INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS)

by Buckham, Mary

  Where? Oh, yeah, warehouse. The dead man. Were attack. Bran.

  I reached for my clutch purse that I hadn’t lost, or someone had found for me and set on the nightstand, next to a glass water carafe and what looked like two aspirins. Thank the Spirits.

  Until I realized Bran must have entered the room while I’d been asleep which, after last night, was too intimate for my stretched nerves.

  At least I’d slept in my dress, not comfortable but in hindsight a smarter idea than sleeping in the buff.

  An image of Bran sprang to mind, which I ruthlessly tapped down. Last night I’d been way too revealing. Enough of that. If I wanted to get Van free I needed to focus, focus, focus, on him and not a particular warlock.

  Grabbing my second, or was it my third glass of water, still feeling parched, I went in search of my dubious roommates.

  I had to clear up the business with Philippe Cheverill pronto or dealing with the Council could prevent me from finding Van. I’d already come up with a plan to find the perfect witness who’d vouch that I hadn’t killed the Council leader. The doctor who’d already been bending over the dying man when I reached Cheverill’s side.

  I should have thought of him last night but I’d been slightly distracted by a Were cougar and a sexy warlock.

  Today I had no such excuses.

  But the moment I walked into the yawning warehouse, looking even barer by daylight than moon shadow, I knew it was empty. I didn’t have my nifty Timex watch that I’d had since childhood. François had turned up his nose at even the hint of my wearing it with the Elie Saab dress he wrapped me in. Not that I had a clue who Elie Saab was. In fact I thought he was a she, which François quickly corrected.

  Now I wished I hadn’t listened because I couldn’t tell what time it was.

  It took me only a second to smell the tray with croissants, strawberries, and fresh orange juice on it.

  How was I going to keep the distance I needed with Bran if he kept being thoughtful as well as too attractive? The warlock did not play fair.

  Then I saw the scrawled note beneath the glass plate.

  Stay put. We’ll be back.

  As if. But it did serve to snap some attitude into my backbone.

  “Give me one reason to hang around here.” I said out loud, mumbling around a sinfully good croissant. The one thing I was definitely going to miss about Paris, if I lived long enough to leave.

  It took me less than thirty minutes to scrounge around in the bedroom closets to find a replacement for the dress I wore, that would have made me look like I was doing the walk of shame rather than hunting for a killer. At last I found a guy’s white dress shirt that hung long on me but with the cuffs rolled up at least it hid the jeans that I had to double belt to stay up.

  By the front door I found my frou-frou sandals that François had carried last night and apparently tossed aside when we’d been attacked. They might look out of place with jeans but I wasn’t going to have to traipse around Paris barefoot. Again.

  I wasn’t being too-stupid-to-live, leaving the warehouse after my own scrawled note: Gone to find doctor. TTYL. I was being proactive, especially after I discovered there were no messages from my teammates on my phone, nor did they answer their cells. I left a message for Ling Mai on her phone but didn’t bother with the others. Wasn’t ignoring them, but biggest hurdle first. And that described Ling Mai to a T.

  I really did miss the team backing me, but I’m sure Ling Mai was keeping them busy. Very busy if I knew Ling Mai. So I’d try them again later, once I had more concrete information to share.

  I had no idea where Bran and François had gone, but I wasn’t waiting for them to save my fanny. My plan was simple. Return to the museum and try a casting spell before the trail grew too cold. If I got lucky it should lead me to the doctor. Once I knew who he was then I’d contact Ling Mai and give her his name while I finished looking for Vaverek.

  The way I figured it, Ling Mai was no doubt focused more on finding Vaverek and his drug connections than Van right now. That issue impacted the balance of humans realizing non-humans existed among us.

  But I wasn’t finished. As long as I knew in my heart that Van lived, I’d hunt for him, regardless of anyone else’s agenda. And Ling Mai knew that, so I was still playing within her guidelines here. Besides, she could always track me by my phone.

