NCIS | The Night's Agents: Book 1: Strangers in the Night

Chapter Nine

After Gibbs cut Nixon loose, the team was on the road again, Ducky and Palmer on their six. As Gibbs sped along the road, both Shifters noticed McGee was trying not to puke. Finally, Gibbs noticed and pulled over, immediately sending the car to a skidding halt.

            The probie leaped out and hurried into nearby bushes, where Tony and Ziva could hear him spewing chunks. A minute later, they were on their way, a pale-faced McGee in back.

            When they arrived at the entrance to the park some time later, Elf Lord hit the ground as if he never planned to let go. He instantly scrambled to his feet as a park ranger came over.

            “I’m Tom Henderson. Which one of you is Special Agent Gibbs?”

            If this was a wolf pack, Tony thought with an amused snort, he, Ziva, and McGee would be well behind Gibbs with ears and tail lowered while Gibbs would be standing in a dominant posture: ears forward, head up, tail lifted. Although two of them could become wolves in shape, there were differences from Shifters and the true wolf. For one thing, they were larger than normal wolves.

            The ranger’s head swung in his direction. “Are you Gibbs?”

            “Oh, no,” Tony said. “I’m Special Agent DiNozzo. That is Agent Gibbs.” He pointed to his boss, who didn’t look too thrilled at being singled out. However, as typical of the Bossman, what he said was, “Where’s the body?”

            Henderson sighed and said, “Follow me.” He headed into the woods with Team Gibbs and Ducky and his assistant—who had just arrived due to Palmer mixing up directions again—hot on his trail. Tony began to have a bad feeling about this case as they hiked through the woods.

            As it turned out, he was right.

            I hate Halloween.

The victim, as it turned out, was a former Marine. DiNozzo stepped closer to the body, which was on the floor of an abandoned cabin, and caught a whiff of a familiar scent. This particular scent belonged to a Shifter, and one the team had dealt with on an irregular basis: Trent Kort. Tony could also smell another Shifter, but the scents were a few hours old. He glanced at Ziva and asked quietly, “Do you smell that?”

            He could see her nostrils flare as she scented the air. “Yes,” she replied, “I do.”

            “Do what?” Gibbs and McGee asked, looking at the two Shifters. Ducky also looked up from where he was examining the body. Palmer, being Palmer, continued looking over the corpse, completely ignoring everyone else.

            Thinking fast, Tony ad-libbed, “Uh, well, we think there was someone—two someones—here—and they weren’t the killer.”

            “How can you tell?” McGee asked.

            Wincing, Ziva offered, “The smells in the air?”

            Tim sniffed, and then gagged. “All I smell is that dead body.”

            Gibbs gave Tony and Ziva a long, measured look before grabbing them by the arm and pulling them aside, out of the others’ earshot. Releasing his two Shifters, he growled, “Is there something you’re not telling me about your abilities?”

            Ziva’s look told Tony to speak now or forever hold his peace. “Well, all our senses are heightened, and we have fast reflexes and loads of stamina.” He shifted his weight before adding, “Say we were attacked. In human form, we’d just think about beating the guy up, but in wolf form, we’d probably rip out their throats. Ziva would do that in human form anyway.”

            She glared at him and when Tony next spoke, his voice was several octaves higher. “Ow.” Gibbs winced visibly, knowing full well the damage Ziva—or anyone—could cause, kicking someone in that sensitive spot.

            “Hey, Boss,” McGee called, “we’ve got something.”

            The awkward moment was thankfully ruined, and the three of them returned to the crime scene, where McGee was crouched over. He straightened up and showed them a tuft of black fur. “How’d this get in here?”

            Tony shot a warning look at Ziva, whose returning glare told him that she wasn’t dumb enough to tell McGeek their secret. With a shrug, he lied, “Maybe it was someone’s dog or a rat.”

            Tim looked doubtful, but bagged it anyway, missing the death glare Gibbs shot his senior field agent and Mossad liaison.

            “Uh, can I go now?” Henderson asked, making the team’s two geeks jump with surprise.

            Gibbs jerked his thumb in the ranger’s direction. “You know you’re free to go. Out. Now.” A few seconds later, he asked, “Duck, you have a time of death yet?”

            Ducky extracted the liver probe, checked it, and said, “He’s been dead for at least two and a half hours, Jethro.”

            DiNozzo started to turn and ask Probie something when a flash of black and auburn fur outside one of the windows caught his eye. He motioned to Ziva and stepped out of the cabin, his partner on his trail.

            A few feet away, Trent Kort himself stepped out of the trees in human form and fully clothed. Beside him was a young woman who looked to be around twenty-nine with reddish-brown hair and hazel-green eyes. And from what Tony could tell from her scent, she was the other Shifter he’d smelled earlier.

            Ziva strode forward until she was up in Kort’s face. “What are you doing here?” she growled. “This is our territory.”

            “And who’s your friend?” The words slipped out of Tony’s mouth before he could stop them.

            The woman narrowed her eyes at DiNozzo. “Meghan Volkov, CIA. And you’re, let me guess, NCIS Special Agent DiNozzo.” There was Russia in her voice.

            “How’d you guess?”

            “Well, the fact that you’re wearing a NCIS cap and jacket and Kort here has your name and face burned into my memory probably had something to do with it.”

            Kort silenced her with a look—which, if anyone else had tried it, probably wouldn’t have worked—and answered Ziva’s question. “We had intel that a few humans have . . . become aware of our existence after—”

            Meghan rolled her eyes. “Oh, honestly, he’s hopeless. Basically, a Shifter who refuses to be named told a Static that we exist. We’re trying to find him and hopefully kill him.”

            “Funny you should say that,” DiNozzo snorted. “We’ve had two Statics murdered, who the killer thought were Shifters. Anyone else confused? Although, this does remind me of The Wolfman—”

            He shut up when Ziva Gibbs-slapped him. DiNozzo rounded on her, fully ready to deliver a stinging remark, but paused when he saw something in her eyes urging him not to say anything.

            “Hey, you two!”

            At the sound of Gibbs’ voice, Kort and Volkov faded into the trees. Tony turned and saw the Bossman standing in the cabin doorway, an expectant look on his face. “You planning on staying here for the rest of the day, or do you want to go back with us?”

            Glancing back through the trees, Tony saw two wolves—one black with white paws, the other a reddish-brown—trotting away. He shrugged and walked toward Gibbs, who ducked back inside. Right as they reached the doorway, McGee, Ducky, Palmer, and Company headed out. Sharing a slightly amused look with Ziva, Tony followed.

            It didn’t occur to him until they were well on their way back to the Navy Yard that neither him nor Ziva had asked the two CIA Shifters if they’d seen anything that could help them with the case.