Agents of Vengeance: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (Federal Agents of Magic Book 8) Read online

  Agents of Vengeance

  Federal Agents of Magic™ Book Eight

  TR Cameron

  Martha Carr

  Michael Anderle

  This book is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2019 TR Cameron, Martha Carr and Michael Anderle

  Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

  http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected]

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, October 2019

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-489-0

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-490-6

  The Oriceran Universe (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright © 2017-19 by Martha Carr and LMBPN Publishing.

  Agents of Vengeance Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Dave Hicks

  Diane L. Smith

  Dorothy Lloyd

  Larry Omans

  Deb Mader

  If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  Dedications

  For Dylan

  — TR Cameron

  To everyone who still believes in magic

  and all the possibilities that holds.

  To all the readers who make this

  entire ride so much fun.

  And to my son, Louie and so many wonderful friends who remind me all the time of what

  really matters and how wonderful

  life can be in any given moment.

  — Martha

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  — Michael

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Connect with TR Cameron

  Author Notes - TR Cameron

  Author Notes - Martha Carr

  Other series in the Oriceran Universe:

  Books by Michael Anderle

  Chapter One

  The wind rippled through the forest and caressed Diana’s face. Her foe stood between two tall, narrow trunks covered in mottled black-and-white bark, shaded by the broad leaves that created a canopy far above. Strange insects filled the surrounding air, entirely unlike those she was used to.

  So, given that I’ve not been to ninety-nine percent of the places on Earth and even less of those on Oriceran, I must be…who the hell knows where? The breeze, which an author probably would have described as “playful,” teased her by blowing her hair into her eyes. Again. She pushed it out of the way with a curse. Could Fury have chosen a more annoying place for our training session?

  The sword continued to manifest in the imaginary worlds they shared as the same person she’d met in the virtual dojo during the trial. He wore his billowy black skirt, long enough to obscure his footwork, but had traded the grey tunic for a scarlet one this time. She didn’t know if it was a personal choice on his part or a recognition of something she’d done.

  I’m not sure of much where he’s concerned when you come down to it. His face was narrow and sharp and his eyes and coloring always brought Japan to mind. I wonder if there was a crossover between the planets long ago and that’s the reason we have such variation in our ethnicities? I should ask someone about that. Professor Stanley, maybe.

  Her foe nodded his head, and the knot of inky hair on the top bobbed. He shouted to be heard above the rustle of the foliage and buzz of insects and across the fifteen feet that separated them. “Begin.”

  She immediately thrust forward to weave between the trees as he vanished from sight behind the trunks nearest him. Her tight ARES tunic and tactical pants stood strong against the attempts of the bark to slice her flesh, and her heavy boots crunched leaves and twigs with each stride. She drew her katana in a fluid motion and spun it once before her left palm joined the right on the hilt. Increasingly, she was now able to use the weapon without hand preference or conscious thought and the sword felt equally natural in either hand or both.

  Cara had suggested—with no hint of sarcasm or humor—that she should have an MRI to chart the changes the blade was making in her brain. Then, unable to resist, the woman had broken into a grin and finished, “You know, if they have one sensitive enough to find something so small.” Her second in command had fled the room before Diana could retort.

  A flash of scarlet ahead and to the right drew her in that direction, and she almost lost her head to the trap. Fury had selected his daisho for this bout and held the long sword in his right fist and the short sword in his left. It was the former—the tachi—that thunked into the trunk when she ducked under the backhand stroke barely in time while the latter sought to pierce her with a direct strike to her lowered throat.

  She raised her own blade in a horizontal block, caught the tanto, and pushed it away. His skirt swished as he stepped toward her and she spread her legs wide to avoid a stamp to her shin, then rolled into a backward somersault to gain distance. She rose with her katana held in a diagonal cross-body guard and a smile stretched her lips.

  Time to turn the tables.

