INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) Page 4

  “If you have any amazing weapons, now’s the time to use them,” Stone huffed, keeping his eyes one hundred percent on rampaging Lisa.

  The kid rose to his knees, either used to getting flattened or flaunting that damn resilience of youth. Stone followed, catching his breath at the same time.

  Jacques backed away, still human, but Stone didn’t think that’d last for long. Once one shifter morphed, it was like a chain reaction to other shifters in the area. Like warning signals in the wild alerted all animals to be aware of predators, Lisa’s change would trigger the same response in Jacques. Their best bet for surviving was to cross the floor to the gym’s closest door and get their asses out of the direct line of fire.

  Stone hoped Ling Mai had already exited and the rest of the team would stay put until Lisa calmed down enough to shift back. No telling how long that might take though. Before Stone could grab the kid and run like hell, Herc moved.

  Like the idiot he was, the kid strode to the center of the gym floor, placing himself smack in front of Lisa who was circling around to take another stab at what she now saw as the enemy in her territory. Weighing easily five or six thousand pounds, it was still an awesome sight to see how she could swing her size in such a tight space. It wasn’t so awesome when she braced herself, lowered the deadly horn again, and charged. “Run,” Stone screamed, lunging at Herc who sidestepped him. Instead, Geek Guy raised his arms, his fists clenched, palms down, until Lisa was almost on top of them, and threw his hands out like Moses on the mountain.

  What the—

  Chapter Six

  “Pssst.”

  I swam up through the thick blackness, aware each inch closer to awareness, the knife-sharp pain intensified. Keep going or give up? My brothers would never know. Besides, Van had to be dead. Another kind of pain roared through me. A loss so raw it crippled me.

  I’d seen him go down. Bran had killed him.

  “Pssst.”

  Go away. Just go away and let me be.

  “Pssst. Wake up.”

  Was it worth it to find out what that sound was?

  “You! You alive?”

  “Ugh, I …”

  My mumble sounded like a dead frog. Who was I kidding; I felt like a dead frog, all masticated and dried out. Road kill.

  “You a real witch?” That got my attention. I cranked my head, slowly, toward the voice, a female voice. Young, and sounding determined. Underneath her words, a thread of fear echoed. The only reason I was making any effort at all. Noziak curiosity would take me so far, but someone in need sucker-grabbed me every time.

  I wet my lips, which only helped so much as I croaked, “Who are you?”

  “So you’re alive,” came the surprised-tone of a non-answer.

  “Jury’s still out,” I spoke to myself more than her, taking stock of my body with still-closed eyes. It took way too much effort to open them. There wasn’t a nerve ending that didn’t ache, or burn, or quiver. What had I done this time? Like having the flu on top of a car accident.

  So much easier to slip back into the darkness. Spirits be damned, if I entered that spirit realm of in-Between, one of the not-so-fun bennies of being a shaman from my father’s gene pool. I could avoid spirits. Couldn’t I? “Wake up. It’s important.”

  Said her. Not important to me. Consciousness equaled pain. Not a win-win in my book.

  “They’ll be coming back soon.”

  Okay, maybe I should find out who “they” were and what they wanted with me. If the voice knew.

  Peeling one eyelid open with a swallowed groan, I glanced around. Metal bars. A jail? Weak light. A familiar stench, but I couldn’t place where, or why I should know that smell.

  “Come on, witch. I … you need help.”

  Wasn’t that my theme song? Or maybe it was “Stormy Weather.” Or “Coldplay.” That was it—“Trouble.” How’d it go? A spider web with me in the middle. Damn, if that wasn’t spot on.

  “Where am I?” I whispered, trying to raise my head, which was a major mistake. I let it thunk back on a flat pillow.

  “The Tombs,” came the girl’s voice.

  Maybe I wasn’t awake. The voice was just another spirit with an agenda. So why did I hurt so bad? Tears leaked around my eyes.

  Tombs? Was I dead, or near enough I’d been stashed somewhere close to the burying grounds? Then I remembered where I’d smelled this place before. A cell. With Van chained to one wall, and a corpse hidden beneath some straw in a shadowed corner.

