INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS)

by Buckham, Mary

  François and Willie had been exchanging quizzical glances until Willie couldn’t stand it any longer and blurted out. “Know what? What happened in the street? Why did the Council know what?”

  “Nothing important,” I answered, still dealing with all the ramifications. “What is important is that except for my father the Council are the only other ones who understand what a freak I am.”

  “Alex’s word for gifted,” Bran interjected, earning him a head nod from Willie.

  I ignored both of them. “All roads lead back to the Council,” I said aloud this time. Then added, “But we don’t know for sure Van was kidnapped to be used as bait. What if he knew something about someone on the Council that would be dangerous if revealed?”

  “Or if he was kidnapped because he was a shifter and someone needed to expose a shifter to the general public,” Willie said.

  I could have hugged him. Sometimes the simplest was the straightest line between two points. Leave it up to a Were to uncomplicate matters. “And if Van is exposed as a shifter, the person who’ll be impacted the most is my father.”

  “Your father on the Council.” Willie connected all the dots. “Which means he could be removed.”

  “Not could but most likely would,” Bran said, being the one of us who thought most like a Council member. “Permanently.”

  François jumped in after a quick look at my face. “Which would free open another Council seat. So two new Council members within a short period of time. That could change the balance of power among the Council.”

  “To what?” I asked, still grappling with the ramifications of Bran’s words.

  “From moderate to radical. Radical to conservative. We’d have to know more about who is currently on the Council,” François shrugged. “And it’s not likely we’re going to get that intel any time soon.”

  “There’s one piece we’re missing here.” Bran pulled all gazes to him, including my own.

  “What?” Willie asked, his face screwed up in confusion. For such a good-looking guy he was a few crayons short of a whole box, but that was Weres for you.

  “The Were and others who have your brother did not leave him to be exposed at the park?”

  Oh, no, not another blow. But I couldn’t ignore what he was saying, even if I was surprised at his saying it in a gentle tone, as if aware he was dumping a pile of bricks on my head.

  Willie looked from one of us to the other. “I still don’t get it.”

  “What he’s saying is they didn’t let Van go because they plan to do something more with him.” My words were so quiet I could barely hear them but a Were could and Bran knew what I was going to say anyway.

  “More like what?” Willie asked.

  “Like another exhibition of a shifter running amuck,” Bran said looking at his phone again, as if it had clues.

  “François, the station where you and Willie lost the trails. That was Invalides?”

  “Oui.”

  We had been discussing my brother being set up to die and Bran was looking at subway information? It took everything I could do not to whack him with a clenched fist.

  “Just what I thought,” he murmured, tapping his phone over and over.

  “You going to share?” Sure my voice was a little testy, okay, a lot testy, but I had a lot of reasons for that. A large one of them sitting right next to me.

  “I’ll share when I’m certain,” he said, still not looking up.

  Did that help? No, he made things worse.

  I stood, rubbing a headache building along my temples. Thank the Spirits François stepped in to ask what I didn’t trust myself to ask, not without a snarl. “When are you going to be certain?”

  “We have to do one more thing.” He rose himself, jamming his hands in his pockets. “Then all will be clear.”

  “We?” I asked as Willie said, “Do what?”

  “A scrying spell,” Bran answered Willie, no doubt because he had no doubt I figured out the ‘we’ word. Since I was the only witch around, and the only one able to scry with any hope of find something or someone, it looked like I was the we.

  “Small problem your Mageness,” I bit off every word. “I need something to scry with. You have a piece of Vaverek handy?”

  “No.” Every muscle of his body was tensed, which gave me a strong hint I wasn’t going to like his next words. But he didn’t speak. Not until pulling out a small wadded napkin from his pocket. One stained brown.

  “I’m not going to like this am I?” I said mostly to myself as Bran shook his head.

  “No.”

  I swallowed, my throat suddenly too dry. ”Is that blood?”

  “Yes.”

  Willie stepped forward, his nose twitching. Once a Were always a Were.

  “Whose?” François asked.

  I didn’t need to ask as I raised my gaze to clash with Bran’s. His dark and implacable, not giving an inch even though he knew what he was asking of me.

  That SOB set me up. He planned to reach this point all along.

  “My brother’s blood,” I answered François but I kept my gaze riveted on Bran, aware my breathing had gone shallow, my muscles ramrod stiff. “You want me to do blood magic, black magic to find Van.”

  He nodded, aware of what blood magic meant. A slippery slope that might start slow and seemingly easy, but always ended in a bad place—a very, very bad place.

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then your brother will be used and discarded like so much dead meat.” And, in case he hadn’t jammed the knife in deep enough and twisted it, he added, “Your choice.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Van was cramped in a fetal curl against the cold cement floor. Old, blood soaked straw stinking in his nostrils, a fever raging through him. But it was more than a fever; sweats, the shakes, teeth chattering, wave upon wave crashing against him. But it was the dreams, the nightmares that hurt the worst. Alex walking toward him, then running, calling his name, but he couldn’t reach her. He’d stretch his hand, watch as the skin morphed into fur, the nails into claws and then see her expression. The horror and repulsion that had him skidding to a halt.

