INVISIBLE FATE BOOK THREE: ALEX NOZIAK (INVISIBLE RECRUITS) (30 page)

Chapter
Sixty-six

All Hallow’s Hell broke loose as I crumpled to my knees.

The druid screamed, his oath ricocheting through my skull. Above me another called. A deep, dark base roaring in a language I didn’t know but felt, whirling deep and black in my body. The only voice I listened to was Bran’s, shouting my name, over and over.

“Trust me,” I whispered even as I felt the shuddering of my heart, the slowing of its beat, the gurgle of blood pumping out of my organs and drenching my clothes.

The floor came up to meet me. The concrete rough and cool.

The druid grabbed my shirt, hauling me up, but it was too late. The link between Bran and I was broken. The power source the druid needed had winked out. For all the dominion he possessed he didn’t have enough to finish the ritual. He couldn’t tap into Bran’s magic, or what was left of his abilities; only a witch amplifier could do that.

I’d ruined his plans.

Like a vacuum-packed sealed jar unleashing a loud
whish,
the pop exploded through the room and the seam closed.

“No. No, it can’t
.” Padraig was reaching upwards, as if his need alone could reopen the seam, dangling me like a ragdoll, which is all I was.

My heart slowed more. The air around me stilled. Quiet washed against me.

Then my eyes closed.

No choice this time, just an easy, inevitable letting go.

Chapter Sixty-seven

Arriving in the other realm this time was different. Even though I’d been here only a few hours ago, everything felt and looked unfamiliar.

For one thing
, the light was bright white, diffused around the edges, not the murky shadows I was used to. I wore the clothes I’d been in but there were no longer any bloodstains, and I was walking upright, as if I’d been walking down the street and just turned the corner. It felt like home. Welcoming.

I wasn’t expecting that. Or the sounds of birdsong somewhere in the distance. It was neither hot nor cold but a perfect temp and I felt more alive being dead than I had being alive.

Which freaked me out. Dead should feel dead.

That and the absence of a
heartbeat. No sound, except for the birds, tethered me to where I’d been.

“Dad?” I called out, my voice expanding into the emptiness like a long, slow echo. “You here?”

That had been part of his plan. He, as a shaman, could cross over and meet me, but like other elements of this scheme it wasn’t happening exactly as we’d discussed.

I stood there, looking around, expecting, I
didn’t know what. Not the wraiths, which was a good thing, but something else. Maybe I expected to feel sadness, or anguish, or even some fear. After all this was it. I wasn’t visiting. The dagger I’d used to stab myself was real. My death was real. But nothing felt real.

“You have returned,” a voice spoke so close to me I jumped.

Yup, let me face a demon sneaking back to Earth no problem. Surprise me by talking over my shoulder and I fell apart.

I twirled so fast I expected to be dizzy, but I guess you didn’t get bad side effects in this place. Good to know.

It was the Ghoul Guy, the one I’d met on other visits, only now I could see him, just as if we’d met on a sunny street. He was taller than I expected, maybe five ten or five eleven, with light brown hair that held a bit of a stubborn curl. He looked younger than me now by a couple of years but older at the same time, as if he’d seen too much in the time he’d had before he’d arrived here. His face was lean, hollows in his cheeks, a stillness in his dark brown gaze, as if waiting for something bad to happen.

Which is when I noticed what he was wearing. Khaki. A uniform. “World War
II?” I blurted out.

He nodded, a wry smile touching his lips. “1st Infantry Division.” He tapped a red badge on his shoulder. “The Fighting First.”

“What happened?” I knew I had other things to do. Finding my dad being the first but it seemed important to know.

“Operation Torch. North Africa.” His smile turned down. “El Guettar, Béja, and Mateur. Saw them all.”

“And then?”

“Battle of Gela. Sicily.” The way he said it made my heart crack. Such pain, layered with regret, wrapped in a longing so strong it felt palpable.

“Alex?” It was my dad’s voice.

At last. Relief softened my shoulders as I turned to see if I could spot him but couldn’t.

“You have to help me,” Ghoul Guy said, the sound rebreaking my heart. “You promised.”

“I know. I did and I will. Just not now.”

“Alex, where are you?”

“Over here,
Dad,” I called out, waving one hand in case he could see me. A hand that no longer dripped blood but did have a wicked looking scar across my palm.

