Kissed by Fire (4 page)

“Tonight. Eight o’clock. The Cinnamon Club.”
He glanced at her. “Missed you, K.” She smiled and reached over to
squeeze his arm.

Man of few words, I guess. But I was excited
about the meeting place. The Cinnamon Club was quite possibly the
poshest Indian restaurant in the whole of London. The food was
supposed to be beyond amazing. When I’d lived in London I’d never
been able to afford a place like The Cinnamon Club.

“Fine,” Kabita said. “I’ll wait. But you know
I don’t like this.”

Dex just shrugged.

I wondered about her relationship with her
family. Granted, my mother and grandmother drove me nuts pretty
much on a daily basis, but Kabita seemed unusually distant with
hers. Except maybe Dex. There was genuine warmth there, if a little
strained.

Not my business. I stared out the window
enjoying the sights of the city that had once been my home. I felt
a sharp stab of nostalgia.

“I’ll pick you up at fifteen to eight,” Dex
was saying.

Kabita didn’t answer, but he obviously took
her silence as consent. I caught his eye in the rear view mirror
and the smile he gave me was a little sad around the edges.

I wondered if the sadness was because of the
death of their cousin, or the strain in the relationship with his
sister. Maybe it was a little of both. I smiled back. It was all I
had to give.

The Cinnamon Club stood on Great Smith Street
in Westminster. It was a gorgeous red brick building which once
housed the old Westminster Library back when libraries were all
mellow wood and dim lamps instead of bright beacons of glass and
steel.

Dex pulled the car up to the curb and turned
off the engine. “Ready?” he asked Kabita. She nodded, every line of
her body screaming the exact opposite.

Curiouser and curiouser.

He escorted us inside the restaurant. It was
even more beautiful than the outside. Crystal and silver sparkled
in the candlelight while old wood gleamed gently, lending the place
an atmosphere of sophisticated elegance.

I felt only slightly out of place. I didn’t
really do elegant dining. I usually ended up feeling like a bull in
a china shop. Fortunately, I was also really good at hiding my
insecurities.

The air was redolent with the scent of Indian
cooking spices: cinnamon, cardamom, turmeric, chilies and curry
leaves. Gods, I’d missed this. The little hole in the wall Indian
dive Kabita and I frequented back in Portland was good, but it had
nothing on the kind of Indian you could find in the restaurants of
London.

Dex led us to a secluded table off to one
side. Its sole occupant stood to greet us.

He was tall, nearly as tall as Dex. His
charcoal suit was beautifully cut and perfectly tailored to show
off a lean physique. Despite his silver hair and icy gray eyes,
there was no doubt at all that Dex was his son. Kabita, on the
other hand, looked nothing like her father.

“Dad.” Kabita’s voice, always calm and cool,
held zero emotion. Her face was devoid of expression. “This is my
friend, Morgan Bailey.”

My friend. Not my colleague. Not my fellow
Hunter. My friend. Interesting.

Apparently Dad thought so, too. His perfectly
groomed left eyebrow went up. Oh, yeah,
now
I knew where
Kabita got it.

“Morgan Bailey. At last we meet. I’ve heard
much about you from my friends at the SRA. As I’m sure you must
know, I’m Alister Jones. Welcome back to London.” His handshake was
firm, voice the utterly polished and carefully modulated upper
class English gentleman.

I wondered who at the Supernatural Regulatory
Agency had been talking about me, but I wasn’t going to ask.
Instead, I smiled and resisted the urge to tell him that while he
may have heard about me, I’d heard nothing about him. Didn’t think
Kabita would appreciate me getting all snarky with her dad.

“Thank you. It’s good to be back.” I meant
it. Portland might be my home and the city of my birth, but London
was still in my blood. I didn’t think it would ever come out.

“Where are Adler and Adam?” Kabita’s voice
was still very nearly expressionless as she settled into her chair.
The cold front between her and her dad was nearly palpable. What
was with this family? Seriously, they were taking the whole British
stiff upper lip thing way too far.

