Broken Ice (Immortal Operative Book 1)

by J. R. Rain

  I know. It’s all right.

  At first, I hadn’t expected to care, but you’re a lot like I was. Licinia again, speaking inside my head. My Dark Mistress, as I think of her.

  Dark soul sister?

  I smile. Something like that. We’ve been together long enough; in fact, she’s more family than anyone else has ever been to me except my mother, but she’s long dead. People who are aware of the world beyond the understanding of society refer to Licinia’s kind as Dark Masters, but if you overlook her meddling with black magic thousands of years ago, she’s not a bad person.

  Why thank you, dear. Her need to smile manifests on my face.

  You know I might’ve been a little rattled early on, but I’ve come to think of you like the sister I never had. Besides. I’d have been dead otherwise.

  Yes. Our combined smiles fade to a somber downcast gaze. But your soul’s path is different now. And that’s my doing.

  I nod. A hawk soaring overhead catches my eye. He’s mesmerizing in his slow, effortless glide against the deep blue, cloudless sky. Crunching intrudes from the camp as the guy in the green shirt walks over to the grill and takes one of the atrocity-dogs. I can’t bear to watch him eat it, and that’s saying something.

  Because of me, you’re cut off from the cycle of reincarnation. Your soul has come to reside wholly within your body, severed from the universe.

  We’ve talked about this already, of course. It’s not as if I remember any of my past lives, nor would any of my future selves have any memory of my current incarnation as Alexis Silver. Why should I be upset about lives I don’t remember or future selves that won’t remember me? Becoming part of The Creator doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, right? Does any trace of my personality remain, or is it like oblivion?

  I don’t know.

  Of course not. Your existence is based on your not wanting to find out.

  I grin, and she laughs. Whatever magic she enacted back when Tiberius ruled Rome has sent her soul into the Void. Lucky me, I get to be her vessel.

  You know I’ve come to regret that.

  I wasn’t being sarcastic. I do consider myself lucky I didn’t die.

  Pragmatic.

  Her guilt is weak but palpable. I suppose I should feel honored that an entity others call a ‘Dark Master’ actually feels remorse on my behalf.

  You should.

  I take a deep breath of forest air, trying not to cough on pot smoke. Green Shirt scarfs down his third turkey-dog. He stands motionless, his expression suggesting he’s lost in a deep, philosophical wandering, pondering some esoteric truth. Two seconds later, he opens his mouth and lets off a belch so loud that birds scatter out of the trees. It echoes over the campsite, which falls silent.

  Kyle starts a slow clap. One by one, the other kids join in. Green Shirt bows like a grateful gold-medal winner. Ugh. Those hot dogs smell much worse on a belch. The trace, though minute from this distance, makes me cringe. Being able to detect human scents well enough to identify individual people is damn handy. Gagging on hot dog burps from fifty yards, not so much.

  The girl by Kyle’s side yawns, stands, and stretches before stooping to kiss him on the lips. I snap a few more photos, getting two nice, clean shots of her face. We almost make eye contact; I’m sure the girl feels something watching her. In that second, I plunge into the deep, cerulean ocean of her thoughts. At this distance, I get mostly outward feelings and emotions. My abilities don’t work as well on women, unless they’re attracted to me. But this girl loves Kyle. A pure kind of love, like the one I had for my first husband that made me do something stupid and get married young.

  Sorry.

  Why are you apologizing? You know he died before I, umm… met you.

  Kyle’s girlfriend takes the giant fork from him and pokes the turkey dogs. Bleh! Those things don’t even smell like real meat. I’m going to need a fresh octopus to purge the disgust out of my senses. Maybe a squid, instead; octopi are a bit slimy.

  I’m confident these kids are a bunch of harmless slackers. Kyle’s nineteen. If he wants to waste his time out here in the woods, it’s his time to waste. I back away from the campground until enough trees block me from sight. None of them notice me. Not that it would make a difference if I’m seen, but old habits die hard, and I’d prefer to remain anonymous. If Kyle’s father wants to tell him he hired a private investigator to find him, that’s his business. Leave me out of it. I figure in a couple weeks, Kyle will be as poor as Job’s turkey and go home. Or maybe he’ll venture out of the campsite and look for gainful employment.

