General Jackson “Longshot” Hunter has been in the intelligence game for decades.  The head of Alliance SpecOps, he’s done everything in his power to prevent his operatives from suffering the personal tragedies he has–sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  With war with the Imperium looming on the horizon, Hunter faces the greatest fight of his life: to protect a man he’s come to regard as the son he never had and to save humanity from itself–and a threat long dead.

The story in Longshot takes place largely during the events if Redeemer and was an experiment from several years ago in centering a story on Jack Hunter, the chief of Alliance SpecOps and the chief of military intelligence back on Epsilon.  It’s part character study, part background, part thought and timeline organization. In Chapter 4, we’ll meet Hunter’s sister and realize exactly why Aaron Taylor’s so damn important to the general.

Four

The metal edge of the shovel scraped against the pavement, the rasping sound somehow comforting and drowning out the maelstrom raging in his head. The resolution had made it out of committee, but he couldn’t do a damned thing now, lest he somehow skew the vote or worse.

But it’s a step in the right direction. Damn it all, you can’t forget that.

Alex Sotheby had told him once that his tenure as chief of intelligence and special operations would be frustrating and exciting all at once. Mostly, it had just been frustrating.

Then again, I’m half afraid of the exciting part that must be coming soon.

Alex had also told him that he’d fight not one, but two wars in his lifetime. Somehow, Hunter didn’t think that the ex-pilot turned priest and prophet meant the cold war with the Imperium followed by one with a more heat.

“You’ll know them when they come, Jack. You’ll know it’s happening when it begins. You’ll feel it here.” Alex had touched breastbone. “And then you’ll feel it in your gut and you’ll be sick because you can’t stop it from coming, can’t stop it from happening, and you can’t do anything to make it better. All you can do is keep as many of your people alive as you can and rebuild once it’s over. If the end of it ever comes.”

“Something eating you?”

He heaved a shovelful of snow onto the banks he’d been building to either side of the front walk before he turned toward the voice. Dressed in slacks and a heavy leather jacket, he supposed that it must have been her day off, since otherwise she’d have been in scrubs and sneakers. “What would make you think that?”

His sister smiled faintly and shook her head. “You’re out here shoveling the walks and drive at a house that isn’t yours, one that’s not likely to see its owner anytime soon. If it was springtime, you’d be gardening or mowing the lawn. You’ve got that look. What’s wrong? Work?”

“It’s always work,” he said, turning to start shoveling again. “That’s all there is to me anymore.”

“I didn’t say that, Jack.”

You don’t have to say it, Kath. I already know. He shook his head, tossing another load upward and watching the spray of snow glitter in the afternoon sunshine. His sister took a step closer.

“You could try talking to someone about it.”

“Who would I talk to, Kath?” He just stared at the snow, marveling at how it sparkled even in the weak winter sunshine. “No one else has security clearance.”

“Since when the hell did that matter to you?” she asked softly. She slid her fingers into his and squeezed his hand. “It must be bad if you’re shoveling Madeline Taylor’s front walk.”

“It’s the war,” he said. “That’s all.”

“That’s all, huh?” Kath shook her head, her own gaze wandering further down the street, to the modest brick house where she lived, just a few doors down. She invited him to come there every holiday, every birthday, and every anniversary of the deaths that had rocked them to their foundations. “There’s always been the war. What’s making it worse now?”

There was a part of him that wanted to break down and tell her everything. His sister had been like him once, trained as a SpecOps officer by the Alliance military, trained to do each and every one of the things that he’d been trained to do at the Academy decades before.  But she’d walked away after Jonah Frank had been killed on the same mission that had cost him Maida. Jonah had been her partner and Kath had loved him more than anything. Hunter couldn’t blame her for walking away.

“Nothing,” he said. “And everything.”

“Cryptic,” she said, no trace of irony in her voice.

“That’s what they pay me for.”

She shook her head. “They pay you because no one else would take the job.” Her fingers squeezed his again. “Now tell me before it starts to eat you up inside.”

He looked up and down the street, making sure there was no one to hear their soft-spoken conversation, then said, “They’re voting on the Castion resolution.”

“That should make you happy, right? Wasn’t that the planet that the Imperium fired on from orbit?”

“It’s too little and too late, Kath. It’s like–like–I can’t even describe what it’s like. It’s all politics.”

Her smile was gentle and sad. “That’s the story of our lives, Jack. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

He hadn’t, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“So the vote on this business regarding Castion’s got you locked up tighter than a sealed airlock. I’m almost afraid to ask why, since I know the answer’s going to be classified. The answer’s always classified, isn’t it?”

“Not always,” he said softly. “Just most of the time.”

“So are you saying it’s not classified this time?”

He laughed weakly and shook his head. “No. No, this time it’s classified, just like most of the other times.”

“Then I guess you’d better not spill,” she said, her voice mockingly doubtful. “I don’t have security clearance anymore.”

She did, but she didn’t know it, and she’d be angry if she did know. As far as Katherine Hunter was concerned, she’d been out of the Intelligence game since they’d buried Joe Frank. She didn’t know that her big brother had leveraged things so she was still on the books with high-level clearance.

Hell, if she didn’t have it, who could I talk to about what’s eating me up inside?

She squeezed his hand again. “Come over. I’ll make some coffee and you can spill your guts.”

“I didn’t think that you liked to see guts when you weren’t working,” he quipped. She snorted softly.

“Cute. Are you coming, or not?”

He closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can finish this later.”

“I’m hoping you won’t feel the need to,” she said. “He’s not coming back anytime soon, is he?”

“No,” Hunter said. “No, not anytime soon. Not until I call him home.”

Kath nodded. “I thought so. Finish up, then. I’ll be waiting.”

Hunter mustered up a smile and pecked his sister on the cheek. “Ten minutes,” he promised.

“Ten minutes. I’ll be waiting.”

Eleven minutes later, he was walking into his sister’s house, shucking off his gloves and shrugging out of his jacket. A fire crackled on the grates in her fireplace and he could hear her humming in the kitchen, banging around and sounding…happy.

How long has it been since I was happy like that?

“Kath?”

“Kitchen.”

