by Shéa MacLeod
That actually made me feel good. This whole brother thing might be okay after all.
I decided it was time to change the subject. “So, tell me, big bro, do you have any idea what’s happening with Inigo? You are the government man extraordinaire, after all.” I knew I came off a bit flippant, but I was really worried about Inigo. I’d tried to ring several times, but no luck. It kept going straight to voicemail. I couldn’t seem to help the edge of panic lurking inside me at the thought of him being in danger.
“I think it has to do with his heritage.”
“Excuse me? How does being English put him in danger? It’s not like we’re at war or anything.”
He sighed. “There’s more to it than that, but I’m sorry, I can’t tell you. I took an oath.”
I blinked. An oath? What could be so secret about Inigo that he had to take an oath? “If it’s about his clairvoyance, I already know about that.”
“You really should talk to Kabita about it. I’m sorry.”
That just made me more worried. And a little mad. What hadn’t they told me? What could possibly have put Inigo in danger? I could only hope we weren’t too late.
I leaned my head back against the seat. I was a little surprised at just how worried I was about Inigo. I mean, sure, it’s normal to worry about a friend, but this was more than that.
Jack. I’d been fascinated by Jack from the beginning. He was hella sexy. Exotic. Different. And nine-hundred years of experience made him damn good in bed. But beyond that?
I had to admit there wasn’t much. Just a whole lot of frustration. And hurt.
Inigo, on the other hand. I heaved a sigh. Inigo was different. He’d always been different. Special. It sounded completely stupid, but he made my heart sing.
Yeah, how cheesy could I get?
I squeezed my eyes closed. If we were too late, I didn’t think I could bear it.
***
Inigo’s place was a wreck. Either he’d had a really bad day or there’d been an almighty fight. Unfortunately, I knew in my bones it was the latter.
The thought drove my earlier chat with Trevor right out of my head. All I could think about was the fact that Inigo might be hurt. Or worse.
Trevor had dropped us off before heading to a meeting. He wouldn’t say why or with whom, but I figured it had something to do with Inigo and tried not to get annoyed. I liked things clear and up front. And no, the irony of that statement, in light of the things I was hiding from my best friend and my new brother, was not lost on me.
Kabita prowled the living room, her face a mask. I could feel the anger rolling off her in waves, but underneath the anger was something else. She blamed herself.
“This wasn’t your fault, Kabita.”
“I should have been here, protecting him. Not off playing detective.” She picked up a picture frame and carefully swept the shattered glass away from the photo inside. It was a picture of the three of us taken the day Kabita opened the detective agency. We all had cheesy grins and big glasses of champagne.
Inigo had insisted on champagne even though I didn’t like it. He’d said a celebration without champagne was like cake without chocolate. That had been a good day.
Gently, I took the photo out of her hands and placed it on the mantle. I’d buy him a new frame. “What kind of trouble is he in?” My voice was quiet, but firm. It was time for answers and the only way I could get past the terror of Inigo being hurt was to face this head on. Logically. Go Mr. Spock.
“It’s hard to say,” she sighed. “Inigo is ... different. Some people don’t like different. Some people exploit different.”
I figured she wasn’t talking about his clairvoyance, though there were plenty who’d be happy to exploit that. Something under the edge of a couch cushion caught my eye and I crouched down. On the floor underneath the cushion was a stain. The coppery scent hit my nose. Blood.
“Kabita.”
The minute she spotted the blood, her face went white. She sat down abruptly on the cushion less couch. “Oh, Goddess.”
“Hey.” I reached over and squeezed her knee. “We don’t know this is his blood. He could have hurt his attacker.” I refused to let my own fear show in my face. This was one time when the power of positive thinking was the only way to go. At least until we had proof otherwise.
My cell rang. Trevor. “Yeah.”
“Just had a meeting with my informant. A woman was seen downtown at the old Hung Far Low building. She had a man with her matching Inigo’s description. She had him restrained and was apparently holding him at gunpoint. My informant says they’re inside the building.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
There might still be time. “Where are you?”
“I’m headed there now. Be there in five.”
“OK, we’re on the way, but we’ll be a bit longer,” I told him.
“I’ll check things out while I wait for you. If I need to, I’m going in,” he said.
“Good. Turn your phone on vibrate. I’ll text when we get there.” I hung up the phone and turned to Kabita. “Trevor found Inigo.”
“He’s alive?” Her face flooded with relief.
“He was twenty minutes ago. He better still be that way, or whoever hurt him isn’t going to live to regret it.” I felt the Darkness swirl inside me, wanting out. This time I shoved it back down. The Darkness had enjoyed dusting Bob the vamp and it wanted to kill whoever took Inigo. It enjoyed killing, period. What scared me was that I might enjoy it too.
I pushed that thought aside. I didn’t have time for introspection.
On the way downtown, I was finally able to focus on what I learned during my chat with Trevor. I tried to get information out of Kabita, but she wasn’t budging. All she would say was, “I took an oath.” Seriously, there was way too much of this oath taking shit going around. The lack of info was rapidly fraying my temper. How was I supposed to help my friends if they wouldn’t tell me the truth? And, yes. I know. Irony thy name is Morgan.
I pressed down harder on the accelerator, barely making it through a yellow light. I headed over the Burnside Bridge which spit us out into downtown. To the right lay Chinatown and the former home of Hung Far Low. The Chinese restaurant was famous throughout Portland for its rather creative name.
I turned up 4th Street and found a place to park not far from the former restaurant. Rumor had it they were turning the place into upscale lofts, but then rumor said a lot of things. For now it was an empty shell.
