Earth and air. Shield harm from me and mine.
Power bound, Light revealed.
I command thee. Be sealed.”
The Were tiger froze mid-leap as my body jerked forward with the effort to keep the six-hundred pound beast in place. I plowed face first into the rough road, grit and rocks abrading all exposed skin. Only the French would still use cobbled streets, picturesque maybe, but wicked as hell.
“Alex!” It was Vaughn shouting as I rolled to my knees and looked her way. “Save Stone.”
Stone?
Out of the corner of my eye I caught the blaze of fur and canvas that was Stone locked into a head-to-head embrace with the howling baboon. Too late I realized that even if smaller than Stone that ape-relative had jaws and teeth that could put a gorilla to shame. And right now the fur beast was aiming for Stone’s exposed throat.
I staggered to my feet, most of my energy being used to tether the Were tiger. How much more did I have to help Stone?
Only one way to find out.
Another binding spell? Never heard of being able to bind two different threats in opposite directions at once.
The baboon screamed louder, sending goosebumps racing up my spine.
I wouldn’t know for sure if I didn’t try.
“Air to wind, earth to dust.
By water and by fire.
Trouble to heed and trouble to find.
Compel. Coerce. Constrain.
I thee call. I thee command.
Threat be gone. Power be bound.”
But nothing happened.
CHAPTER 4
Power to the Spirits, what now? Where was Bran and why wasn’t he helping me? Not that I expected White Knight stuff, but a little magic help would be nice. There wasn’t enough time to look around for him. I needed help now.
Even a squirt gun would be helpful. Then I spied it.
I slipped to one knee, my whole body twanging as my kneecap smashed into centuries old cobbles. But my focus was one hundred percent on my Glock.
Grab it and use it on the baboon without shooting Stone? Odds weren’t good. In fact they downright sucked, like hitting a person’s shadow at high noon without hitting them. Plus using the weapon would nullify the binding spell on the Were. Suck and suckier.
Too bad Noziaks tend to fight the hardest when the odds are at their worst.
I lunged forward for the gun, face planting once again but my fingers curled around the grip.
A quick roll and pivot, coming to one knee and aiming.
Try to hit fur over Stone, or shoot above them both to scare the baboon?
That’s when I saw it. Monkey butt. Or better yet, the telltale red of an adult baboon’s backside.
Fur butt it was.
I shot and all hell broke loose. The baboon released a hair-curling screech but it dropped Stone who crumpled to the ground in a Star Trek roll and run he’d have to show me how to do some day. The baboon scampered off to nurse his backside.
Just then the troll smashed both massive fists into the café table Vaughn had been using to ward it off, ripping it like cheap paper. And the Were tiger blasted upwards, catapulted forward as the binding spell evaporated.
Gun wouldn’t work on a troll with a hide that made Kevlar look thin. Mandy and Jaylene beat-feet it backwards with the dynamic demon duo crawling over them as the tiger roared, shaking the foundations of the decades old buildings. At least the vampires weren’t—wait, I spoke too soon. They were swooping in on Stone.
CHAPTER 5
Like a love match made in hell, I watched the vamp tackle Stone and both roll together, hands locked around each others’ necks. The vamp trying to pull Stone closer, Stone stiff-arming it to keep from becoming a blood lunch.
Triage. Who needed the most help the fastest?
Mandy and Jaylene had silver shurikens as weapons so they were on their own, even as I wondered how they’d get enough maneuverability to throw the stars. Not my priority problem yet.
“Alex. Duck!”
I jumped toward Vaughn when I heard the shout behind me even before I registered who had called out. Bran. So he was still around. I’d almost forgotten about him. As if that was ever going to happen. Quick note to self: mayhem and near death help one forget a pulverized heart.