  Diana kicked forward to lift the dirt and debris from the forest floor and flurry it into her tormenter’s face. His reaction was instinctive and he shied away to the left. She darted in and slashed down from above with a sharp cry. The katana glinted when it caught a stray beam of sunlight during its descent. He recovered quickly enough to bring the tanto across in a block before he spun to whip the tachi around in a backhand from the same side as he pushed her sword in the opposite direction. She went low again but forward this time, ducked, and stepped in. The weapon’s sweep lifted her hair, and she brought her own blade up in a diagonal that reversed its ori
ginal path and aimed to slice him from groin to left shoulder.

  His move came as a surprise when he did a cartwheel flip in the direction of the stroke, fast enough to avoid the cut. When did he become an acrobat? Dammit. She was forced onto the defensive again as he used his paired blades to try to overwhelm her. The assault forced her to retreat and angle her own sword in block after block as she shifted it cleverly to disengage from one blade to counter the next.

  When her back met the tree, she cursed herself for lack of awareness. She circled her katana in a wide swipe, then inward to catch two attacks and push both to her left. In the same fluid motion, she delivered a sidekick aimed at his ribs.

  He took the blow, but his wicked speed manifested when he returned a kick to her planted leg’s upper thigh and numbed the limb. She dropped involuntarily to that knee. He chopped down with a victory cry and a weapon drove in at an angle from each side to ensure she couldn’t block both in time. She released the katana with her right hand and committed the blade to block the tachi on her left, longsword against longsword. At the same time, she wrapped her free hand in force and caught his tanto and the magic protected her from its edge.

  His disapproval evidenced in a rapid shake of his head. “If it was a magical blade, you would have lost your hand.”

  She shrugged but her left arm shook as it fought to hold the block against the weapon he pushed toward her neck. “If it was a magical blade, I’d have blasted you into a tree instead of catching it.”

  Finally, he released, stepped back, and twirled his weapons once as he watched her rise. “You will not always have your magic. Remember the battle against the previous wielder.”

  “Of course.” She frowned. “Why do I think you’re playing me?”

  His reply was a blur of motion, easily half again as fast as he’d attacked before. In the space between recognition and her body’s instinctive response, the mental version of herself appeared on the periphery of her mind and shook her head above folded arms. “Now you’ve done it.”

  Sweat dripped into her eyes as she sidestepped behind a trunk, giving Fury the options of halting the chop that would have bisected her or burying the edge of his tachi in the tree. She hadn’t realized there was a third choice until the blade glowed at the last instant and sliced through the obstacle as if it wasn’t there. It scored a line of fire across her stomach that immediately started to fill with blood. The pain struck a moment later like acid poured on a strip of sunburn, but she was too busy diving out of the way of the falling tree to spare it any attention.

  Diana scrambled to her feet and moved in a diagonal away from her foe and his Samurai fetish in an effort to position herself far enough away to collect her scattered focus. She wound a band of force around her torso to act as a pressure bandage on the cut, but it wouldn’t hold for long. Since this was training and not a trial, she was sure her body was still unharmed in the customizable space in the back of the security agency. The area had suffered from disuse before she programmed it to empty out and put it to use during her sessions with the sword. Almost sure. Okay, fairly sure.

  He caught up to her and their blades rang as they traded strikes, blocks, counters, and more blocks. The speed was faster than she’d ever experienced in the virtual world and far, far faster than any fight she’d had in the real one. He dealt her two more incisions, shallow but annoying, on her cheek and on her left arm. Worse, she didn’t seem to be able to pierce his defenses with her sword.

  Let’s change it up, then. She spun and ducked under the slash from the tanto and lifted her katana to intercept his tachi, raising it high to entangle the swords so she could control his long blade for a moment. When he pulled the shorter one back to swipe it at her again, she fired a bolt of force at his chest. He bent backward almost in half to avoid it, but it gave her what she really needed—time to adjust.

  Two more blasts were on the way as he straightened. He spun to dodge the first and slashed at the other with his tanto to boomerang it back at her. She sidestepped to evade it and waved a wide fan of fire at him while her mind protested. He’s not supposed to be able to do that. He ducked under the flame, and she traded it for a hail of icicles before the other attack could start a wildfire. Apparently, my use of magic freed him to do his own version of special annoying stuff. Cara was right. Sentient weapons can be jerks.

