Kissed by Fire (8 page)

Holy crap. “But there are loads of witches in
the UK,” I pointed out.

“Wiccans, not true Witches. They follow a
religion, a spiritual path. They are not born with the power of a
natural Witch. True Witches are very rare. I only started showing
the signs after I turned thirteen. Everything changed with my
father after that.”

Interesting. I hadn’t known that. “So, your
father hates what you are.” It was harsh, but it was what it
was.

“Yes.”

“Shit. That sucks.” I’d seen how cold Alister
had been toward her, so I wasn’t entirely surprised.

Her smile was wry. “Oh, yes. Big time.”

I squeezed her arm and drew her further down
the path. “Well, I love you and I think you’re amazing.”

She grinned. “I love you, too, but let’s not
get too mushy, all right?”

I laughed at that.

The sun shining through the branches of the
trees dappled our skin and warmed our heads. It was so warm, I
almost wished I’d worn sandals instead of boots.

“Anyway, Mom wasn’t about to let Dad haul me
off and lock me up or have me exorcised or something, so she sent
me to live with my aunt in London. She is a very powerful member of
the board of directors of MI8 and she doesn’t have the Jones
prejudice against Witches. She hasn’t been active in years, but she
trained me, taught me everything she knows. She couldn’t get me
into MI8, but she made sure I had everything I needed to do my job
and become respected in my own right.”

“I take it she was the one who helped you get
me out of MI8 custody?”

“Yes.” Kabita nodded. “She’s an amazing
woman.”

“What’s your aunt’s name? I’d like to thank
her.”

She smiled a little at that. “I’m sure she’d
love to meet you. She’ll be there today. Her name is Angeline
Reynolds. She’s Alison’s mother.”

***

After a leisurely walk, we finally arrived at
the Jones family vault where Alison would be buried. Or interred or
whatever the proper term was.

I guess I’d always had a hard time respecting
death. Maybe because I lived with it every day. Maybe because I’d
been dead. Or maybe because to me death wasn’t the end, but a
transition. At least, that’s what it had always felt like.

Even before my attack when everything
changed, I viewed death more as a temporary state than something
real and lasting. Probably not the healthiest attitude for a
teenage girl, but what can you do. I’d never exactly been
normal.

There were about a dozen people standing in
front of the vault. Of course I recognized Alister and Dex Jones
straightaway. There were two other men, younger than Dex but nearly
identical to him. It was pretty obvious they were Kabita’s other
brothers, Adam and Adler.

The twins greeted us with warm hugs. It was
obvious they didn’t share their father’s prejudice against
Kabita.

There were also a couple of desk jockey
types, a man and a woman, looking a little nervous around the Jones
family. Kabita pointed them out as Alison’s co-workers at MI8. I
eyed them both. They had worked in the same office as Alison which
meant they could have some idea about whatever it was Alison had
stumbled across. And that meant they were suspects despite the
dragon scale in my pocket that might say otherwise.

The man was thin and tall with that slight
hunch that tall people sometimes had, like they were embarrassed of
how tall they were. His thin brown hair was badly in need of a
trim, and his white dress shirt and black trousers were a little
rumpled like maybe he’d been working all night and hadn’t
changed.

The woman, on the other hand, was neat as a
pin. If she’d worn her hair down it probably would have been a
thick, frizzy mass, but she wore it pinned into a severe bun almost
hiding the fact that it was just this side of ginger. Her nose was
a little too long and her face a little too narrow to be pretty,
but she was interesting. The round wire rimmed glasses perched on
her nose were several years out of date and, combined with her
neatly pressed black skirt suit, made her look like a librarian or
a schoolmarm.

Frankly, they both looked harmless, but I’d
learned over the years that looks could be very deceiving. I
wouldn’t write those two off the suspect list quite yet. Besides,
they worked for MI8 and when spooks were involved, even desk
jockeys could be dangerous.

Kabita led me over to another woman standing
by herself at the front of the little group. She was slightly built
and on the short side, but she stood ramrod straight, her blond bob
topped with a chic little black hat, a wisp of netting partially
covering her face.

