Cloak & Ghost: Rebel Cell

By Jonathan Moeller

My name is Nadia, and I'm a shadow agent of the High Queen of the Elves.

But for some reason, the High Queen wants me to attend the birthday party of an Elven noble.

Just in case there's trouble.

And it's just my luck there's going to be more trouble than either of us expect...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Moeller
• Release date: Dec 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463354469

Jonathan Moeller

Standing over six feet tall, Jonathan Moeller has the piercing blue eyes of a Conan of Cimmeria, the bronze-colored hair of a Visigothic warrior-king, and the stern visage of a captain of men, none of which are useful in his career as a computer repairman, alas.He has written the "Demonsouled" trilogy of sword-and-sorcery novels, and continues to write the "Ghosts" sequence about assassin and spy Caina Amalas, the "$0.99 Beginner's Guide" series of computer books, and numerous other works.Visit his website at:http://www.jonathanmoeller.comVisit his technology blog at:http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/screed

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CLOAK & GHOST: REBEL CELL

Jonathan Moeller

***

Description

My name is Nadia, and I'm a shadow agent of the High Queen of the Elves.

But for some reason, the High Queen wants me to attend the birthday party of an Elven noble.

Just in case there's trouble.

And it's just my luck there's going to be more trouble than either of us expect...

***

Cloak & Ghost: Rebel Cell

Copyright 2018 by Jonathan Moeller.

Smashwords Edition.

Cover images copyright © Brett Critchley | Dreamstime.com & RF License : STANDARD | Print & Web | Unlimited Digital Impressions, up to 250,000 Prints neostock-s022-liepa-contemporary-dress-247 - Original file (2808x5123 pixels) & RF License : STANDARD | Print & Web | Unlimited Digital Impressions, up to 250,000 Prints neostock-s029-emily-mystery-thriller-105 - Original file (2877x5045 pixels).

Ebook edition published December 2018.

All Rights Reserved.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

***

Chapter 1: A Regrettable Invitation

I spent most of the morning on the phone with Wisconsin’s department of revenue. This happened because my brother ate a fruit basket at my wedding.

Yeah. I should probably back up and explain.

My name’s Nadia Moran MacCormac, and when I got married two months ago, the High Queen herself attended my wedding. This was because she had recruited me as her shadow agent, and it was traditional for an Elven noble to present his or her bondsmen with a gift on the day of their marriage. Her assistant and new shadow agent Tythrilandria accompanied her, and Tyth gave me a fruit basket. Specifically, a fruit basket filled with rare Elven fruits that the Elves brought with them when they fled to Earth from Kalvarion.

My brother Russell ate most of it.

Except while he was eating it, he was talking to the High Queen. Most people would be overcome with nerves while talking to the supreme ruler of Earth and Kalvarion. Not Russell, though. He began speculating on how much money there was to be made by importing Elven fruits for sale on Earth. Previously, that was impossible, but since the Archons had been destroyed and the High Queen had reclaimed Kalvarion (long story), it was possible to trade with Kalvarion again through the Great Gate that Morvilind had opened near Milwaukee. And since Kalvarion needed a lot of rebuilding after three centuries of Archon destruction, Russell pointed out that selling Elven fruit on Earth would make a lot of money.

The High Queen agreed. Which meant she gave Russell the exclusive license to form a company dedicated to importing fruit from the Elven farmers of Kalvarion and selling it to humans on Earth.

Seriously. I don’t know why Tarlia did it. Maybe it was to throw her nobles off-guard. Maybe she did it to keep powerful, established human corporations in their place. Or perhaps it was a favor to me, or another way to put a string on me – continue serving as my shadow agent or I’ll crush your brother’s business, that kind of thing. Perhaps Tarlia knew that no matter how rich Russell became (and I suspected my brother had the drive and resilience to make a lot of money) he would be personally loyal to her. Or maybe she did it because she has a keen eye for talent and my brother impressed her.

Though knowing Tarlia, she did it for all those reasons and some I haven’t thought of yet.

The problem was, of course, that Russell was a year and a half away from graduating high school, which meant he was too young to form a legal corporation. I incorporated it for him, the ownership of the company shared between us, and he used the two and a half million dollars he had gotten from the Shadow Hunters after the defeat of the Rebels to kickstart the company. The kid was throwing himself into it with astonishing energy. Through the High Queen’s offices, he had made arrangements with some of the surviving farmers of Kalvarion, and he was negotiating with trucking companies and grocery stores.

And that was why I was on the phone with the Wisconsin department of revenue, growing ever more impatient and irritable.

Good God. I had no idea how much paperwork went into starting a business.

I mean, I had known, intellectually, but that’s a big difference from sitting there and filling out all the damn forms yourself. All the endless, endless forms. There’s a form, a long, complicated form, for everything. Then you need to have the separate company bank account, and tracking the quarterly taxes (even though we didn’t have any revenue yet), and all of that comes with, you guessed it, even more paperwork.

So that was how I wound up pacing in irritation through my husband’s condo in New York, cell phone to my ear and a growing headache behind my eyes.

