Immortal Moon

by June Stevens

  Jarrett sputtered, but Fiona sent him a quelling look and he quieted again.

  “Okay, he just attacked you out of the blue, and you have no idea why?” she asked Python.

  “No. He started asking about some dame, and then he hit me.”

  “And what were you doing in Wet Willy’s bar?”

  “I’m new to the city. I was asking directions.”

  Fiona let out a long sigh, and then took a step back. “Okay, you can go.”

  Pulling himself to his feet, Jarrett stared at her open-mouthed as Python retrieved his discarded weapons, shot Jarrett a grin, and disappeared down the street.

  The moment she walked back to him and said the spell to shield their conversation, he snapped, “How could you let him go?”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Yes you did. He assaulted a Black Blade Guard Agent.”

  “Really? Are we talking about the one that is off duty and attacked him unprovoked? Or the one that was inadvertently caught in the crossfire as he defended himself from said attack?” She shot back at him, annoyed.

  “He was lying.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “Of-fucking-course he was lying, Jarrett. Do I look like an idiot? It doesn’t matter. You blew it. Even if he were the supplier we were looking for and I had definitive proof, I’d still have to let him go. This was an observe-and-track mission. We have nothing to arrest on, even if we found him with an unknown substance, which we didn’t.”

  “Fiona…” Jarrett said.

  “Shut it,” she snapped. “I don’t want to hear it. If he was the drug supplier, you blew any chance we had at catching him. He’ll know we are on to him. And if he wasn’t, because of you, my cover is blown. I have no chance of tracking down the guy now. I’ll have to turn the case over to another agent to do the undercover work.”

  Jarrett understood how angry she was. He would be the same if someone had screwed up one of his cases. “I’m sorry.”

  She glared at him. “I said I don’t want to hear it. We’ll deal with this elsewhere. I need to go talk to Carl. Stay here and cool down,” she said. She broke the silence spell, turned on her heel, and headed back inside.

  Jarrett rubbed his hands over his face. What had he been thinking? No, he knew what he’d been thinking. Or rather, not thinking. He’d let his rage and anger rule him. Something he hadn’t done in ages. It would have been smarter to trail Python and see where he went. Whether he was the drug dealer or not, he might have lead Jarrett to proof of whether or not Cora was alive. Fiona was right, he’d been stupid.

  Fiona returned a few minutes later, her face contorted in anger.

  “Your buddy, Python, was not the drug supplier. He asked Carl the location of the nearest brothel. Don’t even open your mouth. Back to Pinky’s. Now.” She stalked off without another word.

  They walked back to the pub at a fast clip, not speaking. When they arrived, Jarrett followed Fiona up to the rooftop garden.

  The moment they were alone, Fiona rounded on him. “I never took you to be a moron, Campbell. I can’t even imagine what would be so important to make you blow an undercover op like that.”

  “What’s going on? What’s all the shouting about?” Anya asked as she ran onto the roof.

  “Your boyfriend is a flipping idiot,” Fiona yelled.

  “He’s not…”

  “I’m not…”

  Jarrett and Anya sputtered at the same time, but Fiona held up her hand impatiently.

  “Not the issue right now,” she fumed. “Wait, why are you up here?”

  Anya narrowed her eyes at her sister. “Because you two came running through the pub like a bat out of hell and there is blood on your arm. I thought you might need help.” Her voice level rivaled her sister’s.

  Fiona glanced down at her arm, and then back at Anya, her face and voice softer. “Sorry, An. It’s just a small cut. I’m a little pissed at Jarrett right now, and I just need to yell at him for a bit. I came up here so we wouldn’t wake River.”

  “If you don’t take it down a notch you’re going to wake up the whole damned city,” Anya retorted and tossed Fiona the towel in her hand. “Here, you can clean up your arm with that. What are you yelling at him about? Is it personal or work related? Do I need to stay and take sides?”

  Jarrett nearly laughed out loud. Anya was actually contemplating taking sides in an argument between him and Fiona. He wondered if she would take his side against her sister. Of course he knew he was in the wrong this time, but would she back him up if she thought he was right?