He smiled as he hung up his coat and stamped the snow from his military-issue boots. “I figured that out.” He wandered through the living room and into her kitchen.

Cookies. The woman was making chocolate chip cookies.

All he could do was stand and blink at her.

“You were taking too long,” she said, thrusting the first sheet of cookies into the oven. “Start talking, Jack. Why’s Castion so important to you–more important than any other world out there on the Border. I haven’t seen you so bothered since…” Her voice trailed away and she stared at him for a long, silent moment. “Carmiline. There’s something connecting them.”

He took a seat at her kitchen island and picked a chocolate chip out of the batter left in her mixing bowl. “Keep going,” he murmured.

“This is a guessing game now?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity of that statement.” One corner of his mouth twitched toward a smile. Kath shot him a glare, then laughed.

“Fine, a guessing game it is. One of your operatives was at both assaults. That’s my guess.”

“You never should have left, Kath,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “Is that your way of telling me I’m right?”

He nodded slightly “I could still use you.”

“You can’t afford me,” she told him. “And I can’t afford the heartbreak. It’s bad enough watching what it does to you. I can’t go through that kind of stress and pain again. I know you live every loss and failure and hurt with those men and women and I admire you for it so much but I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it.”

Hunter nodded. “Of course. I should stop asking.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t stop asking. If you stop asking, that means that I’ve lost something that I don’t want to lose.” She leaned against the island across from him, palms digging into the rim of the marble countertop. “It was one of the younger ones, wasn’t it? From one of the more recent classes.”

“Fifty-seven,” he said.

“Taylor,” she said softly. “It was Taylor. He was at Carmiline and Castion, wasn’t he?”

He looked away, saying nothing. He didn’t have to. His silence would confirm that she’d nailed it.

His baby sister knew him too well.

“That’s why you were at her house, shoveling that damn walk.” Kath straightened and came around the counter, sliding her arm around his shoulders. “Jack, he’s not your son.”

“I know that,” he said, leaning into his sister’s embrace. “But I’m the only real father figure he’s had since he was eight years old. Madeline never let anyone else get close.”

“She wasn’t your wife, either.”

His throat grew tight. “No. But then, I’ve never loved anyone else the way I loved Mai anyway. Madeline was different. She was that friend who’s nearly a sister, but isn’t. She needed someone she could trust and I was there.” I earned that trust. I just wish she’d let me help her more.

“Does that kid even know how much you care?” Kath asked, rubbing his spine with her palm. “Does he have any idea everything you’ve done for him?”

“No,” Hunter said simply. “Maybe someday, he’ll sort it out. Until then, it’s need to know and he doesn’t need to know it.”

“You’re grooming him the way Marr groomed you,” she said. “You thinking of getting out of the game?”

“I can’t until the war’s over.” He looked at his sister, saw the trace of pain that flickered through her expression. She wanted him out. Maybe she even thought that she needed him out. But what would he do when he finally walked away from the job? I’d go insane, that’s what. “I can’t until the Imperium’s not a problem we need to worry about anymore. I’m not going to leave that problem for someone else to inherit.”

“Alex Sotheby’s crazy,” Kath said. “You know that, right? Regardless of what he said to you that night when we were drunk about wars and destiny and all that bullshit, you don’t have to believe it because he’s nuts. I don’t know what happened to him on Demar, but it scrambled his brains. I say this as a neurologist–something turned his brain into scrambled eggs.”

“Alex isn’t crazy,” Hunter murmured. “Everyone just thinks he is and that’s the only thing that’s been keeping him safe since he told Roger Marr to blow his rank tabs out his ass.”

“That and you.” She shook her head slightly. “You hang onto some things too tightly, Jack. You have to learn to let go.”

“Like you?” he asked, then bit down on his tongue. The words had come out softly, but bitterly–far more bitter than she deserved.

But his sister, his beloved, long-suffering sister, just sighed and shook her head. “However you need to do it, Jack. My way isn’t everyone’s way. It’s just how I picked up the pieces and moved on after Joe died.” She ran her fingers through his short-cropped hair and rested her chin on his shoulder. “The way you pulled yourself back together after Mai was to throw yourself into your work. I just wonder how long you can keep that up before it kills you and I’m alone.”

There it was–the quiet reminder that he was all she had left in the universe. She’d never fallen in love again after Jonah died, never thought about having a family. She’d found a new career and thrown herself into it. It had been hard for her in the early years after Joe and Mai were gone, since he had still been working field operations then. Now, he rarely left Epsilon, so they were near, should one need the other. Most often, she would find him at the silent, empty Taylor house down the street, tending the lawn, the gardens, shoveling snow–whatever he felt like needed doing. It wasn’t like he had his own to take care of. He lived on the Academy grounds in a tiny cottage, his lawn and landscaping tended by the Academy’s groundskeepers.

It was a blessing and a curse, in some ways.

“War’s coming, Kath.” He lifted his gaze to hers, smothering a wince at the pain he saw in her eyes. “We have to be the ones to choose the terms or else we’re going to lose.”

“What do you need me to do?” she asked. “Tell me, I’ll do it.”

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said in a whisper. “There’s nothing you can do right now.” The timer on the oven dinged softly and he smiled. “Except maybe get me one of those cookies.”

Kath laughed and gave him a gentle shove. “You’re awful.”

“Only sometimes.” He grinned back at her as she headed for the oven to rescue the first batch of cookies. “I might need your help someday, Kath,” he said “I might need it with something that you might not like. When I do, I’ll ask. Until then, this is all I need. A soft place to fall. A little sister who remembers coffee and chocolate chip cookies and every so often tries to rescue me from myself.”

“What are baby sisters for?”

“Apparently that,” he said.

Her laughter soothed the hurt and frustration that had been building up inside, and by the time he left her house hours later, he felt like maybe, just maybe, he could face the world for another night and another day.

He’d survive until the next crisis, at least.

This is a little vignette in the UNSETIC Files universe set in the Christmas season.  It was originally written as a gift for one of my writing partners.  Enjoy!

Charity Gala

 “Who is that?”

