Night Shadow (4 page)

face if she did something so uncharacteristic and nearly laughed.

Good God. What had gotten into her?

I need another psych eval the second I get home.
Cold was tolerable. The

renegade direction of her thoughts was not. As soon as her shoulder was

tended to, she’d put on her identical black sweater and be as warm as

toast. No body heat sharing necessary.

“Why were you joining me in Paris?”

She noticed his green eyes were darker around the rim, then glanced

away, annoyed with herself for noticing. “I’m your partner on the

bomb/virus op until a total threat assessment is completed. If it’s

warranted, you’l get a ful team afterward.”

That was the job T-FLAC had sent her on. The psi unit’s Internal Affairs

had sent her on another mission that had nothing to do with bombs or

tangos, and everything to do with Alexander Stone.

Alex made a rude noise. “Hel . Are we short-staffed or something? Since

when did we take people out of research and put them in the field?”

“Since I’ve been requesting a transfer to fieldwork for the last four years,”

she snapped, bristling. “Do you want to hear my report or not?”

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Night Shadow

He started cleaning the wound. It stung like fire ant bites. Not that she’d

ever been bitten by an ant, fire or otherwise. But according to research it

felt exactly like the searing, itching beelike sting spreading over her

shoulder she was experiencing now. Lexi gritted her teeth and breathed

through the pain. “The tangos had already locked down the railway station

by the time I got there. My instructions were to secure any surveil ance

tapes and to wait for backup.”

Alex was silent for another moment, giving himself time to tamp down the

irritation building in him through her briefing. Instead, he inspected the

shallow graze. “Doesn’t need stitches.”

Her skin was smooth and lightly tanned, and he was surprised to see the

muscle definition in her arms as she braced her elbow on the table as he

worked. The black tank top also revealed the upper curve of her breasts

and the velvety valley between them. There wasn’t a damned thing

overtly sexual about her standard issue tank top, but he felt a surge of

inappropriate lust nevertheless. Perhaps because he’d never seen her in

anything other than business attire.

“Keep talking.” He glanced briefly at her face, noting the tension. Her jaw

was clenched so tightly she was going to break off a few teeth. Alex laid

his hand over the wound and removed half the pain. Not all. She damned

wel deserved to feel some of it. Wearing LockOut was as basic as it got,

rookie or not.

Clearly they hadn’t told her that he was her babysitter on the Paris op. It

was just a look-see. The team had already been in and done their thing.

On her first op he was to ensure she didn’t get herself killed. But that was

supposed to be in Paris. Not freaking
Russia.
What fucking moron had

sent a gung-ho new operative into a hostage situation for “observation”?

She was staring resolutely across the room. The bathroom door wasn’t

that fascinating, so clearly she was trying to focus on something other

than him working on her shoulder. Fuck it. He took the rest of the pain.

“You got there and they’d taken hostages,” he prompted.

“They had the station locked down.” She hesitated, took a breath, and

then let it out and the lines between her pretty eyes eased as she felt the

lack of pain.
His
frigging shoulder now burned like hel . Been there, felt

worse.

Her rainwater-clear gray eyes met his. “Thirty tangos, five hundred-plus

hostages. No one in or out.”

Yeah, he knew. He was there. Too bad he hadn’t known
she
was there.

Someone’s ass was going to be toast when he found out who’d sent a

rookie in alone and left out that critical information for the rest of the

team. “Where were you?”

“With security on the first floor. Watching everything on the monitors.”

Okay, so she’d been out of the direct line of fire. He didn’t have to kil

anyone immediately. Perhaps just rearrange a few of their brain cel s via a

punch to the nose. But this get-your-ass-to-Moscow-ASAP had been a
psi

op. The regular operatives weren’t supposed to be any part of it. And
she

was a reg.
She
was supposed to be in Paris waiting for him, dammit.

15

Night Shadow

Alex crossed the few steps to the bed and retrieved the half bottle of

water he’d left there, taking a moment to infuse it with a boost of energy

to give her a lift. Handing it to her, he leaned against the table.

“Their demand was called directly to our hotline. Sixty mil ion U.S. dol ars

or they’d kill everyone in six hours.”

She nodded. “Exactly. The place was surrounded. A mouse couldn’t have

gotten through. A psi team beamed in. I couldn’t see them of course. But

I knew they were there because small sections of the crowd kept

disappearing. It was slow going. But they were really making a dent in

getting people clear of the building.” She paused to take a sip of the

water.

“I knew our team was doing their jobs, so I just kept my focus on the

tangos.” She ran a hand through her damp, choppy, sunshine-colored

hair. “It was really . . . weird.”

Alex moved to sit on the edge of the bed before he gave in to the urge to

stroke her creamy, silken skin as he pretended to tend to her wound.

“Weird, how?”

Her brows knit as she considered it. “First of al , all the tangos were

young.
Eighteen, maybe twenty. Possibly students. And they all had dark,

almost black hair. Only thirty-two percent of the local population would

have hair that dark. Ethnic Russians are from European stock, and tend to

have medium-colored to light hair.”

He almost laughed. “Hel , Lexi, tangos aren’t just from this part of the

world. You know that.”

“I do. But
one
person could have blown up the station; they didn’t need

thirty.
Statistical y, the odds against that many tangos importing to

Moscow just to blow up a single train station are
extremely
low.”