  He charged forward and slapped the frozen assault away with wide sweeps of the tachi and short slaps of the tanto. Infuriatingly, he wore the same grin he always did but at the moment, it seemed smug as well as slightly challenging. She ran at him, lead with her katana, and summoned a force blade in her other hand. They met in a clash of metal and magic and faced one another at close quarters, their noses an inch apart as each sought to overpower their opponent’s defense. Sweat dripped down her torso and triggered more stinging pain from the wound on her stomach.

  Okay, enough. She broke into a smile, drew her head back, and slammed her forehead into his nose. It crunched under the impact and he was sufficiently distracted that her blades slipped free. She stepped ahead and thrust her katana at his throat but only realized the tanto was in the way when it pierced her stomach.

  The warehouse space materialized around her as Fury’s laughter faded in her ears. It held a complimentary edge, though, as she would probably have survived her wound while he most certainly wouldn’t have. She doubted the trick would ever work on him again. The physical sword in her real-world arms was heavy, and a trail of sweat glistened on the floor from her efforts.

  She had watched a video replay of one of the sessions once and had been more than a little disconcerted to see herself run, jump, and swing as she battled an invisible opponent. Of course, she’d “fought” imaginary foes before in martial arts katas, but to watch her body doing it while her mind was off somewhere entirely different was trippy in the extreme.

  A boot scuffed behind her, and she spun instinctively and raised the sword to high guard position—the hilt above her head and the blade angled slightly downward. Nylotte stood three feet away, her visage as dark as the black clothes she wore. Diana’s face twisted in confusion. “How did you know where I was?”

  The Drow rolled her eyes as if she’d asked the stupidest question available at that particular moment. “You are my protege. Why would I not know where you are?” She shook her mane of pale hair, which was unbound and inspired instant envy. “But your question is irrelevant, as usual. We have a problem that requires your immediate attention.”

  Chapter Two

  Diana stepped through the portal into Nylotte’s basement, her hair still wet from a hasty shower and a change of clothes, She’d thrown gel in it and pushed it back from her face, but the Dark Elf had been adamant that she get there as quickly as possible because “One does not make Lady Alayne wait, however annoying she might be.” She hadn’t been sure whether her teacher had called her annoying or referred to the leader of the kemana but had concluded, while the water beat down on her tired muscles, that it was probably both.

  She’d chosen her dressy leather jacket—a recent purchase that wasn’t as heavily abused as the older one. Under it was a colorful top for a change to complement the dark tactical pants and spy boots. Technology had issues in the kemana, but she felt well-prepared with the throwing knives in the footwear. She’d practiced on the sly and tried and failed to keep up with Rath’s impressive skills. Still, she was determined that someday, she would win a match against the troll.

  The stairs creaked as she climbed to the main floor where her mentor sat in the chair she used when in trading mode behind the tall counter. The shop had been rebuilt to perfectly replicate the previous one, which had been destroyed during the recent unpleasantness in the kemana. Nylotte’s motion was smooth and almost sinuous when she slid from the seat and curved around the edge to follow her student out the front door. It was purple-tinted daytime outside and the crystals high above cast their magical influence over everything below. The agent tilted her head upward
and breathed in the pleasure of the magic’s caress as it slowly bolstered the power reservoir within her.

  She fell into step beside the Drow, who strode with purpose toward the castle at the end of the cavern. It was once pure white but scorch marks from the recent attack marred its perfect surface, visible even from a distance. The reminder of the battle brought a frown to her face. “So what’s the deal, anyway?”

  Nylotte didn’t quite snort but her opinion was clear. “The lady of the kemana has demanded your presence and requested my help in making it happen.”

  “Demanded? Maybe I’ll simply turn around and head back.” Her eyes narrowed.

  Her teacher chuckled. “Which is why I am involved. Alayne has not been herself since the attack. On the one hand, her increased attention to defense and rooting out those still enraptured by Rhazdon’s message is a good thing. On the other, her manner has become equally aggressive toward friends and allies.”