  “It’s work related,” Fiona said.

  “Okay,” Anya said, looking prepared to leave them alone.

  “I totally screwed up. I deserve whatever she dishes out,” Jarrett said before he realized what he was doing.

  Anya and Fiona just stared at him a long minute, then Anya walked over and pulled him down into a kiss. It was a quick, sweet kiss, but it made him burn to his toes.

  “I like it when a man admits he’s wrong,” she said. Then she turned back to Fiona. “Okay, you can kick his ass now, but try not to break him. I have plans later.”

  “Wow, you just turned fucking up into a ploy to get into my sister’s pants. That takes skill, my friend,” Fiona said when the roof door swung shut behind Anya.

  Jarrett walked over to a bench under a small grove of potted trees. “Yeah, not sure how that happened. I meant it though. I fucked up and deserve whatever you want to say. Go ahead, rage at me.”

  Fiona sat down next to him.

  “Damn it, I can’t. Not when you are being all adult and taking responsibility and shit.” She slapped him on the arm. “You took all the fun out of it. Asshole.”

  They sat in silence for a while, and then she said, “So, tell me what is up with you and this Python dude. What kind of history could make you forget several centuries of training?”

  “The last time I saw him, I killed him.”

  Fiona let out a long, low whistle. “Well, yeah, okay. I can see where that would kind of throw you off. So, who’s this Cora you were screaming at him about?”

  “I can’t tell you. It’s classified,” he said.

  “Yeah, yeah. Special ops need to know mumbo jumbo. Whatever.” She pulled her porta-scry from her vest pocket. “You reckon Sam has clearance? Because when I tell him you wrecked my op, he’ll find out why. Then he’ll tell me.”

  “Sam already knows,” Jarrett sighed.

  She grinned and flipped open the leather case covering the scry-crystal. “Oh, good. That means he can tell me now.”

  Jarrett groaned. If it were any other agent, he’d tell them to give it their best shot. But Sam would tell Fiona. And not just because he doted on her like a childless uncle with his favorite niece. But because Fiona was one of the best agents Nash City had to offer. The fact that she wasn’t a member of any special division was owed solely to the fact that she had family and didn’t want to be unable to communicate with them for months, even years, at a time. She was also trustworthy. Sam trusted her with his life, as did Jarrett.

  If she made the call, Sam would tell her everything. And as a consequence of Jarrett not telling her himself, she’d stay pissed at him for a few days. He might as well avoid that.

  “Put the scry-crystal down. I’ll tell you.” He let out another put-upon sigh. “I don’t have to explain that this is top-secret Kukri op intel?”

  “Yeah, yeah, pain of death, cross my heart, poke my eye out with a stick. Whatever,” she rolled her eyes at him as she slid the crystal back into its case and then into her pocket.

  Jarrett couldn’t help but laugh at her utter lack of respect for the rules.

  “Have you ever heard of Dread, or Captain Dread?” he asked.

  Fiona looked thoughtful. “Yeah, I think so. Hardcore slaver and vampire elitist. He was on the most wanted list for a while.”

  “That’s the one. As a slaver he was bad enough, but as long as he stayed out of Allied City-States, we didn’t ha
ve much of a beef with him. But like you said, he was a vampire elitist. He believed all other races—norm, mage, and shifter—should be killed or subjugated under vampire rule. He started collecting quite the cult following. Touted himself as a captain in the war against inferior beings.”

  Fiona shuddered. “Ugh. Real peach of a guy.”

  Jarrett nodded. “Yep, a prince among men. Anyway, as he grew his cult, he got more and more bold. His crew started venturing into Allied City-States and their territories to abduct people to sell as slaves.”

  “He must have worked primarily in the south. As far as I know he never came to Nash.”

  “He didn’t. He operated mostly in the southwest, but he was quickly venturing out. He went from being a nuisance to being a real problem. It became clear he had to be eliminated, but his following had grown to the point that he had cells in multiple areas. We needed intel.”