Wes Chandler glanced down toward the far end of the room, toward the red-haired figure dressed in wine-colored taffeta being greeted by the gala’s hosts. He lifted his glass to take a sip of champagne, smiling faintly. “Well, well,” he murmured. “Look at that, Pretty Lady.” He glanced toward his friend and grinned. “You don’t recognize her?”

Robert Ainsley frowned. “Apparently not, Wes, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking who she is.”

Wes grinned a little wider. “That’s Brigid.”

Robert fell silent, staring. His voice softened, grew a little distant. “Are you sure that’s her?”

“I knew she was invited, but I didn’t think she was going to come. She was complaining about not having an escort the other night.” Wes snagged a fresh glass of champagne from a passing server and watched as Brigid chatted with the lord and lady of the house, Wil Scarborough and Tasha Mancini. “Glad she turned up, though.”

“Why’s that?”

Wes smiled crookedly. “Well, you wouldn’t want tonight to be boring, would you?”

•  •  •  •

“Commander, I’m glad that you were able to make it,” Tasha said as she shook her hand. Brigid managed to smile and unconsciously adjusted her hair. The Dickens-era dress code had been a challenge, especially for her hair, but between her daughter and her friend AJ, she wasn’t a complete disaster.

“I’m glad to be here,” Brigid said, surprising herself. She’d lamented coming, looked for all kinds of ways to get out of the affair. Now that she was here, though, it felt like less a chore and more a pleasure. Maybe her friends were right—she didn’t get out enough. “Though the theme was a bit…challenging.”

“You’ve done better than a lot of our guests,” Tasha’s husband, Wil, said with a smile. The retired FBI agent shook her hand next, looking like he’d just stepped from the pages of A Christmas Carol.

“But not better than the two of you, obviously.” Brigid smoothed the taffeta of her skirt with a gloved hand and shook her head. “You look amazing. The house looks amazing. Thank you for inviting me.”

“There was no way we’d let you escape invitation,” Tasha said. “Not with the way Ryce talks about you.”

She laughed. “So I have Detective Marshall to thank for this. That’s good to know.” That shouldn’t surprise me at all. I knew they were friends. “Will she be here tonight?”

Tasha glanced sidelong to Wil, who shrugged slightly. “She said that she would try, but she said something about the kids and a babysitter, so I don’t know if we’ll be seeing her tonight or not.”

The joys of parenthood. Brigid glanced back over her shoulder, then back to her hosts and smiled ruefully. “You have other guests I’m keeping you from. Thank you for inviting me.”

“It’s absolutely our pleasure,” Tasha assured her. “Enjoy yourself. One of us will catch up with you later about the thing at the club.”

“Sure. I’ll definitely try,” Brigid said, then slipped away from the pair and into the marble-tiled space beyond. Her gaze scythed across the population of guests, seeking a familiar face—any familiar face. Jim had told her that he and Bryn had intended to be here, and she knew that there had to be others that she’d know at the charity gala.

The stately home on Long Island was decked out tonight in Victorian splendor, evoking the feeling of an English manor wearing its holiday splendor from more than a century past. There was a part of Brigid that suspected that there had been a touch of magic at work that evening, but without conferring with Bryn or another colleague, she couldn’t be certain. There were dozens of people milling around, wandering the massive ballroom with a view of the water behind the house and the glittering lights of the city beyond. There were more people here than Brigid had honestly expected, despite the fact that she knew that their hosts were well-respected philanthropists. She began to quietly despair ever finding a familiar face. Still new to New York, she didn’t often move in these sorts of circles.

I should have sent Tim and Kate. They wouldn’t have been so out of place here.

A flicker of movement caught her eye and she tracked it, a soft sigh of relief escaping her as she spotted Wes Chandler standing in the shadows of a balcony with a glass of champagne in hand, chatting with the slender man next to him. The relief evaporated a split second later, her heart giving a stutter-step as she recognized Wes’s companion.

He didn’t tell me about that.

In a heartbeat, she wished that she had any of the gifts her friends had—that she could vanish from sight, that she could make people forget that they’d seen her, but it was too late for any of it anyway. Wes had already spotted her. Her heart rose into her throat as she cleared the last few dozen steps to reach them, joining them in the shelter of the shadows.

“You were looking a little lost there, Pretty Lady,” Wes said as she joined them. “I haven’t seen Jim yet.”

A quiet laugh wrested its way free of her throat. “Was it that obvious?”

“Well, I could tell you were looking for someone, and he’s really the only one that fits the demographic since you said the other night that Tim wasn’t coming.”

“I forgot that I told you that,” Brigid said, even though she hadn’t forgotten at all. They were words to cover up building nerves—words she could say to Wes so she could avoid saying anything to Robert, so she could avoid even looking at him. She didn’t know why she’d assumed that he wasn’t around anymore, that she wouldn’t see him again. Wes had talked about him a few times at the club, so she’d been fully aware that he was still there. “He and Kate had other plans.”

“Their loss, I suppose,” Wes said, taking a sip of his champagne and glancing out toward the ballroom floor. “It’s quite the crowd tonight, all things considered. I hope they raise as much as they’re hoping to. What was the charity tonight?”

Robert heaved a quiet sigh and Brigid’s gaze flicked in his direction, though only for an instant. His aggrieved expression eloquently stated that Wes knew damned well what the charity was tonight and shame on him if he’d forgotten. “The youth shelter down the street from St. Malachy’s,” Robert said. “The one that Orestes volunteers at.”

“Right. I already wrote a check, didn’t I?”

“Wire transfer.”

Wes nodded, turning back to Brigid with a smile. “You remember Robert, don’t you?”

Her mouth dried out too much for her to speak. Brigid just nodded. She could feel Robert’s gaze settle on her for a moment, but when her gaze flicked toward his he looked away, studying something outside the windows.

She cleared her throat, looking back at Wes again. “I do. I didn’t realize you still worked closely together.”

“The arrangement has evolved a bit since Chicago,” Wes admitted. “But yes, we do.”

“That’s good,” she said lamely, then glanced away. “I should go find some champagne.”

Wes waved a hand. “I’ll do it. I could use some more myself. I’ll be back.”

He’d slipped around her skirts before she could stop him, leaving her alone with Robert, standing in those shadows below the balcony. Brigid risked a glance at the taller man, the one who was carefully avoiding her gaze as deftly as she’d been trying to avoid his.

