Night Shadow (26 page)

up to. Going rogue wasn’t even on the table as far as he was concerned.

These two men were brothers to him. None of them would turn. Not now.

Not ever. Were they holding something back, though? Nothing came

through.

The Council might be wise and just, but they also took a no-prisoners

approach to anything that threatened their rule of the wizarding realm. If

the Council’s accusations were an indication, they weren’t just in deep

shit, they were in hot-holy-hel deep shit.

“Heavy hand,” a light female voice cautioned from the shadows. Alex

recognized Lark’s light Scottish brogue. Great, the whole fucking gang was

here. His heart took up a harder beat, and he was surprised to realize that

his palms were a little damp.

“The DNA tests confirm there is a link between you and the army of half-

wizard clones appearing across the world.” Another man in the dark circle

gave his two cents’ worth. “Whatever it is that you have done, we wil

know the truth. Let me repeat: What is your connection to Vitros?”

“Thank you, Jack,” Edge said dryly. “I’m quite capable of conducting this

interview without assistance.”

Again from the dais came a distinctly female clearing of the throat and

Alex shifted his glance from Duncan Edge to the cloaked figure behind him

that had moved from the chair to stand just behind the Head of the

Wizard Council.

“Excuse me, Duncan.” Lark dropped her hood to her shoulders, her hair

gleaming blue-black in the stark overhead lighting. Twinkling purple lights

danced like tiny fireflies around her ears and wrists. “Perhaps they cannot

answer us, because they are truly as in the dark about this threat as we

are.”

“What do you suggest?” Edge countered.

“How about—” Caleb muttered.

Duncan cut his brother off by raising his hand so Lark could finish. “Too

many damned chiefs. One question at a time. Lark?”

“Beside the use of their DNA,” she said quietly, the light catching both a

nose ring and the sparkler in her dark eyebrow, “which may—
probably

was taken without their knowledge or consent, we have nothing to confirm

their link to Vitros. I’m sure they realize the seriousness of this matter,”

Lark turned her gaze on Lucas, Simon, and Alex in turn, “and would be

wil ing to do whatever is required to clear themselves of these charges.”

“And if they instead succumb to it?” Edge challenged.

Jesus. We’re sitting right goddamned
here,
Alex thought, as they talked

about him rather than to him.

No hint of a smile curved Lark’s purple lips. “Then we’l have to give them

ample reason to ensure they don’t.”

Lexi had no freaking idea where Alex had disappeared to or why. Under

normal circumstances she’d be annoyed that he hadn’t informed her

before splitting.
Again.
But these weren’t normal circumstances, she

reminded herself.

106

Night Shadow

Hundreds of his clones were running around terrorizing small children,

blowing things to hel and gone, and releasing a God-awful— as Alex

called it—frankenvirus to infect and kill hundreds of thousands of people.

The man had a lot on his plate. Excusing himself was probably not on his

to-do list.

But stil . . . she’d thought they were at least past the need-to-know basis

and on a little more intimate terms.

She’d been stripped of her weapons en route.
Al
of them. She’d checked,

then double-checked. Like she could miss the heft of her Glock, for Pete’s

sake. That had pissed her off as well. What in the hell did Alex think he

was doing? It was bad enough to abandon her in mid teleport, worse stil

to leave her unarmed, even if she was at T-FLAC HQ. At least that’s where

she thought she was.

She sat on a hard bench upholstered in black leather in an empty corridor.

Waiting. For whom, or what, she had no idea. Alex hadn’t bothered to tel

her that either when he’d grabbed her hand and hocus-pocused them to

HQ. At least she thought this was HQ, but not a part she’d ever seen

before. The hallway was two hundred and eleven paces long.

The bare walls were painted a soft gray. The linoleum floor was charcoal.

No pictures on this floor, which was a little odd. As far as she knew, every

floor had stunning black-and-white photographs in the hal ways. And a lot

more important than artwork—there wasn’t a door.
Anywhere.
Good

damned thing she didn’t have claustrophobia.