Even if I didn’t trust Bran further than I could move him, which wasn’t much, I crouched down and just in time. With a piercing scream and killer talons a falconi dove toward my head and missed me by inches. Think of an Utahraptor, a dinosaur killing machine that could weigh as much as a ton and had a single claw, like a medieval broadsword, with the speed of a peregrine falcon and you’ll have an idea of what a falconi is. This one was young, so no bigger than a refrigerator, but that meant even faster.
Back at the IR Agency our instructor of bestiary and mythology, Fraulein Fassbinder, would love knowing about all the preternaturals we were rumbling with today. If we survived.
And if we did survive I wanted extra credit for learning enough to recognize preternaturals that less than a month ago I only knew existed in fairytale books.
Right now I was in the open. In the middle of a street. With no cover.
Talk about making it easy for the damn thing to kill me.
I aimed my Glock skyward as it dove and rose, dove and rose, but it was like shooting at a tornado funnel, worse than useless.
So I sprinted, keeping one eye glued to the sky as I crouched and ran, hoping I didn’t break my neck on the cobblestones.
The café awning had been demolished by the Snobble troll. No cowering there. There wasn’t even a vehicle in sight to dive under. Where was a doorway when I needed one?
Then it hit me. An idea. Chancy but I didn’t have a lot of options.
I rocketed as fast as I could toward Vaughn who was holding off the troll with the metal leg of a café chair, everything else around her—tables, dishware, chairs—pulverized.
With only a fleeting thought of survival I raced past Vaughn and leaped toward the troll, hitting its rough hide, and, like a dozen aunties hugging at a funeral, I latched on to the troll’s side beneath his stinky armpit, with one hand wrapped around his neck and clung for dear life.
I’d had stupider ideas but right then couldn’t think of one.
CHAPTER 6
Like a flea clinging to the backside of a rabid dog, I hoped I didn’t have to hold on for long. The troll had turned its attention from Vaughn and was now swinging its massive club-sized arms in my direction, which hurt like hell when it could connect, but at least it was focused on me and not the shadow I brought with me.
One thing that could be said about falconis was they might be lethal and wicked fast, but they also possessed bird-sized brains in spite of their girth. Right on time my air nemesis dove, and hit the troll instead of me.
As I released my grip I rolled into a boneless heap, avoiding the feet of a pissed off troll who had no idea what just hit him but was now mad enough to go on the offensive, and away from me, anyway.
Vaughn grabbed my arm and hauled me upright but she wasn’t focused on me, she was looking at Stone drooping beneath his attacking vamp. I was impressed he’d lasted this long, but that was going to change quick unless we helped him. I had dropped my Glock to grab troll hide so I was looking around for a potential stake or wedge of broken glass big enough to decapitate a wrestling vamp.
As if.
I glanced at Vaughn as she pushed past me, not toward Stone, but away from him, which shocked the hell out of me. They were cuddle buddies, so why wasn’t she running to him . . .ah, I saw what she was doing. Looking for her purse, which meant her gun and silver bullets.
With a very unladylike shout of success she dove for a small hand clutch that I couldn’t have stuffed a used Kleenex into, but she pulled out a lethal looking Mossberg Brownie 22-cal derringer. That should take care of the vamp.
Great. Let her save Stone. Other team members needed help. My help.
As I raised my head to scan the oth
er side of the street my heart stuttered.
Where before Mandy and Jaylene had faced two demons and a Were tiger, now I could barely see them in the midst of a preternatural onslaught that made a biker gang rumble look like tea with the queen.
With four pops of Vaughn’s gun saving Stone’s hide behind me I stumbled forward to help Mandy and Jaylene.
Between them and us, the Were tiger crouched in a defensive huddle, blood streaming down one useless paw, but he didn’t seem to need it as he swiped and batted with his other good one at a pole poking at him. Like a lion tamer’s thrust, the pole, which looked like it previously held up the café’s awning, now wove and jabbed, with no one holding it.
Kelly. Must be her. Unless we had spirits working on our side, which wasn’t likely.