Was it actually possible that this was just as awkward for him as it was for her?

Brigid glanced away and exhaled a silent sigh. His voice made her jump, breaking the silence that had stretched between them for what felt like an eternity.

“No longer in Chicago, then.”

“No,” Brigid said carefully. “No, Jim needed me here as bureau chief.”

“Recent move?”

She shook her head, the pearl teardrops on her earrings bouncing with the motion. “No. It’s been a while. More than a year.”

“Oh.” Was that regret in his voice? “It seems like the move suits you. You look…”

Brigid glanced toward him as his voice trailed away. He was staring and it made her throat grow tight. How long had it been since anyone looked at her quite like that?

Forever. Too long.

“You look good,” she whispered, reaching a hand toward his temple and the gray that had just started to show there. “Even if Wes has been causing this.”

He instinctively raised an arm with the intention of stopping her touch, stopping short when he saw the gloves she wore to complete the evening’s attire. “You’re wearing gloves,” he said softly.

Brigid nodded, her hand dropping back to her side. “My daughter’s idea.”

Robert gave a firm nod of his own. “They must be—they must be getting close to high school. Your children.”

“In the fall,” she said. She stared at him, watched the play of light and shadow against his cheekbones, watched the things she could see lurking in his eyes even as he looked away, avoiding her gaze again just like she’d avoided his. She swallowed hard. “Robert.”

He startled slightly, looking at her again. Was it her imagination, or did she see a surge of something in his gaze, something that was there one second and gone the next, something she couldn’t quite name but knew she’d felt before.

“I regret what it did to you,” she said slowly, “but I don’t for one second regret kissing you that night.”

His lips parted as if he might speak, his gaze softening as he stared at her. For the space of a few heartbeats, it was like they were standing on that rooftop again the night they’d parted in Chicago, the night he and the young Hunters that were his charge left the city in her hands. She recalled the pain that had washed over her that night as she’d realized what her touch had done after she’d kissed him, recalled the rasp of his voice telling her to go, just go, when he’d finally been able to speak again.

She’d tried to convince herself that it was better forgotten—that he was better forgotten.

“I don’t regret any of it,” he whispered. His gloved fingers touched her face. The knots in her belly started to loosen even as her throat constricted with emotions she didn’t dare name.

Robert looked away a few seconds later, toward ballroom, toward the cleared space where a small string ensemble was set up, the strands of their tune barely reaching the pair where they stood. There were dancers on the floor there, working their way through the steps of a quadrille. The Hunter watched them for a few moments before he looked back to her.

“Would you like to dance?”

Unable to speak around the tightness in her throat, she nodded. Robert smiled and took her hand, drawing her out of the shadows and toward the dance floor. She thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of Jim McCullough and Bryn Knight standing with Wes.

She could have sworn she saw the General of New York smile.

Then they were on the floor and Robert had let go of her hand to bow to her. She dropped into a curtsey, feeling intensely awkward, like she was some sort of curiosity in someone’s menagerie.

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” she said as she straightened and Robert took her hand, settling the other on her waist. “I’ll try not to step on you.”

“Just follow my lead,” he murmured. She put her other hand on his shoulder as the ensemble began a waltz. “We’ll be fine.”

Then they were dancing and her heart began to beat a little faster, fluttering like a caged bird. She watched his face, the faint smile that curved his lips, the eyes that moved constantly as they crossed the floor, deftly avoiding contact with the other couples that crowded the space set aside for dance.

This isn’t happening.

But it was. She closed her eyes. All she could hear was the music. Her nostrils were full of his cologne.

No one else existed—not Wes, not Bryn and Jim, not the other couples on the floor, not the ghost of Roswell Darbin-Kincaid that always lurked at the edge of her thoughts—except for when she was with him. It was just them, the music, and the dance.

She hated that the moment would end. She dreaded the end of the song.

Robert’s fingers tightened around hers and she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, opening her eyes to look up and meet his gaze.

“Stop thinking,” he whispered. “Just dance, Brigid. Dance with me.”

A smile curved her lips and she nodded. “Okay.”

He smiled back, squeezing her fingers again.

His gaze never left hers for the rest of the song, nor for the two that followed.

Maybe, just maybe, she thought, some moments would never end.

Coming in 2018 to your favorite ebook store (with print to follow) – an omnibus edition of the first three books of the UNSETIC Files: Bering Songs and Silence, Between Fang and Claw, and The Measure of Dreams–along with a bonus story, “Darkest Night of the Year,” which is told from the point of view of everyone’s favorite angstboy, Tim McConaway.

There may be a few other goodies packaged in there, too.

This particular book is an experiment for me, dipping my toe into something that’s more romance than adventure–but it’s kind of turning into a strange amalgamation of both.  You may notice that I’m electing to throw out a later chapter–I have my reasons, that shall remain nameless.  The General’s Lady is the story of Michael Graden and Elaine Harris, two lost souls in search of what’s left for them in a universe torn by war, their homeworld turned to a radioactive husk and the galactic government they once served dead and buried.

Chapter 5 is told from Michael Graden’s point of view.

Five

all of us have ghosts

“House Delmarco holds the coreward end of the Scandian Arm, but they’re going to get a pretty rude surprise from House Fu-Jung out on the fringe faster than they’ve antici—General, are you listening?”

“Hm?” Michael Graden tore his gaze away from the galaxy map spinning lazily in the center of the—his—situation room and looked toward his XO. “Sorry, Arlan. Was thinking.”

“And apparently doing it from about two thousand light years away,” Arlan Camden-Byers said quietly, crossing his arms. “Did you want me to reschedule the sit-rep briefing? Because it’s not like we’re shipping out in the next five hours to deal with anything.”

Graden smiled sheepishly. “No, that’s all right. What were you saying?”

“Never mind what I was saying. What were you thinking about?”

“Just about how quickly things can change,” Graden said quietly, unconsciously touching one arm. There were still bandages under the uniform jacket, but at least they weren’t as bulky as they’d been the week before. He stared at the map but still caught Arlan’s wince out of the corner of his eye. “One minute I’m a Major trying to hold together what was left of four battalions, then I’m being voted general by those battalions.”