Alex?
Lexi gave telepathy a shot.

She snorted. Honest to God, she couldn’t believe she’d actually
tried,
and

expected
a freaking answer.
Telepathy,
of all things. The transference of

thoughts or feelings between two or more subjects through

parapsychology. Somehow, since getting to know Stone, she’d bought into

all of his psi crap.

But was it crap? She’d seen and experienced things in the last few days

that had no scientific explanation. No
Alexis Stone
explanation. She didn’t

like rhetorical questions. She hated il ogic. She didn’t believe in woo-woo.

But she’d already been shoved down the rabbit hole and landed in

Wonderland whether she liked it, whether she
believed
it, or not.

“Mind if I sit here?” A slight redhead, wearing shorts, a bright blue T-shirt,

and kick-ass orange hiking boots indicated the end of Lexi’s bench.

Lexi did a double take at her sudden, and unexpected, appearance. “Sure.

Where’d you come from?” She hadn’t been there a second before.

With a frown the redhead looked around. “Information dissemination

department. Where are we?”

“
You
work for T-FLAC?” Lexi had a pretty good idea how the woman had

ended up in this hallway so fast. The question was
why.

“Couple of weeks.” She offered a slim, ringless hand. Short, no-nonsense

nails. Nice firm handshake. “Kess Goodall.”

“Lexi Sto—Holy shit!”

“God. Sorry about that.” A slender brunette with expensive golden

highlights in her long hair removed one high-heel-shod foot from the

instep of Lexi’s boot, shooting her an apologetic smile. A slinky, strapless

107

Night Shadow

black T-shirt dress hugged her body and showed off her tanned, olive skin

and ample bosom. She smelled like gardenias and looked like a mil ion

bucks. Lexi had an irrational and unwanted surge of relief that Alex wasn’t

there to see her.

The woman flicked her perfect hair over her bare shoulder and glanced up

and down the empty corridor. “T-FLAC headquarters, I presume?”

“Magic carpet ride?” Lexi asked wryly. The psi department must save a

ginormous amount on travel expenses.

The Jessica Alba look-alike smiled. “Yeah. You?”

Lexi pushed off the bench and stood. Expensive girl was tall, Lexi was

taller. Lexi stuck out her hand and introduced herself. She turned to the

redhead, who sat tailor-fashion on the bench, her back braced by the wall,

her gray eyes heavy-lidded and sleepy. “And this is Cass . . . ?”

“
Kess,
actual y. Kess Goodall.” The redhead said around a yawn. “Sorry. I

fel asleep watching a movie on TV and ended up here.”

The brunette turned, and held out a hand to Kess. “Sydney McBride.” Her

hand was soft, her nails scarlet, her shake businesslike. And she wore a

diamond the size of Mt. Rushmore on her ring finger. “Do these people

know it’s the middle of the night?”

“I doubt they care,” Kess muttered, scratching what looked like an insect

bite on her neck, and yawned again. “Why are we here, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Lexi said grimly. She didn’t like not knowing. It was her

job
to know things. Either this had something to do with the weird dust

clones or IA was seriously pissed she’d missed her last report. “Let me

guess. You both came into contact with a wizard recently.”

Kess’s eyes popped open from the doze she’d nearly dropped into and she

jumped off the bench. “Yes. How do y—”

“This has something to do with Lucas’s short-circuiting powers, doesn’t

it?” Going pale, Sydney frowned. “Where is he? I’ve been on tour and

haven’t seen him in weeks. Damn that man. If something’s happened to

him, I’l kil him myself.”

Great.

“Lucas Fox—?” Lexi kept her on topic.

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Thoughts started tripping in her brain like the tumblers in a safe.

Both women had T-FLAC psi in common. She’d been keeping her

suspicions to herself, not wanting to freak out Alex until she was

absolutely sure . . .

