Invisible Recruit: Invisible Power Part 22

"And I'm afraid it will be someone close to you, but that will be the only way to see if the drug is truly effective."

Van froze. A nightmare? The voice must be a frightening illusion. That was all.

"I'm afraid this is no illusion, Mister Noziak. I am very much real. And what you must do is very real, too."

A scream tore from Van's throat. "Never."

"Soon, very soon."

Van would kill himself before he allowed them to kill him.

A laugh whipped against him. "Bon. After you kill, suicide is a good solution."

CHAPTER 45.

We ended up back at the warehouse, which made sense. I hadn't told my team where I'd stayed the night before, only that Bran had arranged it. Not that they really cared at this moment. I cast a quick glance at my phone, wondering if I should chuck it now so no one could trace me on it. Or wait.

For what? For them to decide Bran couldn't or wouldn't be bringing me before the Council tomorrow? Or for me to head out on my own at the first chance?

"You're thinking too much again," Bran said, walking up behind me so quietly I jumped.

"I expected Francois and Willie to be here." Yes, I changed the subject but Bran was a little too intuitive for me to trust he wouldn't guess my idea about leaving. Why shouldn't I? The Council had messed with me once, there was no reason to meekly show up on their doorstep to be executed because they were too lazy to find out who really killed Philippe Cheverill.

Bran might think he was being all responsible and honorable appearing before them tomorrow, but not me. If I couldn't find Van in the next twelve hours running was a good option. The result would be inevitable, my death, but at least if I ran I stood a chance to still help Van, if he was still alive. No more acting like a sheep from me.

"Did you hear me?" Bran asked, refocusing my attention back on him.

"Hear what?"

He pulled up a ha.s.sock to sit on across from where I perched on the couch, my arms wrapped around me. "I said Willie and Francois should be here any moment. In the meantime I have some questions."

"About what?" No way was I telling him the train of my thoughts.

He was sitting on the edge of the stool, his hands clasped in front of him, his attention all on me. And when he focused you felt it. At least I did, like an electrical current running beneath my skin. "Explain what you did yesterday morning in the street fight."

The fight? Was that only yesterday? I had to shake myself away from thoughts of Bran to another topic I didn't want to discuss. No point in acting like I didn't know exactly what he was asking about. "What does it matter?"

His laugh sounded bitter. "The type of people we're going up against are not your normal threat. If you hadn't done what you did, you, me and your team would have died."

Finally, someone who saw what I'd done the way I saw it. It wasn't black magic I'd used, at least I didn't think it was. Most black magic involved body parts and death. I'd only channeled power.

"You want me to use that ability against Vaverek?" Is that where he was going with his thought process? "Because it's not a spell I'm sure I can replicate. With any precision especially, sort of like having an AK47 and a bad case of palsy. I'm surprised the spell worked at all."

Plus my dad had warned me against exercising it. He made me swear I'd never use it, once he'd seen me call it as a child. But I had employed it again, to save Jake from that rogue Were. And look where that got me-prison for life. Is that why my dad had abandoned me to the Council? Because he knew I'd broken my word to him? Or because I was some kind of a freak with what I could do?

Bran waved his hand before my face. "Come back," he said, his voice low and if it had been anyone else, I'd have said concerned. But this was Bran.

"Tell me what happened to the non-humans you'd been fighting after I left."

"Why did you leave?"

He actually laughed, but not containing any mirth. "You stole my magic without as much as a by your leave. Did you think it made sense for me to stick around?"

Well, when he phrased it that way. "It's not like I really planned for that to happen. I was just trying to save all of our skins."

"I realized that." He tapped one closed fist against my knee. "Didn't mean I was happy with you at the time, so leaving was the better part of discretion."

Go figure.

I swallowed and let him continue. "I take it you haven't used that kind of magic a lot."

"Are you serious?"

His laugh this time was genuine. "Thought so. Sort of like playing with a nuclear bomb."

So he did understand. Which I wasn't sure I liked. An enemy was better than a frenemy with him, and way better than trusting that we could be anything more. Been there, done that. Still had the broken heart.

"Back to the non-humans," he said.

See? He wasn't getting all off track. He was precision point warlock.

"What about them?"

"Any survivors?"

"You going to bring this up to the Council?"

He sat up straight, as if I'd dashed cold water in his face. "No."

"You swear?"

"By the secrets of the Craft, I thee swear."

Using the old words meant something and I had to respect that. "Okay." I sucked in a breath that did nothing to quiet the increase of my heart rate. "As far as I know no non-human lived."

"Yet you and your teammates did." His face creased in concentration.

"And so did you." He seemed to ignore that point and had turned inward so I pushed. "Why does it matter?"

He glanced at me. "It makes common sense to know the limits of a weapon."

"You mean me?" I jabbed my thumb into my chest. "You're thinking I'm going to go ballistic like that again?"

"Aren't you?"

I opened my mouth to protest then closed it. He was right. It wasn't like the team or I had a lot of amazing super-powered weapons or ninja skills to stop preternaturals who by and large were bigger, stronger, and deadlier than we were. Except for Kelly who could disappear, and even then it wasn't clear that preternaturals with a strong sense of smell couldn't scent her. The rest of us were like sending a squirt gun to take out a howitzer. What had Ling Mai been thinking creating this team and sending us out so ill prepared?