Behind her were the real problems. The original felony demons had been joined by at least three fae, each one uglier and meaner looking than the last, the other vamp who’d previously been talking with Kelly before everything went to hell, and what looked like an Amphivena. At least I thought it was based on Fraulein Fassbinder’s lectures. Could this day get any worse?
An Amphivena was a snake as long as a boa constrictor, with glowing orange eyes and a head at each end, which meant it could attack in either direction and do so in the space of a heartbeat. And that wasn’t the worst part. It also possessed venom, which if injected into a human, even in a minute amount, created a wound that never healed, meaning a long, slow, painful death.
Aren’t we having fun.
Hands on knees, chugging air for all I was worth I paused, trying to see where I could help and not hinder. That’s when I caught sight of Jaylene clicking her empty gun and tossing it to bounce off the head of the white and red felony demon. Mandy was using her cast as a billy club, which meant she had no silver or any other bullets left. If they fell, the rest of us weren’t far behind.
What the hell was I going to do? Another containment spell? Not with a group this size. I needed to freeze them, but I didn’t know that spell.
Like a wallop alongside the head it came to me. I might not know the spell but I knew a bad-ass warlock who did.
CHAPTER 7
“Bran!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, not knowing where he was or if he’d even answer.
“You called?”
Damn him, he was right behind me. Leave it to a warlock to scare the pants off me in the middle of a smack down with a dozen preternaturals. I straightened and glanced at him over my shoulder.
“I need your help.”
He arched one arrogant brow that made me want to slug him. But I didn’t have time. Now.
“I need to link.”
“Because?”
Oh for the love of the Goddess could he be more difficult?
“They’re going to die.” I waved my hand toward my teammates. “Unless we can do a freeze spell.”
“We?”
“Yes, you and me.”
“Last time we did you killed my cousin.”
Only a warlock would bring that up at a time like this. A quick look forward told me Jaylene was down on one knee and Mandy wasn’t far behind.
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.” Which I couldn’t and we both knew it. For one thing I didn’t have the spell to the freeze time part, only the containment part. And no way did I have enough power alone to stop so many people. I hadn’t even been able to hold a Were tiger and a baboon at the same time.
But if I did nothing they’d die.
Turning my back on Bran I stepped forward, narrowing my eyes and sucking in a deep breath to calm my racing heart.
“Seriously, Alex, you’re going to try this alone?”
I ignored him. It wasn’t like there were a dozen powerful magical creatures lining up behind me to help.
Balance. Focus. Intention.
Skip the time element and go for the containment spell even if it failed last time.
Exhaling slowly I started the chant, “Continere. Continere. Continere.”
“You’ll kill yourself,” he mumbled behind me, his words ice cold.
“Save you the trouble,” I shot back, my tone telling him to back off. I meant it.
Only days ago he’d promised to kill me if I didn’t track down and apprehend Vaverek. Well I couldn’t do that without my team. But more than that these women had become my friends. Okay, not all of them, but some of them and as long as I could breathe I wouldn’t let them die. With or without the help of one arrogant, stick-up-his-butt warlock.
Even as I inhaled to continue the chant I heard him. “Alright.”
I exhaled, relief flooding me.
Then he added, “But only because I still need you to track down Vaverek.”
“Of course.” I said it in a smarmy voice, but he’d earned that. But he just stood there. I shot him a what-are-you-waiting-for glance. “We don’t have a lot of time. Could you get started?”
He tightened his jaw then nudged me aside to focus his Celtic blue gaze on the mess before us.
“Hemma, hanna, druia.” He chanted, a low, deep baritone, the words so ancient I didn’t know their origin, but I could feel their punch. Right in the solar plexus. “Hemma, druia, sanctum.”
That was it. If he manipulated time just a smidge I could do the rest.
I pushed forward until my shoulder brushed his and joined my voice with his, “Continere. Continere. Continere.”
