Night's Captive by Cheyenne McCray Page A

she were an Enforcer. Of course that meant nothing, just that she knew how to be quiet.
    The fact that Loni was with him was a distraction he truly couldn’t afford. He had to trust that Selena was right and that Loni would be okay.
    When he reached the door to the left of the huge closed bays, he paused to listen. Silence.
    He drew his sword then grasped the doorknob and it turned easily in his hand. “Going in,” he said in a low voice into his earpiece.
    The feeling that something was wrong was stronger than ever. When he opened the door, the smell of death hit him. He felt Loni tense behind him but she didn’t make a sound.
    His heart rate kicked up a notch as he eased forward. The warehouse was dark. The room he’d entered was an office and he slipped past the chairs in front of a desk and on past a file cabinet to an open door at the other end.
    The smell of death grew stronger as he advanced through the office. He pressed up against the wall beside the door. Next to him was a panel for the lights. Loni moved beside him, her back to the wall. He peered through the entrance. Clear.
    He slipped around the door and into the warehouse and got a good view of a clear space amongst heavy machinery.
    Bodies were scattered across the huge bays.
    “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” came Petra’s voice over the earpiece.
    “Afraid so.” He sucked in his breath. “Check your areas for company. When it’s clear, I’ve got the lights.”
    He looked over his shoulder. She was right behind him, still holding the dagger in one hand.
    “Throw the lights when I tell you,” he said. “Make sure you take off your night vision goggles.”
    She nodded and gave him a thumbs up.
    When he’d cleared his area and heard back from the other Enforcers, he said, “Now, Loni.”
    Lights blared and he narrowed his gaze for a couple of moments as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. He counted nine bodies. He touched his earpiece. “Team two, we’ve got a mess in here. Maintain position until we get reinforcements.”
    Petra frowned as she appeared out from behind a forklift. “No drug deal, but we’ve got dead paranorms.”
    “Damn.” Alec sheathed his sword and took the dagger that Loni extended to him and slipped it into its sheath, too. “What happened here?”
    Rider knelt beside one of the dead paranorms and adjusted the head so that they could see the hole in the skull, the same hole found in every dead paranorm over the past two months. It was a clean hole, no blood, like it had been drilled into and cauterized.
    He glanced at Loni and saw her face, pale in the bright light of the warehouse. “You okay?” he asked.
    She pursed her lips in a tight line before she said, “It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone dead. Much less nine people.”
    He wanted to comfort her but he said instead, “Are you going to be all right?”
    She nodded and he turned back to the dead paranorm at his feet. He crouched beside the body and checked the skull. “It’s the same here.” He shook his head. “Hole exactly like the others.”
    “What the hell is going on?” Erick growled as he and Rider checked the other bodies.
    “Wish I knew.” Petra shook her head.
    “Petra, you call the task force,” Alec drew his cell phone from its holster on his weapons belt. “I’ve got Max.”
    “On it.” She took her own phone from her weapons belt and pressed a speed dial number.
    “What you got?” Max’s good ol’ boy voice came over the line. Many a paranorm had underestimated the Chief Enforcer but that was a mistake Alec had never made. Max was one of the sharpest paranorms Alec had ever met.
    He explained the situation to Max. “I’ll give Devora a shout,” Max said, talking about the chief of the other team of Phoenix Enforcers. “She’ll want to see this. You should expect her.”
    “Faster than I can blink, I’m sure,” Alec said as he disconnected the call.
    Not two minutes later the air shimmered a few feet from