  Since I didn’t keep a wad of cash on me, or even a credit card, I would have to walk. I used a map app on my phone to find the museum, which looked a hell of a long ways away.

  It took me a little over an hour to arrive at the Nissim de Camondo Museum, which looked more imposing by daylight than it had last night. A cross between a fortress and a statement of wealth and grandeur from a time long gone. Fortunately it was also open, a fact I hadn’t thought about until I stood outside the pale beige stone building.

  I had just enough funds to get into the museum and waved off the auditory guide that was included with my ticket. The young girl behind the counter, with magenta hair and three lip rings shrugged as if I was being a fool. Maybe I was.

  Since the death had happened on the first level I wasn’t surprised to see the large parlor blocked off with stanchions and tape. I couldn’t read the words on the tape in French but it was no doubt crime scene tape and a clear no-go barrier. As if that had ever kept a Noziak out of anything. It was more like waving a red flag at us.

  I paused, looking into my clutch as if I’d lost my soul, because besides my phone there wasn’t a whole lot of room in it to stash much else. Maybe I should have grabbed one of the audio guides. I didn’t have to turn it on but it’d give me a reason for just standing around, cooling my heels.

  What I was doing was waiting for what sounded like a German grandmother and her two fidgety grandsons to leave the area. They were standing in the curl of the stairway that swept to the second floor. It was where I’d been with Bran when the older man had fallen to the floor. There was a nude Greek statue there, a very well-endowed, graphic statue that I’d totally missed last night.

  Leave it to Bran to distract me so much I’d missed the art. If that’s what it was called.

  The two German boys were snickering behind their hands and pointing, while their grandmother memorized the guidebook clutched in her hands.

  “Come on, come on,” I mumbled beneath my breath. “Don’t have all day.”

  But obviously the grandmother did. One of the boys, the younger one who couldn’t have been older than six or seven, which explained why he was probably bored out of his mind, was tugging on the older woman’s sweater and repeating, “Groymutter. Groymutter.”

  Sounded like a dirty word to me, but what did I know?

  It seemed like it took forever but the trio finally moved off, once the grandmother caught an eyeful at what had been intriguing her grandsons.

  I waited until I heard their footsteps recede upstairs before glancing around. No one in sight.

  A quick duck beneath the tape and I was in the room, keeping toward the walls so I couldn’t easily be seen from the open doorway.

  Last night I thought the space looked crowded because of the people, but even empty it looked overfull, especially if you compared it to the warehouse I’d just left. A different decorating sensibility than I was used to with great floral carpets blanketing the floor, pastoral murals on the walls, massive gold frames, crystal chandeliers, and wall sconces the only light even though it was barely eleven o’clock. The space was making me claustrophobic. Or maybe it was approaching the spot where Cheverill had died.

  Fortunately there weren’t any bloodstains to make me squirm. Since the room had been blocked off, it might be a smidge easier getting a reading on the doctor. I was hesitant because it was a museum with a lot of people moving in and out of the space, plus it’d been jam packed last night. But if I didn’t try, my alternative was to do nothing. I set my purse on the nearest table and prepared to get to work.

  The casting spell shouldn’t be hard. I wasn’t s
crying, which involved looking into a translucent object such as a crystal ball, or water, or even smoke for that matter, in an attempt to see or find someone. For one thing I didn’t have any tools though a quick glace around reassured me there were enough crystals dangling from the lighting fixtures that if push came to shove I might be able to try that approach. Instead I planned to cast a lost person spell. It tended to be stronger for me and easier to work.

  Inhaling a deep breath I stepped toward the area where the doctor, if that’s what he’d been, had been kneeling. Just then my purse started doing a little hum and jig on the glossy surface of the mahogany table. I was so focused on what I was about to do it took a few seconds to realize what was happening. My cell phone.

  Could it be Ling Mai?

  I lunged toward the table and fumbled getting my phone out, only to recognize the number calling as Bran’s. Not that I’d memorized it or anything. Perish the thought.