I took my own seat, assisted by Dex. Kabita
was starting to worry me. Her manner wasn’t the only thing that had
changed since we’d arrived in London. She’d altered her appearance,
as well. For dinner, she’d dressed in a sleek navy blue dress and
put her hair up in an elegant bun thing like a ballerina. Every
little wisp of hair perfectly in place. Worst of all, she was
wearing pearls like freaking Donna Reed. Creepy.

She must have noticed me gawking at her, as
she suddenly started toying with the creamy pearl bracelet on her
left wrist. A sure sign she felt uncomfortable.

“The twins are on assignment.” Alister
Jones’s voice was as cool as his daughter’s. “They don’t know about
your cousin yet.” Something moved behind his eyes, something hard
and very, very angry. Contrary to outward appearances, he was
pissed as hell. I found it odd he’d referred to the dead girl not
as his niece, but as Kabita’s cousin. I wasn’t sure if his anger
was due to his niece’s death, or the fact that his sons weren’t
there to share in the family tragedy. Possibly it was something
else altogether. All I knew was it completely creeped me out.

I probably shouldn’t butt in to family
business, but this was no ordinary family, and I was no ordinary
friend.

I looked Alister Jones straight in the eye
and said, “What was her name?”

He didn’t pretend not to know what I was
talking about. “Alison. Her name was Alison.”

“Alison Jones?”

He quirked his lips a little at that. “No.
She was my sister’s child. It was Alison Reynolds.” He took out his
wallet and pulled a photograph from it. He held onto it for a
moment, his face void of expression, before handing it to me.

Alison Reynolds had been beautiful. No doubt
about that. Golden ringlets surrounded a heart shaped face, framing
the biggest blue eyes I’d ever seen and pouty pink lips that would
make Angelina Jolie pea green with envy. Her smile held no hint
that she spent her life dealing with monsters and the carnage they
left behind.

I wondered how she could do her job and still
look so damn sunny. I guessed when the monsters actually looked
like monsters it was easier to deal with than the human beings who
did monstrous things. I should know. I lived my life among the
monsters. I understood them. Sometimes I thought I understood them
just a little too well.

I shoved that thought aside very quickly. I
didn’t have time to think about the weirdness that had become my
life or the Darkness that now lurked constantly just beyond my
sight. Waiting. Always waiting.

I shook my head slightly to clear my
thoughts. “How did she die?” Might as well get right down to
it.

Alister motioned me to wait as a bevy of
waiters approached the table loaded down with steaming platters and
bowls. The smell wafting off those dishes was so gorgeous it set my
stomach rumbling.

“I took the liberty of ordering for us all. I
thought we’d share.” For just a moment Alister’s smile was genuine
and warm. It reminded me of Kabita’s. Perhaps she was her father’s
daughter, after all.

Kabita and Dex murmured their approval, while
I tried hard not to salivate. I helped myself to a piece of naan
lightly brushed with butter. Perfect.

As we dug in, Alister told us about the death
of Alison Reynolds. His voice was calm, detached, as though he was
talking about a stranger instead of his own niece. I guess we all
dealt with grief in different ways.

“Like most of our family, Alison started
working for MI8 as soon as soon as she left University,” Alister
began.

I gave Kabita a look out of the corner of my
eye, but her expression remained bland. I knew for a fact that
Kabita had never worked for MI8, though it seemed to be the family
business. Interesting.

“Alison’s specialty was research. And she was
particularly good at it. She had a knack for uncovering the truth.
More than one life was saved over the years because of her
instincts and her unwavering dedication to doing what she believed
was right.” There was an interesting edge to his voice at that. One
that told me he hadn’t quite approved of Alison’s dedication to
truth. I filed it away for future reference.

“Unwavering dedication to the truth is a good
way to get yourself killed,” I pointed out. “Truth is usually
hidden for a reason.” Though not always a good one.

Alister nodded in agreement. “That was
Alison’s downfall. She didn’t know when to back down and turn her
research over to someone more qualified. The very focus that made
her good at her job, also made her tempting to kill. Obviously
someone finally gave into temptation.”

Kabita scowled slightly, but didn’t disagree.
I had the feeling she’d admired Alison’s tenacity far more than her
father did. I was all for girls kicking ass but could see his
point. Alison hadn’t been trained the way Kabita and I had. She
hadn’t had the skills to protect herself.