Ghoul Guy reached out and tapped me. I hadn’t expected that. Before everyone on this side had been spirits, not able to touch. His hand rested on my arm as if he too had been surprised. Or had forgotten how to touch.

A shiver ran through me as he repeated, “Remember, you promised.”

“I will
.” I pulled away, knowing I didn’t have all that much time to reach Dad, yet reluctant to simply abandon this boy man.

“Alex!” My dad who was the soul of calm and collected
, raced out of the lightness and swept me into his arms. His hug was so tight I feared ribs cracking, but I didn’t want to release him either. When he set me on my feet at last he was already moving. “Come. Your body is in danger.”

Why wasn’t I surprised?

I turned around to say good-bye to Ghoul Guy but he had disappeared.

“Hurry, Alex.” My dad was holding my hand as he had when I was a child
, only now he was running, racing into the light and it was all I could do to keep up with him.

The luminosity swirled around us, so clean after what I’d seen back where I’d been in the cells. “Bran?” I asked, a catch in my breath.

“Waiting.” My dad shook his head. “And very angry.”

“Then all’s normal,” I sighed, forgetting about my dad’s phenomenal shifter hearing.

“I can’t blame him,” Dad said over his shoulder, his pace just now slowing, though how he could tell where we were was beyond me. “Seems he thinks you are too rash, foolish and what was the third? Oh, yes, take too many unnecessary risks.”

“You did tell him this was your plan?” I asked
. “Even with a few ad-libbed modifications.”

“I’m not a fool,” came his quick response as he pulled up short and turned toward me. “You ready?”

Not really. It was kind of nice to be pain free for a bit, but I knew that couldn’t last. I nodded. “Yeah, go ahead.”

My father stood straighter, his two hands wrapped around my shoulders, his concentration so intense I could feel him vibrating.

He began a chant in the Shoshone language; that much I recognized. I squeezed my own eyes shut, listening, hearing his words hum through me, the sound of his heart, the small beat of my own growing louder second by second.

The air around us chilled, bone-deep cold. For the space of a breath I wanted to scream, No, leave me here.

Instead I swallowed the words as I heard another voice. “Come back, Alex. Come back to me.”

I opened my eyes to pain and chaos. Why had I expected anything different?

My head was cradled in Bran’s lap. That was nice. No, better than nice, but like surfacing after a wave knocks you for a loop, I was trying to process too much at one time.

The smells:
fresh blood and a sour, acrid taint. The sounds; fighting and shouting, and thuds of fists hitting flesh. Bran’s expression, looking more strained than I’d ever seen him, his blue, blue eyes so dark and drained they looked like obsidian daggers.

“I almost lost you,” he whispered, brushing one hand across my forehead, the other gripping my hand as if afraid to let go.

I tried to sit up.

Bad idea. Really bad.

Bran pressed me down, getting that what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you frown on his face. “Not yet. If I lose you again I don’t have enough magic to call you back.”

Pieces started clicking into place as Sabina’s face came into view over Bran’s shoulder.

“I told you to leave,” I said through dry lips. It was meant to be a growl but came out more like a whimper.

“I did.” She smiled, a grin that stretched from ear to ear, as if she was having the time of her life. Silly witch. “The Were and I and that adorable dog ran as far as we could down the hall until we heard fighting on the other end. Then we headed back this way but only came close when the druid started cursing and screaming at you for dying. Thought that was my cue.”

It was but I was having a hard time getting around Franco as an adorable dog. That’d really go to his head, especially since in the version I saw him in he was butt ugly and that was being nice.

“And then
,” Sabina was almost breathless with excitement. “I got you. Saw you all gross and bloody, but I still grabbed your shirt and flew you over here.”

Thanks, I needed that visual.

“And Bran looked nearly dead.”

I glanced at him, seeing from the exhaustion on his face how close he had been.

“Sorry,” I whispered, not able to do much else. What I wanted to shout was sorry for getting you into this, for sucking your magic from you, for nearly killing you.

His lips quirked as he shook his head. “Never a dull moment around you.”

Sabina was obviously insensitive to the vibes and continued head long into her recap of events, “So there you were. A bloody heap next to the druid but  …” she paused as if facing her fear all over again.

