INVISIBLE POWER BOOK TWO: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (7 page)

CHAPTER 15

Van Noziak lifted his head, spying the late afternoon light filtering through a shuttered window high over his head
. He couldn’t see the gap shackled as he was against the wall, but he tracked the wedge of light spilling on the packed dirt floor, memorizing its movement as if doing so would create sense of what was happening to him.

The ten-by-ten-foot stone-walled room smelled of damp, old straw, sewage, and despair. Wherever he was it had been used as a cell of last resort before. For many years would be Van’s guess.

His tongue felt swollen and fuzzy. Dehydration? Or drugs? Or a combination of the two? His head pounded as if the bells of Notre Dame rang insistently within it.

No idea how long he’d been here. The first days had been the worst, then his captors, all wearing hoods to disguise their faces, backed off on the interrogation, and the torture.

Obviously he was now worth more to them alive than dead, but no idea how long that would last.

They clearly knew he was a shifter, which explained the silver wrist and ankle cuffs burning into his skin, as well as the collar around his throat, but they seemed to ignore the fact that cloaked as they were he could still identify them by their stench. Either they ignored that fact or didn’t give a damn as they assumed he wouldn’t live to ferret them out. Only one of their mistakes.

He’d memorized each and every one of them. Revenge was the only thing keeping him going now. That and the knowledge others would be looking for him. Not his NATO allies but his family. Daily, whenever he was aware enough to do so, he reached out with his thoughts, searching for his dad, who would not be stopped by the underground location or the thickness of the stone surrounding him.

If he could just hold on a little longer. Hell, he had no choice, he was a Noziak and no matter how rough the going got he’d never give up. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t die.

He was coming to terms with that. Not in an abstract but as a distinct and very real possibility. Whoever these people were, and so far only one or two carried the scent of humans, they wanted something from him. And it was no longer the intel they had tried to extract the first week.

Down a far hallway he heard the squeal of metal against metal. A door opening. Another detail he’d memorized, too far away to see it, but his shifter hearing knew when someone was coming to check on him long before they appeared.

The silver bands holding him kept him in his human form but the second he was given the chance he’d shift. Then they’d have to kill him for sure, either that or be killed.

Three distinct sets of footsteps drew closer. The thick-soled one was human, and a regular visitor. He was the one who brought Van tepid water and surprisingly good food, though lately Van accepted that the French cuisine hid drugs that made him groggy and sluggish. He ate the meals anyway, knowing that when the time came he could fight through whatever he was being fed. Some kind of
Dextromethorphan was his best guess, which explained the dizziness, blurred vision and fast heartbeat. Once he shifted he could burn the effects out of his system. At least he hoped he could.

The second shuffle belonged to someone Van mentally called the Doc, a Were by his scent
. He possessed some kind of medical background by the questions he always asked. Not that Van gave him straight answers. Why make anything easy for his captors?

The third steps were new. Someone who walked with precision and force, each step tattooing authority as they marched across the cement floor. Not a lackey doing a job
. One of the power operators?

If so things could be about to change.

Van braced himself even if he might still appear to be weak and not dangerous.

The steps stopped beyond the bars covering one side of the square cell. Three men. The human stoop-shouldered and avoiding
eye contact, even beneath his Ku Klux Klan cowl. The doctor leaning forward as if near-sighted. And the third. Something different? Not human. Something Van didn’t cross often and without a reference point he had to guess what type of preternatural he was dealing with. A warlock? Possibly. There was that power stance they usually held. But what would a warlock want with him?

“Mr. Noziak. So nice to see you.” The voice sounded cultured, educated, and
supercilious, which also fit a warlock’s description. But there was something else about him. A stillness masking emotion. Excitement?

Van raised his head an inch or two, as if responding to the summons, but more to see if he could identify this third individual.

“I hope you have been treated well during your stay with us.”

Van didn’t bother with a response. The a-hole was goading him, seeing if he could spark a rise, but it’d take more than verbal prodding to get Van to dance to these people’s tune.

The new man glanced at the Doc and nodded. The Doc then moved deeper into the cell.

“How much have you given him?” the newcomer asked, treating Van as invisible.