Like a wind tunnel beginning its process of morphing into a killer tornado I could feel the power tugging, building, but it wasn’t enough, not near enough.
I willed Bran to try harder, work faster, do something more and then I felt it, the sweet siren song of power calling my name.
Like a childhood rhyme the words thrummed within me, taunting me. I didn’t have to rely on Bran. I had everything within me and more.
No. My father’s voice echoed through me. Never, Alex. Remember your promise.
But here? With good people’s lives on the line, he’d understand. He’d have to understand.
He’s not here. This wasn’t my dad but another voice whispering around me. A calming voice. Feminine. Nurturing.
Mom?
It’s okay Alex. You were given the gift to use it, not hide from it.
But?
Do not be afraid. I’m with you.
And just like that I knew what I would do. What I had to do.
Swallowing deeply I stood taller and started pulling from Bran’s magic. Making it my own.
Adeo. Adeo. Agero. Adepto.
Come. Come. Increase. Acquire.
“Don’t, Alex,” Bran whispered at my side. “It’s too dangerous.”
What did he know? He didn’t care about me. He just wanted to use me.
Listen to yourself. I’m here with you. You’re not alone. The woman’s voice again. It had to be Mom. Who else could it be?
I steeled my own voice as I continued.
Suscipio. Solvo.
Receive. Break free.
I pulled words I didn’t know I knew. Was my mother really here? Helping me?
Singluaris. Praesentia presencia.
Free the power.
Bran glanced at me, a frown knitted between his brows, but neither of us could speak. It was taking everything we had to weave the magic.
A heady rush washed against me so that I braced myself so I wasn’t pulled, not only from Bran but all the other non-human abilities around us. And there were a lot of preternaturals in the street.
I stood statue-still in the nexus of a power vortex as I reveled in the potency roaring through me. Dangerous to everyone around. But not me.
This is what you’re meant to do.
The woman’s voice. I nodded, accepting.
Biting my lip till I drew blood, I tasted the copper taint and zeroed in. Thrice called, thrice to contain.
“As thou be, so now change. Thought to image. Image to bind. Bind to blood let.”
I raised my hands skyward, aware of the swirl of grit and particl
es from the destroyed outdoor café whirling around us. One of the demons and two of the fae paused in their forward assault to look around them.
But they wouldn’t be in time, because like a psychic vampire I tapped into their power too.
“Continere. Continere. Continere,” I shouted, feeling free, truly free.
A crack of thunder roared across the sunny day. A flash of white-gold light. Everyone on the street froze, then dropped, unconscious.
Even as my arms flopped to my side, drained, I caught a quick movement out of the corner of my eye. From the second story window the twitch of a lace curtain fluttered and fell into stillness.
Vaverek’s apartment.
I sank to my knees and knew the worst. Whoever, whatever he was, he now knew my secret. He knew how powerful I could be, harnessing others, willingly or not. He knew there are only two things to do with a weapon like me.
Use me or destroy me.
CHAPTER 8
“I don’t know what you did, or how you did it,” Mandy groused less than an hour later, cradling her still healing arm with her good one. “But next time do it without the splitting headache aftermath.”
“You’re welcome,” I mumbled, still too exhausted to even fight verbally with her. It wasn’t the weariness weighing my bones though that was bothering me, it was the fear roiling through my stomach. What had I done? My arms trembled and I wiped sweat from my face as the Spring day chilled my skin.
As if echoing my thoughts, Stone limped up, glaring down at me. “You want to explain what the hell just happened?”
“We won?” I couldn’t raise my gaze to his. My father had warned me about this, exposing my freakish ability. The first time my dad had seen me lose my temper and manipulate others’ abilities he walloped me a good one then found me a witch mentor. I was barely fifteen, and that lasted about three months.
Second time I forgot and let my fear drive my actions, I’d ended up in prison. And today?
Today the team knew I was a loose cannon.
INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) Page 2
