Immortal Moon (4 page)

Kissing Anya
Moon had been the wrong thing to do. Saving her had been the right
thing to do. She was, after all, his best friend’s sister. The fact
that he’d wanted to rip to shreds the three assholes who had dared
to chase her and feed them to the fish in the river had everything
to do with protecting his friend, and nothing to do with the
strange possessiveness gripping him the moment he’d recognized her
as she’d ran across the bridge.

Yep. And his name was Princess Moonbeam.

Kissing Anya Moon had been the wrong thing
to do because it had brought the memory of her taste and feel to
the forefront of his mind when he thought he’d put their brief
encounter behind him. She had lingered in his thoughts and dreams
over the past six months like no other woman ever had, and just
when she’d faded from his daily thoughts, there she was again. But
mostly, kissing Anya Moon had been the wrong thing to do because
now he wanted nothing more than to go back and kiss her again and
again and again.

Jarrett groaned to himself and stomped up
the stairs of the Nash City Black Blade Guard headquarters building
to the twenty-fifth floor where he inserted a crystal into a slot
next to the door to unlock it and entered the hallway where his
private room was located. He strode to the last door and repeated
the crystal procedure to enter the large room that served as his
private office and, when he didn’t have other options, his sleeping
quarters whenever he was in Nash City. He rarely used the room
since he was rarely in the city, but he kept a few items of
clothing and some spare weapons in the room, just in case. He
mostly used it for the reason he’d come here today—to contact his
commander in Atlanta with the private scry-crystal.

It was times like this that he sorely missed
the cell phone age. Even with the privacy vulnerabilities of
technology, with a little added magic, it had been a simple task to
get a secure line to his commander from anywhere in the world.
While portable scry-crystals had taken up some of the slack after
the Cataclysm, they could only be used to contact other
scry-crystals within a couple hundred-mile radius and they were
impossible to secure. When it was time to report in to Atlanta,
Jarrett had to go to the nearest allied city-state with a Black
Blade Guard headquarters building. Each one had a network of large
scry-crystals tuned exclusively to other headquarters. In Nash, he
had a large, wall-mounted crystal in his room that was coded to
connect with only one other crystal, the one in the office of the
Kukri division commander in Atlanta. The crystal was protected with
privacy spells and kept at full power by Blade chargers.

Sitting at the desk, he placed his hand on
the blank crystal. His personal energy signature activated it, and
the clear, glassy surface turned cloudy as the connection to the
crystal several hundred miles away was made. After a few seconds,
the fog cleared and revealed a vampire who appeared to be in his
mid-thirties with close-cropped blond hair and a close-shaven jaw.
Commander Hugh Westbrook was relatively new to his position as the
leader of the Kukri division. A little over sixty years ago, he
replaced Commander Bonassio who had founded the Kukri as a squad of
spies and assassins in the early years of the Spanish Inquisition.
Over the centuries, the job description had not varied much, though
they did a little less assassinating and more tracking and
apprehending dangerous paranorm criminals.

“Campbell, good to hear from you. It’s been
a while, any progress?” Westbrook said, offering a tight smile.

Westbrook was friendly, but direct and to
the point. He didn’t waste time with idle chitchat. Jarrett
appreciated that because he detested these reports. It was the most
tedious part of his job, and this particular report was especially
loathsome.

“Nothing positive, sir. All substantiated
evidence points to the death of Agent Solahan when she fell from
the building in Detroit eight months ago,” he replied, choosing his
words carefully.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Solahan was a fine
operative. What is your case recommendation?”

“That we suspend investigation, unless and
until further evidence surfaces.”

Westbrook nodded solemnly. “With current
evidence, I hereby designate Agent Cora Solahan as killed in the
line of duty.”

Pain and regret sliced through Jarret, but
he didn’t let it show. “Yes, sir. I will file the appropriate
paperwork to close the case and have it sent out with the next
messenger.” Blade messengers relayed documents and packages between
the headquarters of each city-state. Messengers left Nash for
Atlanta every other day.

“Very good. Anything else?” Westbrook
asked.

“Actually, Commander there is one last
thing. I would like to formally request permission to take my
mandatory leave,” Jarrett asked on impulse.