“Enough to keep him calm. No more.”

“I want nothing to interfere with the trial tomorrow. Cease administration.”

The Doc turned his back to Van who kept his smile to himself. They were growing complacent, which he could work to his advantage.

The Doc stuttered as he spoke. “W-without the drugs he can become violent. Hard to manage.”

They had no idea how hard to manage he would be.

“He might even break free.”

That was the plan.

“Then you must find another way.” Newcomer ordered, adding, “With no risk, there is no reward.” He stepped forward, close enough to raise Van’s head and stare with calculating brown eyes into Van’s own. But he spoke to the Doc as he said, “The trial must be flawless.”

He dropped Van’s head then brushed his palms together as if removing the taint of Van from his cultivated hands.

It took everything Van had not to snarl and betray that seventy percent of his weakness was being faked. He needed to lull them into a false sense of control.

Newcomer pivoted and strolled to the cell door, speaking over his shoulder to the Doc who remained near Van, fear and anger sweating from his skin.

“Till tomorrow Jean-Claude. No mistakes.”

Then he was gone. Jean-Claude, the Doc, shook his head and shuffled after the first man, only stopping long enough to growl at the human. “Do as he says.”

“But-“

“Those are direct orders.”

“And if he breaks free?”

“Either way we’ll die.”

The cell door clanged shut and the footsteps receded.

Van didn’t have any idea what they’d meant by a trial but he’d be ready. A quick glance at the path of the light trail on the floor. It couldn’t move fast enough.

CHAPTER 16

I walked into the Hotel Le Meurice and knew I was in deeper trouble than even I could imagine. And at times I could have a very active imagination.

It wasn’t Mandy and Jaylene silently flanking me like I was on the way to the gallows but they didn’t help. They’d been waiting for me outside Bran’s office building and “escorted” me into a waiting cab, neither saying a word. Jaylene gave me a headshake but it was Mandy’s smug look that was getting to me. I wanted to tell them that I hadn’t ditched them to slight them, but only because I needed to make sure myself, that Bran had not set us up back in the street. It wasn’t something I didn’t want my team aware of immediately if he had. Plus I needed to see if he knew anything else about Vaverek that he wasn’t sharing and thought he might be more open to telling me alone.

That was a big fat no. The telling part at least.

Now, walking through the lobby of a hotel that made frou-frou look pedestrian, I was actually glad for their presence. At least I wasn’t the only one glancing around me, expecting royalty or some VIP to brush past.

So this was how the other half, and Ling Mai, lived.

Sheesh!

By the time we arrived outside her door and knocked my throat was bone-dry and my heart rate double-timing it.

Jaylene must have heard Ling Mai say something from inside as Jaylene opened the door and nodded for me to step in. Alone.

Chicken-hearts.

Then she closed the door behind me.

I was gobsmacked. Silks and brocades, that fancy French furniture with curly-cued legs and gold detailing, and a white with black veined marble fireplace along one wall. A real one.

I wasn’t in a hotel room, I was in a palace. Even the bouquets in big glass vases were real and larger than life.

This had to be the fanciest place I’d ever been in and, given I’d traveled with Bran for almost two weeks from one luxury spot to another, that was saying something.

An intimidation factor? No doubt. Or was this just the way Ling Mai traveled? Yeah, with her timeless Amerasian looks and elegance that dripped from her fingertips, I could see where she’d feel comfortable here.

Not me.

But then that could be a good thing as I straightened my shoulders and braced myself to take her best shot. I had no doubt she planned to use her big guns. Let her try.

I wasn’t the scared little witch that I had been when I’d first come to the Agency. I still wasn’t proficient with my spells and skills, but I was a damn site better than I had been. Her returning me to prison wasn’t the same threat it had been when I first arrived at the Agency. Now if I was sent back it’d cost me time in finding my brother that I couldn’t afford. So I’d do what I had to do to stay in Paris. I’d miss the team if I was booted, but Ling Mai had better know I was not the same witch/shaman she’d hired on only weeks ago.

I looked around the room, not seeing the agency director right away until she walked from a side room to the main room, her footsteps silent as she crossed the patterned silver rug. She was shorter than I was but it took only about two seconds to realize that size didn’t matter around her. She was in charge and everyone knew it.