  But I didn’t need a pissed off warlock reaming me out for leaving the warehouse, or being at the museum, or my plan. How’d I know that’s what he wanted? It was Bran.

  Flipping off the phone was a tacky and small-minded gesture, I’ll admit, as I shoved it back in the purse once I’d turned it off totally. Somehow I knew Ling Mai wouldn’t be calling in the time it took me to spell cast and get out of here.

  Back to the spot I settled my nerves and focused to bring up an image of the doctor, which was vague. I just hadn’t been paying that much attention to him. Not with another man dying in front of me.

  As if sorting through pictures on a cell phone, I let my memory scan past the other impressions of the room, the other faces. Bran with his thunder frown. The younger man I’d talked to after Cheverill had collapsed. Cheverill himself, with his head of silver hair and patrician features.

  Then, at last, the doctor. Middle-aged. Gray in his hair, but only slightly. Deep grooves in his face, as if troubled or worried a lot. Really pretty nondescript, but hopefully enough to get a bead on.

  I slowed my breathing, lowered my shoulders to release tension in my neck and focused.

  Keeper of what disappears, I thee seek.

  Open and find he who is lost from sight.

  By sun, by earth, by air and by water.

  I thee implore. What is lost, now shall be found.

  Behind my closed lids I saw a glimmer. So faint I found myself leaning forward as if to see it better. Still vague. Green. An imposing stone building. The sound of traffic.

  That could be anywhere in Paris.

  I tried again. This time focusing more on my impressions of the doctor than simply his looks. Competence. Or was that what I expected to see? Focus, Noziak, and really see, as Bran had made me see the street yesterday morning. Not what I expected to see but what had really been before my eyes.

  Fear. That’s what jumped out at me. The doctor’s? Yes, and others, as if a riptide of emotions circled around Cheverill’s body. Greed. A vacuum of need. The need for power, for control.

  Impressions so strong they felt like a physical sensation beating against me. And preternaturals. Cheverill for sure, but I didn’t know what kind. Whatever he’d been, the younger man had been one too. Not blood bound but species drawn. And others. So many others. Powerful beings.

  I remembered realizing there had been a lot of preternaturals at the event, but now it was being brought home in a different way. There was an intention behind their presence last night which I hadn’t been aware of then.

  I could feel my focus slip toward that issue and pulled it back to finding the doctor. Everything else could wait. I started my chant again. Only different now.

  Earth called, find me the path.

  Wind spent, blow me the way.

  Sun lit, lead me along.

  Water born, reveal the depths.

  What is lost, must be found.

  Seek. Guide. Direct.

  Vessel I am. Vessel I shall be.

  Show me the way. So mote it be.

  And I had my answer, as clear as a street sign looming out of the fog. Now I just had to find the place.

  CHAPTER 30

  Van had been waiting. Patiently, because he had little choice. Trial? Experiment? Something was going down today and as he watched the dawn’s light brighten and fan across the floor he expected his jailors to return.

  But they didn’t. Not right away. Even the human who brought his food hadn’t appeared.

  As the cell grew lighter the nerves danced along Van’s skin. A good sign because he’d been so drugged, so numbed for days that even pain was a welcome relief.

  When he heard the screech of the outer door opening at last, he adjusted his balance until his weight was evenly on both feet. Then he relaxed his muscles as much as possible. The better to pounce the second he saw an opportunity.

  The trio who’d come recently had brought reinforcements. A fourth person who smelled different, not like the Were who’d been here before. No talking today, just purposeful strides.

  He sagged against his restraints, faking weakness when all his inner wolf wanted to do was rend and tear. But he wouldn’t let his beast gain control. Not yet.

  “You are awake?” Jean-Claude the doctor asked, sliding up to Van, but not close. From where Van was restrained he could smell the stale sweat of the man’s fear. The stench increased when Van raised his head, slowly, to glare at the man with eyes more wolf than human. A trick Van had perfected back in high school when jerks went sniffing around Alex. He knew his eye shape elongated, the color lightened from a dark brown to a golden amber, and the focus intensified, at least that’s what the one being viewed saw.