Determination was always attractive, but
there was a fine line between determination and stupidity. From the
sounds of things, Alison had stepped over that line one too many
times and now she was dead. Didn’t make it right, just made it a
fact.

“What was she working on?” Kabita asked.

“Nothing official,” Alister said. “But for
the past year she’d been working on her own project. She didn’t say
much about it, but I got the impression that whatever it was, it
was something big.”

Dex agreed, “I got the same impression. I
know she was spending a lot of time in the oldest sections of the
MI8 archives. I also know she’d been in contact with several police
departments around the world regarding some of their cases.”

Now that was interesting. “Cases involving
what?”

Dex shook his head. “No idea. Alison had a
lot of autonomy and she wasn’t interested in sharing. We found
nothing on her work computers and her personal laptop is
missing.”

“So, whatever it was she was working on, you
think she was killed because of it?” It made sense.

“It is likely, yes,” Alister said. I had the
feeling he knew more than he was telling. There was just something
about his expression, this sort of shifty look in his eyes, that
didn’t sit well with me. “She could have been killed either because
of something she found, or something she was about to find.”

“How was she killed?”

Alister shook his head and took a deep draft
of wine. You weren’t supposed to gulp wine like that, and Alister
struck me as the kind of guy with proper table manners, so I
figured he was either a lot more upset about his niece’s death than
he was letting on, or there was something else bothering him. It
was Dex who finally told me.

“When she didn’t show up for work, her
supervisor rang me. I popped over to her flat and found her … ” His
voice went a little hoarse and he had to cough to clear it. “I
won’t show you the photos here, but she was ripped open, neck to
groin. Three slashes. Her chest cavity looked as though someone had
torn her rib cage apart like a pea pod.” He hand shook a little as
he raised his water glass.

My mouth went a little dry. “Was it one
continuous movement? Or a lots of smaller motions?”

“One continuous.” Dex had gone a little
pale.

Kabita was unusually silent, eating her way
through her dinner almost like she was on auto pilot, so I kept up
with the questions. I only knew of one creature strong enough to
slash someone from stem to stern and crack open a pair of ribs with
a single slash. “Were any of her organs missing?”

Dex looked a little pale. “Yeah. Her
heart.”

I frowned at that. There should be more
missing than just the heart. A lot more. Otherwise, it didn’t fit.
“Was anything left behind?”

Dex nodded as Alister took something from his
pocket and placed it on the table. It was about the size and shape
of an oyster, but flat and paper thin. In the dim light of the
restaurant it shimmered blue and green and gold with just a hint of
pink. Like abalone shell, but with more vibrant colors.

I picked it up and turned it over in my
hands, running my fingers along the subtle ridges. I expected it to
be cool to the touch, but it was strangely warm. My hands tingled
slightly as though I’d received a slight electric shock except it
wasn’t the type of material to hold static electricity. Odd.

I tried to snap it between my fingers, but it
didn’t give even a fraction despite its delicate appearance. I took
out one of my knives. I tried to cut the disc, but the blade didn’t
even scratch the surface.

It was no shell. A shell would have broken
into pieces. It definitely would have scratched under the blade,
probably shattered. This was something else entirely. But the
pieces still didn’t fit. Not quite.

“Are you sure only her heart was
missing?”

Dex and Alister both nodded the
affirmative.

I gave Kabita a look and saw she was
frowning, too. The same thought was running through both our minds
and we both were struggling because it didn’t make sense, and yet
it was the only thing that did.

“What is it?” Alister leaned forward. “You
know something. What is it?”

“I suspect something,” I admitted. “But I
can’t be sure. Some of the facts don’t add up.”

He leaned forward in his chair, food and wine
completely forgotten. “Tell me.”

“The slashes, the opened rib cage, the
missing heart, even this scale.” I held it up. Because that’s what
it was. A scale. Armor plating. Natural armor plating for something
really, really big. “They could only mean one thing. The problem is
the rest of the organs. She should have been hollowed out,
everything taken, not just the heart. But other than that, it all
fits.”