Night Shadow (22 page)

Instead, like the others, she lowered her weapon and waited for his

explanation.

The color was leached out of his face, the skin over his cheekbones drawn

tight. He ran a hand over pine-black eyes, then pinched the bridge of his

nose. “In some inexplicable way, I’m connected to these tangos. I don’t

know how or why, or to what extent. But there’s a connection that’s

fucking with my powers.

“That said, we have to get the hostages out of here ASAP. The streets

have been cordoned off in a five mile radius. Al the homes in the area

have been evacuated, and hysterical family members are swarming the

barricades out there. Not to mention the press, medevac choppers, and

EMTs are out there in fucking droves. This situation has become a media

circus and needs to be contained.
Fast.
”

“Five miles isn’t going to be far enough if they detonate the LZ17,” Daklin

pointed out grimly.

“No shit. Here, look.” Alex materialized a handheld device and stylus and

sketched out with Xs where everyone was located. Lexi moved closer with

the others.

“Three LZ17 canisters right here.” Alex pointed to the left of the tangos’

location. “First thing we do is get those teleported out of there. I tried, but

they have a protection field so tight around them I couldn’t even teleport

the coronavirus out of the containers, and replace the liquid with water to

avoid detection to buy us some time. Do one or the other. I don’t care.

But that shit has to be out of there before we go in guns blazing.”

Lexi’s heart raced. A few drops of LZ17 would be enough to infect

everyone present. “Three canisters—whatever the size—seems like

overkil . What are they planning to do? Take out Sydney in its entirety

from here?”

“Good question,” Alex said grimly. “Let’s not have to find out.”

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Night Shadow

Lexi read the strain on his face, and noticed the sheen of perspiration on

his skin that shouldn’t have been there. What had he seen inside that

gymnasium that caused him to be—what? Scared? Nervous? Oh, God.

Guilty
?

Lexi didn’t know. And while the operative spying for IA wanted to know,

the
woman
in her wanted to fling her arms around him and assure him

that everything was going to be all right.

Her hand “accidentally” brushed his as she tipped the screen he held. I’m

here.
I’m with you, no matter what.
His skin was cold and a little clammy.

Scared? Alex? No way. She dropped her hand, shoving it into the front

pocket of her pants. Right now her job was to listen, and follow his

instructions. Later . . .

“I don’t have to remind you that the hostages for the most part are kids.

Make every target count. And have eyes in the back of your heads in case

one of these kids decides to play hero.”

Alex tapped the screen, indicating the west side of the gymnasium.

“Daklin, go round to this location. Come in from their flank. Counting

down ninety seconds. Kiersted?” He nodded to the two men, and Daklin

disappeared, teleported to his location by the wizard.

“Stone, with me. Lu, get that shit out of there by any means possible.

Kiersted, start teleporting the hostages.” He stabbed the stylus at his

crude diagram. The data was being transmitted to HQ in Montana in real

time, Lexi knew.

“Here, here, here, and here. The kids are in back, adults here, and here.”

His rapid-fire hail of orders paused and pale or not, he speared them with

a glance. “Move fast, move efficiently. The tangos wil notice, but we’l get

everyone clear if we move. I want a handful of the bastards for

identification and interrogation. Don’t give a crap what condition they’re in

as long as we bag more than dust. Fifty-eight seconds and counting.
Go.
”

That left the two of them standing in the middle of the large cafeteria.

Sunlight streamed through the bank of windows on her right, casting large

white squares on the speckled linoleum floor. The faint
whop-whop-whop

of a chopper circling overhead mixed with the vibration of the idling

engines of heavy vehicles in the distance.

The piercing scream of a distressed parent being forced to wait a long

distance away from her endangered child cut through the general rumbles

of conversation. Lexi could almost feel the waves of fear and panic

pulsating off the crowds waiting outside. She blocked out everything but

Alex. Damn, but he looked grim. Oh, man. His expression didn’t bode wel .

He was going to make her stay right there. Out of the line of fire. Out of

the way of the bad guys. Dark green eyes searched her face as if looking

for answers. The answer was: She was
not
sitting in here waiting for the

men to kil off the bad guys! “Alex—”

He put up his hand to stop her. “Do me a favor. Please, Lexi.” He briefly

brushed her cheek with his fingertips before dropping his hand.

Please?
She blinked. “Of course.” Other than stand back while her team

dealt with a situation she was trained for. Sure.

“If I act contrary to the way you’d expect me to behave—Terminate me.”

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Night Shadow

“Alex, I’ve—” She literally did a double take, her protest dying. “What?!”

“Shoot to kil . Don’t hesitate. Don’t second-guess.”

“I—”

“Your word.” His eyes bored into her.

Lexi gave her word, and prayed as she’d never done in her life that she

wouldn’t have to keep it.

Alex was once again capable of teleporting both himself and others— at

least for now. The second he and Lexi came through those double doors

into the gym, he was aware Lu hadn’t gotten the fucking lethal canisters

out of there, and gave it another shot himself. Nada.

He knew Kiersted and Lu would continue trying, as would he. Knowing

Daklin, he’d give
carrying
the containers out a shot if he saw magic didn’t

work. Whatever it took.

Were the damned things scheduled to detonate at a certain time? How

much
time did they have before they blew? Minutes? Seconds?