It was a pretty face. She reminded me a lot
of the picture I’d seen of Alison, but older.

“Aunt Angeline, this is my friend Morgan
Bailey. She’s the Hunter you helped me save.”

“I remember.” Angeline Reynolds held out a
dainty hand. My hands were not big, but they dwarfed those of
Kabita’s aunt. Her skin was warm and soft and there was strength in
her.

“Mrs. Reynolds, I’m very sorry for your
loss.”

She gave me a gracious nod. “Thank you, Miss
Bailey. Welcome back to London.” Her voice was cultured, her
clothes expensive and the very faint whiff of her perfume
exquisite. This was one classy lady. She didn’t deserve the kind of
sorrow I saw etched into her face. No one deserved to suffer the
loss of a child. Especially not like this. And especially not the
woman who’d made sure I’d had a second chance at life.

I kept hold of her hand and stepped a little
closer than was entirely polite. Lowering my voice, I whispered, “I
want to assure you, Mrs. Reynolds, that I will bring Alison’s
killer to justice. I don’t care who or what that killer may be. I
will not stop until it is done. Do you understand what I’m
saying?”

Her blue eyes, identical to her daughter’s,
gazed at me from underneath the black netting of her hat. For a
long moment she said nothing. And then all she said was, “Thank
you.”

As funerals went, it was a pleasant enough
one. The Anglican priest read some scriptures and said a few
prayers, the usual fare about ashes to ashes and so forth. Alister
made a short speech and Alison’s female co-worker said some nice
things about how Alison had been a good person and lovely to work
with, stuff like that. There were several hankies out. Alison
Reynolds may not have been close to a lot of people, but she
obviously mattered to those who counted her a friend.

At the end of the service, her mother stepped
forward and laid a pink rose on the coffin. She stood there quietly
for a moment, as though she could communicate with her daughter.
Maybe she could. I’d seen weirder things.

One by one all the other attendees took a
pink rose from a nearby vase and laid it on the coffin. Except for
the tall man who’d been Alison’s co-worker. He waited until
everyone was done, then instead of a rose he laid a single black
eyed Susan on top the roses.

When he looked up, I caught his eye. There
was such loss there that for a moment, it took my breath away. Then
he moved on, shoulders slumped. I realized then that he wasn’t
ashamed of his height. He was simply weighed down by sadness. “He
loved her,” I whispered to Kabita. “He really loved her.”

Kabita looked down at the solitary orange
flower amongst the sea of pink. The colors clashed, but strangely
it worked.

“Susans were her favorite, you know. She told
me once they made her think of sunshine and summer. You’re right,
he must have loved her. I wonder if he ever told her?”

The thought that he might not have made me
feel incredibly sad. I’d be the first to admit that life was short,
at least for most people. And while my love life was certainly no
shining example, at least I had no regrets.

Well, maybe one. But Inigo was a matter for
another time.

As we turned to follow the others back to the
car park, something flickered at the corner of my vision. I turned
my head. Nothing. I frowned. I was sure I’d seen something.

I grabbed Kabita’s arm and pulled her back
into the shadow of a large tree. “I think someone’s watching
us.”

Both of us scanned the grounds. “There,” she
whispered, “over by that vault with the giant cross on top.”

Sure enough, someone was hiding behind the
vault. I could just see part of the person’s head and a flutter of
cloth from a jacket or something. “I think it’s the woman from the
airport. You know, the one who looked at you funny?”

“How on earth can you tell that from this
distance?” She squinted a little as if to see better, but the woman
had dodged back behind the vault.

“Spiky platinum blonde hair. Right height.
Right shape. Definitely a woman and definitely an unusual hair
color.” I slid around to the other side of the tree so I’d be out
of the woman’s direct line of vision. “I’m going after her. I want
to find out what she wants.”

“OK. I’ll keep her attention on me.” Kabita
peered around the tree making herself just obvious enough to be
seen by the other woman, but hopefully not so obvious our little
spy would catch on.