  This is where I ended up?

  I had to get out of here. Now. No need to figure out the “they” who were coming. I knew all I needed to know about them. They had kidnapped Van. They’d caused his death. Not directly. Bran did that, but Vaverek and his people set up Van to die.

  I curled my fingers beneath what felt like the hard lip of a metal cot. Cold to my touch but sturdy.

  One. Two. Pull.

  My head and shoulders lifted as a short, raw scream escaped.

  Mother of the Great Spirits, this wasn’t working. Pain roiled from deep inside, molten and sharp, rushing through my veins. I bit my lip and tasted coppery blood.

  But it tasted good. How sick was that?

  “Come on. You can do better than that.” The voice again. Easy for her to say, she wasn’t dying.

  That’s what it felt like. Swimming against death with death winning.

  “You’re supposed to be this great witch. Do something.”

  Like what? Did she have any idea what she was demanding? “Can’t,” I whispered, easing down.

  “You have to.”

  “Why?”

  “If you don’t, I die.”

  I closed my eyes again. No choice. If I could, I would have helped. The voice sounded scared, bone-deep petrified. But she was asking the wrong person. I couldn’t help my brother. I couldn’t help myself. No way could I help her.

  “On your own,” I breathed, watching the darkness creep closer. Darkness and the cold.

  Yeah, she was on her own and so was I.

  Chapter Seven

  As if a movie director had shouted, Stop action! Rhino Lisa careened to a halt, her legs locked up tight enough to cause her to topple horn-first onto the floor, peeling back the hardwood, leaving a deep gouge.

  This time when Stone grabbed Herc, the kid didn’t brace himself, which saved him from a nasty head-on with a rhino plow.

  Damn if Lisa wasn’t immobilized, flash-frozen into almost three tons of rhino flesh. The only thing moving on her was her small, beady eyes, blinking furiously.

  “What the Sam hell,” Stone cursed, casting a sharp glance at Herc before he warily circled around the twelve-foot long Lisa, her snorting breaths reassuring Stone she still lived. “What’d you do?”

  “My weapon.” Herc was standing shoulder to shoulder with Stone as they both looked down at the mound of prehistoric flesh, both of them breathing hard. “Told you it’d work.”

  But they’d both forgotten about Jacques, who scuttled out from behind Lisa’s prone form, his scorpion tail poised high above his body in his scorpion shape.

  Damn, when had that happened?

  Bad question. Better question, how did they get around him? Stone and the boy were still on one side of the gym, Ling Mai on the other. If Jacques turned, the director was his nearest target.

  As a deathstalker, Jacques wasn’t the largest form of a scorpion but any arachnid with a deadly stinger aimed at you was scary. Especially one as super-sized as Jacques.

  Stone reacted first, shoving the kid out of the way, as Jacques responded to the sudden movement. Which was good. Keep his attention focused forward on me. He hoped like hell Ling Mai and the kid would use the diversion to get off the floor and out of harm’s way.

  The scorpion reared back then thrust its tail forward, needling the poisonous barb deep into Stone’s thigh as he scrambled backwards. An instant earlier and the stinger would have struck Stone’s chest. The kill zone.

  Stone danced one-le
gged away, preparing for a second attack, as scorpions could regulate the amount of venom they used, giving them more than one chance to kill.

  He bit down on his lip, drawing blood while calling himself twenty kinds of a fool. His leg felt like a swarm of wasps had stung it, but Jacques was acting as his species dictated—attack when threatened. Deathstalkers were by nature aggressive, and Jacques was already scrambling for his next assault.

  Then Herc skipped forward, did that hand waving ju-ju, and just like with Lisa, the smaller, cold-blooded shifter was immobilized.

  What the hell was going on?

  Stone leaned over, sucking a lungful of air as he fought vomiting. Damn, his leg hurt like a mother—

  “You going to die?” Herc sidled closer to Stone, his gaze fixed on the two shifters.

  Maybe the kid was learning.

  Stone wasn’t sure if Herc’s tone sounded excited or scared. “Don’t think so.”