  They might take up farming.

  I laugh aloud, startling a squirrel so bad, the poor thing runs headfirst into a tree and knocks itself senseless. Fortunately, I’d parked my Jeep Rubicon far enough from the campsite that I don’t think any of the kids heard me. Then again, I could pass for one of their group. I’ve been twenty-five for over a century, and people tell me I look more like twenty.

  With that thought stuck in my head, I hop in my Rubi and start the drive home, grinning at my nickname for the Jeep. It’s a lustrous dark red, which makes the name a pun, too.

  ***

  I’ve got a nice place in Medina right on the water.

  I suppose most people would consider the property expensive, but after so many years, I’ve gathered a comfortable nest egg. I wasn’t born into wealth―far from it. I grew up poor to the point of not having shoes until around the time I hit fourteen. As a small girl, most of my dresses had been flour sacks in a former life. Fortunately, I’d been an only child, so my mother didn’t need to break her back too much to support us. I never knew my father. Mom never talked about him much, though around my mid-teens, she admitted he’d left as soon as she’d told him I was on the way. She’d been afraid I’d internalize it as a child and think something had been wrong with me, but I didn’t take it personally. He couldn’t have abandoned me because he had no idea who I was, merely ‘a baby coming.’

  Anyway, if a person sticks around long enough, eventually money finds them. I had a knack for marrying up, though only my first husband had been a marriage in any legal sense, and my only one while still a mortal. The last two had both deemed it fair to set me up for ‘life’ when we parted ways. Immortal businessmen have more money than God, and both had been surprisingly happy to give me a nice chunk of it. Patrick Foster had been my first supernatural husband, a werewolf. I think he loved me at one point, but whether due to his canine nature or something more human, he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

  For most of the 80s, I considered myself ‘married’ to a vampire by the name of Manfred Worley. I’d met him in London in 1930 or so, but I didn’t know it at the time. He remembered me when we bumped into each other in Southern California when I’d been living in San Diego. I think he’s still there. Unlike Patrick, Manfred turned out to view me as a curiosity, no actual love involved―but the sex wasn’t bad. After the magic ran out of our relationship, he remained friendly, and added to my fortune when we decided to part ways.

  I have dozens of bank accounts around the world, enough that my money makes money. I don’t have to work, but I enjoy it. Sitting around all day staring at paintings would drive me insane, so the private investigator thing keeps me from winding up in a padded fish tank.

  My house is still somewhat modest for the area. Even in this part of the city, I could’ve afforded more, but I only need so much room, being alone. I like nice things, specifically art. Much of my wall space goes toward displaying a veritable showcase of modern, postmodern, and classic paintings―heavy on the avant garde. Some of them are pretty weird and dark, and many bloody. That’s got to be Licinia’s influence. I’d always been on the squeamish side. As a child, I’d been the first girl standing on a chair to get away from the giant bug, and I think I did faint once at the sight of blood when I’d been around nine. Mom had nicked herself with a kitchen knife.

  With a beautiful home, a beautiful view, a collection of beautiful art that wou
ld rival any museum ―art that I most certainly didn’t donate to the local thrift shops―one might think I would be content. But isn’t that the thing about life? Who is ever content? I’ll tell you who, people who are six feet under. Contentment equals death, of that I have no doubt. Want a long and rewarding life? Never let the life force stop flowing, never stop creating, never stop giving back, never stop living.

  Unless, of course, a person happens to be immortal.

  Then it doesn’t matter what the hell one does. Except, even in my immortality, I have things I need to do. For instance, I can’t stray far from salt water. Yes, the ocean. Why, I don’t know, but Licinia’s nature demands it. That, as well as darker, bloodier requirements. Fresh meat, preferably of the male type. Though, I am fortunate in that my Dark Mistress is able to set the craving for human flesh aside. Fish, sea life, and sometimes beef scratch that itch. My human side never accepted the idea of eating people, so I’m grateful she lets me slide there. That, and tearing a guy open to eat his heart and internal organs tends to get on the nerves of the local cops.

