The FBI's Secret Involvement

Ch. 6

"Agent Russell," a voice answered the phone.

"Hey, it's Jade."

"Hey yourself! How's it goin' all the way over there?" he asked cheerfully.

"Got a question for you--"

"Typical. The only reason you call me is for work. You don't even attempt small talk."

"Okay, fine, let's small talk. How's the weather? Are you alive and well? What's the price of rutabaga's there?"

He laughed, "Never mind. Forget I said anything. Now, what did you want?"

"Do you know anything at all about Artemis?"

"Do you mean the goddess?"

"What?"

"The goddess."

"Huh?"

"Well, in Greek mythology, Artemis carried in the night sky while the god, Apollo, did the sun."

Jade was confused. She explained the Voldemort message and figured the line, 'Artemis forgets,' had to be the date of their attack.

"But it will always be a black night in London. It's not like in the Artic circle where there is 24 hours of sun sometimes," Jade said.

He was thoughtful a moment. "I wonder if it is referring to the moon instead of the entire night sky."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say Artemis is really the moon in the riddle. If the moon forgets to come out, there would be no moon in the sky--"

"A new moon," she finished.

"Yeah, that's where I was headed."

"Do you know where the new moon is in September?" she asked, growing excited.

"Oh, I'm sure I have a calendar here somewhere on this desk."

She chuckled, "Pack Rat."

"Richard Simmons hair," he name-called back.

"It is not," she huffed and fingered her black curls (not always a fro, God Dammit!)

"Is too."

"Is not!"

"Here it is! he cried triumphantly. "The next new moon is in a week, on the 8th."

Jade grinned broadly. "Ah, you're a blessing!"

"I know. What would you do without me?"

"Let's see. Where do I begin? I'd have a bigger cubicle for starters and

probably--"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up, Jade."

"I'll talk to you later. Thanks, Russell." She hung up and grinned. She now knew what the riddle said!

But then a sobering thought returned. Jade had no way to validate the accuracy of her translation. She could have made a mistake anywhere. She didn't think she had, but if she alerted the Ministry with false info, they would never trust her again.

Which meant she alone would have to stop the attack next week. Jade bit her finger nails. She was going in well over her head. This wasn't just DE terrorism on muggles. This was Voldemort attacking the Minister of Magic's daughter!

But what other choice did she have? She wondered, as she slumped into the kitchen to make breakfast. Only in the back of her mind did she remember Kori's late night visitor and guessed he had left with her puppy sometime before dawn.

~*~

Sirius was pissed off. He hadn't been able to go back to sleep after leaving Skylar's apartment because he was so angry. How many times had he mentioned witches' and wizards' names, even the Minister of Magic, to her thinking she was a muggle while she was all the time she was magical?

She talked about spies and Animagi. That wasn't the speech of a squib. Skylar then, had to be a Death Eater.

Sirius practically growled as he paced around his small apartment. A fleeting thought told him he could ask Snape about her connections in the DE tribe, but he quickly squashed that idea. No matter how much he hated his neighbor right then, he would never stoop to asking for Snape's help.

He thought about calling the Ministry in on her immediately. But then he thought about how she had charmed him and enticed his curiosity. She had used him, and that pissed him off to no end. No body takes Sirius Black as a fool!

What if he could pay her back? "If I could just see if she had that Death Eater tattoo..." he muttered.

He glanced at his watch. Eleven am. He was late for his operative assignment guarding Malfoy Manor. With a groan, he apparated to his post.

~*~

Kori was worried about her agent. For one thing, everyone of her fingernails had been chewed down to stubs. For another, she had been using up a can of instant coffee a day for the past week. Why couldn't she have been assigned to a less nervous agent for her first operative, the puppy asked herself as her eyes followed Jade's pacing.

It was the morning of Sept. 8th. Jade had been growing steadily more anxious all week and she didn't even have a chance to chill out with Sirius since he had left with Harry Potter.

