Seneca’s pulse quickened as she moved behind Riley, taking in everything—locked and boarded storefronts, the smell of sewer, and the
thrum-thrum
of the city. Two agents against one Shifter. It was a strategy that had cost a lot of lives to develop, but two agents were enough to take down the suspect while still keeping the situation contained and quiet.
If
the agents were good. She and Riley were very good.
As always, her training kicked in with the official XCEL agency mantra that was burned into her brain.
Level 1: Suspect compliance. Response—arrest. Which was a joke because they never complied.
Level 2: Suspect resistance. Response—containment and appropriate force. There was
always
resistance.
Level 3: Suspect assault. Response—all necessary force. That one was her personal favorite.
They were thirty feet from Jack’s front door when gunfire erupted from a first-floor window of the warehouse and shattered the silence. Chunks of pavement sprayed around them.
Seneca dove behind a parked Honda with Riley beside her. She leaned toward him. “I think that qualifies as Level Three.”
“Oh yeah,” he replied. In unison, they swung up and fired back. She yelled out, “Police! You are under arrest. Come out with your hands up!”
Return fire poured through a broken window and peppered the Honda. Glass shattered and sprinkled to the ground. XCEL was going to owe someone a car.
“You know, we should just stop saying that. No one ever listens to us,” Riley said. “How about we try, ‘Show yourself or we’ll come in there and blow your fucking brains out’? I bet that’d work.”
She flipped her communications device on. “Put your money where your mouth is, Riley.”
They moved behind the car with Jack watching them from the window, almost challenging them to fire. Riley took a shot with the tranquilizer, but Jack had shifted from human form to Shifter and the powerful sedative cartridge bounced off his head harmlessly.
“Shit,” Riley said. “Looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”
Seneca gave a short laugh. “It’s always the hard way.”
“And that’s why you love it. This is like foreplay to you.”
She countered. “And sometimes it’s better.”
“You gotta get yourself a man.” Riley reloaded the tranq weapon and pulled the disrupter pistol from his holster. It was designed to deliver a potent electromagnetic charge that would temporarily disorient the Shifter’s molecular pattern long enough for the tranquilizer to stick and work. Unless Jack had adapted to the disrupter, in which case, things would get really ugly.
“I’m taking the back door,” Riley said. “Cover me.”
Seneca laid down fire as he sprinted into the side alley. Her burst lit up the night and littered streets in shades of gray. As soon as Riley was clear, she ducked behind the car and held her fire.
Jack didn’t shoot back and the city that never slept closed in on her. Car alarms jangled in the night. No sirens, which was a good sign. It meant that the XCEL cleanup crew was on-site. They’d take care of the local authorities, the press, and anyone else asking too many questions. Her job was to take care of Jack.
Seneca listened carefully for movement, but it was all quiet inside. She scanned the building. The sensors in her duty visor didn’t pick up a heat signature from Jack anymore.
Where’d he go?
“In position,” Riley whispered in her earpiece.
“Jack’s on the move,” she warned him.
“He’s still inside. We got the exits covered. When you’re ready, let me know and I’ll toss in a flashbang to clear the way.”
She scrambled to her feet, raced for the front door, and slammed her back against the wall. A quick check of the handle revealed it was locked.
She told Riley, “I’ll need a second to blow the lock on the front door before I move in.”
“Just don’t shoot me again.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I only did that once, and it barely nicked you, you big baby.”
“Yeah, well next time you might hit a vital organ. I’d like to have a few more kids before I die.”
She shook her head. Riley already had four kids. “I’m set here.”
Riley said, “Three, two, one—”
There was a flash of light and a powerful concussion that blew out the front windows as Riley’s grenade went off inside.
Seneca spun, shot through the knob, and kicked the door in. It crashed against the inside wall as she entered, gun ready. No sign of Jack, but she heard heavy footsteps above her.
Riley shouted in her ear. “I’m on the second floor. He’s heading up the back stairs to the third.”
She raced through the doorways and rooms of the warehouse. “Wait for me!”
