INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (25 page)

Chapter
Fifty-five

“What do you mean you hear nothing from Bran?” Van hissed in my ear as if all this mess was my fault.

“N.O.T.H.I.N.G
,” I repeated, gritting my teeth as I re-sheathed my dagger. “I can’t reach him.” Then, before he could ask why I clarified, each word bitten out, “Maybe I don’t have the ability. Or he could be blocking.”
Or he could be dead.

Wasn’t going there.

“Fine.” Van said it like most women used the word, meaning it wasn’t fine by a long shot and there’d be hell to pay, later, but right now we were moving on. He was staring at the house as if he could see through walls as he mumbled, “Dad’s already gone inside. We’ll give him another ten minutes to exit, then snatch him and notify the others there might be a change of plans.”

“Meaning?” My turn to glare, at him. “You going to leave Bran in that place?”

“If he’s dead, yes.”

Gloves were off. Sabina sucked in a deep breath as I held my temper long enough to ask in a slow-measured-slice-and-dice tone. “And if he’s not dead? You’re guaranteeing that outcome by sitting on our hands out here.”

The look my brother gave me could flay skin. Tough.

“Bran came through for you.” Two could play contact sports. “Now you’re tossing him aside?”

I recognized the tightening of Van’s face, the thinning of his lips. I’d scored and neither of us liked that.

“Risking more people on the chance he’s still alive can lead to useless deaths.” He turned to look me eye-to-eye. “You want those lives on your conscience?”

Of course I didn’t. I wasn’t an idiot. But neither was I going to assume the worst and by doing so make it a reality. Staring at the house but seeing nothing but Bran trapped and alone, I swallowed the fear leaching through my skin before I asked, “If I can prove he’s not dead, will you help then?”

“How
—” then he remembered what I was. Shaman born. “You’re willing to go to the other side for him?”

“In a heartbeat.” I meant it too and I wasn’t sure who was more surprised, Van or myself.

My brother nodded before looking away. “You have ten minutes. No more.”

“Understood.”

“What’s she going to do?” Sabina asked, sounding much younger than her almost-fifteen years.

“I’m checking out another realm. See if Bran is there. If not, it’s easier to believe he’s alive in this realm.”

“R-realm?” she stuttered over the single word. “As in you’re going to die?”

“Not exactly.” I needed every second to focus and travel between realms, not to nursemaid a scared little girl. “Van will explain what’s happening.”

“She’s risking her life on the off chance the warlock still lives,” Van muttered.

I was hoping for a little more compassion. Not for me, Van was as much Noziak as I was, but some understanding for Sabina, some reassurances.

“On second thought, don’t listen to a word he says.” I gave Van a what-the-hell-are-you-thinking look. Which he ignored.

Fine. I could do this myself. Well, except for the need of a heartbeat as a guide to find my way back here.

I butted Van’s shoulder with my own. “You going to get that stick out of your butt and help?” He knew what I needed so I didn’t have to spell out the details.

He shrugged, then went still, until he could feel the tempo of his own heart beating in his chest. Once in touch he started the chant we’d all learned from standing at my father’s knees. Van grabbed two small stones and started tapping them together, his voice tight and low. “A way ah way yah. A way ah way yah. A way ah way yah.” It didn’t matter what he said as long as he kept the beat steady. Not loud. But the sound of his voice, his beats, would keep me anchored in this world.

I closed my eyes, easing all tenseness coursing through me. It wasn’t easy but needed to be done.

I was running out of time.

Chapter Fifty-six

I hadn’t told Van the whole truth. To travel to the spirit realm, I would leave my physical body an empty shell, vulnerable to attack. But with Van here I trusted him to guard me long enough to do what I needed to do.

No, what was going to be tricky was I was crossing over while at the same time as I uttered a soul mate seekin
g a warlock spell. Think steering a motorcycle on an icy patch of freeway while zooming at seventy miles an hour, blindfolded. To travel between realms took a huge amount of energy. To spell cast also took energy. Combining the two meant the possibility that one or the other wouldn’t work. If it was the spell I could still search for Bran, but finding one recently crossed spirit in that other realm made hunting for a needle in a field of haystacks seem easy-peasey.

The big challenge was losing a grip on Van’s voice by being distracted. No voice, no navigation back, it was as simple as that.

But I was desperate.

Closing my eyes tight
, I inhaled slowly, still in this realm, aware of the scents, the sounds stilling around me. All except Van’s guttural singsong voice, creating a slow, melodic cadence, as familiar as a mother’s heartbeat. Well, not my mother because she’d bagged me, but my image of what a mother should be.

I framed an image of Bran behind my closed lids. The slash of his rugged cheekbones, the cant of his lips, the flash of those Celtic blue eyes, the protection he spread over those around him. Over me.

Most times. When he wasn’t PO’d at me. Or working toward his own agenda, which often was in conflict with mine.

But those other times. When he’d smile, that sexy, warm-the-toes smile that started with his lips and reached his eyes. Or the feel of his touch, sometimes butterfly wing gentle, other times intensely urgent. And his kisses. Oh,
Mamma, that man knew how to kiss.

My body warmed, a rush of knowingness. Our relationship was complicated and screwed up, but there was something there. Something that deserved a chance
.

I’d told Van the truth. I’d travel between life and death to give Bran that chance. That chance to feel the sun one more time, to laugh again, to find out if what we started together was a fluke or fate.