“Would you like a seat Ms. Noziak?” It wasn’t really a question as she gestured toward the nearest chair. Good grief the room was big enough to contain half a dozen chairs and not look crowded.

I shook my head. Best to face the firing squad standing upright.

Ling Mai eyed me, watching me from those calm, impenetrable eyes. Ever since first meeting her I felt she was nonhuman, but the silver ring I wore to identify preternaturals never heated around her. On the other hand, the rings all of the team had worn this morning hadn’t worked either, so I’d go with my gut and walk wary around the director. No telling what she could morph into to lop my head off.

She said nothing as she took one of the two chairs facing one another across a coffee table that mirrored the afternoon light off its pristine white surface. I waited, expecting the worst.

Immediate transportation back to the Women’s Correctional facility in Pocatello, Idaho? A strong possibility. Or, now that Ling Mai was aware that I possessed a wildcard magical ability, for I was sure Stone had told her what had happened earlier, there could be other fallout. The Council of Seven didn’t have a holding cell for nonhumans deemed too dangerous to let them remain amongst the human population
. They simply killed the offender for the greater good. Could Ling Mai do the same?

Damn, I should have read the fine print on my one-year contract with the agency, but I was jumping so fast at the chance of leaving prison that I would have signed away my soul. Maybe I had.

“You abandoned your team, Miss Noziak.” she paused, then continued, digging my grave deeper. “Plus you ignored a directive from your senior instructor to remain away from the warlock.” Her tone dared me to justify or refute.

There was no need. She was in the right. But she wasn’t finished either.

“You are undisciplined and put others at risk.” I could hear the coffin nails pounding. “You have great talent and abilities and yet you choose to squander them.”

Wasn’t I the one who saved the others this morning?

“Leaving your team behind was dangerous for you and your team, even if such behavior from you is not unexpected.”

Which must be why she knew exactly where to find me. Leave it to her to be three steps ahead of me when I’d only made the decision as a way to salvage the morning’s disaster.

“Unfortunately we still need your help.” She was throwing me off kilter. No “You’re off the team as of now”. Leave it to her to take the knots inside my stomach and tighten them.

But her words made no sense. I worked for the woman, wasn’t I already helping the agency? If that’s what she meant by “we”.

I raised my brows and waited. My family would have been in shock as I tended to be the most jump-first-and-learn-how-to-swim-later one of the bunch. But I was learning.

However Ling Mai was a pro and I was just a newbie in the patience game.

After a moment that I swore lasted several hours I shrugged my shoulders, released a deep sigh, and scooted to the nearest chair and sat in it. “What do you want and why me?” I didn’t ask why she should trust me given her low opinion of me. That I could answer for myself. She didn’t trust me and that was my fault. Good intentions didn’t count as my father would say.

“We’re involved in a very dangerous mission, Miss Noziak, with stakes you don’t even recognize.”

Like I didn’t know that? I’d been at the ambush that morning.

My look must have betrayed me as she offered a half smile and leaned forward, the we’re-all-on-the-same-side ploy. Which I didn’t trust for a nanosecond.

“Vaverek is a thread in a much larger tapestry,” she said.

“Figured that.”

“I assumed you did. But what you don’t know is that so far he’s been our only link to a much larger, and much deadlier threat than his use of synthetic drugs.”

“Drugs that caused innocents to steal for him.”

“As well as not-so-innocents to murder.”

We both knew she meant Dominique, Bran’s cousin, and her assistant. What a kerfuffle that mission had been.

“So what do you want from me?” I asked again, curling my fingers over the chair arm as if that would keep me from pushing her harder.

“Our mission in Paris has changed.”

I froze before I found enough spit to speak. “You trying to tell me we’re not going after my brother?” The words dripped with venom. “After your promise?”

She leaned back, looking all calm and collected, but at least she shook her head. “We are still seeking the whereabouts of your brother.”

My heart restarted. “Then what’s changed?”

“Our original mandate was to find your brother and in doing that find and apprehend Vaverek.”

She wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know, but seemed to be circling around something else. But what?