Westbrook’s eyes went wide. He was almost as
shocked at the request as Jarrett. “This is the first time in
sixty-three years I haven’t had to force you to take your mandatory
leave. Should I be concerned?”

No, but I think I should be,
Jarrett
thought. Out loud, he said. “No sir. This has been a difficult
assignment and I could use a little time to decompress.”

“Understandable. Always hard to lose a
fellow agent. Consider yourself on leave as soon as you hand your
paperwork over to the messenger. Report back in two weeks to resume
duty,” the commander said. Then added, “I believe you have some
extra time built up, if you need more than two weeks, file a
request via scry or certified messenger if you aren’t near a Blade
headquarters.”

“Two weeks will suffice, thank you Sir.”

The commander nodded and reached forward to
touch his scry-crystal. “Westbrook out,” he said, and the crystal
went cloudy then blank.

Jarrett let out an exasperated sigh. He’d
had zero intentions of requesting leave before he’d seen Anya this
morning. The plan had been to conduct his business in Nash, then be
headed out of the city, either back to Atlanta or out on another
assignment, by tomorrow morning. Now, he had nothing to do and
nowhere to be for the next two weeks.

He shook his head and rummaged through his
desk drawers to find the report forms he needed to fill out to
officially end his current assignment.
Two friggin’ weeks.
He wondered what had possessed him to request leave, but he had a
feeling he already knew.

Kissing Anya Moon had been the wrong thing
to do.

***

An hour and a half later, Jarrett handed an
envelope full of completed forms to the clerk behind the counter in
the mailroom of the Blade headquarters. As far as his boss and the
Blades were concerned, he was officially on leave the moment the
packet left his fingers. But he had one more report to make before
he could put this case behind him—if he ever could.

He left the mailroom, used his identity
crystal to access the private lift, and rode up to the top floor.
Stepping into a hallway, he was welcomed by the sounds of shuffling
papers, clicking typewriters, and low voices as support staff for
the commander of the Nash City Blades went about their jobs.
Jarrett strode past offices of secretaries, typists, researchers,
and the highest-ranking Nash City Blades agents and went directly
to the large office at the end of the hall. He tapped a single,
cursory knock on the door and went in. He was surprised to find the
office empty, but a deep, rich laugh made him turn.

Sam Harrison, the Commander General—though
he abhorred anyone using his title—of the Nash City division of the
Black Blade Guards, was sitting on the edge of a desk with three
women surrounding him as he told what the women seemed to think was
a funny story. Jarrett chuckled softly to himself. Sam could be
reciting a market shopping list, but as long as he flashed those
pearly whites and flexed his massive arm and chest muscles, he
could hold almost any woman’s attention. As Jarrett watched, Sam
raised one eyebrow high and the women giggled in unison. Shaking
his head, Jarrett turned and went into Sam’s office to wait. He
knew the man would tire shortly of being fawned over and be back to
his all-business self.

Less than five minutes later, Sam strode
into the office. “Hey, Buddy, didn’t know you were back in town,”
he said, his words belying the complete lack of surprise in his
eyes to see Jarrett.

“Just got in a couple of hours ago,” Jarrett
said, though he figured Sam already knew that. His friend liked to
pretend ignorance, but he tended to know everything that went on in
the Blades’ building. He might not have known when Jarrett got into
town, but odds were Sam had known the moment Jarrett had stepped
into the building, or at the very least, the moment he’d first used
his ID crystal.

Sam extended a fist and Jarrett met it with
his own, bumping his friend’s knuckles in greeting. It was a
ridiculous gesture they’d mockingly started long ago when it was
the “in thing” for guys to do, but somehow it had stuck. Now,
centuries later, it was their standard form of greeting.

“On assignment?” Sam asked, settling into
the chair behind his desk.

Jarrett shook his head. “Not as of about
fifteen minutes ago. I’m officially on mandatory leave.”

“And your case?”

“Closed.”

Disappointment clouded Sam’s dark features.
“So no sign of Cora at all?”

“No. There have been whispers and rumors,
but I’ve ran them all down. I haven’t laid eyes on her since…”

“The night she jumped,” Sam finished for
him.