“Then you’re throwing yourself in front of a bullet meant for your XO,” Arlan muttered, sighing. “You’re not still upset about that, are you?”

“There’s no point,” Graden said. “I still think you should have told me who you were, but it’s hydrogen into helium. Doesn’t matter now.”

Arlan snorted. “How was I supposed to tell you that?”

Graden shrugged, then winced as pain spiked from his arm up into his chest. “I don’t know, Ar, but it’d have been nice to have some warning.”

“I just wanted you to treat me just like everyone else,” Arlan said, leaning against a chair. “Should we get back to the briefing?”

“Please,” Graden said, rubbing his shoulder. “I’m sure that the great big spider’s got something for us to do, doesn’t he?”

Arlan winced. “You’re too damned perceptive for your own good, General.” He tapped something on the tablet in his hand and the map shifted, zooming in on a quadrant featuring the Scandian Arm, the Andromeda Abyss, and the rimward edge of the Mandrican Expanse. “We have an opportunity to secure our borders here in the Abyss and maybe snag a few Scandian worlds from Delmarco control. Star-Lord Camden just signed a non-aggression pact with House Laurencian.”

Graden waved a finger at a small wedge of space where the Mandrican Expanse butted up against the edge of the Andromeda Abyss. “They control this section of the Expanse, correct?”

“Aye, sir. We have their leave to strike from the Expanse into the Arm.” Arlan smiled wryly. “For once, Father put his clout to good use.”

“Perhaps. Zoom in on the section, will you?” The map shifted and Graden studied the area carefully, brows knitting over stormy gray eyes. Lots of asteroids, and this nebula here. His gaze drifted up on the map. “He wants these four systems?”

Arlan nodded, crossing his arms again. “They’re all within a two-day hop of each other, all gated, all settled, and all pretty lightly defended. He doesn’t think it would be too hard for us to take and occupy them if we blitzkrieg the systems.”

He could be right about that. “What kind of support can we expect?”

His second winced. “I think he was hoping we could manage it on our own.”

“With due respect to him, the Star-Lord is living in a fantasy world.” Graden looked at Arlan. “Tell him that we can take the planets, but we won’t be able to hold them for him without another battalion per world to keep the peace.” The corner of his mouth twitched in a brief smile. “Unless he’s going to send a horde of diplomats and bureaucrats in behind us to cow them into total surrender.”

“He might,” Arlan muttered. “Either way, I’ll convey the first part to him.”

“What, the part about him living in a fantasy world?”

Arlan snorted. “No, about taking them but not being able to hold them.” He shook his head slightly. “Contrary to what you might think of him, General, he really does like you.”

“He likes me because he needs me, Arlan. I’m useful. Once I outlive my usefulness, there’s no telling what will happen to me.”

“You’ll be rewarded for your service,” Arlan said.

Probably with a quiet death from poison or something. What do you do with a general who stops being a general—or worse yet, a soldier who doesn’t know how to stop being a soldier? “With a knife in my back, I’d guess. At least it’d be quick and relatively painless.”

“He wouldn’t dare.”

Graden looked toward his XO slowly. “Wouldn’t he? I’m the fucking Dragonslayer. Tell me I’m not some kind of threat to his power.”

“If you had any ambition to form a house, you’d have done it by now, and that’s the only threat you could ever be to him, General.” Arlan crossed his arms again. The man mercifully took little from his father, the self-proclaimed Star-Lord Byron Camden, other than a solid build and a square jaw—and a sharp mind with a tongue to match. “God knows you wouldn’t serve any of the other houses because—how did you put it?—you found their ethics morally repugnant.”

I don’t think your father’s are much better, but at least he’s trying to maintain some of the Commonwealth’s basic values about life and freedom. Graden grunted. “Thanks, Arlan.”

“I’m only telling you the truth, General.”

Graden frowned. “You know, before you people elected me to General, you did know how to use my name.”

“I thought you said we could either be friends or we could be professional, sir.”

“Being professional went out the window when I took a bullet for you in a fucking bar, Arlan.” Graden smiled wryly.

“You’re never going to let me forget it, are you?”

Graden shrugged with his good shoulder. “If you’d told me, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

“If I’d told you, you’d have stashed your executive officer so deep in the lines that I’d be lucky to ever see a planet’s surface again—that’s assuming you didn’t wrap me in batting and ship me back to my father at the earliest convenience.” He winced slightly. “Thank you for not doing that, by the way.”

“You’re more valuable as my XO,” Graden said. “And I wouldn’t have buried you that deep. Kept you out of the thick, sure, but you’d have seen planets. I always need people to coordinate mop-up, right?”

Arlan smirked, handing him the tablet. “Right. Well, I’d better go shoot the bad news to my father. You can finish briefing yourself, right?”

“I managed well enough before I inherited you,” Graden said. “I think I can handle it this time.” He sank into a chair near the map, staring at it for a moment. Arlan headed for the door, hesitating before opening it.

“Mike?”

“What?”

“What were you really thinking about?” Arlan’s brow furrowed, fair brows knitting together over green eyes. “Politics don’t usually weigh this heavily on your mind.”

He frowned, staring at the Scandian Arm for a long moment before he shook his head. “It’s her birthday, Arlan. I realized it this morning while I was getting dressed. Still had that damn card I got her before things went to shit.” I should have tried harder to find out what happened to her Eagles before the records were purged and we were cut off from the Arm, but it just wasn’t a priority while I had people dying here in the Abyss.

“I’m sorry, Mike. She meant a lot to you, didn’t she?”

“More than a little,” he murmured, then shook his head. He waved his XO out. “Go on, get out of here. You can buy me a drink tonight and I’ll get plowed and forget again. I’m the goddamned Dragonslayer, right? There isn’t a weak spot in my armor.”

“No,” Arlan said quietly. “Of course not, sir.” He snapped off a quick salute and ducked out of the room. Graden kept staring at the Scandian Arm for a moment longer, then shook himself and forced his attention back to the task at hand—how to wrestle four worlds out of House Delmarco’s control before they realized they’d lost them.