Your brother’s name is Roger Moran? said the bored-sounding employee from the department of revenue.

Russell Moran, I said, all my years and years of self-control going into keeping my voice calm. Russell. R-U-S-S-E-L-L.

Thank you, said the woman. And your name…I’m having trouble finding some of your records in the computer, Mrs. MacCormac.

I bit back a sigh. The years I had spent as Kaethran Morvilind’s shadow agent were coming back to haunt me. I had spent a long time taking care not to create a paper trail of any kind. I had gotten so good at it that now that I was (technically) legitimate and trying to start a business, the lack of a paper trail was a problem.

I’ve sent your department scans of my birth certificate, my driver’s license, and my marriage license, I said. Those should be attached to the file for the business licensure form.

Let me see… There was about twenty seconds of furious clicking and typing in the background. Ah, I see, they just came through. And both you and Russell Moran will have equal shares in the company?

Yes, I said, relieved. Perhaps we were finally making progress.

I’m just going to need a few more pieces of information…

About fifty-five minutes later, the process was finally done. Moran Imports, a closely held private company with two shareholders, was filed as an official business entity with the state of Wisconsin. Of course, I would have to repeat the entire process with the federal government, but I hadn’t heard back on the paperwork yet. Maybe it would all go smoothly.

Ha. I knew better than that.

I left my cell phone on the table next to my laptop and paced around the dining room, rubbing my neck to work out the cramp from talking on the phone for so long. I stopped at the windows, gazing at the vista of Manhattan. Riordan’s condo was on the top floor of an expensive building, and he had a great view of the city. Though I suppose I should say that we had a great view of the city since it was technically our condo now that we were married, but it still felt like Riordan’s space. Not that I minded. I liked being in his space. But I was looking forward to going back to Milwaukee. We were going to buy a house there, or maybe build one, a place we would live together.

I suppose we could have moved into my old basement apartment in Milwaukee, but that had been a fairly dismal place that I had used mostly to store equipment, and we had enough money for a house.

Well, enough daydreaming. Back to the paperwork. I looked at the stack of forms next to my laptop, grimaced, and decided to get my workout in for the day first. I glanced at the front door and wondered when Riordan would be home. Maybe I should text him and find out? No, that would be needy. He had thought his business might take a while. Riordan had a surprising amount of business interests in New York, and sometimes they needed personal intervention.

Besides, a workout sounded nice. A good way to burn off the frustration of having to fill out all those damned forms. In triplicate. Roger Moran, indeed!

I was wearing yoga pants and a sweater, so I went to the bedroom, traded the sweater for a sports bra and running shoes, and then went to the gym. Riordan had converted one of his condo’s bedrooms to a really nice gym. He had a full set of free weights and a pair of good treadmills. I started off with the weights, powering through several sets of deadlifts, squats, and bench presses. Once that was done, I was covered in sweat and had a pleasant burn in my shoulders and legs. I racked the weights, switched to the treadmill, and pounded out a six mile run.

When that was done, I smelled fairly ripe, my breath rasped in my throat, my heart thundered like a drum in my chest, and my legs felt tired and quivery. It was glorious. There’s nothing like the feeling after a vigorous workout. Especially for someone like me. My head is full of all kinds of horrifying memories, and if I’m alone with my thoughts for too long, sometimes they start turning back towards the Eternity Crucible, to the claws and fangs and death after death after death…

Nope. Don’t think about that.

Easier to do that after a workout.

Naturally, my phone started ringing.

I was doing my cool-down walk on the treadmill, and I had left my phone in the treadmill’s cupholder. The screen lit up as it rang, and I growled in annoyance and picked it up. I expected that one of the government agencies I’d sent paperwork had called back to gripe about a problem with the forms.

Instead, I grinned in surprise.

It was Russell.

I accepted the call and lifted the phone to my ear. Gina’s Pizzeria, special today on anchovies.

There was a bemused pause. But Russell was used to my (occasionally) odd sense of humor.

You should really do that with a New York accent, said Russell. God, it still startled me how deep his voice had gotten. But, then, he wasn’t the sickly little boy with frostfever that I remembered, not anymore. Though my memory of him had been frozen that way for nearly a century and a half…

Nope. Don’t start thinking along that line. If I started thinking about how old I was, then I started thinking about the Eternity Crucible.

I don’t do accents, I said. That’s what the Masking spell is for.

You sound out of breath, said Russell. Is this a bad time?

What do you think I was doing? I said.

There was a long pause, and I grinned to myself. Russell had been through a lot, had survived a lot, so he was wiser than someone his age had any right to be. Then again, he was still a teenage boy, and teenage boys often thought about one topic to the exclusion of all others. Russell was confident enough to talk about that particular subject without a hint of embarrassment but decent enough not to bring it up in casual conversation.

I could almost hear his brain creaking under the effort of refraining from an inappropriate joke.

Cooking pizzas, no doubt, said Russell. If you really have a special on anchovies.

I laughed.