  Fiona nodded, knowingly. “An agent was sent in undercover. This Cora you were screaming at him about.”

  “Yes. She was a Kukri. Her mission was to infiltrate, get as close to Dread as possible, and get intel. Then, once we had an idea of his operation, she was to take him out.”

  “But she didn’t?”

  Jarrett shook his head. “No. She was in his inner circle within six months. She was a fount of information. She gave her handler a lot of intel, but about a year after she got into the inner circle, the information stopped coming. She stopped contacting her handler. I was sent to track them down, assassinate Dread, and if she were still alive, pull Cora out.”

  “You didn’t find her?”

  Jarrett let out a humorless laugh. “I found her in Detroit. In bed next to Dread.”

  Fiona’s eyes went wide. “Wow. What did you do?”

  “My job. Slit his throat and put a knife in his heart and twisted. Cora woke and I tried to get her out, but she went crazy. She was hysterical. She was screaming at me that she loved him. Python, Dread’s right hand man, came in. We fought. They escaped to the roof of the building.”

  In Jarrett’s mind he could see the rain slicked, crumbling rooftop and Cora standing there naked with Dread’s blood all over her.

  “What happened, how did they get away?” Fiona asked, pulling Jarrett back to the here and now.

  “They had a hot air balloon. It was raining, so they were having a hard time taking off. Python was in the balloon and Cora was still on the roof ledge. I put a throwing star through the balloon and a knife through Python’s heart. Well, obviously, I put it near his heart. He fell out of the balloon and into the sea below. Cora kept shrieking at me that I’d taken everything from her. I tried to persuade her to come with me, but she said she could never go back to being a Blade. Then, she jumped off the ledge and into the sea. There were a lot of rocks.”

  Fiona sat for a long time, obviously speechless. “I have no idea what to say. That had to be awful. Do you think she was really in love with Dread?”

  “I kept telling myself she was brainwashed, but I’m not so sure. Anyway, that was eight months ago. I was convinced she hadn’t died. It is damned hard to kill a vampire, after all. But there was no trace of her body, and I couldn’t find any trace of her in the area. I’ve been searching since. But every lead was a dead end, and I just closed the case when I came back to Nash a few days ago.”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t put everything in the report.”

  Jarrett shook his head. “The report says killed in the line of duty. Without further information, that is exactly what happened. Officially she fell from the building into the sea below during a struggle with her captors while I was rescuing her.”

  “I’m sorry. That blows. I can see why you freaked out at Wet Willy’s tonight. I’m still pissed over it, but I can understand.”

  Jarrett gave her a weak smile. “I really am sorry about that. I just lost my head.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “I think there’s more to this than you are telling me.”

  “Nothing relevant,” he said. He’d had enough emotional revelations for the night, he wasn’t about to explain his history with Cora right now.

  She nodded. “Okay. Well, it’s all done now. Come on, brother, let’s go get drunk. I’m buying.”

  He followed her to the roof door. “You are part owner of the bar, you get alcohol for free.”

  She grinned. “I know. That’s why I’m buying.”

  The public market was dead compared to market week. The rest of the month traveling merchants filtered in and set up shop for a few days alongside the local merchants, blacksmiths, jewelers, and other trade and craft people that had permanent stalls at the market. So, though it wasn’t as bustling as it had been two weeks ago, there was still plenty for Farrah and me to browse on our afternoon out.

  It was my regular night off, and I’d talked Pinky into giving Farrah a few hours off for the afternoon so we could have a girls’ day out.

  “What do you think of this one?” I held up a dark grey corset.

  Farrah looked up from where she was browsing the clothing booth’s wares. “Oh, definitely. It will go perfectly over that strapless, red dress you bought earlier. Pair it with those black short boots you own, and you have the perfect night-out-on-the-town outfit.”

  “I think you’re right.” I turned to the proprietor of the stall. “I’ll take it.”

  “Jarrett’s tongue will flop out when he sees you in that outfit,” Farrah said as we moved to the next stall.

  I laughed. “That’s the plan. You know, since you’re going to be working in the pub a night or two a week, you should buy yourself a few pretty things.”