  But that was wrong. Alex knew what he was. Knew what all the males in his family were. So it made no sense. Unless it wasn’t what he was but what he’d done that made her reject him. And that’s when he’d look around and see the limbs and blood scattered at his feet. His father’s sightless eyes staring up at him though his head was nowhere near his body. And the other pieces were his brothers, Jake and Luke and even Simon, torn apart and savaged.

  Had he done that?

  Alex’s expression told him he had. But sometimes the vision shifted and he was wading through the corpses of children, screaming and retching. He couldn’t. No way.

  “Yes, you can Mister Noziak, take another sip,” the voice urged him. Jean-Claude’s voice.

  Van cracked open one swollen eye.

  The doctor knelt beside him, but the man wasn’t alone. Two men stood beyond him, one with a tranq gun pointed at Van. The other though was the more deadly, the power-broker.

  “See, Jean-Claude, you have exaggerated the threat to our guest here. He is not a total beast. Not yet.”

  Jean-Claude shook his head, holding a small vial in front of Van. “You must eat this. It’s only soup. Your sodium levels are too high and you need the liquids.”

  Van’s growl through closed lips was his only response. His last element of control. If he was dead they’d use another poor schmuck to do what they intended to do, but it wouldn’t be him.

  “See what the problem is?” the doctor said, his voice terse. “Shifters require more nutrients than humans but it’s the liquid levels I’m most concerned about. His sodium level is already at 164.”

  “Which means what?” the power-broker sounded bored, more than concerned.

  “He only has a few hours to live, if that much.”

  The power broker leaned forward, kicking Van’s shoulder with Italian leathe
r shoes. “We need him for tomorrow. It’s too late to find another carrier.”

  The doctor threw up his hands. “Oui! It’s been what I have been saying.”

  “Can’t you give him the drug and tell him to drink?”

  “We are too close to the time of the experiment. I can’t administer the drug, give a suggestion and in less than twelve hours administer more of the drug and a different suggestion. This is not a puppet we are dealing with here.”

  “A shame.”

  A tense silence reigned except for the sound of the doctor’s heart beating, the power broker inhaling deeply and the gun-holding one grinding his teeth. The broker spoke at last. “You can force water down him via an IV can you not?”

  “Yes, but—“

  “Then do it.”

  “To insert a fluid line we must tranquilize him. I can’t guarantee that he will not be sluggish for tomorrow.”

  The broker laughed, a low, humorless sound. “Not a problem. With what we have planned for him he won’t have to be fast, just deadly.”

  Van shook his head, trying to lift it as he did.

  “C’est la vie,” the doctor murmured, waving his hand behind his head.

  “No,” Van mouthed, “Don’t—“

  The dart struck his left shoulder with enough force it spun Van over and flipped him on his back.

  The last thing he saw was the doctor leaning over him, whispering, “Forgive me.”

  CHAPTER 50

  François was the one who joined me in the open space where I was marking chalk clockwise on the floor to create my power circle.

  “Need any help?” he asked.

  I glared at him, knowing it really wasn’t him I was angry with.

  “He wouldn’t have you do this if there was any other way,” François murmured, leaning against the nearest wall, his pose meant to look relaxed, the strain in his muscles betraying the opposite.

  I ignored his words and leaned back on my knees, deciding to take whatever time I had to figure out something that was bothering me. “What exactly are you?” I asked, no heat to my words.

  “I’m surprised you’ve been able to wait this long to find out.”

  I raised my hands palm up toward him. “If you’re not comfortable sharing, I can understand that. It’s your business.”

  “It’s not that.” He looked away, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. I actually expected him to tell me to take a flying leap, or the British equivalent, but instead he shrugged. “I’m a didi-shifter.”

  “A what?”

  “We used to be called splitters but we’re now politically correct and using the technical jargon for dissociative identity disorder individuals. Get it? Didi-shifters.”

  I’d heard of splitters but thought they didn’t really exist, sort of like the boogeyman. But come to think of it all of us in the warehouse were bogeymen to a lot of humans. Splitters though were the stuff of legends, sort of a cross between a shifter/Were and a chameleon. Because they could assume different animal shapes historically they were very adept as assassins and liquidators. Which tended to make them loners and very wary.

  “Repelled?” he asked, and I could hear him bracing for my response.

  “You’re talking to a shamanistic witch,” I laughed. “Who am I to cast stones because you’re something rare and unusual.”

  His shoulders relaxed as he replied. “That’s a nice way to put it. Rare and unusual. Not what I usually hear once someone figures out how much of a face-ache I am.”

  “Face-ache?”

  “You know, a freak, screwed, outside the pale.”

  I gave him a get-real look. “It’s not like there’s all that many any of us can share what we are with, so I wouldn’t waste any more time worrying about it.”

  He laughed and scratched his head. “Truth is I don’t spend much time worried that the shifters will reject me, which they tend to do, or the Weres. That’s their problem.” He nodded his chin toward the closed door to the room. “He helped with that.”

  “Willie?” I asked even as I guessed the real answer.

  “Nah. Bran was the first git to not bat an eyelash when he found out. He treated me like his mate from the first and hasn’t ever changed.”