Sirius's disappearance didn't bother her much while she was trying to focus on that night's mission. Perhaps if she sent Voldemort's letter, her translation and her decodings to the Ministry, they would stop the DEs. But for some reason, Jade felt (besides her knotted stomach) slightly territorial. She had figured out and she would deal with the Death Eaters. End of discussion.

"I need a walk," she declared and left the apartment. Kori sighed with relief and started to doze off.

Jade nearly bashed right into Sirius as she burst from her apartment. He had also just come from his door.

"Hey, where've you been all week?" She smiled at him.

"Busy," he curtly replied and began to go back into his apartment, leaving Jade standing puzzled and taken aback in the hall. But then an idea struck him, 'find the tattoo...'

He faced her again and forced himself not to look disgusted with her. "Sorry to be short with you. It's stress. Listen, do you want to go for a ride?"

"Can I drive the motorcycle?" she asked.

"Uh...no," Sirius answered flatly.

Before she could say anything else, he grabbed her good arm and pulled her down the stairs. They burst from the front doors and headed for the parked bike. Sirius pulled on his helmet and then threw the spare one at Jade. She caught it awkwardly with one of her arms tied snug in the ace bandage, and then struggled to get it situated on her head, buckling it single-handedly. She wished he would have helped her with it like the last time they had ridden together, but he showed no signs of lending a hand as he waited for her to get on behind him. And to hell if she would have asked for any help. Clumsily she swung onto the bike and he pulled off from the curb.

She watched as the city whipped by in a haze. The bike started to lean sharply into a turn and Jade instinctively gripped him tighter. But unlike the last time she had ridden with him (when she had almost slept on his shoulder), he seemed to tense; he practically flinched at her touch.

"Where are we going?" she shouted in his ear. But he didn't answer. She figured he just couldn't hear her.

It didn't take long before the crowded city streets thinned and the buildings grew smaller and farther apart. They were leaving London.

Jade looked around at the countryside and felt slightly worried. Green fields and dense forests flashed by them and yet Sirius showed no sign of slowing. Where exactly were they going?

The bike began to brake and he turned off on a small dirt road. He pulled to a stop beneath a huge tree, out in the middle of a field. There was no sign of civilization within sight.

"Here we are," he announced.

"Where's here?" she asked looking around at the field.

"An escape from city life," he answered and walked off into the field. Jade followed. The sun was shining brightly but it wasn't too hot. Long grass brushed against their legs as they walked along, no conversation needed. Jade immediately felt herself relaxing and was content with Sirius's company.

'This is just what I needed before tonight,' Jade thought to herself, breathing deeply and thoroughly enjoying herself.

~*~

Hours later, the sun was high in the sky, and Jade and Sirius were sprawled out on their backs in the grass. He had found an old forgotten tennis ball which he now tossed high into the air. He would catch it on its downward fall while he listened attentively to his neighbor chatter beside him. During her monologue, he was thinking of a plan. The search for the trademark tattoo was fresh in his mind.

"...so I probably won't be sticking around London much longer. My dad's been emailing me recently about another job offer, and I agreed to it. Within a few weeks, Sean, you'll have a new neighbor--"

Her words were cut off when Sirius's mouth covered her own. The suddenness of the smoldering kiss shocked her at first but Jade found herself melting at his touch. She kissed him back, her own lips searching his mouth while her fingers brushed against his cheek and through his hair. The tennis ball lay forgotten in the grass once more.

While Sirius's mouth was preoccupied, his hands traced down her cheeks, along her neck and to her shoulders. He grasped her jacket and started sliding it down her back and off her arms. She let him take it off while enveloped in the lengthy kiss. Her right arm slipped out of the jacket sleeve and wrapped itself around his shoulder. But her left arm refused to leave the jacket. Then Sirius remembered her cast. It was snug in the sleeve (even if she forgot to use the sling).

Sirius pulled away from her lips on the pretense of catching his breath. But then Jade stared into his eyes with such a mixture of a longing desire and an inquisitiveness that he felt disconcerted. He found himself no longer in search of the Death Mark on her arm but drawn to kiss her, to embrace her in his arms and to feel her touch again. To hell if she was a Death Eater.