Since there’d be no indication the gas had been released it was impossible

to know. Not until people presented with the horrific symptoms hours

later, and it was too late to treat.

They’d know soon enough.

Returning to the gym brought back the splitting headache ful strength. He

did his best to block the pain. Making the most of his amplified powers,

Alex shimmered eighty kids out of the gymnasium to safety.

Blocking out the sound of hundreds of terrified children screaming and

crying, he and his team made damned sure the destruction of the tangos

was swift and efficient. A delicate task because of the children involved,

and the fact that bul ets had a tendency to travel farther than their

intended target. He didn’t want any collateral damage today.

Invisible once more, Lexi and Daklin moved through the room behind the

black-clad men, firing as they advanced. Kiersted and Lu respectively

maintained the two non-wizards’ invisibility and protective shields. Alex

didn’t trust his own powers to keep her—
them
safe.

He charted their progress by the drifts of black dust left in their wake on

the scuffed, bul et-ridden wood floor.

The terrorists seemed oblivious to their dwindling number. They remained

oddly calm, almost impassive as they used the threat of their

semiautomatics to hold their hostages in a tight knot in a corner at the far

end of the room. Their movements were eerily choreographed as they

moved as one, shifting from one foot to the other like a menacing black-

clad boy band, all carrying MAC-10s left-handed.

Alex used the tetrabyte image-capture feature on the headset to transmit

more images to HQ for rapid identification; more images of the bar codes

on their forearms would net them more intel. More intel would lead to

anticipating where these sons of bitches would go next.

There would be a next. There was always a next.

A dozen of their number turned away from the rest, in perfect precision,

returning submachine fire in a barrage of bul ets that destroyed the

polished gymnasium floors and left gaping holes in the walls. The

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Night Shadow

children’s screams turned into shrieks of hysteria as they pressed closer to

one another, closer to the floor. The flying bul ets pinned them in place as

effectively as prison bars.

The situation was control ed mayhem with frightened children trying to

break free of the restricted corner, and their attending adults trying to

stem their fear while dealing with their own. The problem was magnified

because they couldn’t see Alex and his team. All they saw were their

menacing captors and bul ets flying. And the tangos turning to dust.

There was no way to calm the fears of the hostages without revealing T-

FLAC’s presence and exact locations to the tangos. For now, the team

stayed invisible.

As the three wizards worked, shimmering the hostages to safety, they,

too, kept up a hail of bullets, keeping the tangos distracted and at bay.

The pain in Alex’s head was almost unbearable, and his vision blurred and

refocused with every throb. It was as if he were looking out of two

different strength prescriptive lenses. Each eye was feeding his brain

different images and there was a persistent, and annoying, buzz going on

inside his skull. He closed his right eye. His point of view was twenty feet

away from where he stood and he knew if he were visible he’d be looking

right at himself. He shut his left and opened the right. Thank God that

view seemed to be correct.

Materializing an eye patch to block his vision in the left eye didn’t help the

damned headache any, but at least he could freaking
see.
Alex used

Temporal Acceleration to move through the room at lightning speed,

picking off tangos, and teleporting as many people as he could snare at

the same time.

It had probably seemed like hours to the hostages, but the entire op took

less than two minutes start to finish. There were a few seconds when all

the hostages were gone, leaving fifty or so tangos standing about with

their dicks in their hands. But before any of his team could rush in to

apprehend any of them, there was a flurry of black dust as the men

disintegrated as one.

The instant they were gone, his headache disappeared. The knowledge

that the two were connected made his heart race. Dread all but choked

him.

“Shit.”

Not one—
not one
—tango was left to question. How the hel did they move

so fast? Faster than Temporal Acceleration. Almost faster than the eye

could see. Who or what were they? And what did their col ective

disappearance mean? Had they all teleported out? Were they all dead? At

the same freaking time? He had more damned questions than answers.

The three canisters sitting in the middle of the floor suddenly disappeared.

“Tel me that was us,” he demanded into his lip mic.

“I live to serve,” Kiersted responded. “Secured at HQ.”

“Good man.” Materializing, Alex looked around the empty gymnasium as

he spoke into his comm link to notify the people outside. “Al clear. No

prisoners.” Just small mounds of black dust to show they’d even been

there. “Col ateral damage?”

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Night Shadow

He listened to the report from the local T-FLAC personnel outside as his

team materialized. Two nonfatal bullet wounds, scrapes and cuts. Mostly

the three hundred plus hostages were being treated for emotional trauma.

They’d be held in quarantine for twenty-four hours for testing for the

virus, then released to their families.

It could’ve been a hel of a lot worse.

With a thought he magically inserted each pile of dust into individual,

sealed baggies and teleported all of them to the lab in Montana. Someone

better have some answers for him soon. Alex could practically hear the

stopwatch ticking a fucking countdown in his brain. To what, he had no

damned idea. But whatever it was wasn’t waiting while they tried to figure

it out. Enough people had died.

His team faced toward the center of the gym from their various positions

in the large space, but Alex’s attention was on Lexi. She glistened with

sweat, her face streaked with dirt. She was the best thing he’d seen in—

God. Ever. She appeared to be in one piece, her long legs eating up the

distance between them, her eyes holding his as she got closer.