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

Chapter Eleven

Ziva tossed and turned in her bed for what seemed like hours, trying to go to sleep. It wouldn’t come, and besides, there was something nagging at the back of her mind, something important . . . The frustrating thing was that she couldn’t figure it out, and the more she tried, the more it slipped out of reach, like tantalizing scraps of information that were deliberately being withheld. It was irritating, to say the least.

          Finally Ziva gave up trying to sleep and padded into the living room on silent feet to grab her laptop. Sliding back under the covers, she fired up the Mac and, opening a new Word document, started typing up her notes and observations on the Phoebe Madison case. Ziva had almost finished the notes on Chris Nixon when it occurred to her that they hadn’t run a background check on him yet. Then there was the call, what he’d said to her and Tony—“So, are you the werewolves I’ve been hearing about?”—and what Trent Kort and the Russian Shifter, Meghan Volkov, had told her and her partner: that a Shifter had revealed their existence to Statics. From the beginning, Ziva and Tony had suspected the killer thought their victims—the petty officer and now this former Marine—were Shifters. Why else the silver weapons unless he’d known of their existence. Ducky had also said Phoebe Madison had a tattoo that meant “werewolf” in French—loup-garou. The Israeli was willing to bet their latest vic had the same tat on his arm. She hurriedly typed her train of thought as it popped into her head, saved the document, and shut down the Mac. Sleep came at last, and she gratefully sank beneath the black wave.

The next morning, Monday, Ziva headed into work after her daily run. It was October 31st—Halloween—and she realized that she didn't have anything to wear for that night—unless there was yet another case, of course. Although, when you could transform into a wolf, there wasn’t really any need to dress up.

            She suddenly tensed, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, telling her she was being watched. Ziva turned—and found herself face-to-face with DiNozzo, McGee on his tail. Both men started and stepped back, Tim biting back a curse when Tony accidentally stepped on his foot. Tony immediately apologized, calling the probie McKlutz in the process. Timothy glared at him anyway and sat down at his desk.

            When Tony sat down, propping his feet up on his desk and lacing his fingers behind his head, Ziva ambled over, looking down at him. “Tony, did you ever run a background check on Nixon?”

            He Gibbs-slapped himself. “No. What with everything else going on, it slipped my mind. McGoogle!”

            McGee’s head shot up from where he was working on what Ziva figured was a book, judging from the binder and how much of the papers had McGeek’s handwriting. “Tony, I am not doing a background check for you.”

            A low growl rumbled in his throat, instantly causing McGee to change tactics. “Okay, okay! I’m on it!” He started typing and clicking the mouse furiously. A very smug DiNozzo leaned back again, smirking. It vanished when he took in Ziva’s concerned look. “What?”

            She leaned in close, her concern giving way to anger. “Idiot! What if everyone else found out what we are? How do you think they'd react if they knew we’d lied to them this whole time? Like the way Jeanne did? She’s scared of you now and never wants to see you!”

            “Or she wants to become one of us,” Tony said so softly Ziva wasn’t sure she’d heard him properly. She said sharply, “Say that again.”

            He repeated himself, then shook his head wearily. “I don’t know what made me say that, but there was this sort of look in her eyes when I saw her last night.” He smiled slightly. “Our healing properties are miraculous. She saw for herself how quickly we heal, remember.”

            “Don’t remind me.” Ziva winced mentally, her body remembering all the injuries, even if her mind didn’t. They saw Elf Lord’s curious glance in their direction at the same time. Tony snapped, “What is it, Probie-san?”

            “I have that background check for you, Tony. Where’s Gibbs?”

            “Right behind you, McGee,” the silver-haired ex-sniper said from behind the computer geek. “Nice work, although, DiNozzo, shouldn't you have done that?” Clearly, finding out that two of his agents weren’t entirely human hadn’t changed how he thought of their work efforts or themselves in general. At the trapped look on her partner’s face, Ziva had to hide a smirk. She snapped to attention when Gibbs prodded, “McGee, the background check.”

            “Oh, right.” Keys tapped, and Nixon’s driver’s license appeared once more on the plasma along with McGee’s hastily complied background check, a resume included. “He currently works as a sub at a local high school.”

            Tony snorted, “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

            “The fact that he has a job?” McGee asked.

            “No, the fact that he wanted to be a teacher,” Tony said. “He wasn’t all that friendly when we met him.” What he didn’t say, Ziva figured, was that his job put him in contact with possible Shifters, since the first transformation occurred at age seventeen for girls, age eighteen for guys. This was not good at all. She hoped Kort and Volkov were making progress on their end. If not . . .

            Already Ziva could tell it was going to be a long Halloween.