He leaned towards her with his eyes closing and Jade began to follow suit when her wristwatch sounded. A glimpse at it told her that it was already four in the afternoon. It was time to return to London and prepare for that night's mission. But her body still tingled from the amorous embrace and she debated whether she wouldn't remain in his arms and to hell with the Death Eaters.

Sirius heard the watch's timer and opened his eyes. She was thinking hard from the look on her face and he knew their moment together had passed. He stood up, brushed the grass off his clothes and then gave Skylar a hand-up. He helped her slip the jacket hanging from her arm back over her T-shirt clad shoulders.

On the motorcycle ride back to his apartment, Sirius thought over that afternoon's adventure. The cast now made sense. She had had a muggle doctor cover her tattoo to avoid getting caught. It was a sickeningly good disguise.

Jade, on the other hand, smiled to herself as she leaned on his shoulder. She knew she should kick herself for letting down her guard around him but she couldn't help feeling warm and fuzzy. This could prove to be a very inopportune time for a complicated relationship. Nonetheless, it felt so good.

~*~

That evening, Jade stretched out her muscles in the den. She was very tense so she tried to limber herself up to be prepared for whatever the DEs threw at her. She had forgone dinner because her nerves wouldn't settle down.

Leaving Kori in the apartment, Jade began to walk across town. She wore dark jeans with black sneakers and a black long sleeve shirt beneath her sling. Her hair was pulled back in a braid that hung down to her waist, sort of like Lara Croft. 'Hopefully, I look like a beatnik and not a burglar. That's all I would need tonight: a run-in with Scotland Yard,' Jade thought.

She reached Hyde Park and scouted out its perimeter. It seemed even larger at night and her task seemed overwhelming. Except for an occasional street lamp, the park was extremely dark. It was the perfect cover for the DEs and again, Jade began to doubt herself. It was a huge area to guard single-handedly. She decided the most likely place for a DE attack would be in the darkest region ahead and Jade made her way stealthily there.

Her wristwatch glowed an eerie, green colored 10:30. Silence. A cool, evening breeze brushed against the back of her neck. She had yet to see even one sign of a Death Eater. Perhaps she had decoded the message wrong?

"You really are a hopeless romantic, Henry. A candle-light dinner and an evening stroll in the park--"

"I had hoped it would have been a starry night but the heavens are set against me. Well, Millie, Happy Birthday."

Jade glanced up at the voices and saw Henry and Mildred Waterford walking arm-in-arm down the main path into the park. They wore muggle clothing and they didn't notice her while she followed them silently in the shadows.

The agent was about to escort them from the park, but all of a sudden, a green burst of light shot out of the bushes ahead of them and hit Henry square in the chest. He collapsed instantly and remained motionless. Meanwhile, Jade had ducked behind a nearby tree and then pulled herself onto the lowest branch. With her legs wrapped around the limb, she had a decent overview and protection from the DEs below her.

Mildred screamed and knelt sobbing beside her fallen husband. A half a dozen shrouded DEs materialized out of the shadows and advanced towards her with their wands at the ready. The leader shot out a bluish spell, but it shot over her shoulder. She didn't seem to notice nor care about the danger she was in.

Jade raised her right hand with her palm facing the leader. With the adrenaline flowing through her veins, she hardly had to concentrate to use her telekinetic abilities. The electric charge coursed down her spine and radiated out her hand. The Death Eater didn't know what hit him when he was suddenly thrown head first into a tree trunk. He didn't get up again.

When the DEs saw their leader attacked by an invisible enemy, they all ducked for cover. Jade hit one more DE as he neared her tree; he flew into a park bench and lay unconscious.

Without open targets, Jade had difficulty attacking the DEs. Mildred's sobbing could still be heard. The distraught woman kept shaking her dead husband's shoulders and screaming his name.

Jade decided to remove her from the dangerous location. Carefully, she used her telekinesis to lift and zoom her back out of the park and to safety. Mildred kept crying and didn't seem to care that she was hovering in midair.

