Night Shadow (34 page)

drank deeply. It was some kind of orange drink, and warm, but at least it

was thirst quenching.

“I’m sorry we weren’t the ones to find him.”

His throat moved as he chugged his own drink. His skin gleamed with

sweat, his damp hair clung to his face and neck. He looked hot and sexy.

If one didn’t know him as wel as Lexi did, one would miss that he was

pale under his tan, that his respiration was a little too shallow, and that

his mouth was tense.

“Lucas and Simon didn’t have any better luck than we did.”

“I’m sorry,” Lexi repeated. It was her fault for sending all these people on

wild goose chases all over the world when the clock was ticking.

“Gotta play the hand you’ve got.”

She turned her body toward him so that none of the others could see what

she was saying. “Are you feeling okay?”

His hesitation was infinitesimal, but Lexi saw it. “I feel—Hel , Lexi. I don’t

know . . . Pul ed? Drawn?”

“He’s calling to you?”

“God. I wish it were that simple. Something’s happening, I know. It’s
what

that I don’t. Whatever it is is getting stronger and stronger. And I’m

feeling weaker and weaker, like I’m a goddamn energy drink and

somebody’s stuck a straw in me and is slowly sucking everything out.”

“Take the power the Council gave me,” she said urgently. “Do it. I don’t

know how to use it anyway.”

He shook his head. “Four hours. Where the fuck
is
he?”

Lexi screwed her face up in concentration. There had to be something.

Something that wasn’t in the data. Something personal that was a key to

all of this, because for Knight this was all about him. “Did he have a

favorite place that he took you guys when you visited?”

“His London house, usually. That’s not warm enough to hatch these

damned Vitros.”

Lexi tapped her mouth. “Anywhere he liked to go on vacation? A weekend

retreat? A
book
he shared with you?” She was reaching, but they only had

a handful of hours left. “Anything could be significant. How about a—”

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Night Shadow

Alex swept her up in his arms and gave her a quick, delicious kiss on the

mouth. Lexi drank it in like the sand beneath her feet absorbed water,

unfortunately it was over too quickly. “You’re bril iant,” he said, smiling as

he put her down and touched the connection on his ear that linked him via

sat phone with Lucas and Simon.

“I know where he is,” he told everyone involved in the hunt. “Hang on—

Lexi can give you the latitude and longitude.”

“I can?” she mouthed.

“Morocco. Casablanca, to be precise.”

Nineteen

Casablanca

Morocco

33

35

35

07

36

59

02

15

08

“How did you figure
this
out?” Duncan Edge gave Alex a concerned look

that Alex chose to ignore. At least a hundred wizards crowded in a parking

lot a mile from a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. As did Alex,

Simon, Lucas, their teams,
and
the Council.

Edge and his Council had come on a freaking
field trip.

Alex swallowed intense nausea. While his senses swam a little, his vision

was preternaturally sharp. He’d had to ask Duncan to conjure high-tint

sunglasses to cut the agonizing brightness of the sun. Lucas and Simon

had requested the same. They both looked as bad as Alex felt.

A buzz of a mil ion bees made thought and hearing damned difficult. He

forced himself to take small sips of air, and tried to concentrate. It wasn’t

easy. This was taking brain fog to a whole new level. He heard

everybody’s
thoughts in a low, indecipherable, incredibly irritating,
burble.

He and Lexi half stood, half sat, braced against the front of a derelict

1940s Ford pickup truck. No paint, no engine. No back half. The metal was

hot through his clothing. Hot through LockOut. Shouldn’t have felt

anything
through the LockOut, but he felt it all. The heat, the softness of

Lexi’s skin where she was tucked against his side. The silk of her hair

where her head rested under his chin.

If someone had asked Alex to push away and stand on his own he wasn’t

sure he could do it. Lexi had both arms wrapped around his waist. Neither

of them gave a damn who saw them.

He was glad for her support. Both physically and emotionally. He didn’t

want her there. God, he really didn’t want her within a million miles of

Knight. But the fact that she was here now touched him deeply.

“What?” He remembered Edge had asked him something. “Oh, yeah. He

likes the old black-and-white movies.” He had to breathe through his

mouth. He didn’t remember feeling this weak in his life, and that included

being starved and beaten for weeks on end in Italy all those years ago, or

the first time he’d had malaria. Or—hel , a host of other job-related crap

that had knocked him on his ass over the years.

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Night Shadow

This was worse. Much worse. Somehow on those occasions he’d known he

was going to make it. By sheer guts and determination he’d never lost

sight of the prize.

Now . . . He swallowed hard to prevent heaving. He put up a hand to

indicate it was talk and puke, or shut the hel up.

“Casablanca was his—Jesus. Be right back.” Lucas peeled away from the

group and ran behind the clothing store in the middle of the weed-infested

lot where they’d gathered.

Not only could Alex hear him puking, he heard his heartbeat separated

from everyone else’s. He heard Lexi’s eyelashes brush her bangs, and a

mouse scurrying in the grass three hundred feet away. He could even

hear the scratching of a beetle on the fence across the street.

They’d lost twenty excel ent psi operatives in the last ten minutes. The do

not disturb was that strong. The men had been the first wave to attempt

to enter the warehouse. Edge had insisted, no,
ordered,
the three of them

to stand wel back.

The men had literally bounced—hell, they’d been flung back so hard and

so fast they’d landed with every bone in their bodies shattered, their flesh

and bones pulverized as though they’d been tenderized like raw steak

thrown out of a cannon. “Friday nights,” Blackthorne’s skin was ashen, but

he valiantly tried to complete the thought Alex had started and Lucas had

picked up. Simon’s sweaty face was ashen, his breathing labored. “Movie

night. Christ, I . . .
Casablanca
was Knight’s favorite.”

