Night Shadow (36 page)

a shadow along his nerve endings and deep in his muscle fiber.

It took longer than normal to orient himself. He ran a finger under the

tight shirt col ar binding his neck as he took in the tall poles with their

flickering gaslights, the cobbled street, and the out-of-context but

strangely familiar surrounding buildings. “Shit.”

“Damn.”

“Fuck.”

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Night Shadow

“Excel ent,” Alex said dryly. “The gang’s al here.” The only thing that

would have pleased him more was seeing Lexi. On a beach somewhere.

Far the hell away from wherever the fuck
here
was.

Blackthorne glanced up and down the empty street. “Where the hel are

we?”

Alex pointed to the arched sign on the building across the street. Rick’s

Café Américain. “Nineteen-forty-two.”

Fox did a classic double take. “You are shitting me.”

“Welcome to Casablanca.” A cold wind blew the hem of Alex’s long woolen

coat around his booted calves. “Apparently we’re the bad guys.” They al

wore ful Nazi dress uniforms. Sans weapons, of course.

Nazis. He got the drone parallel.

The heavily studded double doors of the café swung open against the

stucco walls with a slam as loud as a double rifle shot. The sound of piano

music, glasses clinking, and people laughing spil ed onto the previously

silent street.

Blackthorne raised a brow.

“Lexi better not be inside,” Alex snarled. “I’ll rip his bal s out through his

fucking nose.”

Fox started walking. “Let’s get this fiasco over with.”

“Got a plan?” Alex inquired politely as they crossed the street.

“Working on it.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“As Heinrich Heine said, ‘Thought precedes action as lightning does

thunder.’ ” Alex quoted softly as the three men strode into the cool

dimness of the bar, their booted steps loud on the tile floor. Whitewashed

walls, arches, and mood lighting filled the café. A low cloud of smoke,

cigarette and cigar, hung over the empty tables and moved slowly with

the help of the lazily spinning fans on the ceiling. The place shimmered

and rippled with expectation.

A quick visual scan showed Alex that neither Lexi nor the other two

women were there. Whatever was going to happen was between the three

of them and Knight. Just the four of them. Till the end.

Alex focused on his mentor.

He sat with his back to the door. The piano music, glasses, and voices

were nothing but sound effects. Like canned laughter in a television

sitcom. Knight was the only patron of Rick’s, although Alex was certain he

would have preferred a studio audience. The noises of the bar were as

jarring as being in this perfectly recreated movie setting.

He rose now at their entry, suave, and in his mind, no doubt, debonair,

dressed in black dress pants and a wel -cut white tuxedo jacket, crisp,

pleated-front shirt, and bow tie—all circa the ’40s.

His hair was slicked back and he held a short Waterford crystal glass in

one wel -manicured hand as he rose to greet them. Alex knew the amber

liquid was a 1926, sixty-year-old Macal an’s revolutionary Fine and Rare,

single-malt Scotch whiskey. Knight had drunk the same appallingly

expensive Scotch as long as Alex had known him.

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Night Shadow

Knight smiled. The sight made Alex’s gut twist. This was the man who’d

taught him to ride a bicycle. The man who’d commiserated when he’d

smoked his first and last cigarette. The man who’d mixed him a Bloody

Mary the first time he’d gotten drunk. The memories came crowding in.

Alex did everything in his power to push them the hell out. Knight was

activating old memories, polishing and enhancing them to a fine fucking

shine to blind him to the reality of the
now.

“I came to Casablanca for the waters.”

“The waters?” Alex said his line. “What waters? We’re in the desert.”

“I was misinformed.” Knight grinned.

They’d done this so many times—all of them quoting lines while watching

the movie—that they could al play all the parts. Knight was always Rick.

“Mace, you can’t go through with this insanity,” Alex said as reasonably as

he could, trying to appeal to the man he’d once believed he knew, not this

crazy megalomaniac. “You must stop.”

“You boys disappoint me,” Knight said as if he hadn’t spoken. “I thought

you would have figured things out long before now.”

Beside him Fox flexed his fingers hard enough for his knuckles to crack.

“We’re here now, asshole.”

Knight gave him an expressionless glance. Lucas yel ed in agony. Alex

knew exactly how the searing white-hot pain, and the sensation that one’s

spinal cord was being yanked out his neck felt. Lucas fell to his knees,

doubled over in agony.

When he could breathe again, he returned Knight’s glare. “What the fuck

purpose did that serve? You like inflicting pain just for goddamned
sport
?”

Don’t engage him.
Alex helped him to his feet.

Don’t engage him?
Lucas mentally snarled.
The fucker’s about to suck us

dry. What do you suggest?

Mason had never been able to hear their silent communication. A definite

asset now. They needed every advantage right now. “This is overly

dramatic, Knight,” Alex told him, no longer pretending affability. He was

done with that shit. “Even for you.” The setting was a holographic image,

the edges were just a little out of focus. To maintain an image of this

complexity took an enormous amount of skill and power.

How would that knowledge benefit the three of them? How long could

Knight maintain the illusion? What powers were unavailable while he kept

up this Casablanca facsimile?

“Where are the women?” Blackthorne demanded through his teeth.

“Getting acquainted with the facility.” Knight took a sip of his Scotch,

rol ing the smoky liquid around in his mouth before answering. “My

hologram is about to show Miss Stone her worst nightmares made real in

our production lab, while Miss Goodall is given a public relations nightmare

to deal with and Miss McBride must convince some law enforcement

authority she’s not lying in hopes of saving you.