  Anyway, I decided to buy this house even though it was on the low end of my budget. Mind you, they don’t build ‘basic’ homes with an oceanfront location around here, so I settled on something the locals call ‘midrange.’

  One good thing about the property is thick trees on both sides. My neighbors can’t see much, which suits me fine. Since I’ve spent all day in the damn woods, that inner part of me craves the ocean.

  After leaving my clothes on the back steps, I run faster than I have in quite a while for the shore. Fast enough that my hair whips behind me, my boobs bounce, and maybe some other parts as well. Licinia thinks my ass is small, but I guess beauty standards aren’t quite what they were two millennia ago.

  I fly over my lawn and down the small private pier before leaping in a graceful dive. Lake Washington, silver to my eyes, shimmers before me.

  Soon, I’ll feel alive again. I’ll be whole.

  Complete.

  Silver Light

  is available at:

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  Return to the Table of Contents

  Also available:

  Convergence

  Winter Solstice #1

  by J.R. Rain and

  Matthew S. Cox

  (read on for a sample)

  Chapter One

  Exclusivity

  Hungry. The word circles around in my head the way the water spirals into the drain at my feet. Diego, my boyfriend of the past two-some-odd-years, is still screaming at someone over the phone in the other room.

  He’s got enough of a Spanish accent that it sounds like there’s a foreign drama on the TV turned up loud. The rush of water and a closed bathroom door don’t do a whole lot to tune him out, but hey, his neighbors get free stock advice. How that man could go straight from mind-blowing sex to shouting at his coworkers in under a minute, I’ll never understand. Okay, maybe not ‘mind-blowing,’ more like mind-poking, as in poking the brain with a turkey baster.

  So… yeah. Hungry.

  I’d been having that word thrown at me a lot lately, usually by my boss Fenton. Hungry for a big break, major story, ‘the great opportunity’, as he always says. Now, hungry for the food I ordered. Anyway, somewhere between all the ridiculous nonsense he sends me to take pictures of, I get a real story now and then. Not that anyone believes a word of it. I suffer the curse of working for a tabloid. And The Spiritualist isn’t merely any tabloid. No ‘bat baby’ or ‘bigfoot fathered my child’ stories here. No, we go after cases of magic or unexplained phenomena. Just last month, I got a picture of a real gargoyle. Yes, a real gargoyle. Nasty thing. Almost tore my arm off. They get kinda grumpy when you sneak up on them with a camera flash. And did anyone believe a word of it? Nope.

  At least the shower is relaxing. Diego’s got one of those waterfall deals I’ve been standing in for almost twenty minutes. One of these days, I’ll probably tell him that I’m only sleeping with him so I can use his bathroom. Emerald green tiles, a sheet of warm water falling on my head, some Kiwi-banana body wash; I could stay in here for hours―or at least until he stops shouting on the phone. But I can’t. Remember that whole ‘hungry’ thing? Yeah… I ordered Chinese, our tradition for afterward. It started as a joke a couple months after I first started seeing him. He said something about having sex with me makes him want more in half an hour, and somehow, that related to food.

  I roll my eyes. Diego can be an asshole sometimes―as whoever’s on the other end of that phone is finding out. The half-hour thing is probably some racist joke I should be upset over, but it’s not worth the time. Either way, food’s almost here and I’m not going to get any cleaner. All the post-sex sweat and everything else went down the drain long ago. I sigh to myself. If I’d known Diego would be spending most of ‘our night’ on the phone with his office, I would’ve stayed home with Mr. Moody.

  I have no doubt my cat is going to be all over me when I get home for not stopping by to put down a can. Since I went straight to Diego’s from work, he has to suffer the horrors of dry food from the auto-feeder. Not that he doesn’t have enough food. That thing’s loaded. Enough for probably a whole ‘nother day. But it barely counts. My cat’s world revolves around moist food.

  Resigned to accepting the lackluster turn the night has taken, I reach back to kill the water and jam my knuckles into the knob, almost drawing blood.