A movement below Jade distracted her from Mildred. A DE hiding behind a bush beneath her was lifting his wand to point at the exiting woman. But then, he decided better of it and ducked back into cover.

Jade looked to where he had been staring and gasped when she saw Mildred crash into five adults. At first she was worried that these muggles had walked into a battle-zone, but then one of the men pulled out a wand and sent a curse zooming towards a tree. With a groan, a DE collapsed.

"Aurors!" shouted the DE crouched behind the bush below her. But she couldn't get a good view to attack him.

Four of the Aurors had also ducked for cover while the older woman tried to console and hurriedly guide Mildred from the scene. Two distinct sides formed, the four Aurors versus the three DEs with Jade caught in the middle.

Jade watched nervously as the battle drew out. Curses and hexes burst from behind bushes and trees and shot across the park. One badly aimed spell narrowly missed Jade. Another DE fell.

"C'mon, just two more!" Jade whispered urgently to the Aurors.

Suddenly, one of the remaining, Kamikaze-like DEs charged from behind a bench, firing rapid curses at the Aurors. The DE below Jade was about to do the same when he stopped dead and stared right at Jade. They both gasped in surprise but before Jade could sling him away, he raised his wand and fired off a curse. It missed her but hit the branch that she was perched on. With a thunderous crack, the limb snapped and with Jade, fell to the ground.

The agent instantly rolled for cover behind the fallen branch, hidden by its thick leaves. Nothing was broken from the fall this time she noted, thankfully. She could hear the Death Eater draw near her. Jade had a second to decide to fight or flight. The DE sent a curse zooming over head. She fled.

Behind Jade and her pursuing DE, the remaining DE had been struck by a spell and he fell. But before he hit the ground, the Death Eater had enough composure to Apparate to safety.

"Damn! He got away," Sirius swore as he and the other Aurors cautiously advanced from their battle stations.

"Bill, bring over those DEs and we'll tie them up before taking them to the Ministry," Mundungus Fletcher pointed towards the fallen bodies.

"Mobiliarcorpse." Bill Weasley lifted one of the DEs with a flick of his wand.

Lupin began to do the same when Sirius, who stood beside him, broke into a sprint. "Where are you--" he shouted after him but then saw two escaping figures dashing across the park. He also gave chase to the fugitive DEs.

Sirius raised his wand without slowing his speed and shouted, "Impedimenta!" The closer DE fell to his knees.

"Lupin, get that guy. I'm going after the other!" he yelled over his shoulder. Lupin halted by the stricken Death Eater and brought him back to the others.

The escaping DE dodged two spells that Sirius sent off and reached the end of the park. Without stopping to check for traffic, the Death Eater raced across the avenue. Sirius followed.

Jade gasped for breath and glanced over her shoulder. The DE was still pursuing her. The dark figure was drawing nearer. She forced all her energy into her legs and sprinted down the block. A hex crashed into the brick building beside her. She skidded in surprise and ducked into the alley. She sprinted to the end of it and dashed across the street, just avoiding getting hit by a taxi.

Down the street. Hurdled over a fire hydrant.

She rounded a corner and stopped to catch her breath. Slowly, she leaned around to see if she was still followed. The street was deserted and then all of a sudden, a spell flew inches by her face. She ducked back around the corner and dashed down the sidewalk.

Sirius burst from the alley and crossed the street. He saw the DE ducked behind the corner. Trying to steady his aim, he shot off a curse. It missed.

"Dammit!" he swore and continued his chase.

He rounded the corner and saw the retreating figure racing under the street lamp's glow. Fueled by his hatred towards DEs, he sprinted with all his strength after the prey. He was gaining.

Jade's broken wrist restrained in the sling hindered her speed. The useless arm threw her balance off. She glanced behind her and her eyes widened with fear. The DE was nearing her with alarming speed.

"Run!" she commanded herself through gritted teeth.

Suddenly a spell crashed into her left arm. It knocked her off her feet and she toppled onto the sidewalk, grazing her cheek. Her left arm was jerking in spasms that sent pain running up her shoulder. Wincing, she pulled her feet under her and started her sprint again.