  Best answer he could give. The deathstalker was among the most lethal of scorpions on the planet, but as a healthy adult, Stone shouldn’t die choked by his own fluids, as the kid would have if he’d been stung. Besides, Stone wasn’t a total idiot. He’d arranged for a dose of a US Armed Forces investigational drug to be on hand. He now owed his buddy Trey a bundle, but it was worth it. And no way was he going to share with Trey that Stone had been the SOB who needed the stuff.

  Ling Mai eyed Stone’s leg as she crossed to stand between them, handing him the venom kit before smiling at the kid. “Nice job, Hercules,” she said.

  Stone jabbed an elbow into the kid’s side as he tried to clarify his nickname. Since it seemed whatever the geek did worked against preternaturals, at least temporarily, that also meant he was likely going to be part of the expanding team. Best to get him used to the director’s ways and the fact she was in charge, and the new kid wasn’t.

  “Tell us what you did,” Stone demanded, switching the focus back on the big issue; whatever had happened to the shifters. “And how long will it hold them?”

  “A simple binding element combining adhesive properties from synthetic and natural polymers, to form a cross-linking reaction in adverse proportion to an object’s molecular weight. I—”

  “In English, kid,” Stone growled, noticing the other three IR team members joining them from the viewing area. Last thing they needed was the shifters freed from their immobilization. Shifters were bad enough. Pissed shifters were death on steroids.

  At the geek’s sudden blinking and arched brow look, Ling Mai stepped in. “I think what Hercules here is trying to say is he’s created a bonding net, administered in the form of an air-born substance.”

  The kid nodded.

  “Once applied, the net has the ability to paralyze a shifter’s nervous system.”

  “Stopping them dead in their tracks.” Jaylene whistled, walking up and joining them as she looked closely at Lisa.

  “How long will they be mobilized?” Stone repeated, wanting to make sure his friends didn’t pay too high a price for their willingness to be today’s guinea pigs.

  “Based on size ratios and—”

  He shot a pointed look at Herc. “How long?”

  “About three minutes more for the rhino. Five for the scorpion,” came the whiplash answer.

  Good, the kid was learning.

  “Which means if this weapon works on other shifters or Weres, then we’d stand a chance to get away?” Kelly, who was now with them, framed her statement as a question, which made sense. She, of the whole team, didn’t have the street smarts, or the background that prepped her to be a serious hand-to-hand fighter. Alex and Jaylene were the strongest in that regard. A gut instinct of when and how to fight, but Alex was gone now. Alex used to watch out for Kelly in a brawl, but here on out, the former kindergarten teacher would have to survive on her own merits. Stone would make sure she was up to the task or she’d be off the team, and her agreement with Ling Mai, broken. It’d be a tough call but that’s what Stone was here to make.

  “We’d stand a chance to run,” Jaylene answered, then offered a knife-edged smiled. “Or we could kill them.”

  “A little blood thirsty, there aren’t you?” a new voice spoke up.

  Stone and the group all turned as one to face the newcomer. Petite. Brown shoulder length hair. Not over-the-top sex appeal like Vaughn, or attitude like Jaylene or Mandy, or country-style aw, shucks wholesomeness like Kelly, but he had no doubts this was their new recruit.

  The woman, who was in her mid to late-twenties like the rest of the recruits, nodded her head to Ling Mai but addressed Stone, “Name’s Nicki Yarblanski.”

  Mandy walked up next to Kelly and Jaylene, creating a wedge of attitude that the newcomer ignored. Instead, she kept her gaze solidly on his. “You must be the badass instructor.”

  “Nailed him.” Jaylene laughed under her breath until Stone cut her a look and she fell silent.

  “Most folks call me Stone,” he said, eyeing the new addition.

  “That include these guys?”

  Oh yeah, Alex hadn’t been gone more than two days and another smart-ass was stepping into her still warm place.

  “You can call me, Sir,” he shot back, turning to the rest of the team. “Enough gawking. Exercise over. These two will be moving any minute and we’ve had enough excitement today. We’ll meet in an hour for a briefing.”

  He turned to Miss Yarblanski. “That includes you.”

  “Kelly,” he nodded toward the quietest of the group, and the one grieving the loss of Alex the most. “Why don’t you show our newest team member around?”