Only then did I start the whisper chant.

“Light to darkness. Spirit to Earth.

Witch to warlock.

I seek thee. I summon thee.

Bring me to your side.”

A flash zigzagged up my leg toward my heart.
Not pain, more like a whiplash of heat.

First step done. Now to merge with the other realm.

I uttered a silent prayer to the spirit guardian of my shamanic ancestors that the next breath I took wouldn’t be my last, and murmured the first ritual words.

“Come
, death, advise me.”

I remembered doing this on my last mission in Africa as heat slapped against my skin. Here the Parisian spring disappeared, the scents of tilled earth, the chit-chit of sparrows high in the overhead branches, all becoming a background blur. I closed my eyes tighter and continued.

“Earth be found.

Power be bound.

Stall Nature’s course.

Earth, dust, bone.

Bind to me.

Spirits Realm welcome me.

Spirits Realm call me forth.”

When I opened my eyes I was there. The Spirits’ waiting grounds. The realm between worlds, where the souls of the dead mingled. If only for a brief time.

I braced myself for what was waiting for me. Once darkness, filled with thousands of churning souls, another time an intense heat with a sun so brilliant I could see nothing. This time?

A grayness so thick nothing penetrated. Like stepping into murky fog with no sense of time or space.

How was I going to find Bran if I couldn’t see anything? Couldn’t feel anything?

I stood still, allowing the wraiths of those in this place to whisper around me. Slashes of chill and whisper-thin sound, like winter storms whistling through an old house. When I was sure my voice would hold steady I continued the chant to find a warlock.

“Bound together, dark and day.

Time forward
, meet time reversed.

I seek thee. I summon thee.

Bring me. Bring me to your side.

Voice to heart. Heart to soul.

Show me what I seek.

If thy be here, reveal yourself.”

Before I opened my eyes I added a silent,
please
.

Then I looked around. Like a dawn creeping over the skyline, pale pink lightened the gray.

“Bran?” I asked, aware my voice shook, but then so did my hands, and my knees. I took a step forward, cleared my throat and tried again, “Bran? Are you here?”

Nothing.

Chapter Fifty-seven

Van continued to chant, refusing to glance at Alex, not when she looked dead beside him.

Sabina, the kid witch next to him mumbled, “Do you think she’s okay?”

Everything in him wanted to give an angry shake of his head. Of all the fool, ill-thought-out, hare-brained ideas, why had he agreed to this?

They had a plan. One that might have worked but it’d gone
FUBAR so fast his head spun.

So now his sister was haring off to the spirit realm, which made the
hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. His dad had already been inside longer than originally planned, though Van still had four minutes before sounding an alarm, and beside him was a scared, little witch, shaking in her boots as they lay stretched out beneath some sticky leaved trees.

Yup,
FUBAR!

He’d run enough missions to know that flexibility was key. That and to keep
his focus on the prize. In this case the warlock, Bran. This wasn’t just a snatch-and-grab mission though. This was to thwart some bad shit coming down. Shit involving his father, his sister, and now, Bran.

Van knew he owed the mage and it was payback time. So for another four-minutes he’d bite his tongue, keep his chant steady, and refuse to give into the what-ifs
.

He glanced at the girl witch and gave a steady nod. He knew if he stopped chanting Alex could be lost on the other side. He wouldn’t do that to his worst enemy.

“So you’re saying she’s okay?” Sabina’s voice sounded thin and reedy.

Van offered another nod.

The kid blew a puff of air that made her dark bangs dance as she turned back toward the house. “Good.” Then her nerves seemed to get the better of her as she continued to whisper. “I mean you both know what you’re doing and I don’t, and worry never fixed a thing. My dad used to say that. A lot. Not that it ever helped. But if there was something I could be doing you’d tell me.” She glanced at him again.

He nodded.

“Okay. Then I won’t panic. Not yet.”

He wasn’t sure if he should be thankful for small favors or not. Until he noticed Sabina go still, her focus now one hundred percent on the mansion in front of them.

The mansion where two men and what looked like a shaggy huge dog had just exited. The dog looked like a cross between an Otter hound and a Great Dane. Butt ugly but huge and powerful, and if Van’s guess was right, a shifter or Were. Most likely shifter because Weres tended to be more predatory animals.

This one was not a happy beast though, barking, and agitated. But why?

His father looked calm enough, his posture a little stiff and formal, but the other man, the druid Van had met this morning, looked like a country squire, his hand gestures expansive, a smile wreathed across his face.

Van brought his Duovid binoculars to his eyes while continuing to chant. Then he increased the magnification until both faces came in sharp and unrestricted.

With greater clarity the subtleties came into range. His father’s tight-lipped expression told Van loud and clear not all was well. And the other man’s movements through the viewfinder they appeared less casual and more a way to defuse nerves. Even the dog’s antics looked less benign and more assertive.

If Van dared stop chanting he’d have uttered an oath. As it was he glanced at his watch.

Alex had less than three minutes.

A sharp bark from the dog had him scanning the front door again where the druid seemed to be asking Van’s father to return inside the house.

No, demanding. His dad threw off the hand placed on his arm and then froze, as if struck by magic.

A smug expression creased the druids face as his lips moved.

A spell.

Triple
FUBAR.

Before Van could move
, his dad was walking stiff- legged back into the house, the dog tearing around him, the druid calling orders to whoever was just inside.

Alex had just run out of time.