Kess slid her arm around his waist, almost holding him up. “You need to

lie down, dammit, Simon!”

“Later.”

Lucas returned, clearly weak. Sydney made a grab for him as his knees

buckled. With her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, she glared at

Edge. “
Do
something, dammit!”

“Cone of privacy,” Edge said. “More,” he instructed the Council when he

didn’t believe it was strong enough. Nice to fucking note that the Head of

Council didn’t ask the three of them to put in their two cents’ worth of

powers right then. Did they even have any?

“Everyone knows what’s happening here,” Alex pointed out when the

noise level lessened to just those in his head.

“This they don’t need to hear. Here are the cold hard facts,” Edge told

them. “In less than an hour if our suspicions are sound, you’ll all be

assimilated into this insane experiment of Dr. Knight’s. We can’t allow that

to happen.” His eyes lit on each man in turn. “You understand that, right?

It
cannot
be allowed to happen. If these Vitros absorb your powers,

there’l be nothing to stop them. Col ectively they’ll be stronger than

anyone we have.”

His dark blue eyes looked black; his expression was as grim as Alex had

ever seen it. “The three of you have to make a choice.”

“
What
choice?” Lexi demanded, tightening her arms around Alex, her body

all but surrounding his, and as tall as she was, he stil outweighed her by

fifty pounds.

His warrior. “Don’t worr—”

141

Night Shadow

She turned on him like a viper. “Don’t you dare tel me not to
worry.
I’m

way
freaking beyond being worried.” She glared at Edge. “What choice do

they have to make?”

“They have to
die,
” Sydney said flatly. The jaunty little yel ow flower she’d

stuck in her buttonhole was wilted, and Alex heard the petal that fel onto

her shirt. “Isn’t that right, Lucas? You guys have to
die
so you can’t be

assimilated.”

Kess stood up straighter, her red hair like fire in the sunlight. “
That’s
not a

fucking choice. I am not letting
Simon
die.”

“There’s another way.” Lexi’s jaw was rigid, her entire body pulsing with

fear. Alex smel ed the perspiration on her skin, heard the frantic beat of

her heart. “Take
away
their powers,” she told Edge. “Take them away

now.
Knight won’t want to assimilate them if they have no powers, right?”

She looked from Edge and the Council behind him to Alex and back again.

“Right? Just take away their powers, for God’s sake.”

“You must all agree to do the same thing,” Edge said somberly. He

glanced at his watch. “If Lexi’s estimate of the time left is correct, you

have fourteen minutes. If she’s off—”

“This is not their decision to make.” A tal , beak-faced member of the

Council interrupted as he stepped forward in a swirl of black robe, his cowl

pushed to his shoulders. Jack Anderson was even more by-the-book than

Lexi. “There’s no time to waste. We’ve indulged them too long as it is. I

vote that they be terminated immediately. Dr. Knight is powerful enough

to reinstate their powers if they’re temporarily removed. And any wizard

would rather perish than lose his powers for all time. Al in favor of

death?”

“Aye.”

“Aye.”

“Nay.”

“Aye.”

“Nay.”

“A—”

A sickening swirl of white alerted Lexi as they teleported. Blindly she

reached out for Alex, then almost wept with relief when her fingers

encountered his bare arm. She gripped it with one hand, and reached for

her weapon with the other. No weapon. Crap.

She wobbled as they materialized. Thank God no nausea this time. She

was becoming an old hand.

She blinked the surroundings into focus.

Oh, crap. Nausea would have been the
least
of her problems.

The interior of the warehouse was brightly lit, almost clinically so. Large

black boxes, like upright coffins or mainframe computers, marched in

straight rows as far as the eye could see in every direction. Wrist-thick

electrical cords—
umbilical
cords?—snaked up to the ceiling.

Against the south wall stood five enormous Type 304, stainless steel

storage tanks. The rumble of heavy machinery pulsed through the muggy

air and vibrated beneath her boots. A trickle of perspiration ran down her

temple. The place was like a sauna.

142

Night Shadow

She turned to Alex. First, he appeared transfixed by the magnitude of

the—whatever the boxes were. Second, and more important, he was

naked.

“Ah, my boys. Thank you for following the bread crumbs. This is exactly

where and when I wanted you all here. Perfect timing.”

Mason Knight.

He referred to his “boys,” but as far as Lexi could tel , only she, Alex, and

Knight were present.

“The women have nothing to do with this,” Alex told Dr. Knight. “Get rid of

them and we’l talk.”

“You always did think you could talk your way out of a fix, didn’t you,

Alex? Tenacious. Amphibious. Your ability to null psionic fields. Ah, let’s

not forget your skil at Temporal Acceleration.”

He had a genial, avuncular smile. Lexi loathed him on sight. “And Lucas.

There you are. Your contribution is just as important. Trace perception,

ubiquitous vision, and Empathic Perception, a skil that wil enhance what

I’ve already taught my Vitros. Ah, a fanciful name, and one the three of

you had every right to coin. I like it.

“And Simon. Your contribution will be your skil at Remote Viewing, and

the ability to duplicate yourself as a hologram—My God. Your col ective

powers wil be invaluable.”

“How can you do this to them?” Lexi cried, enraged. “They thought of you

as their friend. A father figure—”

“Don’t engage him, for God’s sake.”
I don’t want him to take any more

notice of you than he has to.