  He expected a nod, or even a yes, of course, but what he got instead was Kelly pulling into an indignant, chin-raised ball of fury as she eyed both him and Ling Mai before dropping a bomb. “You don’t even know for sure that Alex is dead and you’re already replacing her.”

  She was breathing hard, her hands curling and uncurling at her sides.

  So the kitten had claws. It was bound to happen some time, but her timing sucked. He didn’t want anyone else around when the shifters woke. Plus, he needed to tend to his leg.

  “What the hell is this about?” Mandy murmured to no one in particular, the first one to get her mouth in motion.

  “Now’s not the moment,” Ling Mai stepped in, her tone laying down the law. “Miss McAllister, you are a trained agent and I expect you to act as one. Escort Miss Yarblanski to my hotel where we’ll discuss anything that needs to be addressed.”

  For a second it looked as if Kelly would balk, but she didn’t. Instead, she pulled her shoulders tight, pressed her lips into a solid line and glanced at the newest recruit. “Follow me.”

  Then she turned and walked out.

  Something the hell was up, but Stone could only work on one crisis at a time. “The rest of you, move it. Unless you want to give our shifter friends more targets.”

  For once, everyone listened to him, including the new kid. Stone hoped like hell that was a good sign, but he doubted it.

  Chapter Eight

  Kelly would have preferred to have stayed away from the meeting. Hide in fact, but her folks hadn’t raised her that way. Good people don’t disappear when the hard things need to be done, her pops would say. Her mother would have nodded, lips pressed together, sad eyes downcast.

  So Kelly was here, in Ling Mai’s very nice hotel room. Probably the nicest place Kelly had ever been. Well, not since she’d been an IR agent. They’d passed through a number of very nice places, hotels, the estate in Maryland, even the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., but passing through was different than cooling your heels, waiting to meet with the director and Stone.

  She’d left the new girl in the lobby, which worked out for both of them. It wasn’t like there was a lot of small talk to share.

  Here Kelly was glad Jaylene was sitting shoulder to shoulder with her. That helped spunk up her backbone as Kelly’s sister, Carrie, would say. She did say, quite a bit as the two of them grew up.

&
nbsp; Buck up, spunk up, live life, Kels.

  You only have one, don’t squander it.

  Never show your fear because the bad people will smell it and use it against you.

  Sounded more like something Alex would have said, but it was Carrie who had been talking about Mary Jane Snodgross, the biggest bully in grade school. And middle school. And high school. If Kelly had stayed in Dubuque, Iowa, then no doubt, Mary Jane Snodgross, who was now Mary Jane Fender, would still be bullying her.

  “You okay?” Jaylene nudged Kelly’s shoulder, yanking Kelly back to the room with a start.

  “Yeah,” she lied. It wasn’t a real lie, more a white lie because Jaylene couldn’t fix what was bothering Kelly. None of them could. She knew that from first hand experience. Grief could only be buried, deep, so it didn’t bring you to your knees when you least expected it. She’d learned that when Carrie died. Now she was relearning the lessons all over again.

  Rubbing her crossed arms as if she was cold, when the hotel room was a perfect temperature, Kelly reached for a shaky smile to offer Jaylene. That’s what friends did, and now that Alex was gone, Jaylene felt like Kelly’s only friend and ally. Mandy and Vaughn were peers but not sister-friends, not like Alex had been.

  After a faint knock, the hotel room door opened and Vaughn strolled in.

  Kelly jumped to her feet. “You’re supposed to be in the hospital,” she tsked their team leader, even as she toned down her rebuke with an ear-to-ear grin. It was so good to see Vaughn moving around again.

  “You try more than two days in any hospital and tell me how well that goes.” Vaughn meant the comment as a chide, but Kelly could see it took the other woman too much effort to really be light and casual.

  Vaughn always looked like the former debutante she was; tall, dark auburn hair, like a fairytale princess, which is why Stone still called her that. But now it wasn’t with the edge he’d once used. Not since they’d gotten together as a couple. Kelly loved happy endings. Not that their relationship was ended. Or that they were really happy, happy all the time, but she could believe in them anyway.