I bit my inner lip until I could taste blood pool in my mouth. “I’m not good about beating around the bush. Tell me what’s going on?”

“It involves your . . . contact. Bran.”

Another loop de loop, even as I was impressed at how she tap-danced around exactly what Bran and I were to each other
. “What about him?”

“He’s being brought forward to the Council of Seven.”

“What?”  Talk about a blow to the gut. The Council was bad news. I had been lucky that they had allowed me to only be imprisoned for life. Being brought to them in person always meant a lot more than a slap on the wrist. Usually they chopped the wrist off. Then the head. But Bran was a celebrity figure, not a peon like myself. His disappearance could cause waves, depending on why they wanted him and what they did with him as a result. “Why was he called?”

Instead of answering me directly, which wasn’t Ling Mai’s way, she tilted her head, scanning me like a bird to a worm. “Do you remember the Librarian?”

I racked my brains before the light bulb went off. “Yeah, isn’t she the person who keeps track of who married who, to figure out if their offspring are human or non-human?”

“That’s one of her mandates. Her other is to gather information.”

Ling Mai’s point? Then the nickel dropped. “You mean secrets.”

“Yes, among other data.”

“And then what? She sell it to the highest bidder?”

“She is not adverse to making a profit. Though I think she views herself as providing a necessary commodity to the marketplace.”

“What does this have to do with Bran?” Or me for that matter, but one issue at a time.

“The Librarian has come across information that indicates the Council believes Bran is withholding information once held by his cousin.”

“Dominique,” I whispered the word. Like a bad nightmare that psychopath was continuing to haunt me though she was dead. “What kind of information?”

“It appears that she had more than one drug formula in her possession. A compound targeted specifically at non-humans.”

The drug we’d traced back to Dominique on our last mission gave her temporary control over individuals, the kind of control that acted as an autosuggestion to do whatever she wanted them to do and then forget they’d taken any action. As far as anyone had known the drug only impacted humans, in spite of the fact it’d been administered to Dominique the day she died. Could that have been a different drug? There wasn’t enough of her body left to find out. Could these be the raised stakes Ling Mai meant?

There was a quantum leap from unsuspecting humans committing crimes for gain and programming a preternatural to commit crimes against humans.

“Oh, crap.” My stomach plummeted as I swallowed deeply. “Is that true?”

“If the Council believes the information is accurate then we too must believe it has a solid basis in fact.”

“Does Bran know?”

“He’s been issued the summons.”

I’d just been there. Did he know then? Is that what had been bothering him?

I shook my head, then asked the question thrumming through me the loudest. “So what’s this have to do with me?”

“You are our strongest link to Bran. And the Council. Bran is our best option in finding Vaverek . We need him to remain involved in finding Vaverek before the Council clips his wings because Vaverek is our best option in finding who is agitating the non-humans world-wide and we need him alive.”

Holey double-crap. Clip his wings might mean a warning or the death sentence
. I’d deal with the fact Bran very clearly wanted Vaverek dead later.

“So you think I can protect Bran from the Council?”

“We want you to motivate Bran to help you find Vaverek before the Council takes action.”

Yeah, like I had any sway with the warlock. Especially since I just promised him I would get and stay out of his hair.

“How much time are we talking about?”

“Forty-eight hours.”

And here I thought it was going to be hard.

I stood, feeling in a fog but if the clock was ticking I couldn’t sit around like a pampered princess.

As I turned to the door Ling Mai’s voice stopped me. “I’ve requested special assistance for your mission.”

“What kind of assistance?” I eyed her.

“Someone who knows Bran well and who might be willing to help.”

“A friend of Bran’s?”

“A connection.”

That didn’t help. The Bran I knew had few friends, except for his cousin and I’d helped kill her.

So I shrugged and walked to the door. But leave it to Ling Mai to throw a few daggers before I escaped. “Mandy and Jaylene will be working with you at all times.”

I got the message. No more escaping on my own. No more off the reservation as Stone would say. Now I had guards.

Better than being sent back to prison.

“Oh and Miss Noziak.”  At this rate I’d be down to twelve hours and counting.

She waited till I looked at her before continuing.