“No, I’m good. I got him cornered,” he replied, breathing hard. Gunfire exploded throughout the building.
Goddamnit, Riley,
she thought. Fear pushed her faster as she took the stairs two at a time. When she hit the top step, there was a beat of silence, and then a hellish scream. She knew what had happened even as she raced toward the sound.
She cleared the doorway that opened into a cavernous room lined with boxes and crates. Her night vision turned the streetlight green through broken windowpanes and outlined a huge shapeshifter pulling his hand out of Riley’s stomach as he lay on the floor. Jack lifted it to the light and inspected the dark blood.
Seneca staggered under the emotional impact of Riley’s death gurgle, and then his heat signature dimmed in her visor.
Oh God, no.
The Shifter looked at her and grinned, brandishing a row of razor-sharp teeth. Fresh dread rolled over her.
Focus, Seneca. Stay focused.
He was in Primary Shifter form, deadly from his smooth, domed head to his clawed fingers to powerful, massive thighs. Black armorlike skin flexed over a muscular body. Eerie, alien gold eyes met hers. A blank, cold-blooded canvas, capable of replicating anyone.
“Next?” he hissed.
And with that, her fear was gone, snuffed out like Riley’s life. Now there was only rage. She ripped off her headgear and tossed it aside. “I think it’s your turn, asshole.”
He spread his arms wide and took a bobbing step toward her. “Go ahead. Shoot away.”
It wouldn’t do any good; she knew that now. He wouldn’t dare her if he hadn’t adapted to bullets. He’d simply thin his molecular structure so they’d pass right through him.
On the other hand, she’d feel much better. So she hit him with the AA-12 in nonstop bursts. Jack simply stood there, and the ammo pelted the wall and windows behind him.
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing through the building.
Bastard.
She glanced at the 3GL grenades strapped to Riley, twenty feet away. Too far. With her options dwindling fast, she settled on her instincts. That, and the one thing she could always count on with Shifters—their unqualified arrogance.
Jack suddenly vanished in a puff of black smoke and materialized a few feet away. Terrific, he was one of the more powerful ones. All Shifters were killing machines—lightning fast, deadly hands, thick armor skin. But one of their deadliest weapons was the ability to thin their structure to reduce friction so they could move fast—really fast. Becoming shadows. It was going to be a challenge to get her hands on him without being sliced to ribbons.
She breathed and harnessed her anger and anguish, pushing them deeply into her concentration. She’d rather die here with Riley than leave this monster alive, or worse, allow him replicate to Riley’s DNA.
Her right hand flexed in anticipation and hope.
Just work one more time,
she said to herself. And so far, it had. Which was why she still used it. Luck was for suckers.
He poofed, and her second vision followed the trail he left behind. He seemed surprised as she turned to face him before he re-formed.
He said, “Aren’t you gonna try to run? I’ll even give you a head start.”
That’s more than I’ll give you.
“No, I’m good.”
He rushed forward in a cloud of black smoke, bringing him a few feet away. She saw the hunger in his black eyes and felt the evil in his black heart. Cold air flowed around her.
“I like killin’ the girls,” Jack said, thoroughly enjoying his little game.
Bud, you are in for the surprise of your life
. She repositioned her hands around the shotgun. “Then you should know, I’m not like other girls.”
“You all taste the same to me.” He lunged then, mouth open, and she jammed her gun down his throat. For a split second, he gagged, and in that second, she pressed her right hand to his chest.
Concentrate, breathe
. . . “Shift!”
A burst of heat pumped through her hand, coming from a source she didn’t understand and didn’t question. All that mattered was what it did to Shifters. It changed them, forcing them to shift back to whoever they were last.
She wasn’t kidding. She really wasn’t like other girls.
The intense energy hurt, driving electricity up her arm. She pulled her hand away, stretching a ribbon of white residual energy between them until it snapped. The Shifter knocked the shotgun out of his mouth with a roar and then took a few steps back.