She tapped a finger on the bottle of water she held, a move so unlike her

characteristic stil ness that he stared. “But not unheard of,” he pointed

out. “How do you know how old they were? Their faces were covered.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And you know that how? Were you there?”

“Of course. Do you think I’m here because I particularly enjoy Moscow in

February?” His laugh was genuinely amused.

She stiffened even more. “For all I know, you have a lovely Russian

girlfriend.”

“Several, but I came for the hostages. How do you know how old they

were?”

She shrugged, clearly forgetting the furrow on her shoulder. “I just do. It

was their . . . lack of
symmetry,
I guess. Like they hadn’t grown into their

parts. Feet, Adam’s apple, hands.” She rose. “They gave us six hours to

get them the money and a plane to wherever. But they—” She scrubbed

her fingers through her hair, making it stand on end. She looked damned

cute for an operative. “I don’t get it, Alex,” she said earnestly, pulling a

black sweater out of her bag. She yanked the standard issue garment

over her head and tugged it down over her hips. Fit her a hell of a lot

better than his fit him.

“Why blow everything to hell five hours
early
?”

“Not unheard of. These guys don’t play by the rules.”

16

Night Shadow

“So you saw what happened.”

No. He hadn’t seen anything but the last fifteen people he’d managed to

successfully teleport. His powers, lately on the blink, had malfunctioned,

and he’d found himself back at the safe house, unable to teleport. He’d

“sent” his bag there on his way to the op, but arrived himself only minutes

before Lexi’s dramatic entrance. “What happened?”

“I saw six guys go out a side door, and fol owed, but seconds before I left,

the tangos all disappeared.”

“Wizards, or Halfs.” Except that if they’d been either, he and the team

would have picked up on their Trace. There had been no indication that

the tangos were wizards at all.

She shook her head. “I’ll show you the last few minutes of the disk. You

tel me.” She leaned over and rummaged through her duffel, emerging

with a small handheld device. “The disk’s in my coat pocket.” Retrieving it,

she brought both items with her and sat on the bed beside him.

The bed dipped, making their shoulders touch. “Do you want to see all of

this?” she asked as the image of the inside of the station came on the

small screen. The scene was, of course, familiar. The black-clothed tangos

were on one side of the station, their hostages on the other. Small

pockets of hostages disappeared from the middle of the crowd as Alex and

his team skil fully cul ed them from the group without calling attention to

themselves, then shimmered them outside to safety.

“Skip ahead.”

Lexi thumbed fast-forward.

“Stop.” Alex took the viewer out of her hand to get a closer look. “What

the hel . . .” He rewound, and looked again, enlarging the image two

hundred percent as he zeroed in on two tangos standing side by side.

Dark-haired, faces covered. Yeah. Young. He got that from their posture.

One adjusted the blowback-operated MAC-10 submachine gun in his left

hand. The long sleeve of his shirt rode up a bit. Running up the inside of

his wrist was a tattoo of some sort. The image wasn’t clear enough to

identify it, but Alex would send it in for analysis.

But that wasn’t what caught his attention. The two kids disappeared, all

right. But they didn’t teleport. What the . . . “They
disintegrated.
”

“I told you that. So did the guys on the roof. It was as though they turned

to dust and then blew away on the wind. Is that what happens when you

wizard guys die? You turn to dust?”

“No.” His sat phone buzzed. “Stone.” He listened for a few moments while

studying the images again on the tiny screen. “On our way.”

Three

Taipei

City

Republic

of

25 01 00 121 27 00 02 11 08

She was going to throw up. No question about it.

Leaning against a wall, in a stinking al ey . . .
somewhere,
pressed a hand

to her roiling stomach and locked her knees so she didn’t col apse at

17

Night Shadow

Alex’s feet like a soufflé. Thank God it was dark so he couldn’t see her

weakness. Saliva filled her mouth and she had to swallow convulsively to

keep her dignity.

“Where are we?” she demanded, putting strength in her voice and knees

with considerable effort.

They had materialized between two blank-faced concrete buildings. The

darkness stank. She held her breath for a few moments. Not breathing in

the smel of old urine, rancid food, and God only knew what else, helped.

A little. But it didn’t do much for the disturbing feeling that she was going

to fall over at any moment.

The slight breeze felt cool against her cheeks, carrying with it the stench

of . . . whatever back alleys were fil ed with. Refuse and excrement

cloaked in near blackness.

This is what you wanted, remember?

Despite the smell, and the unsettling sensation of having her hearing

blurred by the dial tone she kept hearing, she loved the rush of

adrenaline, loved the frenetic beat of her heart. Loved living on the edge.

Loved being a T-FLAC operative out on an op. It seemed as though she’d

wanted to do this forever. And here she was.
Wow.

The lightness in her head was now two parts adrenaline and one part

transport sickness. Alex had literally given her a two-minute warning after

his Moscow call. Two minutes that included going back into the bathroom,

pul ing on her LockOut, redressing, grabbing her weapon, and bracing

herself. He’d then given her an indecipherable look with those

mesmerizing green eyes, shaken his head, and grasped her uninjured

arm.

A blinding flash of white and here they were.

Teleporting gave her severe motion sickness, messing with her inner ear

and tampering with her balance. And this was only her inaugural flight.

She wasn’t looking forward to repeating the trip.

“Taipei City.” His eyes caught the dim lights from a distant building, a

feral gleam in the darkness. The faint sound of music drifted tantalizingly