Body Master Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Teaser chapter

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF C. J. BARRY

  “I devoured Body Master like really good chocolate: in big, happy chomps. A tough yet sympathetic heroine locks horns with a mysterious, sexy hero—ooh, yum! Barry’s skillfully structured story delivers all kinds of delicious pleasures—and zero calories. What more could a girl want?”

  —Angela Knight, New York Times bestselling author

  “Sexy, intriguing, and a pure delight to read.”

  —Catherine Spangler, bestselling author

  “This awesome book roars out of the starting gates and never looks back. Along with telling social commentary, it is chock- full of danger, adventure, and romance—a terrific keeper!”

  —Romantic Times (4 ½ stars)

  “Ms. Barry’s storytelling alone makes her an author not to be missed.”

  —Fallen Angel Reviews

  “Simply put, Unmasked is one awesome book. Action, adventure, love, danger. Books just don’t get better than this, and C. J. Barry proves once again why she is such a staple in this genre.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “This is without a doubt the best otherworldly book that C. J. Barry has written thus far . . . Action-packed adrenaline-rushing adventure kept me glued to the pages of this book.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Ms. Barry takes us on a wild trip through space . . . This is a must read for any fan of futuristic romances, as Ms. Barry’s world-building technique is right on target.”

  —Romance Junkies

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

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  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2010 by C. J. Barry.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. BERKLEY® SENSATION and the “B” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / August 2010

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barry, C. J.

  Body master / C. J. Barry.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18892-7

  1. Shapeshifting—Fiction. 2. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3602.A777549B63 2010

  813’.6—dc22 2010014027

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is dedicated to my wonderful, creative, and

  talented siblings—my brother, Tom, and my sisters,

  Cheri and Chris. How we all became writers is a mystery

  that only God can explain.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book is brought to you by the best people I know. People like my terrific agent, Roberta Brown, my equally terrific editor, Kate Seaver, and the hardworking staff at Berkley Sensation. My writer friends Lani Diane Rich/Lucy March, Jennifer Crusie, Catherine Wade, and Rebecca Rohan. My beta-readers Jill Purinton and Patti Newell. All my Will Write for Wine podcast listeners, aka the Wiffers. Many unsuspecting friends and coworkers who feed me cool names and provide creative fodder. My talented family of musicians and writers—my parents, Tom and Jean Dishaw, my brother, Tom Dishaw, and sisters, Christina Walker and Cheri Farnsworth. And, of course, my husband, Ed, and beautiful children, Rachel and Ryan.

  These are my people, the people who love and support me, and make me look good. My heartfelt thanks go out to each and every one of them.

  CHAPTER ONE

  NEW YORK CITY

  MARCH 16, 2011

  “Wait ’til I tell my wife we got Jack the Ripper.”

  Seneca looked over at her partner, Riley, sitting in the driver’s side of the surveillance van.

  She said, “A little premature, don’t you think? We haven’t even seen him yet.”

  Riley turned to her, the lone streetlight illuminating his balding head and cocky grin. “Never say premature to a guy, Seneca.”

  He tipped his half-eaten hamburger in the direction of the Harlem warehouse half a block away, shadowed in darkness and disrepair. “As soon as that Shifter comes home, we’re going to waltz in there and kick his sorry ass.”

  She shook her head at Riley’s ability to take every life and death situation and make it sound like a trip to McDonald’s. Bringing down an alien shapeshifter was strictly for the pros.

  “Jack might give himself up, you know. That would spoil all your fun,” she told him.

  Riley laughed and almost choked on his burger. “No way. Shifters never go down without a fight.”

  That was true. At least the mean ones. The “good” shapeshifters just hid among Americans, watching, learning, waiting. Seneca shook off the bitterness that rose in her belly and scanned the night.

  The surrounding city blocks were empty except for muggers and drug addicts and XCEL agents like her and Riley. This was their job. Shapeshifter hunters got paid to be crazy. The other crazies didn’t even know shapeshifters were here. And if they did, no one believed them anyway. Either way, the public was still clueless, and her undercover agency worked damned hard to keep it that way.

  “I don’t know, Riley,” she said. “I’ve been sitting here for three days watching you eat your body weight in burgers, and he hasn’t shown his face yet. Maybe our Roto-Rooter van’
s been made.”

