Night Shadow (39 page)

wizard thing, because last time I checked, weren’t you supposed to ask

that kind of thing in person?

Lexi. Shut up and listen. I’m hoping you make it in time. But I don’t know

if you can. We’re in some kind of toxic soup that’s already dissolving us.

Can you just give me an answer?

You’re in what?

He sighed and pushed every ounce of wil he had left into the thought.
I

love you, woman. Wil you marry me?

Nothing.

Jesus, Lexi, answer me.

02:50:53

Lexi ran flat out. Blackthorne’s hologram flickered as it dashed between

the reflective surfaces of the Vitro cases making it seem like he was

double and sometimes triple at once. Right on her heels were Kess and

Sydney.

The machinery was powering down rapidly, and the overhead lights were

going dark one bank at a time. The red-and-green lights inside the Vitros’

cases flickered, but didn’t go out.

Shit. Of course. There was a damned backup generator somewhere.

“This way.” The hologram, which looked
exactly
like Simon Blackthorne,

dodged left, stopping at one of the enormous shiny steel storage tanks.

The thing was three stories high and a hundred feet across.

Sydney looked up at the pressure-cooker-like metal cover over the top of

the colossal tank. “The power’s shutting down. How the hel are we going

to get them out?”

Lexi glanced at the timer strapped to her wrist. Less than three minutes

until that was a moot point. She scrambled up the stairs that circled up

along the edge of the tank, fol owing its curve toward the top.

Halfway up, her body slammed up against an immovable object. Knight

appeared six steps above her, a shield firmly in place blocking her access

to the control panel farther up the stairs on the landing behind him.

“And just where do you think you’re going, my dear?”

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

“Tsk, tsk. Such language. You need a lesson in manners.”

He moved a finger, just a subtle movement. Pain radiated down her right

arm, immobilizing her gun hand.

From behind her Sydney shoved forward. Gun pointed directly at Knight’s

forehead. Knight raised an eyebrow. The shield dissolved and the barrel of

the Glock began to melt like a candle in the heat of the sun. With a yel of

pain, Sydney dropped the superheated weapon.

He can’t see me. Stay right where you are, I think I can get him.
Kess’s

thought echoed in Lexi’s mind. As the pain in her gun arm receded she

161

Night Shadow

realized Kess was going to do what Sydney had tried and failed to do.

Shoot him.

Don’t. Won’t work,
she telegraphed.
Soon as he sees you there, he’l stop

you. Can you reach the knife in my ankle holster?

She felt the brush of Kess’s fingers against her ankle, then the cool hilt of

the knife, placed with surgical precision, in the palm she had extended

behind her.

Lexi staked her knife throwing skil s over a civilians shooting skills. She’d

come second in knife throwing class at the academy. She hoped to hel

that humiliating fact wasn’t going to bite them all in the ass right now.

For a second everything seemed to go in slow motion as she sized up the

distance between herself and Knight, then brought her hand up and over

in a perfect throw. The blade created a blurred, gleaming arc as it went

hilt over blade.

A second later it stuck, hilt deep, in Knight’s throat. With a look of shock

he toppled forward, eyes wide. His mouth moved but only gargled sounds

emerged.

The three women shifted out of the way of his tumbling body as he

bounced noisily down the metal stairs.

Unconscious, or dead, Knight landed in a crumpled heap at the hologram’s

feet.

“Instructions,” Blackthorne’s look-alike asked with a smile.

“Yeah. Stick him in an empty Vitro case and lock it,” Lexi instructed,

taking the stairs two at a time, the other women on her heels.

02:41:54

Answer
?

Can it wait?
Lexi, Sydney, and Kess were trying to figure out what was

what on the control panel. She pointed out the obvious. None of the lights

were on. The power to the tank was cut.
Trying to get you guys out first

—Good God, Alex!
A diamond ring suddenly appeared on Lexi’s left hand.

Say yes, dammit!

Yes, dammit!

Suddenly the guys were
there.
Naked. Glistening, their skin raw and

angry-looking, but alive. Sprawled out on the small metal landing at the

women’s feet.

Lexi dropped to her knees, but Alex held up a hand. “Second,

sweetheart.” He dragged in a breath, then magically appeared, dressed

and clean. He stood, holding out his hand to her. Lexi let him pul her to

her feet.

“Knight?” Fox, also clean and dressed in LockOut, asked Sydney, who was

tucked against his side like a Siamese twin.

“In one of the Vitro tanks.”

Blackthorne wrapped his arm around Kess. “Time?”

He meant, Lexi knew, time to detonation. “Two. Forty-one.”

Twenty-two

162

Night Shadow

01:10:03

Nomis had stuffed Knight in one of the cases close to the tank. The arm

and wrist bands were snapped nice and tight. Knight hung limply from his

restraints.

“Dead?” Alex took in at a glance Knight’s battered face and profusely

bleeding neck wound. “Your handiwork?” he asked Lexi, who was standing

beside him.

“Kess.”

“That’s my girl.” Blackthorne gave Kess a squeeze. She grinned.

Knight opened his eyes to a slit, due to the rapidly swel ing area across his

nose and forehead. Even behind an inch of plate glass his expression was

murderous. “Get me out.” His words were inaudible through the glass, but

his fury was easy to read as hetwisted his wrist restraints hard enough to

leach the blood from his hands.

Alex was aware of Lexi moving away from the group, but his entire focus

was on Knight. The son of a bitch was healing rapidly. He, Fox,

Blackthorne, and Nomis used every ounce of their considerable combined

powers to hold Knight exactly where he was. But the wizard was gathering

strength, amping up his powers to—

Alex blinked. What the fuck?