The Institute called them their Angelic Legion.  They expected a few hundred children, gifted with talents beyond nature, properly trained, would be able to turn back the forces of hell when the End Times came.  Ky Monroe saw them for what they were years ago–a cult masquerading as something good, something holy, something that would help and not harm.  Matthew Thatcher recognized them for what they were, too–a dangerous organization not above murder and violence to achieve their aims, and together with Ky worked tirelessly to make sure the organization died–and when an explosion ripped through the Institute’s main facility in the midwest years ago, Ky dared believe they might have succeeded.  But when an old friend reappears with a story to tell, Ky realizes exactly how wrong she’s been–and that time is running out to save the people she loves…

When All’s Said and Done is narrated by Kyle Anne Monroe (alias Kyrie Thatcher), a college student who escaped from the Institute as a teenager.  It is the major work planned for the Lost Angels Chronicles, which shares a universe (and many characters) with the UNSETIC Files (and Court of Twelve works like The Man Who Made Monsters, a project I’m working on with L.P. Loudon).

Four

“Ky.”

I winced, pausing on the stairs as I started to trudge up toward my room. I couldn’t look at her. “Yeah, Reece?”

“Tell me,” she said quietly.

I glanced back at her. She leaned against the banister at the foot of the stairs.

“Tell me everything.”

My hands curled into fists. I can’t. I can’t, I won’t. I can’t. I shook my head.

“Ky, please. If this is what’s been eating you up inside for as long as we’ve known each other, I think it’s time you talked to someone about it.”

“You don’t need that in your head, Reece,” I murmured. I don’t even need it in mine. But it’s been there, sure as the sunrise, for years. I try not to let it bother me anymore.

Her voice was like a whip. “Stop trying to protect me and just talk, Ky.”

She wasn’t going to let me win this one. I sagged and turned around, sighing and slumping down to sit on the stairs. She sat down next to me and put her arm around my shoulders. I shook my head a little.

“I’ve kept it all a secret for too long, Reece. It’s hard.” Locked it away where it couldn’t hurt me anymore—where I thought it couldn’t hurt me anymore.

She shook her head a little. “I’m your friend. You need to let it out before it rots you from the inside out.”

I exhaled and put my face in my hands. “I’ve just been trying to let it go,” I muttered. “Up until yesterday, I thought it was over. Thought they were dead, thought I’d lost—lost them, lost our little private war. Thought I’d lost everything.”

“But you kept that deck.”

I shook my head. “It was the only thing I had from him, and I love him.” I mopped at my eyes. Why was I crying? He wasn’t dead. We still had a chance. I still had a chance. The pain of loss bubbled up, hollowing me out. “Until I have him back, it’s all that I’ve got except for the memories I can barely hang on to.” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “That’s what hurts the most. That the memories are fading. I remember the pain, but it keeps getting harder and harder to remember his face.” 

“How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

“Years,” I murmured. “Not since I escaped, except for dreams. Our dreams. And those stopped until last night…” My voice trailed away. I scrubbed at my eyes with the heel of my hand. Stop crying. It’s almost over, so stop crying! “I didn’t realize how much I’d missed him. I knew I’d missed him, but I didn’t realize how much.”

She shook her head a little. “Ky, how does it happen? How…how did they get you? You said it’s some kind of cult, but how’d you end up a part of it? Were your parents in it?”

I choked and shuddered. “No. No, not at all. My parents never would have let them get their claws into me, or into them. Was a car accident, both of my parents died. That part of the story I told you, that was true. Except I got kicked into the foster care system, and that’s how the Institute got me. They just…plucked me up and out of the system. Same kind of thing happened to Ridley. Happened to a lot of us, I guess. After all, what were we? A bunch of throwaway kids with no families to worry about them. Kids like Hadrian and Timothy were different. They had families. Timothy had Matthew. Hadrian had his family…I still don’t know the whole story there. He never wanted to talk about it.” I took a deep breath. “I still don’t know how they figured out who had gifts and who didn’t, to decide who to take, but I never saw anyone come in who didn’t have something—some kind of talent.”

“Talent?”

I grimaced. “Gifts, psychic or otherwise. Things that made us ‘special.’ Hadrian’s a seer, like I said. Clairvoyant, a lot of the time with precognitive features. Ridley can literally make himself unseen.”

“And you?”

“I can step outside of time.”

She stiffened for a moment, staring at me like I was crazy. I looked down at my hands.

“I know, sounds like I’m off my nut. But it’s true. I try not to do it anymore, partially because I’m afraid of getting caught at it. On some level, the paranoia never quite went away, y’know?”

“I guess,” she said slowly, softly. “…is that how you sometimes make it to Commons in the morning before I ever can, even though I know I left before you did?”

I grimaced and nodded. “That’s exactly it.” A faint pounding rose in my temples, behind my eyes. “Like I said, I try not to do it at all when I can help it. But sometimes it’s hard when you know you’re going to be late to class and you can get around it, y’know?”  I sighed and leaned back against the stairs, staring at the ceiling. “I try to be normal. There’s a lot of times I wish I was normal. But I’m not and it sucks sometimes.”

“And the rest of the time?” She asked softly.

I managed a wry smile. “I remember it’s who I am, and that I’m this way for a reason, even if I don’t know what it is.”

Reece gave me a little hug. “I’m sorry.”

I shook my head slightly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Reece. You didn’t do anything to me. They did. All you’re asking me to do is talk about it.” I sighed quietly. “And while I might not want to talk about it, I have to. If I don’t, it’s always going to have power over me and that isn’t something I want.” Especially once I have him back. When that happens, he’s going to need all of me—everything I can give and more.

She nodded a little. “You know we’d never let anything ever happen to you, right?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I know. And I appreciate it. Really, I do—more than you know. You guys—all of you guys here—have been the first people since Matthew that I’ve been able to really trust.”

“Except with this,” she said softly.

I nodded, suppressing a wince. “Until now, anyway. You can see why I didn’t tell you, though, right? Why I kept it all inside?”

“Oh, without a doubt,” she said. She leaned forward against her knees, sitting there next to me on the stairs. “Are you going to tell Marie?”