I nodded and moved out quietly from the tree.
From this angle the woman couldn’t see me as the large stone vault
with its oversized cross blocked her view. Unfortunately that meant
I couldn’t see her either.

I made my way as quickly and quietly as I
could toward the vault, but I must not have been quiet enough. As I
rounded the vault, the woman started. I got a good look at her face
before she took off running. It was definitely the woman from the
airport. What on earth was she doing here at the cemetery?

“Hey, stop!” I took off after her. She darted
down one of the pathways which led deeper into the grounds. This
part of the grounds was particularly overgrown and the woman kept
disappearing from view only to reappear farther down the path.

Silently urging my feet to go faster, I
followed her down a particularly overrun path. No such luck.
Instead of going faster, I tripped on an exposed root and nearly
went sprawling face first into the dirt path. I managed to catch
myself, but the woman had vanished.

Leaning up against a nearby tree, I paused to
catch my breath, see if I could spot her. There was a flash of
silvery white through the trees. I took off running again this time
keeping a closer eye out for sneaky roots.

I rounded a bend in the path just in time to
see the blond woman exit the parklands and hop into a waiting car.
It took off with a squeal of tires, leaving streaks of black behind
it. Show off.

With a groan, I bent over to catch my breath.
As I did, I caught a familiar scent. It was the same one I’d caught
the night before. The scent of the vampire who’d killed me.

I straightened, inhaling deeply. There it was
again. I moved along the path a little farther until it forked. The
smell was stronger down the left fork, which led deeper into the
parklands of the cemetery, disappearing inside a large grove of
trees. Left it was.

Color me suspicious, but I found it strange
that the vampire scent had shown up in the same place as the
mysterious woman from the airport. I didn’t know what that meant,
but I sure as heck meant to find out.

The smell got stronger as I moved along the
path, so strong I almost gagged. He was here. He had to be. There
was no way the scent could be that strong without the vampire being
very close by.

I picked up my pace, jogging past rows of
grave stones tilted at crazy angles and statues spattered with bird
droppings. Something niggled at me. I couldn’t sense the vampire. I
could smell him, but that was a physical thing. My abilities had
nothing to do with the physical. I couldn’t understand why I could
smell him so strongly, but I couldn’t
feel
him. If he was so
close, I should have that whole tingly scalp pressure thing going
on. Maybe my vamp radar was on the fritz.

I shoved the thought aside and kept going,
following the scent trail through the park, under trees and beneath
archways. It led me straight to The Circle Vaults.

I hurried down the wide steps to the sub
ground level. The Circle Vaults reminded me a little of the
catacombs under the ruins of the Colosseum in Rome. All those
little rooms on either side of a wide hallway exposed to the
elements. I could almost imagine there had once been a floor above
them now rotted away, but they’d been built like that. It was an
odd place for a vampire to hide. Unless he’d made it into a
vault.

The scent led me past door after ancient door
before dead ending in front of one marked ‘Sanford.’ The door was
thick oak bound with iron and older than dirt. I tried the door,
but it didn’t budge. It was locked up tight.

“Shit!” Probably not an appropriate sentiment
for a cemetery, but I was pissed off. He was in there. Even though
I still couldn’t feel him, he
had
to be in there. I couldn’t
think of any other explanation.

I yanked at the door again. As though that
would do any good. It didn’t. I could feel the anger and annoyance
boiling just below the surface; fortunately I had a good grip on
the Darkness, but my hands felt itchy and tight. I let out a scream
of frustration and slapped my palm against the wood.

Then I jumped back with a yelp as the door
burst into flame.

I staggered back, mouth hanging open. I must
have looked like a fish. Real attractive. But honestly, it wasn’t
every day you saw a door burst into flame for no apparent
reason.

Except, perhaps, that I touched it.

The fire ate at the hard oak, blackening the
wood and sending thick smoke spiralling skyward. Shouting in the
distance told me it was time to make myself scarce. I was pretty
sure I’d get the blame and how on earth was I going to explain the
fact that I’d just set a door on fire without the aid of matches or
a lighter?