  Farrah snorted. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I wear, after a few drinks the men are going to make passes at me no matter what.”

  I looked at her for a long moment as she browsed through a pile of colorful scarves. From what Fiona had told me, Farrah had once been quite the party girl. As one would expect, being abducted by a madman had changed her. An air of depression seemed to hover around her, though she always smiled when spoken to, and always seemed to try to be helpful and cheerful. I suspected that part of the problem was that she’d lived with a certain amount of confidence in her appearance, but either no longer had it, or no longer wanted men to see her as attractive.

  “You know what,” I said, picking up a floral scarf. “I don’t wear my clothes, or put on makeup, or do my hair for men. I do all of it for myself. Because it makes me feel good. Yes, that red dress will make Jarrett forget his name tonight, but it’s not the fabric that will do the job. It will be the way I wear it. The way I feel in my skin while in the dress, and the confidence and sexiness I’ll project.”

  “I don’t think I can be as confident as you. I don’t think I ever was.” She looked at me doubtfully. “I used to act like I was queen bee, but I never really felt it. And I don’t want to be that girl ever again.”

  I tried another way of explaining.

  “I’m not saying you should be, Farrah. I’m not talking about projecting a false confidence, or trying to get the attention of others. It only matters how you feel about yourself. Have you ever noticed that Fiona is, more often than not, in dirty khakis and the same, worn-out leather vest?”

  Farrah’s brow furrowed. “Not really. I don’t really notice her clothes.”

  “But you are a girl who usually notices clothes, right?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. I have always liked wearing pretty things, I suppose. Yeah, I like clothes.”

  “But you don’t notice that Fiona barely takes time to brush her hair most days, because she projects confidence. She is most comfortable in khaki or leather pants, combat boots, and her multi-pocketed vests. The only thing that ever changes is the color of her shirt. And don’t get me started on that belt she wears.” I shook my head. “The point is, she feels so confident in her own skin, when she’s in those clothes her confidence is all you notice. What about River?”

  Farrah smiled. Everyone usual
ly did when they thought of my baby sister. “She always looks very pretty.”

  “Yes, she does. But did you realize that she only has about five of those flowy dresses she wears over and over? She’ll wait until one has unmendable holes before making a new one. Not because she has to, but because that is what she is comfortable in. She also doesn’t use any of the cosmetics she makes for me, except the hydrating cream.”

  Farrah’s expression told me what I was saying was starting to register. “So, what you are saying is I need to wear things that make me feel confident and like ‘me’. But, I’m not sure what that is.”

  “You strike me as a girl who really likes pretty things. But you brought very little with you when you came to live with us. You only have a couple of pants and tops, and they are all a little drab. You don’t seem comfortable in them. You are, of course, welcome to borrow anything I have, but I think you would feel better if you had a few pieces that you really liked, that you picked out. Clothes won’t solve all your problems, whatever they may be, but feeling good about yourself is a huge step in the right direction.”

  The shopkeeper, who had been standing behind the table listening to our conversation, said, “She’s not wrong, honey. Wearing something that makes you feel nice, no matter how pretty or ugly anyone else thinks it is, can really lift your spirit.”

  “I’ll prove it. Pick a scarf, any scarf,” I told Farrah, gesturing to some of the more expensive scarves hung along the back of the stall. “Pick out the scarf you think is the prettiest.”

  After dithering a moment, Farrah pointed to a large green and gold scarf hanging just behind the shopkeeper.

  The shopkeeper smiled, wiped her hands on her apron, and retrieved the scarf. “A lovely choice.”

  “Here, let’s try it on.” I helped Farrah drape the scarf across her shoulders.

  It looked beautiful on her. The gold in the scarf matched some of the golden highlights in her blonde hair, and the shades of emerald and gold picked up the same hues in the flecks of her eyes. But my point was proven when the shopkeeper held up a dusty mirror. The moment Farrah saw her reflection, her entire face changed. She smiled the biggest, most genuine smile I’d seen since I met her.