  Obviously he knew a different side of Bran than I did. But I bit my tongue. Instead I asked, “So can you shift into other forms than a dog?”

  “ I have to stay in the canidae family,” he said, “ But since that includes all canines; wolves, dholes, coyotes, jackals, and foxes, there’s enough variety to keep life interesting.”

  I bet. I knew my shifter brothers were canis lupis, the Grey Wolf, and that they tended to look down on dogs in part because dogs—canis lupus familiaris—were a subspecies of the Grey Wolf. The worst thing you could call a wolf shifter was any variation of the word dog. I learned that early, and often with my brothers. Not that it kept me from using dog-face, or stop me from telling them they were doggin’ it. Yeah, I was a glutton for punishment that way.

  “So do you choose what you shift into?” I asked.

  “Sometimes. Other times I let myself go and what I become is what I become. I’ve never let myself down.”

  Speaking of letting someone down, my thoughts boomeranged back to Bran. No surprise there.

  I went back to drawing my line, taking a deep breath to calm my emotions. Any spell involved intentions, including one as simple as a scrying spell. But this wasn’t a casting like I’d used to find the doctor, this one used blood, which immediately catapulted it into the tread-lightly zone.

  As I drew my circle I was drawing my safety zone, separating what was within from what was without. If I brought strong negative emotions with me into the creation of the sacred space, I was calling forth negativity from the world around me. The last thing I needed or wanted.

  “Aren’t you drawing that in the wrong direction?” François asked, as I scooted forward about a foot at a time to create the nine-foot circle.

  “It’s drawn clockwise for invocation, counterclockwise for banishing.” I released a breath as I sat back on my heels. “Don’t want to banish Van but call forth his location.”

  Not that using the banishing spell might not be perfect for certain others. Speak of the devil, as I heard footsteps join François. I didn’t have to look to see who’d come in, I knew in my gut. Though it was funny that I didn’t often hear him move.

  “We brought the material you wanted,” he said, setting a paper bag near me, being sure not to cross the circle. Even though warlocks were kith and kin of witches our magic was different, and often at odds with one another. Which described Bran’s and my relationship to a T.

  I still didn’t acknowledge him. Petty of me, but hey I was the one about to plunge headfirst into a world I vowed never to venture. But then I’d broken other vows. Not to practice magic, period. Then not to ever use the spell to usurp others’ abilities. Look where those vows got me.

  Right here, on a concrete floor in a cool room as the waxing moon hovered high in the sky outside the room’s only window.

  With another calming breath I realized that with each breath I inhaled I was holding tight to my anger, but the exhales allowed me to release a little of my frustration, and my fear.

  Time to pull on my big girl panties and admit none of this was Bran’s fault. It was mine. My choices created this outcome. Not his.

  Releasing another sigh that started somewhere near my feet, I knew I was doing this for myself. If selling my soul to the dark side helped me save Van, then so be it.

  I reached across the chalk line and pulled the bag closer, reaching inside for the four candles and setting them aside. Who knew they could find four different colors on short notice in the heart of Paris. The mugwort, sage, burdock root and cedar in small plastic baggies I moved within hands’ length to my right. The last item was in a fancy container; French sea salt.

  I looked up at Willie who smiled and shrugged. “I didn’t know what kind of salt you needed. Figure
d the fancy stuff might help more.”

  “Thanks.” It was a nice gesture and I knew it came from a good place within him. “Can someone get me a small bowl of water?”

  Both François and Willie scrambled. I shouted after them, “Preferably a stone or hand potted bowl if you can find one.”

  There was a mumbled, “Will do,” echoing from the kitchen area.

  I rose to my feet, brushing chalk dust from my hands against my jeans, only too aware that this was a fairly large room yet with only Bran and I in it seemed too small.

  I finally found enough backbone to look at him and wished I hadn’t. There were times when Bran would walk into a room or I’d see him after being away from him for a while and I’d get that knee to the solar plexus take-my-breath-away response. Totally unbidden and mostly unwelcome but damn, there it was.

  Maybe it was the thickness of his midnight hair, or the slash of his cheekbones, the lean length of him, the breadth of his shoulders, heck, it was a hundred small details that made my legs weak and my stomach tumble over and over.

  And I could hate him for that, even as I hated myself more. He was warlock, enemy to witches, and thus enemy to me. But why couldn’t I remember that like any sane witch?

  He stepped close, too close, sucking all of the air from the room. I’m not sure if he meant the move as threat or something else. I wasn’t ready for either. Just as I opened my mouth to growl at him he raised one hand to brush his fingers along my cheek as his other hand slid to my waist. All thought fled.

  Instead all I did was feel, the roughness of his fingers taking a slow leisurely path from brow to cheek bone to jaw. When had just a touch sent me headfirst into a freefall? He so did not play fair.

  He started to speak, his voice hoarse and guttural, “Alex . . .”

  Damn him. Just when I needed all my wits about me he scattered them like so much dandelion fluff. I cleared my throat and stepped back, desperate to put some space between us. Something to keep me from drowning. Or begging.

  We both spoke at once.

  “Why’d you . . .“