  Which is why so many turned tail and ran. The doctor didn’t. He froze. A sure sign of being lower on the food chain, far lower.

  The human assistant was either braver or too clueless as he stepped close enough to raise a water bag to Van’s lips. The liquid tasted tainted but as both human and wolf, Van knew he had to keep his liquids up. Dehydration would weaken him faster than missing his morning meal.

  But it was only after he swallowed deeply that he noticed the change in the doctor’s position. His shoulders relaxed, as did the lines around the man’s eyes.

  Of course, the liquid had been drugged.

  Just then the doctor stepped forward, not close enough Van could swipe at him, but close enough the Were could raise a small instrument and shoot a dart at Van. One that struck his neck and lodged.

  Something fast acting as Van felt it scream through his system, blurring his vision, numbing his reactions. So fast. Too fast.

  “What . . .“ he slurred, struggling against the freefall.

  “Etorphine plus acepromazine.” The doctor smiled, a cocky who’s-in-charge-now smile. “No need to worry about side effects,” he added, stepping closer and poking at Van as if he were a side of beef. “Vets use it all the time on large animals. Fast. Effective. Little side effects.”

  Van was crashing. He knew it and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Struggling only seemed to make the stuff work faster.

  The other two stepped into the room. The one who’d taunted Van before was the one to speak first. ”After you shoot him full of the other drug he won’t have to worry about side effects.”

  Other drug?

  As if called, the doctor stepped forward, swabbing something cool along Van’s arm.

  “You’re sure the combination won’t kill him?” the new visitor asked, his voice not French.

  “Non,” Jean-Claude murmured, focused on a vial in his hands.

  Good news? Or bad?

  There wasn’t energy to think more as a needle jabbed him.

  Then a long, swift fall into darkness.

  CHAPTER 31

  Jeb looked at the address he clutched in his hand then the massive maroon door before him. “This is the number,” he said to Pádraig who’d found a parking place for his Peugeot Sport Coupe and was now standing beside him outside 72 Rue de Varenne.

  The building
looked like the seventeenth century residence it once was, broad, imposing, with cool shadows striping the walls of the interior courtyard, a space Jeb couldn’t access from where he stood because of the closed and locked door.

  This looked like a dead end as a row of white block buildings stretched on either side of him. There wasn’t even a tree in sight. How did the French survive in a city where greenery was regulated to spaces manicured and trimmed until even the grass wanted to weep? And how did Philippe, and Pádraig for that matter, live here being druids, beings tuned more than most to the earth? The only earth Jeb could see was buried in flower boxes on lower level windows behind wrought iron fencing.

  “Let me see the note,” Pádraig offered, though Jeb wanted to wring the young pup’s neck for the suggestion. What was he going to read that Jeb had not read a million times already?

  He thrust the crumpled paper at the other man, tempted to shift into his other self, his animal self, not his spirit form. As a wolf he could smell better, hear better, and see movement better. Right now all Jeb could smell was the scent of dark roasted coffee from a nearby café, hear the roar of the insistent Parisian traffic and see a limp French flag above the hotel’s doorway.

  “Doesn’t even look like a hotel,” he muttered, frustration rampaging through him, a man who valued control.

  “It’s not a hotel.” Pádraig looked at a small plaque on the wall to the left of the closed doorway. “It’s the Ministry of Housing and Cities. Which is why it’s closed today. A state holiday.”

  “So where is this park? How do we find it?”

  Pádraig shrugged, then glanced at his Patek Philippe watch. “We’re early, which is good. I spotted a le bistrot around the corner. I can ask a few questions there.”

  It was solid advice. Which didn’t mean Jeb wanted to hear it. More delays. But hadn’t he tried to teach his children that the rushed man was a rash man?

  Time to take his own advice.

  “Lead the way,” he said to Pádraig. “But let’s make it quick.”