I reached up to brush my hand against hers. “It’s alright. The fear, I mean. He was a mega scary guy.”

She nodded, the whites of her eyes quieting a bit as she glanced at Bran. “I flew you in here, though it wasn’t easy—”

“Get on with it, kid,” I ground, knowing dead weight was heavy but sheesh!

“Bran said to kick the cell door closed. So I did.” She looked beyond the metal bars. “Once I got the chains off him enough he could move he started his magic.” She glanced at him again, this time in awe. “I’ve so got to learn me some of that magic.”

“Mage magic, kiddo. Not witch magic,” I said, trying to ease Bran off the hook.

“You mean as a witch I can’t do that?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Well that just sucks.”

A laugh welled up in me. Hurt like the dickens but it was good to know one still existed inside. It winked out the second I asked, “What about the others? The team?”

“Herc’s all right except his woo-woo spidey weapon got used up right away. He’s not happy about that, which is why I had to run ahead and get caught. I mean they were fighting the Weres and there were a boatload of them and I couldn’t wait.”

Good to know where her priorities were. “And the others?”

“The bad-ass instructor dude got hurt.” She must have seen my expression as she quickly followed with, “Not bad. A broken collarbone I think. Sounded painful but he’ll live.”

I wouldn’t be telling Stone about her concern, or lack thereof, about him. “And the team?”

“The shifter one is a real ass-kicker. She tore into those Weres like she’d been waiting forever to beat the crap out of them. Did you know she was some kind of big cat? Not like a tiger but big, like a female lion only not a lion.”

“No.” She was exhausting me. “Didn’t know.”

“And Van? He’s sexy as a wolf. No wonder Kelly has only eyes for him.”

What? That had me squirming. No way was I going to let Kelly become one of Van’s love-‘em-and-leave-‘em conquests. Even if she didn’t mind. No way.

“Shhh,” Bran soothed, actually laughing at me. He didn’t know my brother. That side of my brother and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Kelly know that side either.

“I think Alex needs to know if the other members of the team are safe and where they might be now?” Bran spoke to Sabina who hung on every word.

“Oh.” She shook her head. “Isn’t that what I’ve been saying?”

Before I could groan out loud she shrugged and added
, “Far as I know, they were okay. When I left them.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the hallway. “I haven’t seen them for a while, but as Franco and Willie and I were running back this way I heard them still fighting, only in the hallways, not outside.”

“Franco got a bad gash on one paw but Willie took care of it. Then beat feet saying he was allergic to too much blood.”

“Recovering Were side effects,” I said. “I bet Franco will think we kept him from all the fun.”

At least it sounded like they’d made it through okay, which made it easier for me to do what I needed to do next.

I squirmed in Bran’s lap, which might have been very distracting in any other situation, but now all I wanted was to see what had happened to the druid.

I wish
ed I hadn’t looked. The last place I’d seen him standing there was what looked like a dried-up lump of clothes. “That him?” I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Bran’s arms tightened around me.

“After you—after you left,” w
hat a euphemism for
killed myself
if I ever heard one. “he went crazy.”

Crazy didn’t leave one looking like dirty laundry. “And then?”

“I think he’d drained himself to the point there was nothing left.” He glanced where I was still looking. “Closest I can describe, it was as if all the magic bled him dry, leaving his body a husk that imploded.”

I might have cringed a little, but not very much in spite of what sounded like a painful way to die. But Padraig had no qualms about unleashing a demon on innocents, master minding the deaths of hundreds of thousands if not more. Payback was a bitch he deserved.

“And the demon?” I asked, turning back to look at Bran, even finding a smile for him.

“Wasn’t able to pass through the portal.” He brushed the back of his fingers down my face, making me want to purr. “Seems one determined witch slammed the door shut just at the right time.”

I was basking in the moment, but Bran seemed to have his own agenda. Why wasn’t I surprised?

“Explain how your dad was able to cross over and find you?” Bran said, his voice low and husky. “I know
firsthand that I could barely think, I was locked so solid. So how did your father escape?”

I waved the fingers of one hand, which was about all I could move without pain. “Old shaman trick. Before he met with the druid
, he used a pipe to smudge himself as a protection. An ancient Native American shamanistic practice that had been used a lot more than it is now, which is why dad was hoping Padraig forgot the custom.”