INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (20 page)

I
glanced at Bran, suddenly seeing fine details in the puzzle pieces. “The Council,” I murmured, still working through the gray areas. “Which could explain Philippe Cheverill’s murder.”

“And your father being in Paris,” Bran added.

That pulled me up short. “You think my dad’s behind all this?”

He so had the wrong end of the stick. I might still be PO’d at my dad but no way was he this Machiavellian. I could see him killing someone, but it’d be a fair fight
, not a knife to the back and then going after all the person’s relatives.

“Not your dad. Think
!” Bran prodded.

“The Council
.” I could hear the
kerching
of the key piece sliding into place. ”You think the Council is behind this?”

Even Ling Mai raised her brows at that
, but it was Kelly who spoke first, “But that doesn’t make any sense? They work to keep humans from being aware of preternaturals. Wouldn’t unleashing a dangerous fallen- angel -demon guy on the world be counterintuitive?”

“It would.
” Bran nodded his head with a calculated precision, before he went in for the zing. “But what if it’s not the Council itself but one person on the Council working for his … or her,” he cut me a glance while continuing,“… for their own gains with the Council’s mandate.”

“Or it could be someone associated with the Council,” Sabina
spoke up, earning a few what-do-you-know-about-it looks. So she added, “You’re right, I don’t know anything at all about this Council but aren’t there assistants or people or beings or whatever that help?”

“She has a point,” Vaughn conceded, offering an atta-girl smile.

“So notifying the Council—” Jaylene started and Mandy finished, “—means we’d be tipping off the very individual we’re looking for.”

“They’d go to ground
,” Stone, the strategist said. “Postponing their plans until they could eliminate those who know too much.”

“Us.
” Kelly cleared her throat and said again. “We’d all be at risk, not just Alex and Sabina.”

Stone nodded. “And then the master-mind would unleash the demon without fear of being stopped.”

“But if the Council or someone near it is involved how does that get us closer to the master-mind?” Kelly asked, which saved me the trouble.

Bran looked at her.
“Alex will.”

“What?”
Like hell I would! Ever feel like the downhill terminus of a dunghill? “Why’s it keep coming back to me?”

I sounded whiny, but for love of the Great Spirits, the world did not revolve around me. In spite of what I
’d told my brothers for years.

“You’re the only one with a contact on the Council,” Bran said, making my
heart skitter and my skin chill. “Your dad may be our best lead to who is acting against all our interests.”

“You want me to track down my dad?”

“If you want to stop a demon,” he said in a voice so calm I wanted to slap him. It wasn’t like he was suggesting I give Dad a ring, ask him if he knew any colleagues of his who might want to destroy the world then ask about the weather. He was pushing me to face my father who sacrificed me for his beloved Council and hid that tidbit from me until I found out on my own.

Not going to happen.

I closed my mouth, clenched my jaw and crossed my arms.

So not going to happen.

“Intriguing supposition,” Ling Mai said. “You may have twenty-four hours to discover if there’s any validity to your hypothesis. After that, I shall speak to my Council contact. This is too big of a potential catastrophe not to keep them informed.”

Not a rousing endorsement of Bran’s plan, which was fine with me. I would rather have a triple root canal than find my dad for a little
tête-à-tête
.

Just plain
not going to happen.

Kelly reached over and laid her hand over mine. She alone seemed to understand what was being asked here. What was being asked of me. Then she turned to Bran
. “What’s going to happen if Alex doesn’t talk to her father? Isn’t there another way?”

“Yes.”
Bran gave her his steely-eyed glint. “We wait until this unknown threat attacks her again.”

Okay
, I could live with that. Wasn’t looking forward to it but I’d take that choice over begging my dad for help. Again.

But Bran wasn’t finished. “Or
the master-mind tries for Sabina because she’s an easier target. Or takes out some of the team because he’s not going to keep holding back.”

My stomach plummeted,
a long, slow, painful dive off a very high cliff.

I was going to have to do exactly what I didn’t want to do.

So much for choices.

Chapter
Forty-three

Bran went with me. Lucky me. I’m sure it was because he thought I’d bolt without a warlock escort.

I hated that he could read my mind.

Afternoon was seeping into early evening as we exited a town car that Bran had hired. How he could keep a low profile at his level was beyond me, and yes, I was focusing on inconsequential details instead of the sweat pooling on my lower back and the quivering of my knees.

“How did you know where my father
is?” I asked, my voice barely squeaky.

“I knew where
Philippe Cheverill lived and assumed your father would stay with him when in town.”

How civilized.
Logical actually, but I wasn’t feeling generous enough to give Bran any brownie points. It was because of him I was here, and there wasn’t enough time in the world for him to pay me back for that fact.

We stood outside
an old stone building with a million-dollar view of the Eiffel Tower. Bran probably owned a similar swanky place nearby.

