Night Shadow (6 page)

they could liberate eighty people every four minutes. They wouldn’t have

time to get them al , but if they moved fast—

“Stand down.” El icott’s voice in his ear was cool and brisk. “I repeat,

stand down. It’s too late. They’ve already released LZ17.”

“Medics—” Even while Alex knew their medical team, familiar with SARS

and other viruses of this kind, were stationed nearby, there wasn’t time to

get them here, even magically. He cursed. Too little, too late.

The images on the Dumpster shifted and moved. Without warning, the

tangos suddenly dissipated into black, swirling, powdery dust.

The guests crumbled to the floor en masse. It was a gruesome, bloody

sight. Alex was grateful he could only see the screaming and not hear it.

“Shit.” He grabbed Lexi by the arm. She gave him a startled look. “Go.

Go. Go!” he yel ed at his team, then teleported the hel out of Dodge.

Except that he and Lexi didn’t go anywhere. His damned powers were on

the fritz. Again. Fuck. And they were alone in a stinking alley behind the

National Palace Museum and now, it was about to blow. About to blow

with God only knew how much LZ17 flying out with the debris.

22

Night Shadow

With Alex’s fingers clamped tightly on her upper arm Lexi braced herself.

Three. Two. One.

No flash of white light, no sense of motion.

Maybe that only happened the first time?

“Damn it to hell,” Alex said under his breath.

She opened her eyes. Same alley. She didn’t need to see it to know they

were stil there. The smel was her first clue. “We didn’t go anywhere.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” He ran the fingers of both hands through his hair.

“S—” He grabbed her, wrapping his arms tightly around her body as he

took them both to the ground. Lexi’s breath whooshed out of her on

impact with the hard pavement. Covering her body with his Alex rol ed her

over until she felt the immovable wall at her back. A large hand came up

to cup her head as he pressed her face against his rock-hard chest.

An earsplitting explosion made the ground beneath them shake. A hail of

debris rained down from the buildings around them. Though her ears rang

with the percussion, Lexi heard distant screams and the dul
thunk-crash-

thud-bang
of things falling around them, and while she braced for impact,

nothing touched her.

It wasn’t right that Alex was taking the brunt of it, but even if she’d

wanted to, Lexi couldn’t move. His steely grip on her was implacable.

It seemed like days before the noise subsided and things stopped crashing

around them. “Can’t b-breathe,” she managed, trying to liberate herself

from her squashed position between his body and the wall. “Of course

technical y I
can
breathe,” she had to clarify. “Since there’s no lack of

oxygen. You’re compressing my lungs making it
hard
to b—”

“Wait.” Her hand was pressed between their bodies and she felt the hard

thud of his heart in her palm. His breath felt hot against the top of her

head.

Wait?
She was going to asphyxiate in about five sec—The next explosion

seemed to come from directly beneath them, buckling the ground like an

earthquake. Their bodies levitated as the noise slammed into them. A

double blow. Sound and motion.

Wrapped in Alex’s arms, his legs twined with hers, Lexi felt weightless. A

flash of white was the only indication that they’d teleported. But even

then, she wasn’t sure if that was Alex’s power or a burst of light from the

bombing of the Museum.

The fol owing silence was deafening, filled only with the persistent ringing

in her ears.

The men looked down as he and Lexi materialized in the safe house on

Taiwan. He gently released Lexi, who was clinging to him like a baby

marsupial, then jumped to his feet, holding out a hand to pul her up

beside him.

“Took you long enough,” Ginsberg muttered.

It only took seconds for Alex to ascertain that Lexi hadn’t been hurt.

Fortunately, he’d been able to erect a protective shield, which had

successfully deflected the falling debris caused by the explosions.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to teleport when he’d needed to most.

What the hel was going on with him?

23

Night Shadow

He kept a supportive palm on her slender back until he was sure she was

steady on her feet.

“Report?” he asked Daklin, who was sitting at a wooden table with the

others. They all had monitors in front of them.

Kiersted held up a hand.

Alex glanced down at Lexi, her face was pale, her eyes dark. “Okay?”

“Of course.” She stepped away from his supporting hand. “Why wouldn’t I

be?” She crossed the small room to grab one of the empty chairs, then

keyed in her holographic keyboard.

“We have visual,” Kiersted pointed out as all six monitors bloomed to life.

Alex took the seat next to Lexi, and keyed in his own keyboard. They were

watching the security surveil ance recording. “Let’s work backward and

see what we can see.”

The explosion was fierce. Very impressive. It took out everything and

every
one
in a five-mile radius. The local police, the bomb disposal unit,

the medical teams, civilians, and press . . . all gone. Several hundred

auxiliary personnel annihilated in less than two minutes. “Daklin?”

“Working on it. High explosive. Chemical components, but predominantly

biological in makeup. A one-two-three punch. These bastards know what

they’re doing and damned if they aren’t doing it extremely wel .”

Alex didn’t even look up. “Don’t sound so fucking impressed. So far

they’ve killed upward of eleven thousand people on five continents. Lu,

work with him on that analysis. Send everything back to HQ for further

breakdown.”

They watched the footage frame by frame, checking each image. Kiersted

summoned sandwiches and coffee as they worked and the sky outside

lightened as one or another of them rose to stretch or hit the head.

“Alex, look at frame seventeen three, ninety-two.” Lexi leaned forward.

“Run in sequence.”

