” Duncan shrugged. “We don’t know the logic. But it’s

indisputable. Look guys, everyone we have has been pul ed off other ops

to aid us in solving this one. T-FLAC/psi and regular operatives. From the

damned accounting departments to the janitorial staff.”

Lark, who was sitting up on the counter nearby, leaned forward, her

sequins and various piercings sparkling in the sunlight. It was

disconcerting looking at a woman who didn’t behave, or think, the way

she appeared. It might have to do with her age. He supposed a five-

hundred-and-thirty-two-year-old could dress, and speak, any way she

127

Night Shadow

pleased. What the hel did he know. At least she knew who and what she

was. He wasn’t even a goddamn wizard anymore.

“Everyone is working around the clock to give you boyos as much

information as possible before you confront Dr. Knight.” Empathy lit her

dark eyes. “You’re not alone.”

Alex glanced at each of his friends.

Yeah. They
were
alone. Very much so.

Because Mason Knight had manufactured them, then seen to their

training, developed their powers as if they were full wizards, and now

planned to assimilate them into the collective brain of his damned Vitros.

“Right,” Simon responded skeptically. “What’s our next step?”

“I have the relevant captured images of the left arm of seventy-three

Vitros,” Lexi said quietly from the doorway. Far from looking sleepy, she

was wide awake, wired, and on point. Al before he’d had his first cup of

coffee of the day. She was wearing her black cargo pants, combat boots,

and a fuzzy, pale pink sweater. Presumably borrowed from one of the

resident, but unseen, Edge wives.

She looked smoking hot. A fact he wasn’t about to share with her. He

didn’t want her here. But Lord, he was happy to see her beautiful,

determined face. Another hour’s reprieve? He’d take it.

“I’ve separated them into two piles.” She acknowledged the other men in

the room with a nod, but kept talking, gathering steam as she got closer.

“Partials. Which, while those can give us a better understanding of

locations, et cetera, aren’t going to give us the ful picture.”

She got to the table. “Like these wil .” She splayed a stack of eight-and-a-

half-by-eleven images on the table and kicked a chair free of the table

with her foot. The images, an enlargement of the forearm of one of the

Vitros, exposed the complete line of the bar code. The date and location of

the picture ran across the bottom.

“Out of those seventy-three, we have sixty-two complete bar codes.” She

sat down beside Alex, sliding his untouched mug a little closer to her.

Picking it up in both hands she took a sip. “We’re going to triangulate

Knight’s location from what we have.”

“Makes sense—thanks,” said Duncan as he provided everyone with a

computer, already humming, a holographic keyboard, and fil ed the empty

pot with steaming, fragrant coffee.

Without hesitation, Lexi’s fingers flew across her keyboard, fascinating

Alex in spite of his own need to concentrate on gathering any pertinent

data himself.

“You guys don’t need to figure out locations,” she told them absently,

completely focused on her monitor where numbers scrol ed. “I’m on it.”

He’d observed her doing just this on more than one occasion before he’d

materialized in her office and made himself known. She clearly had an

affinity for finding pertinent facts. Fast.

Her pale nape looked vulnerable as she bent over the keyboard. Alex

wanted to shift so he could press his mouth there. She had a little spot

just behind her ear—“You’re not looking at the pictures,” he murmured,

fascinated by the smooth line of her neck, and the silky hair at her nape.

128

Night Shadow

“Photographic memory. Remember? HQ supplied the coordinates of every

major city. I’m cross-matching those with the bar codes on the Vitros . . .”

“While Lexi does what she does best, let’s recap what we know. The

bombing and release of LZ17 was part of Knight’s show-and-tel .” Alex

pul ed his attention away from Lexi’s neck.

“Yeah,” Lucas inserted. “In each instance the highest bidder gets to

choose the city of detonation—just a small taste of what using LZ17 can

do. Clearly graduated annihilation; the explosions have been getting a

little bigger each time.”

“And presumably the money increased exponentially,” Simon offered. “But

that’s not Mason, is it?”

Al three men looked at each other.