  Riley answered with his mouth full. “Naw. Everyone needs their pipes cleaned out sometime, especially in this part of town. Lots of rats.” He twisted in his seat. “But I hope to hell he comes home soon. I miss sleeping with my wife.”

  Seneca eyed him. “I noticed. You’re steaming up the windows again.”

  He winked. “You should see me when I’m really hot. This van would spontaneously combust.”

  Life according to Riley: work, sex, and fast food. Seneca laughed and sipped her coffee. “You ever wonder what you would have done with the past two years if the Shifters hadn’t crash-landed in the South Dakota Badlands?”

  “Probably sitting behind some desk shooting rubber bands at you all day.” Then he beamed. “But look at us now. The best Shifter team that Earth has to offer—hunting down public enemy number one. Hot damn.”

  Hot damn, indeed. Their target, Jack the Ripper, had earned his code name by mutilating and dismembering three people in an all-night convenience store two weeks ago. Not even the money he stole had been enough to satisfy that bastard. Then he’d blended in with the general population again. And that was why she was here.

  It wasn’t her fault that she’d become a shapeshifter hunter. If they hadn’t escaped their planet and crashed here, if they hadn’t decided to steal our DNA and look like us, if they weren’t hell-bent on criminal activities, she and Riley wouldn’t be sitting in a van waiting to apprehend one of them.

  And it certainly wasn’t her fault that she was one of the few in the world who could see them for the monsters they were. They couldn’t hide from her, and she couldn’t ignore them.

  “What would you be doing?” Riley asked her.

  She smiled. “Arresting bad guys who didn’t turn into blood-thirsty aliens when they got pissed off.”

  He gave her a disbelieving look. “Now, see, this is your problem. No life. You need a man. I happen to have a friend—”

  Oh hell, here we go with the friend. “Forget it. I’ve met your friends, and I wouldn’t be caught dead dating any of them.”

  “Hey, there’s nothing wrong—” he started, and then his gaze turned serious and locked on something outside. “We have action.” He wadded up the rest of his burger and tossed it in the back while she grabbed the night vision binoculars.

  Sure enough, a car had pulled around the corner and parked in the alley beside the warehouse. A lone male stepped out—six foot tall, two hundred pounds easy, and wearing a winter coat. He matched the general description they had.

  As he walked to the back of the building, she focused on the ghostly shadow around his body that only she could see. It was shaped like a giant demon. Definitely a Shifter. Her second vision might be a curse, but she had no qualms using it to ferret out the aliens.

  “What do you think?” Riley asked.

  She stowed the binoculars and climbed in the back. “Close enough to say, Stick ’em up.”

  Riley smacked the steering wheel. “Hot damn! I’m getting laid tonight.”

  After Riley called for the cleanup crew, they pulled on tactical headgear with integrated night vision and communications, protective body armor, and custom shoulder harnesses. Seneca strapped on her thigh holsters and slipped in her two Glock 33s. A backup KA-BAR knife went into the vest along with a single-shot tranquilizer handgun, a disrupter pistol, and extra ammo.

  Riley carried the same equipment as well as explosive impact grenades. They finished gearing up quickly and silently. Long, light, black trench coats went over everything. She felt the weight of her weapons as she stood up, but there was no other way. No single weapon worked on every Shifter. There were nights when she’d used almost everything she had to bring a powerful one down. Carrying AA- 12 semiautomatic shotguns, they hit the pavement fully armed under cover of night.

  Seneca’s pulse quickened as she moved behind Riley, taking in everything—locked and boarded storefronts, the smell of sewer, and the thrum-thrum of the city. Two agents against one Shifter. It was a strategy that had cost a lot of lives to develop, but two agents were enough to take down the suspect while still keeping the situation contained and quiet. If the agents were good. She and Riley were very good.

  As always, her training kicked in with the official XCEL agency mantra that was burned into her brain.

  Level 1: Suspect compliance. Response—arrest. Which was a joke because they never complied.

  Level 2: Suspect resistance. Response—containment and appropriate force. There was always resistance.

  Level 3: Suspect assault. Response—all necessary force. That one was her personal favorite.

  They were thirty feet from Jack’s front door when gunfire erupted from a first-floor window of the warehouse and shattered the silence. Chunks of pavement sprayed around them.

  Seneca dove behind a parked Honda with Riley beside her. She leaned toward him. “I think that qualifies as Level Three.”

  “Oh yeah,” he replied. In unison, they swung up and fired back. She yelled out, “Police! You are under arrest. Come out with your hands up!”