A knot formed in Jarrett’s throat.
“Yeah.”

During the Cataclysm, what had once been the
state of Michigan was flooded with water and nuclear radiation. The
parts that remained above water created an island in the middle of
the Michigan Gulf called Detroit, or No Man’s Land to most. The
ruins were overrun with criminals, mostly vampires. Detroit was out
of bounds to most Blades, the Council of Elders deeming it unsafe
for agents. But he wasn’t most Blades, he was Kukri, an assassin.
Even Kukri only ventured into No Man’s Land under the direst of
circumstances. To Jarrett, rescuing his former partner had
qualified. But as they stood on top of that crumbling building on
the edge of a rocky cliff, she hadn’t wanted to be saved. Standing
on the ledge, she begged him to leave her alone, and then she
jumped, disappearing into the churning, rocky waters below.

“Jarrett.” Sam’s voice pulled Jarrett back
to the present.

“What?”

“Where were you man? You just kind of left
for a minute,” Sam said, his voice tinged with concern.

“Sorry, I have a hard time not playing it
over and over in my head. She begged me not to make her go back to
the Blades, to let her start over with a new life. And when I told
her she had to come back, she jumped.”

“It’s understandable that you’re having a
hard time with it. Watching anyone commit suicide is hard to cope
with, but when it’s a partner and friend—especially one you have a
history with like you had with Cora—there is going to be real
trauma,” Sam said.

Jarrett shook his head. “That’s the thing,
it just doesn’t feel like that. There was just something off about
Cora. Her words were sad, desperate even. Yet, in her eyes, it
wasn’t sadness. It was anger, fury, hatred. She did not look like a
woman bent on suicide.”

“You think she survived the fall.” It was a
statement, not a question.

“It’s what I’ve been working the past eight
months to prove, but so far nothing. Logic says she hit the rocks,
was knocked out, pulled under by the current, and drowned. Even a
vampire would die in such violent seas. It was storming, and I’m
pretty sure her arm was broken before she jumped. Even if she
didn’t hit rocks, swimming would have been near impossible.”

“But still possible. Even injured she would
have been strong and could hold her breath for quite a while. She
could have survived.”

Jarrett shrugged. “I thought so, too. There
was no sign of her body, but I also never saw her swim out, and I
watched and searched the shoreline for hours. If she’d been there,
I should have seen her. I’ve followed rumors and possible sightings
of a redheaded vampire, but to no avail. Each one was a
dead-end.”

Sam let out a sigh. “The case is closed now,
so you’ve given up?”

Jarrett shrugged. “I had no choice. It’s
been eight months. The commander wanted to close the case
immediately. It was only my gut feeling that perhaps she survived
that allowed me to keep working it this long. The last time I
checked in, two months ago, he told me I needed to wrap it up. It
has been more than six weeks since I’ve had any kind of lead. I
figured now was time. All I can do is hope that if she’s alive, she
has found a peaceful, happy life.”

“I’m with you in the doubt department,” Sam
said, shaking his head. “Cora is not—was not—the type of woman to
just give up and kill herself. Not even if she was distraught,
though it is difficult to imagine Cora hysterical. Do you think she
really loved that prick, or maybe she was brainwashed?”

Jarrett thought back to the gang leader Cora
had been assigned to kill, but hadn’t. He couldn’t get the look on
her face, or the sound of her screams, out of his head when she’d
seen the man’s dead body after Jarrett had done the job. “I don’t
know. She was with him and his gang for nearly two years. Anything
could have happened to her.”

Sam gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
“Then perhaps it’s better not to find her. Maybe she really did
just need to get away from the Blades and find some peace.”

“Maybe,” Jarrett agreed, but he wasn’t so
sure. “Whatever happened, the case is officially closed.”

“And the official report?” Sam asked.

“Agent Cora Solahan of the Black Blade
Guard, Kukri Division, died in the line of duty after being held
captive in excess of one year by a slaver gang she had been ordered
to infiltrate and spy on. Her death occurred during rescue after an
intense fight. She ventured too near the ledge, lost her balance,
and fell,” Jarrett repeated what he’d typed into the report less
than an hour before.