She held her ground, waiting. Jack’s eyes widened as his chest began to contract around where her hand had been, and he clutched his stomach and stumbled to the floor.
His body contorted grotesquely, and his joints began popping, skin rippling with twisted bones. The clawed hands sprouted rudimentary finger buds. The thick legs narrowed. His head imploded and then reshaped.
All the while, she listened to his screams with cold indifference. This was what he deserved. The same mercy he’d shown Riley and the other innocent people he’d murdered. There was no compassion in his soul, no conscience in his mind. Nothing worth saving.
She walked over to Riley and knelt to check for a pulse, even though she knew it wouldn’t be there. His Kevlar vest and chest had been sliced open cleanly.
“Oh, Riley,” she whispered.
A sudden sob clutched her throat, piercing her heart beneath all her armor. A hundred thoughts flooded her mind, but one was crystal clear—she’d failed him. She hung her head.
I’m sorry.
The Shifter had stopped writhing by the time she pulled herself together. Tranquilizer gun in hand, she stood over Jack’s human form, the last shape he’d used, created from stolen human DNA. He was just your average guy. Could have been her neighbor or a Wall Street broker or a husband with a wife and kids. Shifters didn’t care where or how they got their “skins.”
In her mind’s eye, the Shifter’s demon form shimmered around him like a ghost. He was still an alien, but right now he was as vulnerable as any human.
She fought the urge to use her Glock instead of a tranquilizer. She could easily blame it on self-defense. She could even justify it with Riley’s death. No one would question her. No one would care if one more Shifter died.
But her orders were to bring in Shifters alive whenever possible, and she was a good agent, like Riley. She wouldn’t disgrace his memory. Not today.
Today, she lifted the tranquilizer gun, aimed, and hit Jack the Ripper in the heart.
CHAPTER TWO
S
eneca knocked once and walked into her boss’s office. He looked up from behind the placard that read XCEL: Extraterrestrial Criminal Enforcement Locality, New York City Division, and motioned for her to sit down.
Director Rory MacGregor was as solid on the inside as he was on the outside. A twenty-year veteran of the politics and bullshit that went along with running a newly created, clandestine perimeter law enforcement operation like XCEL. Seneca was pretty sure he’d started with a full head of hair when he was assigned to this post last year. He was a good man, and he hated Shifters as much as she did.
“You barked?” she asked wearily, but already she could tell it was something bad. Although at this point, “bad” was relative.
MacGregor closed the file he was reviewing to give her his full attention. “I have some news you aren’t going to like.”
If MacGregor thought she wouldn’t like it, it was beyond bad. “I had to go over and tell Riley’s wife that the man she loved, the father of her four children, had been killed. Nothing can be worse than that.”
His expression didn’t change. “You have a new partner.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Riley’s body isn’t even cold yet. What the hell?”
MacGregor muttered, “News travels fast.”
“What, are they lined up in the wings?” she said testily.
“You weren’t supposed to get him until the end of the month—”
“What? And you didn’t tell me?”
MacGregor said, “Because I knew you’d react like this.”
If she wasn’t so pissed, she’d be speechless. “Like someone who already
had
a partner?”
He raised a hand. “It’s for the good of the agency—”
That was crap. “We don’t break up partners,” she said. “We don’t work that way.
You
don’t work that way.”
“I do now,” he said. “You have a new partner.”
She squinted as he pursed his lips until they turned white. There was more. “And?”
There was a long pause, which really worried her because MacGregor was a blunt, direct kind of guy. “And he’s a Shifter.”
She blinked once. She’d been up all night and all day after handing Jack over to the cryogenics boys to put on ice, taking Riley’s body to the morgue, and consoling Mara. It was 4:00 P.M. now, and her sleep-deprived brain wasn’t firing on all pistons. Because she
thought
she heard MacGregor say that her new partner was a Shifter.
“Come again?”
He looked at her apologetically. “It wasn’t my idea. This comes from the top. A new initiative.”
She shook her head, disbelief turning to dread. “This is a joke, right?”