Oh, wait, what was I thinking? This was Ling Mai whom I doubted gave a rat's toenail for any of us. We were feet on the ground. I had no doubts she had a larger plan in mind, so maybe our deaths might serve to kick-start phase two in whatever she had up her sleeve, but none of us were likely to see it.

I raised my eyes to clash with Bran's, patiently waiting for me to arrive at a conclusion he'd already made. "Given the same or a similar situation I'd probably do the same thing."

He gave a slow, measured nod until I asked, "Why?"

"You've forgotten the prophecy?"

Oh c.r.a.p, not that again? I rose to my feet, needing to pace. Our last mission together he'd mentioned some witch-warlock prophecy, which was a bunch of hooey as far as I was concerned.

As I marched across the room though I could hear his voice warp around me.

"Acies. Acendo. Adamo."

Like summer lightning raising the hair along the skin his words prodded, challenging me, asking something I wasn't touching with a thirty foot anything.

"It's a bunch of mumbo jumbo," I said, the worst words one could lob at something he obviously believed in. I remembered when he first described it as a very old portent, between a powerful warlock and an even more powerful witch.

It was that last bit that stuck in my craw. Yes, I was witch-born but not witch taught, which meant my spells tended to be hit or miss. And if I did hit, they weren't always the right target. So calling me a powerful witch was like saying a kid's scooter and a Harley Davidson were in the same league.

I knew, to the marrow of my bones, of the cost of playing with magic and there was always a cost. An unexpected boomerang effect that lashed back on the pract.i.tioner in unexpected, and mostly unwanted ways.

"The prophecy starts the time of change, the time of loss," Bran continued as if he'd heard nothing I'd said. "We've already started it."

"Bull puckey," I wanted to say something stronger, but my throat seemed to swell shut, as if I'd angered magic itself by degrading it.

Is this what my mother had dealt with? She might have been raised among witches but once she chose my father, and his life on a small farm in Idaho, she was isolated, having to hide her abilities. Alone.

Yes!

I froze in my pacing. The woman's voice. Turning slowly, as if tracking the echo of her words, I reached out to feel her, to find her. But there was nothing.

Why did that not surprise me.

"Something spook you?" Bran rose and crossed to where I stood. "What is it?"

"Nothing." I brushed him off as I wished I could brush the cry away. My plate was overfull, no need to bring one more relative, imagined or not, into the mix. I turned toward where Bran stood, his face set in a thoughtful expression. "I'm beginning to think you made up Willie and Francois." I waved one hand toward the closed door. "What they're doing."

"Pushing away, Alex?" he said, as if I was the one who brought him here under false pretenses. "So sure if someone wants to help there must be an angle? A demand in response?"

I was sure my brows were hiding in my hairline. Where had this come from? I just wanted to know where Fido and Fang were and what was keeping them.

Before I could open my mouth and set Mister High-and-Mighty straight the door belted open and the missing duo emerged, looking like they hadn't tracked through the streets of Paris but were dragged through them.

"What happened?" Bran demanded, stepping toward them.

Francois used his thumb to point at the Were two steps behind him. "Someone decided they didn't like Willie sniffing after him."

"The doctor?" I asked, my gaze tap dancing between the two of them. "Did you find him?"

"Several times." Willie coughed as if clearing a jam in his throat. "That was the problem."

"What problem?" I crossed to stand in front of them. Didn't they realize this was a time sensitive issue? "What do you know?"

Francois was the one who looked up, rubbing his shoulder as if it was sore. "I think we found Vaverek."

CHAPTER 46.

"What do you mean, you think?" I snapped at Francois. He cut a quick glance at Bran as if asking what's-up-with-her? If anyone said PMS there was going to be blood and it wasn't going to be mine.

Willie was the one who answered, swiping at what looked like blood on his shirt. "It's not as if these men had their scents labeled."

Bran raised his brows at me as if daring me to contest that point.

I released a sigh. "Fine. Tell it your own way."

"Not much to tell," Willie shrugged at Francois. "I took after man one and two."

"And I covered three."

This was going to be harder than I realized. I returned to my seat on the couch, hoping a little distance might buy me some patience.

"So?" I prompted as the well of intel already shriveled up.

Willie seemed the most amendable to my tone, which was tell-me-now-or-you-die. "One and two took the shifter with them."

"While number three exited in a different direction," Francois added. "Is there anything to drink? I'm parched." "Me, too," Willie piped up. Who knew an adult male Were could look like a puppy begging for treats?

Bran gestured to the kitchen where the other two headed, like frat boys making a beeline for the beer. I held my tongue, but that wasn't going to last long.

Leave it to Bran to notice. "They'll get to the point."

"In this lifetime?"

"That's not fair," Willie said around gurgling Gatorade. "You try sniffing all around Paris all day."

"Poor baby," I murmured, forgetting about how well Weres hear. Or not.

Bran raised his hands. "So you followed two and Francois tracked the other. What happened next?"