Her sling had been blown from her arm when Sirius's curse hit her.

"Accio!" he pointed his wand at it and it zoomed into his hand. He grasped it and kept running. The DE turned down another alley and the thick night air swallowed the figure from view. Sirius took a second to study the cloth he clutched. The nylon muggle sling. Why would a DE...

Jade's broken wrist was jolted as she sprinted with all her might down the alley. The curse wasn't helping any, either, as her arm withered and twitched uncontrollably. Her jagged breath was burning her throat and her legs felt like lead.

She tripped and fell to her knees. Her right hand tried to catch herself and was bloodied on the loose gravel. Forcing herself to keep going she stood up shakily and staggered on.

Jade looked ahead and gasped. A chain link fence, at least 8 feet high, blocked the alley.

"Ah, Damn!" She weighed her options of staying with the DE or attempting to jump the fence.

The fence was a far more appealing choice.

The agent clenched her teeth and focused her remaining energy to her legs. She ran and leapt at the barrier. The chain links groaned and clashed noisily under her weight as she climbed frantically. At the top, she threw her legs over and let go. She landed on her feet and continued across the street.

A brightly lit cinema was just letting in the audience for the last showing that night. Jade offered a silent prayer of thanks for public safety. She quickly bought a ticket and hurried inside.

Sirius jumped the fence but was no longer in a hurry. Staying in the shadows, his eyes followed the escaping DE. The lights from the cinema illuminated the Death Eater's face. He would have gasped in shock had he not already guessed who he was chasing.

The Death Eater was his neighbor, Skylar Lynn.

~*~

When the movie, an insipid teen flick (something she would never have spent money to see if the circumstances had been different) ended in the very early hours of the morning, Jade headed back to her apartment, planning on taking several painkillers and going to bed. There was no longer any sign of her chaser.

As she climbed the steps to her apartment, she smiled to herself. The Aurors had rescued Mildred Waterford and had taken down several DEs, and with her help, she reminded herself proudly.

She muttered the password at her door and stepped inside. The apartment was dark.

"Man, Kori, what a night," she called to her puppy.

"I can imagine." A deep voice grunted at her.

The agent whipped around, alert, and eyes wide with shock. She could barely make out a figure in the shadows. Slowly, she reached the wall and flipped the light switch.

Sirius Black stood on the far side of the den. But he wasn't wearing muggle clothes or in his usual cheerful mood. He was holding a wand pointed squarely at her, wearing a long, black robe, and was scowling menacingly.

A million and half thoughts ricocheted across Jade's mind. How did he get in here? What happened to his muggle cover? Why is he glaring at me so?

He studied her expressions as her thoughts reflected over her face.

'You are still the muggle neighbor without any idea what he's doing. Play dumb!' she commanded herself mentally.

"Sean, is it Halloween already? What do you think you're doing in my apartment or are you looking for more after our afternoon together?" She asked coyly, trying to mask her apprehension.

"I'm not here to play any more of your God damn games. I know you're a fucking fraud!" He snarled and sparks shot from the end of the wand.

Jade stopped in her tracks and eyed him anxiously. Had she made a mistake? Maybe he wasn't as innocent as she had begun to believe.

"Sean, what do you want? You're scaring the crap out of me," she whimpered weakly but her eyes betrayed her rage and calculated strength behind the façade.

He snorted. "Oh, yeah, you're a true damsel in distress, aren't you?" He suddenly grabbed her left wrist and yanked her towards him. She yelped at the pain in the injured arm and recoiled as he sneered down at her. "Have a seat," he growled as he forced her down into one of the kitchen chairs. With a twitch of his wand, thin ropes appeared out of nowhere and coiled themselves around her and the chair. The caged feeling brought genuine fear into the agent.

"How did you cut up your cheek? Your hand? Your knees?" He sneered. "And don't tell me 'You're such a klutz and you slipped and fell.'" He mimicked her in a high-pitched, venomous voice.

She had been wrong about him. He was very much capable of killing those people in the street sixteen years ago. And Jade was trapped and isolated with this crazed monster.