  Return fire poured through a broken window and peppered the Honda. Glass shattered and sprinkled to the ground. XCEL was going to owe someone a car.

  “You know, we should just stop saying that. No one ever listens to us,” Riley said. “How about we try, ‘Show yourself or we’ll come in there and blow your fucking brains out’? I bet that’d work.”

  She flipped her communications device on. “Put your money where your mouth is, Riley.”

  They moved behind the car with Jack watching them from the window, almost challenging them to fire. Riley took a shot with the tranquilizer, but Jack had shifted from human form to Shifter and the powerful sedative cartridge bounced off his head harmlessly.

  “Shit,” Riley said. “Looks like we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

  Seneca gave a short laugh. “It’s always the hard way.”

  “And that’s why you love it. This is like foreplay to you.”

  She countered. “And sometimes it’s better.”

  “You gotta get yourself a man.” Riley reloaded the tranq weapon and pulled the disrupter pistol from his holster. It was designed to deliver a potent electromagnetic charge that would temporarily disorient the Shifter’s molecular pattern long enough for the tranquilizer to stick and work. Unless Jack had adapted to the disrupter, in which case, things would get really ugly.

  “I’m taking the back door,” Riley said. “Cover me.”

  Seneca laid down fire as he sprinted into the side alley. Her burst lit up the night and littered streets in shades of gray. As soon as Riley was clear, she ducked behind the car and held her fire.

  Jack didn’t shoot back and the city that never slept closed in on her. Car alarms jangled in the night. No sirens, which was a good sign. It meant that the XCEL cleanup crew was on-site. They’d take care of the local authorities, the press, and anyone else asking too many questions. Her job was to take care of Jack.

  Seneca listened carefully for movement, but it was all quiet inside. She scanned the building. The sensors in her duty visor didn’t pick up a heat signature from Jack anymore. Where’d he go?

  “In position,” Riley whispered in her earpiece.

  “Jack’s on the move,” she warned him.

  “He’s still inside. We got the exits covered. When you’re ready, let me know and I’ll toss in a flashbang to clear the way.”

  She scrambled to her feet, raced for the front door, and slammed her back against the wall. A quick check of the handle revealed it was locked.

  She told Riley, “I’ll need a second to blow the lock on the front door before I move in.”

  “Just don’t shoot me again.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I only did that once, and it barely nicked you, you big baby.”

  “Yeah, well next time you might hit a vital organ. I’d like to have a few more kids before I die.”

  She shook her head. Riley already
had four kids. “I’m set here.”

  Riley said, “Three, two, one—”

  There was a flash of light and a powerful concussion that blew out the front windows as Riley’s grenade went off inside.

  Seneca spun, shot through the knob, and kicked the door in. It crashed against the inside wall as she entered, gun ready. No sign of Jack, but she heard heavy footsteps above her.

  Riley shouted in her ear. “I’m on the second floor. He’s heading up the back stairs to the third.”

  She raced through the doorways and rooms of the warehouse. “Wait for me!”

  “No, I’m good. I got him cornered,” he replied, breathing hard. Gunfire exploded throughout the building.

  Goddamnit, Riley, she thought. Fear pushed her faster as she took the stairs two at a time. When she hit the top step, there was a beat of silence, and then a hellish scream. She knew what had happened even as she raced toward the sound.

  She cleared the doorway that opened into a cavernous room lined with boxes and crates. Her night vision turned the streetlight green through broken windowpanes and outlined a huge shapeshifter pulling his hand out of Riley’s stomach as he lay on the floor. Jack lifted it to the light and inspected the dark blood.

  Seneca staggered under the emotional impact of Riley’s death gurgle, and then his heat signature dimmed in her visor.

  Oh God, no.

  The Shifter looked at her and grinned, brandishing a row of razor-sharp teeth. Fresh dread rolled over her.

  Focus, Seneca. Stay focused.

  He was in Primary Shifter form, deadly from his smooth, domed head to his clawed fingers to powerful, massive thighs. Black armorlike skin flexed over a muscular body. Eerie, alien gold eyes met hers. A blank, cold-blooded canvas, capable of replicating anyone.

  “Next?” he hissed.

  And with that, her fear was gone, snuffed out like Riley’s life. Now there was only rage. She ripped off her headgear and tossed it aside. “I think it’s your turn, asshole.”