Knight’s eyes widened, and he pounded on the glass with his fists. The

gray in his hair reverted to black. His face became clean-shaven. He was

becoming younger. Younger. Younger. Younger. He was a youth. A

teenager. A young boy. His eyes indicated he knew exactly what was

happening and was powerless to stop it.

Alex flicked a glance at Lexi, who was control ing Knight’s speedy age

reversal with a smal handheld device. She looked fierce as she turned the

dial counterclockwise.

“Shit.”

“Damn.”

“Fuck.”

Recognition leaked out of the child’s eyes as Knight became a toddler. His

flattened hands pressed beseechingly against the glass.

Not a chance in hell, you sick fuck.
Alex smiled a feral smile.

“Keep going!” Sydney told Lexi with relish.

“Make him an oil slick!” Kess ordered.

Lexi kept turning the dial as Knight reverse-aged until he was a small

baby—then . . . nothing.

At the bottom of the case was a smear of moisture, nothing more. Lexi

glanced over at them. “
Sperm
good enough?”

Alex grinned as he reached over and grabbed her hand. “Thirty-eight

seconds, people.” He shot a last glance at the remnants of Knight. Lexi

obliterated even that.

“Go. Go. Go!”

T-FLAC HQ

163

Night Shadow

To expedite matters, everyone gave their debriefing verbally, in separate

rooms. The Council sat in to save time and the duplication of efforts.

As far as Lexi’s first debriefing went—it was hel ishly long. She had a

thousand questions for Alex, and only a handful of them had to do with

their shared experience in Morocco.

The incredible explosion of Knight’s warehouse and all the bel s and

whistles inside would be the benchmark for every other explosion she was

yet to see.

The wizards outside the warehouse had instantly thrown a cone over the

explosion, keeping every scrap of debris from being jettisoned far and

wide. Even what was left, Lexi was informed, was then obliterated so that

no trace, not an atom of Knight’s lifework, was recoverable. By anyone.

Kess had done an impressive job sending the Vitros to hel . They’d offered

her a move from the information dissemination department to the bomb

disposal department. She’d politely declined.

Sydney had told her, as they waited to be escorted to their rooms, that

she was already formulating a plot for a new book. Fiction, she assured

Lexi and Kess with a small, knowing smile.

“Hel o, girls,” Lark greeted them cheerful y as she walked into the room

where they’d been told to wait. Black lipstick made her teeth appear very

white. She wore skintight black pants and a plaid red-and-black bustier.

Chains and piercings and lots of curly black hair completed the picture.

“I’m to take you off to your chambers for a night of rest before Medical

releases you in the morning.” She indicated a door that hadn’t been there

before. “Shall we?”

“Is Alex—are the guys okay?” Lexi asked. Of course he was.

“They wil be once my Caleb finishes with them.” Lark indicated they take

the elevator.

Lexi shot her a curious glance. “I thought he was married.”

“Och, he is. To darling Serena. She’s a bonny girl, that one.” Lark exited

and Lexi, Sydney, and Kess fol owed her like freaking baby ducks. Lark’s

high-heeled boots clacked on the hard surface of the floor.

“And he’s your Duncan, how?” Sydney asked.

“Oh, he’s my great, great—” Lark waved a slender beringed hand. “Many

times great-grandson.”

Lexi shot Sydney an amused look. Clearly, Duncan Edge was older than

Lark by several years. “Hmm.”

“That’s some ring,” Sydney said admiringly, changing the subject.

“It did its job,” Lexi said dryly; knowing he only did it to save the day

didn’t help her hurting heart.

“It’s more than that, surely,” Kess offered as they walked.

“He figured out that being committed to me would amp his powers. That

was the one thing Knight couldn’t fight. The power of love.” Lexi tried to

twist the ostentatious diamond off her finger. She wanted to chuck it as

far as it would fly, if she could get it off. “Or a close proximity of it.”

Lark cleared her throat. “Sydney, my cherub? This is your suite.”

164

Night Shadow

Sydney accepted the keycard and opened the door. “See you guys later?”

Kess leaned over and gave her a hug. “Much later,” she said

straightening. “Much, much.
Much
later.”

“Thursday good for you?” Sydney laughed.

“Make that Monday!” Kess called back, tucking her arm into Lexi’s as they

walked slightly behind Lark.

“You’re not going to get the ring off unless he takes it off,” Lark told her

mildly, without turning around. Lord, did the woman have eyes in the back

of her head?

“And you don’t really want that, do you?”

“I want him to love me,” Lexi’s voice was tight and fil ed with emotion she

was sick of trying to hide. “
That’s
what I want.”

Alex was practically chewing glass as he teleported to Lexi’s suite. He’d

given his report ninety-six ways from Sunday. Anything else they wanted

would damned wel have to wait until he’d seen, touched, and talked to

Lexi. It might be a good long while before he got to the talking part.

He felt jubilant and ridiculously happy seeing Lexi seated cross-legged on

the wide bed. She’d showered, and changed into shorts and a white tank

top.

“You look better than the last time I saw you,” she told him coolly,

glancing up from a magazine as he arrived to stand beside the bed. “Al

done?”

“Yeah.” He’d kinda been hoping she’d scream with joy on seeing him, and

fling herself into his arms. They’d kiss and touch and make love fast and

then slowly. And then talk. Then make love again. Then maybe a bit more

talking. The look in her soft gray eyes wasn’t telegraphing any of that. Not

even close. “Want to go somewhere else?”

She cocked her head. “Like?”

“Bermuda? Spain? The Galápagos Islands?”

“This is fine.” She looked down, twisting the ring on her finger. Alex was

quite proud of the size and clarity of the diamond, considering his time

constraints.

“I’l probably be given another op in the morning.”

Then she was going to be disappointed. He’d requested a couple of weeks