Alex went ahead a hundred frames as Lexi had done, then watched the

footage in real time. “Wel , I’l be damned. They’re all left-handed.”

“That, too. Watch the guy on the far left.”

The tango, dressed in the same head-to-toe black as all the others,

shimmered from his position against a pillar and reappeared in the middle

of the confused, frightened crowd. He was there for less than two seconds

before he shattered into the now familiar black swirling dust.

“Freeze,” Lexi instructed the program. She leaned over to point to Alex’s

monitor. The people milling around the guy in black seemed oblivious to

his presence. “Him, him, her, her and him, are the first ones on the floor a

few minutes later.
He
was the biological delivery.”

Alex studied the movement then replayed the frames. “Good work. Let’s

see if any more of his buddies had the same directive.”

For the next fifteen minutes, they all watched the action in real time. A

dozen tangos did the same shatter-and-dissipate. Seconds later, the

people closest to them exhibited signs of a rapid biological attack.

“Interesting.”

Lexi glanced over at him. “Wizards?”

24

Night Shadow

“No,” Lu said flatly. “There was no Trace indicating they were wizards or

even Halfs.”

Scowling in concentration, Ginsberg peered at his monitor. “If not wizards,

who or what else could shimmer like that?”

Lexi glanced around the table. “If it looks like a wizard, and acts like a

wizard, it must
be
a wizard.”

“Yes and no,” Alex shot back. “Not everything is how it appears.”

“That’s illogical.” Lexi swiveled her head to look at him.

“Yeah,” Alex said, his eyes fixed and glittering as he stared at the monitor.

“I know. That’s the problem. They might have the behaviors and traits of

a wizard, but they don’t have a wizard signature.”

“Don’t know who or what these guys are,” Daklin muttered, his fingers

flying over the infrared holographic keyboard, “but you can bet we’l find

out.”

Lexi’s heart clutched. “But how many people wil they kil before we do

that?” She knew that somehow, some way, T-FLAC
would
ID and

annihilate these young tangos. But it felt as though a ginormous clock

ticked over the team’s heads as they tried to figure it out in time.

A clock that told you you had six hours, when really you only had one,

perhaps not even that.

Four

Começos

Medi-Spa

Rio

de

Janeiro

22

55

43

12

09

03

A bead of perspiration trickled down her temple. Alex wanted to lick it off.

Lexi, being Lexi, ignored it. Alex, being Alex, became fixated by the idea

of licking his partner all over. Wanting to taste a fellow operative was a

first for him.

He was stretched out on the wide, soft bed, arms folded beneath his head,

bare feet crossed on the pristine white spread. Lexi paced. She was going

to wear a damn groove in the floor.

Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him. Her lips tightened as if she could

read his mind. Good thing she couldn’t.

“The manual clearly states in chapter three on Logistics, section H on

Travel, subsection ii on Alternative Transportation: Operatives that are

able to teleport may do so no more than
three times within a twenty-four

hour period—
”

She emphasized the time constraints.

“Excessive teleportation can lead to operative impairment and

malfunction, possibly rendering the operative unfit for duty at the level

expected by the Organization.”

It was ninety degrees outside, and she still wore LockOut and a thick

sweater. He pictured her in nothing at all. He bet if he looked in the

dictionary under
tenacious,
he’d see a picture of Alexis Stone. “Do you

have that damned book memorized?” he vol eyed back.

25

Night Shadow

She turned when she got to the kitchenette on the far side of the room. “I

have a photographic memory.”

Of course she did. It was a damn good thing she was luscious, because

she was rapidly becoming a pain in his ass. “Look outside, what do you

see?”

The open windows and white wood shutters welcomed the amazingly

beautiful day into the airy bungalow. The turquoise waters of the ocean

practical y lapped at their doorstep, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A

picture-perfect day they were doomed to waste sitting, or in her case,

pacing,
inside.

“Al I’m saying,” Lexi repeated doggedly, “is we can take a cab just as

easily as you can teleport.”

“Ocean. Beach. Sunshine. Have you ever been to Carnival in Rio?”

She crossed her arms. “Not while I’m working. No. Besides, you have to

buy tickets months in advance for the Sambódromo Parades or you end

up paying a smal fortune.”

“We could watch from the street. Lucas won’t be back for at
least
six,

seven hours.” He’d gone to Montana to be debriefed and take care of

some personal business.

If possible, her jaw tightened even more. “That’s the problem with

teleporting. You can come and go on a whim, without regard for the

rules.”

He feasted his eyes on her. Even irritated and sweaty, she was hot. He

was getting used to the cropped blond hair. It made her look . . . Not like

a research clerk. “Rules are made to be broken,” he said, because it was

true, and because he knew saying it would needle her.

“Rules are made for the safety and wel -being of oneself and others.”

He flung an arm over his eyes, then raised his elbow to peer at her. “Did

you grow up in a convent?”

“No.”

She was making him dizzy with all that pacing. He covered his eyes again.

“Wel , if we can’t go out and play, tell me how you grew up.”

Pausing in her millionth circuit around the small bungalow, she looked out

the window. “It’s irrelevant how I grew up, Stone.”

“Then we’l go for a swim while we wait for Lucas.”

“That’s the
Atlantic
Ocean out there. It’s known to be rough, with strong

currents. Lots of drop-offs along this coast. Tourists drown regularly.

Besides, the water’s not very warm.”