“By the way, thank you for giving me such wonderful access into their

individual psyches. It makes control ing them so much easier while I deal

with you.”

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Night Shadow

Fox launched himself at Knight only to bounce off the field around him like

a Super Ball off a concrete floor.

Knight tsked. “So irrational. Did you really think I’d bring you here simply

to give you an opportunity to work against me? I had somehow hoped

that my efforts would continue to improve after the initial creation. As I

said, a disappointment. Fortunately I have a way you boys can make it up

to me.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Alex told him. Shifting slightly, he reached out to

rest his hand on a chair back. Holograms made shit weapons. There was

nothing there. But when he moved, his booted foot bumped an object he

couldn’t
see. He shifted forward and came in front of whatever it was,

then brailled upward behind the protection of his body and the all-

encompassing greatcoat. Something flat. Cool y metallic. This section felt

like glass? Yeah. Glass and metal. He rested his palm on the flat surface

and felt a smal electrical vibration.

Knight continued as if he hadn’t heard Alex’s outburst. “My army is ready,

boys. With the—what do you like to call them?
Vitros?
” He smiled, toothy

and white beneath his mustache. “Oh, I do like that name. With my
Vitros’

chemical and biological makeup, and your powers, I’m about to launch a

super-wizard army that wil be invincible. Everything that you are,

everything you’ve learned to enhance your powers wil go into the

col ective. I will be the brain, you and your fel ow Vitros wil be the

brawn.”

“You want them? Why don’t we just
give
you our damned powers?”

Blackthorne suggested. “Take the damn things. None of us give a shit.

Just let us walk away.”

Alex presumed Blackthorne had a solution as to how the hel an army of

drones with
their
combined powers could be vanquished.

“Ah . . .” Knight pretended to consider the suggestion. “No.”

“We have no say in the matter?” Fox demanded. “After knowing us for

thirty-six fucking years this is your way of repaying our love and trust? Do

you feel absolutely nothing?”

Knight smiled again. A pleased, triumphant show of teeth with not an iota

of remorse evident. “Ah . . . What can I say? No. The three of you were

nothing more to me than a means to an end. This end.”

Of course. Not that it should have surprised Alex, but it still felt like a full-

on punch to the face when he heard it out loud. Love. What a joke. Love

and family were the two things none of them had been allowed to have.

Al part of Knight’s plan. The bastard’s voice chilled Alex to the marrow.

“I allowed you to have thirty-six years to hone your powers and develop

certain skil s I deemed necessary for my army. You have all exceeded

those expectations. I brought you into the world, and it’s my prerogative

to take you out of it. Rest assured, gentlemen, your legacy will live on for

all time.”

“And how exactly are you going to transfer our powers to your robots?”

Blackthorne demanded as he too realized the props in the room weren’t

there.
I think we’re still in the warehouse,
he told Lucas and Simon.

Yeah.
That was Fox
. Standing on a bundle of electrical wires.

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Night Shadow

“Nutrients are fed to the Vitros by a complex liquid compound. I believe

you discovered several of my tanks in Rio, dear boy. A messy business,

really. Messy and time-consuming.”

Alex shut off the mental communication for a second as the reality

slapped him upside the head. His body went ice cold. The twenty-

thousand-gal on repurposed wine storage tanks. “Knight, for Christ’s—”

“With the assistance of your three lady friends,” Knight continued,

enjoying his moment. “Using a new technique I’ve spent a decade

perfecting, I’ve been able to shorten gestation in the human female to

twenty-two days instead of nine months.”

“This has nothing to do with the women,” Alex snarled, pushing back his

fear for Lexi. He reached out with his thoughts.
Fox, can you access your

amped-up powers if Sydney’s still in this building?

Yeah.
If
that’s where we are.

Blackthorne butted in.
I might be able to as well. Something clicked when

I proposed to Kess. It’s like some switch got hit. Let me see what I can

do.

Knight threw back the last half-inch of Scotch in his glass, savored the

taste on his tongue, then swallowed. “By my estimates,” he mused, “that

would give me approximately sixteen Vitros, per woman, per year. Forty-

eight viable, healthy Halfs with full wizard strength, thanks to the

superjuice they’l be fed.”

Alex ground his teeth together. He’d be double damned before Knight

used Lexi for anything. Both Fox and Blackthorne seemed to be

weathering this experience with Mason better than he was. Neither was

still dressed in their Nazi attire. What had changed in them that hadn’t for

him?

Blackthorne’s hand, behind his back, was exploring their real

environment, just as Lucas and Alex were doing. Al Alex could do was

keep Knight talking. “That’s—”

“I know,” Knight’s glass appeared ful once more. “Bril iant! Given that I

have the capability to clone a thousand Vitros a day with the current

method. I’l have
three thousand
stronger, more powerful Vitros than even

I thought possible. Incredible.”

“And what are you going to do with this invincible army?” Alex asked. The

longer Knight bragged, the longer they had to figure out how to break the

bastard’s hold on them. Longer to figure out why
he
wasn’t experiencing

amped-up powers when he was around Lexi.

They were definitely stil in the warehouse. He stood beside a row of the

cases Knight was growing his clones in, their cylindrical glass smooth and

round beneath his fingers even though on the surface it looked like

stuccoed stone.

“Vitros for hire, of course. I’ve already given the world’s underworld

leaders a few tasty samples of what my private army is capable of. Offers

are flooding in.”