My nose wrinkled. “I don’t know if she could handle it yet. Maybe after I’ve got him back and she’s got a reason to ask a lot of questions.”

Reece stared at me for a moment before she smiled faintly, nodding. “Probably a good idea.”

“You really think so?”

“Maybe.” She grinned and nudged me. “I promised not to press you, Ky. It should be your decision to make, who to bring in on this and when. Just promise me something.”

“All right. What am I promising you?”

“If you need help, you’ll ask for it. Even if you think you shouldn’t. Let us decide how far down the rabbit hole we want to go. That much, at least, should be our choice.”

I stared at her for a long moment, worried and conflicted, before I finally nodded. “All right. I can do that.”

She nodded firmly, getting up. “Good. I’m going to finish reading my book. G’night.”

I watched her jog up the stairs toward her room. “Night, Reece.”

I leaned back, rested my head against the lip of the landing and listened to the quiet whirr of the air conditioning and the crickets I could hear over its white noise.

Let them decide, huh? I frowned at the ceiling. Easier said than done.

After a few minutes, I sighed and followed her up to bed.

NYPD homicide detective Ryce Marshall doesn’t remember what happened to her before she woke up in a dirt parking lot in Pennsylvania.  She doesn’t know why her lover is so afraid she’ll walk away.  She doesn’t know that she’s already neck-deep in things beyond imagining.

One of the UNSETIC Files, Truth Will Set You Free is the introduction of Ryce Marshall and Jesse Stole into the universe, two NYPD cops on a collision course with the supernatural in more than a few forms.

Four

I felt distinctly underdressed, sandwiched between Jesse and Agent Scarborough, as we showed up at the front door of one of the largest houses I’d ever seen out on Long Island. It had felt like a ridiculously long drive from the border of Queens and Nassau counties to where we were now and I’d felt more and more out of place, more and more unworthy, the deeper into aristocratic country we drove.

Being the kid that nobody seemed to want to adopt can give you complexes like that.

Jesse and Scarborough were both in tuxes. I was in the nicest thing I’d thought to stuff into my bag—a blue sundress that had probably ended up in there by accident. It was not the thing that I should have been wearing to whatever kind of black tie thing was going on tonight, but I had to hope that maybe I’d be able to hide someplace and not be noticed—maybe in the kitchen with the help.

“She lives here?” I whispered to Jesse as Scarborough rang the bell.

“About a third of the time,” he whispered back. “She spends more time in her loft in the city, but this is better for charity things.”

“Charity things,” I echoed, staring at the massive oak doors. “A mob princess does charity things?”

“Think Michael Corleone back when he was young and stupidly idealistic,” Jesse said. Scarborough glared at both of us.

“Shut up, you two,” he muttered. “And make nice.”

One of the doors opened a moment later. The young woman in a three-piece suit peered at us, then smiled.

“Will, James. Miss Tasha’s been waiting for you.” Her blue-eyed gaze flicked toward me. “Who’s your…friend?”

Scarborough cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him. “This is Jesse’s friend, Miss Marshall. Are you going to let us in, Maia?”

The girl laughed and swung the door open wider. “Of course. Is she staying for the party tonight? She can’t wear that.”

I squirmed, trying to tug my hand out of Jesse’s. “I’ll just wait in the car.” You guys should have left me at your safehouse. Dammit!

“Maia, did I just hear Will’s voice?”

The woman who appeared behind Maia was in her early twenties and looked like everything a mafia princess should be—dark-eyed with dark, curling hair that tumbled down to her bare shoulders, lips as red as arterial blood and a figure that curved in all the right places. She wore a strapless, gunmetal gray dress with a spray of glitter along the upper curve of the bodice and spiraling down the left side in an ivy pattern. Her eyes lit when she saw me.

“My goodness! Jesse, is this her?”

Jesse blushed and looked at the toes of his polished dress shoes. “Miss Tasha, this is Ryce Marshall.”

“It is her!” Natasha Mancini slipped past Maia to take my hands in both of hers. “Good gracious, you’ve got no idea how long I’ve been waiting to meet you. I was beginning to think that Jesse was never going to let it happen. Color me pleasantly surprised!” She glanced at him, one corner of her mouth curving in a mischievous smile. “You could have warned me.”

“The circumstances have been unusual, Miss Tasha,” Jesse murmured, glancing at me and then back to her. “Ryce just told me that she’s quit her job.”

“Really,” Natasha said, taking my measure. “Well, congratulations, then, on becoming a free woman for however long it lasts.” She tugged me inside, the men trailing in our wake. “I know better than to ask what it was you used to do. It doesn’t matter anyway, not to me.” She grinned at me, then looked at Scarborough and Jesse. “I’ll meet you two in the library shortly. Looks like I’ve got a new friend to doll up for tonight.”

“Doll up?” I asked numbly, blinking at her. “What do you—?”

“Come on, now. They told you about the charity event tonight. You’re, what, a size six or so? I’ve got a few things upstairs that’ll fit you. We’ll get you dressed and prettied, then we’ll scrape their jaws off the floor and eat before the guests start showing up.” Her nose wrinkled slightly. “And hope that none of my uncle’s friends show their ugly mugs and fuck things up.”

“Are any of them planning to crash the party?” Will asked, expression turning dark and cold in a heartbeat, a storm breaking in blue eyes that suddenly seemed a stormy gray.

It was almost enough to make me afraid of him. Almost.

Natasha gave an entirely unladylike snort. “After I let it be known that you were going to be here? Only the ones with balls of solid fucking diamonds.” She grinned at me, wrapping one lean arm around my shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you pretty, Miss Marshall.”

As her fingers tightened around my shoulder and I felt the muscles that corded her arm, I realized that this so-called princess was more than capable of dealing with any underling that might come at her bare-handed. Even if I’d wanted to, I’d have been hard-pressed to free myself from her grip as she steered me away from the men.

I threw one last help me look at Jesse, who just shook his head slightly, hands upturned in supplication, a what do you expect me to do? gesture.

Then Natasha was dragging me deeper into the house and out of sight. As she tugged me up an ornate, gilded wood staircase toward the second floor, she gave me a conspiratorial grin.