Alex shook his head. “He wouldn’t care about the money. That would just

be a means of keeping score. He craves power.” The memory snuck in

delivering a sucker punch to the gut.
You boys have such fascinating jobs,

there with T-FLAC. I’d be honored to do consulting work for such a fine

organization. Hey, Alex-boy. I’d really like to get in on the ground floor on

that Afghani op you mentioned. Can you say a word?

And because he loved the man, he’d been blind enough to gladly oblige.

Simon rested his elbows on the table. “He’s renting out these Vitros as a

sustainable resource. I’m thinking he’s giving various terrorist groups a

sample of what an army like this can do. They wouldn’t need a bomb

delivery system. The Vitro is
it.
”

“Not in the school in Sydney,” Alex pointed out. “There they had the LZ17

canisters.”

“In the hope the media would get a good shot and publish it for bigger

fear factor?” Lucas suggested skeptical y.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Fingers stil flying, Lexi cleared her throat. “He’s been amassing viable

Vitros for at least the past five years. I’m finding reports of unexplained

black dust residue after terrorist attacks across the world. Hang on . . .”

“I thought you were getting us the coordinates of future locations?” Alex

retrieved his coffee and drank.

“That’s working in the background. This is interesting—They apparently

need heat to germinate or whatever they do. That explains Rio, and also

New Mexico. Of course there are plenty of hot spots in the world. I’l run a

probability study . . .”

“I’d like to hear
your
experiences with these power shortages.” Looking at

the guys, Alex slung a casual arm across the back of Lexi’s chair. There

wasn’t an atom in his body that felt casual about the conversation or the

situation. The gal ing truth was he needed the physical connection with

Lexi. Needed, like an addict needed his next fix. “I’ve gotta tel you guys I

was kinda embarrassed by it.”

“Were you?” Lucas gave Alex a knowing smile. “What’s the bet that deep

down we were all freaking shit-scared we were losing our powers? I know

I was.”

129

Night Shadow

“Yeah,” Alex leaned back in his chair. In his peripheral vision he could

watch Lexi. “I know I was. Christ, do you realize if we hadn’t been such

idiots, we would have known about this
weeks
ago?”

“Hey,” Simon filled his mug. “I tried calling you guys when I was in

Mallaruza. You never returned my calls.”

“Now isn’t that fucking odd?” Lucas said flatly. “I called and left messages

for both of you as wel .”

Alex frowned. “Ditto.”

Lexi glanced up. “None of you got those messages? Are you saying

someone inside T-FLAC sabotaged you?”

Alex looked from Lucas to Simon. “Thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Why don’t you share with the class,” Duncan suggested cool y.

“One of Knight’s powers is the ability to suggest the Death Urge.”

Duncan cursed.

Lexi looked up with a slight frown. “What does that mean? None of you

died. You just didn’t get your voice mail.”

“Eliminating communication is child’s play for someone like Knight. No,

what we’re talking about is his ability to make you believe you’re all alone

in the middle of your own worst nightmare. It translates to the situation at

the Sydney Opera House with you and Ginsberg. Al those feelings you

experienced were an example of Knight’s manipulation.”

“That and I wanted to commit
suicide
in Russia,” Lexi told him tightly. “I

had an insane, overwhelming desire to jump off a fifteen-story building!

The son of a bitch. He’s been watching us the whole time. Watching us

and manipulating—
all
of us.”

The three of them would deal with Knight. But just the idea that he’d

already been in Lexi’s mind, not once but
twice,
scared the shit out of

Alex. How in the hell could he protect her from that?

She got up. Alex knew she needed to pace to think things through.

Instead of walking, she gripped the back of her chair, her knuckles white.

“If he has this power, has he been able to transfer it to the Vitros?”

“I’d say—yes.” Alex started typing. “I’m getting a ful list of Knight’s

powers. Major and minor. Let’s see what his damned army of Vitros has to

offer us.”

“You three need to list all of your powers, minor and major, too,” Lexi told

them. “He has powers. You have more.”

“He’s a strong and powerful wizard, Lexi.” Duncan’s expression was grim.

“And he’s had three times as long to accumulate and fine-tune what he

has. He’l make a formidable opponent.”

“Against Alex, Lucas, and Simon? Against the entire Wizard Council?” She

was indignant.

“Screen nine,” Alex told them. Everyone clicked over from their own