"Sean, I've got about a hundred pounds in the apartment and its all yours if you'll let me go," she pleaded but all the while concentrated her telekinesis on loosening the ropes that bound her. "I'm sorry for anything I might have done to you. Why are you doing this?"

"Let's just say we are getting even. You played me as a fool and now it's time for you to see that I'm not someone to mess with!" He yelled as he upturned her coffee table and sent her stacks of papers flying. She thanked god that her surveillance equipment was safely hidden under the floorboards.

In his tirade, he swept over to her computer desk. And then alarm set in Jade's heart. She had forgotten to put back under the floor the printout with all her scribbled notes of Sirius Black. It was sticking out from under her laptop. If he found that page, her entire muggle cover was blown.

Just as he reached her desk, Jade stared at the window in front of him. It burst open at her invisible command and a breeze began to fly papers across the den. In the confusion, Jade then focused her attention on the revealing paper. It lifted and she sent it zooming towards the open window.

Sirius at first had been surprised as the wind blew pages in his face. But then he saw his neighbor's unblinking stare and he watched with alarm as a single paper flew

against the wind and out the window. He whipped out his wand and yelled, "Accio!" It jerked to a stop and then came back to his side. Before it could be 'sucked' outside again, Sirius slammed the window shut.

Jade's mind was reeling. She gaped wide eyed at him without attempting to mask her obvious defeat. He smiled triumphantly at her and unfolded the letter.

By the look on his face, Jade knew he hadn't been expecting that paper.

Sirius's breath caught in his throat. It was his photo from the Daily Prophet. But more importantly, her notes flashed out at him like: No one deserves Azkaban, Where was his trial? Did they perform the Priori Incantatem spell? The main message repeated over the page was the doubt of his guilt.

He was dumbstruck momentarily. Nobody, besides his Auror friends, had ever questioned his sentence before. Why was this DE studying him? What the hell was going on?!

The agent watched his face change from bewilderment to feeling touched to confusion. 'Well, I'm clearly no longer a muggle...' she thought with dismay as her alias unraveled before her eyes.

Trying to find some cover and reasoning for herself, she spat angrily at him. "Dammit, I'm a squib, okay?! Now are you happy? Oh yeah, you are one big bad wizard all right, attacking a defenseless squib. Hoo yah to you!"

Without lifting his eyes from the paper, he began to chuckle darkly. "Yeah, a defenseless squib would challenge the infamous Sirius Black. That makes a hell of a lot of sense. Not to mention you weren't so subtle to think I didn't notice you trying to get rid of this paper out the window, now were you?"

Something snapped in Jade. She was tired of pulling up the various acts. "Ya know what, fuck you, Sirius! I should of turned your sorry ass over to the Ministry the moment your foul carcass moved in here!"

Her enraged shout drew his attention away from the printout. With a cold sneer, he grabbed something from his robe's pocket and paced over to the tied up agent. She stared up defiantly at him. Sirius dropped onto her lap her nylon sling.

Jade's jaw hung open at the sight of it. That meant that the Death Eater that had chased her, that had cursed her arm, was standing right in front of her. She gasped for breath and her eyes widened with unveiled fear.

He watched her mounting uneasiness and smiled maliciously as the Death Eater that had escaped him earlier, now withered frantically in her restraints.

Sirius leaned forward, just inches from her face. He drew out his wand and placed its tip in the middle of her sweaty forehead. "I'm sure you know how the Cruciatus Curse works," he growled.

Jade lifted her eyes from the sling in her lap and met his eyes in a challenge. The ropes under her mental command snapped instantly and in one fluid motion, the agent's right hand reached into her ankle holster and yanked out the Glock. Before he even knew she had broken the ropes, she placed the end of her pistol against his forehead. "I'd like to see a healing charm fix this wound."

There they remained in a stare down, each trying to read the other's thoughts. How long they stayed in that position, neither knew. Neither planned to back off.

Then Sirius began to smile crookedly. Without removing his wand from her forehead, he said, "Stalemate."