“You don’t have to be afraid of little me,” she said. “Be afraid of how Jesse Stole is going to react when any man so much as looks at you tonight.”

“What?”

“You’ve never seen him when he gets riled up, have you?” Natasha shook her head. “Of course not. I doubt he’d let you. It’s terrifying, trust me.” She gave me a squeeze. “Do I make you nervous?”

I laughed. “What do you think?”

“Oh, I think you’re fucking terrified.” Natasha shook her head. “But that’s all right. It comes with the territory and I’ve learned not to let it bother me.”

She took me down hallway toward a room at the back side of the house, our footsteps quiet on the thick, patterned, richly red rug that ran the length of the hall. The bedroom was no less impressive, though it was decorated to far simpler tastes than the rest of the house—warm, golden wood furnishings with clean, straight lines, a neutral rug and pale walls.

“Yours?” I asked.

“Mine,” she confirmed. “Simpler than you expected, isn’t it?”

“Considering the rest of the house? Hell yes.” I smiled faintly as she shut the door behind us.

“My father let me start decorating it when I was a teenager, before he died,” she said. “I was already fed up with the opulence by then, but I keep the place—I grew up here. My mother’s people owned the property.”

Her mother’s people. Talk about old money and bullshit like that. Aristocracy. I suppressed a snort and wandered toward the window, crossing my arms tightly under my breasts. Natasha smiled as she watched me.

“It’s a little much, huh?”

“No,” I said. “Of course it’s not.”

“Don’t lie. I know it is.” She disappeared into a walk-in closet, snapping on the light and starting to rummage among suits and jeans and evening wear. “I’m well aware of what people seem to think of me, Miss Marshall, especially folks who’re in law enforcement.” She poked her head out of the closet. “Trust me, I made you for a cop the minute I saw you. It’s fine. You know what I am, and that’s fine, too. I doubt you’re here to bust me or fuck me over.” Natasha shot me a tight smile. “There’s a lot more going on than you’ve seen. Trust me on that.”

“I didn’t want you to see this,” Jesse rasped in my ear, his fingers tightening painfully around my arm. “I didn’t want to expose you to any of this.”

“Too damn late for that,” I snarled, glaring at him. His eyes were sunken into dark hollows, but otherwise he looked himself, even if he didn’t sound it. “We’re getting out of here and we’re getting out of here now.”

“I’ve still got—”

“Damn what you’ve still got.” I jerked on his arm. “You’re coming with me or I’m going alone.”

“I can’t let you—”

“Then come with me.”

I startled back to myself as she thrust a dark blue dress toward me, one that probably would’ve cost me at least half a paycheck.

Check that. Probably a whole paycheck.

“Here, try this one. I think it’ll bring out some of the color in your eyes.”

I just blinked at her for a moment. She laughed.

“Stop staring and just do it.”

“I can’t,” I said, staring at the dress in my hands. It was iridescent silk, more luxurious than anything I’d ever touched, let alone worn. “It’s—it’s—”

“It’s not too much,” she said, turning me around and starting to unzip my dress. “So don’t even say it. The color doesn’t do much for me, but when you get gifts like this, it’s hard to turn them down without offending someone. Let’s get you in it and see if you pull it off the way I just couldn’t.”

It was an off-the-shoulder affair with a draped neckline and a skirt that flowed like water over my hips, enveloping my legs without making me feel like I was bound up. The bodice hugged me in all the right places as Natasha zipped me into it. I smoothed the silk of the gown over my stomach and glanced over my shoulder at her. “I’ve never worn anything like this before.”

She smiled. “You should. You look stunning. Come see—then we’ll do something about that hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing, it’s just that I’ve got some combs that would look fantastic against the blonde and with that dress.”

Natasha steered me into the bathroom so I could get a good look at myself. The first glimpse rendered me speechless. Her face lit up as she saw my expression.

“Now imagine what Jesse’s going to do when he sees you,” she said, then laughed again and started on my hair, a pair of silver combs in the shape of a fine spray of flowers in her hand. “His jaw is going to hit the floor so hard we’re going to have to wire it back into position.”

I blushed and glanced down at my hands, fingers twisting. “You really think so?”

“You were speechless. He’ll forget how to think. Trust me.” She pinned my hair up in the combs expertly, as if she’d done it a thousand times before. “Just a dusting of blush, I think, and you’ll be all set.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” I said.

“Of course I do. You’d be awfully out of place in that sundress down there and there’s absolutely no reason for you not to be a part of tonight, especially not when I can give you a dress that makes you look like a million bucks. There’re going to be women in that room who are going to want to be you. Hell, I almost want to be you. Fucking cops—why do you all have such amazing bodies?”

“Not all of us do,” I protested lamely, cheeks flaming. Not all of us were like Jesse and Alex—and me.

“No, not all, but enough.” She smiled again and squeezed my shoulder. “Almost enough to start destroying that stereotype about fat, middle-aged men eating donuts in a corner coffee shop.”

“Almost, but not quite. Not all of us look like we just walked off the set of Law and Order.” Though I suppose my precinct almost does, doesn’t it? I killed a smile and shook my head. “Thank you, Natasha.”

“Tasha,” she said, her voice as warm as her broad smile. “Call me Tasha. The boys do.” She rummaged around in a drawer to find an appropriate shade of blush. “You should, too. You’re part of this, now.”

I chose my words carefully, watching her. “Part of what?”

“Of bringing down the family, of course.” She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, and her matter-of-fact tone more than anything set me back on my heels.

“Do—do they know?”

“Does who know? The family? Fuck no.”

“No,” I said. “Jesse and Will. Do they know?”

Natasha looked at me like I’d suddenly grown a second head. “Of course they know. They didn’t tell you?”

“No,” I said slowly. “No, not really. They didn’t tell me that much about what you do.” Shit, I knew that she was a means to an end, but it almost sounds like she’s using them almost as much as they’re using her. “Just enough.”

“Enough.” She smirked and shook her head. “Diplomatic, Miss Marshall.”

“Ryce,” I said. “Call me Ryce.” If I’m getting sucked into this, we might as well be on a first name basis.

Dammit. I’m going to be helping a mafia princess take down the fucking mob.