She looked at Kess. “Let me guess. Yours is Simon Blackthorne. And
his

powers have been screwed up as wel .”
Three
connections to Mason

Knight. Lexi didn’t believe in coincidences.

“Yes and yes.” Kess dropped back to the bench, her eyes wide and

worried. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing. As far as I know.”
Okay, Stone,
Lexi thought, trying
not
to jump

to the same conclusions of death and mayhem as the other two women

were doing,
get the hel back here and explain what’s going on. To all

three of us.
“But I bet my favorite Glock that this has something to do

with Alex, Fox, and Blackthorne’s faulty powers.”

108

Night Shadow

The redhead narrowed her eyes. “Alex?”

“Stone.”

“Your husband?”

“No. No relation.” Lexi left it at that.

Sydney tapped the toe of her pricey black sandal. “I’m not sticking around

here waiting for . . . whoever to tel me what’s going on,” she told them.

“The only person I want to see and talk to right now is Lucas.”

“Ditto.” Kess tucked her shirt into her jeans as she stood again. “Except

with
Simon,
not Lucas.” She turned to Lexi. “I haven’t been here long

enough to know my way around these damned labyrinths. You work here,

right? Take us to someone who can tel us what the hell we’re doing here.

Or beam us back where we came from.”

Take me to your leader,
Lexi bit back a smile.
Now wouldn’t that be nice?

Nice, but impossible.
She might not know what floor they were on, but

she knew what
division
of T-FLAC inhabited this area. The freaking psi

unit, of course. “I’m not a wizard. But it wouldn’t matter. If we were

shimmered here, here is where they want us.”

Sydney’s chin went up, and she shot Lexi a haughty look. “And who are

they
?”

Lexi shrugged.

“There aren’t any damned
doors
!” Kess suddenly noticed.

“Claustrophobic?” Lexi asked sympathetically, glancing at Sydney’s back

as she walked—stalked—determinedly down the blank corridor.
Lotsa luck,

lady. Been there, done that, nothing to see.

“Pissed off,” Kess snapped. “Brace yourselves, I’m going to yel .”

“It won’t do yo—” She covered her ears as Kess let out a Tarzan-like yel .

Like that was going to help. This time she did smile. “Feel better?”

“Not reall—”

A doorway silently opened in the wall in front of them. Kess looked at Lexi

and cocked a brow. Lexi shook her head slightly.

“Sydney?” Lexi called softly, not shifting her attention away from the open

portal. She had an un-warm and definitely anti-fuzzy feeling about this.

Not exactly fear, but not optimistic either. The door might be open, but

Lexi couldn’t see anything beyond it. Nothing but misty white. For all she

knew it was the end of the Earth and they were being asked to walk off

the edge. In Wonderland, anything was possible.

Alex?! Where the hel are you?

Fifteen

“Al right, Caleb,” Duncan Edge told his brother. “The floor’s yours.”

“My brother asked me to TiVo time,” Caleb said soberly as he rose to

stand beside his brother’s massive desk. He cast his hand over the

shimmering hologram and it came sharply into focus. “Went back thirty-

six years. Almost thirty-seven to be precise. To the moment of your

conception.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Alex said with a grimace. “Don’t show me my parents having

sex, please. There are some images a guy shouldn’t have in his brain.”

109

Night Shadow

Caleb shook his head. “That’s what’s interesting. Your parents
didn’t
have

sex to conceive you, Stone. Neither did the parents of Blackthorne or

Fox.”

“We were adopted?” Fox asked, surprised, but clearly not horrified by the

notion. He shrugged. “So what?”

“No. Your mothers each gave birth. To you and your ‘twin’ sisters.”

Alex frowned. “You lost me.” Caleb manipulated the hologram to show a

low-slung, white building surrounded by trees. “Okay. I’l bite.”

“This was a clinic in Berkeley, California. Each of your mothers went to