Snark was also something I could manage well when nervous. Okay, all the time, but I
so didn’t want to go up and ring that doorbell.

The building looked old, but with that elegance that a beautifully crafte
d home carried. Mud Lake, Idaho, didn’t run with any buildings that looked like this, which was only one of the reasons I couldn’t see my father staying here. Man, when he lived a double life, he did a dandy job of keeping it quiet.

“You ready?” Bran whispered in my ear, startling me out of my thoughts and making me aware I was standing frozen on the sidewalk as if
he had bespelled me again.

“Sure.” If my shoulders tightened any
more they were going to snap. It’d be a cold day in Hades before I let Bran or anyone else know how bad my nerves were misbehaving. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t know what I expected as I hit a hard rat
-a-tat on the gray-painted doorway.
Hi, Dad, how are you? Hi, Dad, why’d you abandon me? Hi, Dad, I hate you but I still need you.

Whatever I expected it wasn’t to see Van open the door.

Chapter Forty-four

Time jerked to a stop. My hand had been raised to strike the door again. The half-open door. Van standing there, his face thinner, lines etched near his eyes, a slow grin growing on his face.

He reached for me first and only when he touched me did I believe it was really him
and not an illusion or wraith.

“You’re alive,” I blubbered into his knit sweater
, squeezing him so hard I could hear his breath catch. “I thought you were dead.”

Damn. Damn. Damn. Relief warred with anger. All this
time when I’d thought the worst. Here he was. And no one told me.

He pulled back enough to look over my shoulder then back at me. “How could you
know? Your friend here saved my skin.”

I glanced back at Bran. Okay, it was more a
hard, payback’s-coming kind of glare. “You knew I thought he was dead. Why didn’t you—”

“She was too busy trying to kill me to listen,” he said to Van, like they were BFF
s.

“
That sounds familiar.” Van chuckled, a sound I never thought I’d hear again as he pulled me into the house, my fingers tangled in his sweater as I was too afraid to let him go again. He waved Bran in too. “You’ll never change,” he laughed at me.

I smacked him on the shoulder, hard enough it
staggered him. He rubbed his side as if it’d really stung. “Ow. When did you get muscles?”

Since he
’d bitten me.

So did not want to go there, which was clear in the look I shot Bran. He grabbed the ball and said, “We actually came to see you
r father. If he’s here.”

There were undercurrents here, something that happened between Bran and my father
, or Bran and Van. I didn’t know which but could feel the swirls and eddies.

“You sure?” Van asked
. That’s when it hit me. Bran was still wanted by the Council. My father being a Council member would be required to restrain him and produce him in front of the governing body. Bran was a strong warlock but my dad was a shaman powerful enough to be on the Council so no telling how this could play out.

I’d just walked Bran into a trap.

I’d been so focused on why I didn’t want to be here that I’d buried the threat to Bran.

I jerked to a stop,
barely noticing the frou-frou antiques and soothing color tones of the small room we’d walked into as I turned back toward the door, grabbing Bran’s arm in the process. “On second thought, this can wait.”

“
Alex? Is that you?” The voice came from closer to the front door. “And what can wait?”

Dad. Between us and escape.

“Mr. Noziak,” Bran said as my dad’s eyes narrowed. I don’t know if Dad even noticed I was in the room as Bran and Van made a very effective wall in front of me. But I could see my dad from the small gap between them. My dad who looked as if he’d aged as much as Van had recently. More gray in his sable black hair, deeper grooves in his face, an air around him I hadn’t seen since my mom had disappeared.

“I did
n’t expect to see you here.” My dad was focused on Bran, the comment so cold it sliced.

“We need your assistance,” Bran replied.

Much braver person than I was.

“We?” my dad asked.

Oh. Oh.

Good thing I was a Noziak
, and digging a hole was not an option. No matter how good it sounded.

I muscled my way past Bran and Van, and trust me
, it wasn’t easy, which explained why I was out of breath as I came face to face with my dad.

“Yes, us
.” My tone held mostly bravado as did my stance, legs apart, arms folded across my chest, chin raised high enough it dared him to take his best shot.

But he didn’t. Instead
, he inhaled sharply as if one of us had rammed him with a stout stick then stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug as if I were five and not twenty plus years older than that.

“I thought
—” he started then choked and started again. “I looked for you. On the other side. But couldn’t find you.”

He released me enough to look down at me, tears glittering in his eyes.

I looked twice because my dad did not cry. Ever. Not when Mom left. Not when Van and two of my other brothers chose lives fraught with danger. Not when I’d been sent to prison. Not ever.

And just like that
, I felt like I was five all over again. Trusting my dad to know everything, fix everything, including a little girl’s broken heart. Only now I was the one who’d broke his heart.