  “Ow. Dammit.”

  Why do people stick their fingers in their mouth when they hurt them? I don’t understand it either, but here I am. Sucking on them doesn’t ease the pain at all, and waving my hand around doesn’t help much either. Wish Mom and Dad taught me how to heal with magic. Apparently, it ‘doesn’t work that way.’

  Yay. And ouch.

  One of these days, I’ll remember to stop expecting to get a ‘feel’ for a place in anything short of two years. Not that I’m a klutz, but I’m always a little off target if I grab blind. Except in my crappy apartment way across town, you know, where the normal people live―not the sort of people like Diego who can swing a five-thousand-dollar a month rent.

  The shower control ignores my deadly stare, but doesn’t dodge my grip again. Not complicated when I’m looking at it. Water off. Oh, did I mention how much I love Diego’s bathmat? It’s like walking on clouds. Black, like most of his décor. Such a bachelor. After stepping out of the enormous shower (it’s bigger than my closets), I concentrate for a second, and a whirl of warm air and magical energy circles me, lifting away all the water and carrying it in a splatter against the tiles.

  There. Dry.

  Guess I can’t say Mom never taught me anything useful. Wish I knew a spell that would make me get noticed by CNN or Reuters or something. Oh well, maybe I should stop chasing magical beasties and start following police cars.

  Diego’s still in his den, phone to the side of his head, back to the archway connecting to the living room. He’s still naked. I sashay over to the couch and lean against it, staring at him with a coy smile. Apparently, ‘Scott’ sent the wrong paperwork to the SEC about some account, and it’s bad enough that Diego’s stabbing the air with his finger in time with every word. I love his ass dimples. He’s no heavyweight boxer, but he puts more time in at the gym than anyone really needs to. Not that I’m complaining about the results. That is one nice thing about being with him. Idiots and thugs tend to avoid us if we go out, since he looks like he’d break them in half.

  The doorbell rings, so he glances back. We make eye contact, and the rage on his face lessens to an almost-smile. He starts to reach for a white robe, but I mouth ‘I got it’ and head for the front door, going up on tiptoe to use the little view port. Awesome. Food.

  I open the door. “Hi. Wow, that was fast.”

  A short (seriously, I’m not used to being eye-level with people, much less men) guy with black hair, also with a cell phone glued to the side of his head, is standing outside with a bag dangling from his
fingers, rambling in Mandarin or Cantonese.

  The kid gives me a noncommittal nod and hands over the credit card receipt and a pen. I figure he finally gets a good look at me the instant the rapid-fire Chinese stops. Oh, what’s a good tip on $29? Whatever… I write in $8, sign it, and offer the slip back with the pen. He continues to stare, open-mouthed. A few seconds later, I tuck the receipt in his jacket pocket and take the plastic bag dangling from his fingers.

  “Thanks,” I say. “It smells wonderful!”

  “Umm…”

  I leave him staring and shut the door.

  Diego shakes his head, tosses the robe on the sofa, and wanders back into the den, still yelling at poor Scott. I pad over to the dining area, up a tiny staircase from the sunken living room, and light two candles with a wink of magic. Nothing more romantic than Chinese take-out after sex, right? Maybe one of these days, Diego will stop letting his work always pull him away from me. Or not. After all, I guess he’s gotta pay the ridiculous rent on this place. Not to mention, the man loved what he did. Too much. I suppose I should consider myself lucky I got almost fifteen whole minutes of cuddle time before the phone rang. Diego’s a great guy―when I can get his attention.

  Yay, Solstice. You’re second fiddle to his career. And you’re going to be second in line until he retires.

  Okay, that depresses the hell out of me.

  There it is again. The feeling that it seems like it’s not destined to be. I mean, he’s cute, successful, athletic, fairly high up the food chain at his venture capital firm… but, I dunno. Something doesn’t feel right. I mean, nothing feels overly wrong with him. Just, not right for me. Or am I being too picky? And since when does the girl who can light candles from across the room with a spark of intent doubt her hunches? No. I’m not doubting it; I’m filing an appeal.