I hadn’t thought
what he must have felt, how he could have been worrying, playing the what-if-I’d-done-something-different game. The same bitter, pointless, painful game that had been scouring me when thinking Van had been killed.

And yet. My body
stiffened, my strangled emotions roiling as I cleared my throat. “I’m here because I need your help.”

Less than a dozen rock-hard words built a wall between us. No warm and fuzzy reunion here. He’d hurt me. I’d hurt him. We’d go on hurting each other. I didn’t know for how long. Betrayal burned deep. Understanding could take a lifetime to repair the damage. We only had
twenty-four hours with the minutes ticking past.

Dad angled his head as if listening to what I wasn’t saying
, but even I couldn’t get clear what was screaming from within me.
Why? Why your Council instead of me? Why not once explain to me what you did?

Too much rage, too little time.

Bran stepped forward, brushing his shoulder against mine, allying himself with me against my father even as we both needed my dad’s help to save lives. A whole lot of lives.

The warlock at my side broke the tinsel-fragile silence. “We’re looking for someone with an Irish accent who works closely with the Council.”

Like a lightning bug flaring and dying in the same heartbeat, my father stepped back. A rough jagged movement, quickly replaced by a whipcord savagery. “You expect me to speak of the Council.”

The words were more accusation than question.

“Someone within or close to the Council who speaks with an Irish accent is seeking to use your daughter, or another powerful witch, a very young one, to unleash Zaradian.”

That sucked out all the air in the room, even as I noticed something flash in my father’s gaze.

“You know something,” I whispered my words hoarse and dry. “Or suspect someone.”

My father spared me a half-second deadly glance. This was not the dad of my childhood, my knight in shining
armor. This was one of seven of the most powerful preternaturals existing on the planet. It took everything in me not to step back.

“We don’t ask you to betray anyone,” Bran said.

Like you did me.

“
We need your help. We can’t stop the threat to both preternaturals and humans without it.”

A pause before my dad said, “A worthy cause.” I started breathing again, but it was too soon as he added
, “But what proof do you have?”

Bran glanced at me and waited until I gave a barely perceptible nod.

“Alex can identify the voice of the individual who held her hostage.” Before Dad could rear back, Bran kept pushing. Nothing like a tightly leashed, if pissed off warlock determined to find justice. “The same person who’s behind a plan to release Satanaial’s right hand.” As Dad opened his mouth Bran raised one hand. “We’re not asking you to call him out. We’re only asking for help in identifying him.”

“And then?” my father asked, his tone lethal.

“Then we find a way to help the Council stop his actions.”

My father’s lips turned in a mockery of a smile. “So says a man who refuses to appear before the Council
. Is in fact fleeing from them?”

Once again my father was choosing the Council. Why was I not surprised. I stepped forward. If it’d been another I might have jammed my finger, hard, against his chest to get him to listen, but I did have a small smidgen of self-preservation still in me. My ton
e, though didn’t hold back. “Bran’s here because I’m here. Trying to stop a cataclysm. Trying to save lives. He’s putting his life, his freedom on the line and all we’re asking is for you to listen. For you to accept that there may be something rotten within your precious Council.”

“Enough,” my father roared, shocking all of us, Van in particular
, who grabbed my shoulder and thrust me behind him. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dad bit each word out as if chipped from granite. “You are calling to account the only institution that has allowed humans to survive for the past thousand years. An institution you know nothing about.”

I leaned around Van’s arm, so angry I’m surprised my touch didn’t burn him. “I know
Philippe Cheverill is dead. Murdered by someone close to your beloved Council. Why can’t you see what’s right in front of you?”

“You have no idea of the danger you seek to unleash,”
Dad murmured, his tone almost sorrowful now. “Go home. Away from here.”

“It’s too late,” Bran said, stepp
ing closer to Van, which effectively backed me up. Damn warlocks and shifters for treating me like a fragile human.

But then I felt Van still beside me and heard the sound from outside. The
tramp of heavy footsteps marching up to the front door.

“You expecting company,
Dad?” Van asked, knowing our dad could hear what we were hearing.

Dad shook his head, his expression suddenly tight. He didn’t look at me but spoke to Bran. “You brought her here. Can you hide her?”

A knock rattled the door.

Bran whipped around to me, speaking Latin, the words of a simple cloaking spell.

I glanced at my hands, which I could no longer see. “What the—”

“Stay quiet, I beg you,” Bran murmured
. “No matter what.”

What was he talking about? Who was on the other side of that door?

Van looked at Dad who gave a stiff, jerky nod. My brother glanced around, walking toward the front door only when he was assured he couldn’t see me. Maybe he could smell me, he was a shifter, but it was harder to cover a scent than sight.

I still wasn’t sure what was happening until the door opened and I could hear the voice speaking. “I must come in.”

And then he was there. Colin Farrell voice. The man we were looking for had come to us. Not only come to us but was giving my father a hug.