I sent Trevor a quick text. An instant later, he responded and Kabita and I hustled down the block to meet him.
“Is it Inigo?” Kabita demanded.
“Yes, it’s definitely him. He’s still alive, but not for much longer. I don’t like doing this without backup, but they’re still twenty minutes out. We need to go in now or he’s not going to make it.” His gun was already out.
I didn’t carry weapons deadly to humans. Other than my blades, that is. A little flame sparked inside me reminding me I carried a weapon deadly to everyone but myself. I damped it down. The Fire wasn’t for humans, either, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t care what it wanted.
Instead I slid my dagger from its sheath. There’d been no time to head home from the airport, so that was the best I had.
I glanced over at Kabita. She had a gun, too. Damn, where’d these people get guns all of a sudden?
Trevor moved to the door which swung open quietly. I raised a questioning eyebrow. “Already picked it,” he explained in a hushed voice.
“Is that legal?” I hissed back.
“Why? You going to report me?” The smirk he gave me was enough to set my blood boiling. I glared at him.
We stepped through the door into what had once been a large dining room. It was empty now, save for a broken chair sagging against one wall and a crappy poster with curling corners lying on the floor.
“Kitchen,” Trevor hissed.
Fortunately, the kitchen doors
were those swinging kind with the little round portholes. I peered through then sort of wished I hadn’t. Inigo was next to the stove, his arms stretched up above his head, chained to a support beam in the ceiling. Additional lengths of heavy chain wrapped around his ankles and padlocked to the stove.
He sagged against the chains, his face bruised and swollen, hair matted with blood. I gasped in horror as a young woman with short blond hair whispered something in his ear then hauled off with a baseball bat and hit him in the stomach. Inigo doubled over, or at a least as far over as the chains would let him. Trevor had to hold me back from busting through that door.
“Wait, Morgan, we need to go together. And someone needs to block that back way.”
“She’s going to kill him.” In fact, I was surprised he wasn’t dead already. I had to fight to keep the tears out of my voice. “That bitch is going to kill him if we don’t stop her now.” I didn’t know how any human being could survive a blow like that. I probably could, but I wasn’t exactly human anymore.
“I’ll go.” Kabita’s voice was colder and harder than I’d ever heard it, her face grim with determination. In her eyes I saw murder and wondered if she could see the same in mine. Inigo was ours. And we protected what was ours.
Trevor gave her a brief nod and she disappeared out the front door. It would take her a moment to get around back, so we had to wait. Meanwhile the bitch inside was going at him with that bat. Worse, I could hear her laughing.
Seriously, she was going to die.
My palms burned with heat and I struggled to shove the Fire back down. It didn’t want to go, it wanted out and if I were honest, I wanted to let it out. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and focused. Reluctantly the Fire withdrew back to wherever it lived.
“You OK?” Concern laced Trevor’s voice. I must have looked like a crazy person.
“Yeah, fine. Just, you know, preparing.”
“Huh.” He didn’t look convinced. “On the count of three. One, two, three ... ”
Chapter Twenty
We burst into the kitchen. The girl wheeled around, dropping the bat and pulling out a gun so fast it made my eyes go wonky. She was too fast for human. Then my brain caught up with me.
“That’s her,” I whispered to Trevor. “That’s the girl from the airport, the one who’s been following me around. She sicced Bob on me.”
One eyebrow went up. Damn, the eyebrow thing obviously wasn’t genetic after all. “Bob?”
“You know, the vamp that killed me three years ago.”
“Ah, yeah.” He turned his attention back to bat girl. “Federal agent. You are under arrest. Drop your weapon.”
The girl sneered. “Drop yours, agent.” She said agent like it was a dirty word. “I’m faster and far more deadly than you could ever hope to be.”
“That may be true,” I spoke up, “but you’re not faster than me.”
One minute I was standing next to Trevor, the next I was across the kitchen with my knife at her throat. It wasn’t because of the Hunter thing, either. The Darkness had risen unbidden.
Swifter than the eye could see, she had the gun pressed to my temple. Shit. Not good.
With a heave the Darkness surged up out of me. It reached out with my hand and slapped her hand back, sending the gun flying. With a shriek of rage, she was on me, her own knife drawn.
We went down in a tangle of limbs and blades. She was small, but she was strong. Really strong. Stronger than me except for one thing: the Darkness evened the odds. Hell, it blew the odds clean out of the water.
I grabbed her by the throat and flipped her over, smashing her head against the floor. Hard. If she’d have been an ordinary human, she’d have been dead. As it was, it stunned her long enough for me to snap her wrist. Her knife fell with a clank to the floor. She screamed with pain, but it didn’t stop her grappling for my knife.
Using her legs for leverage she flipped us both over so she was on top, digging into my knife arm with her good hand. I threw a punch at her face with my left hand, but she saw my fist coming and dodged. Her hand pressed harder on mine, bringing the knife closer and closer to my throat.
The Darkness screamed in anger and for a moment I pushed back harder, but the angle was wrong. I couldn’t get the leverage I needed. The blade kept coming closer. I suddenly realized that Darkness or not, there was no way I was winning this fight. Unless I was willing to let loose the Fire.
“Stop right now, bitch, or I’ll blow your head off.” Kabita’s voice was stone cold. Her gun was pressed up nice and tight against the back of the girl’s head.
The blonde froze, but her eyes still burned with hatred. Slowly she raised her hands. Kabita backed away just far enough to let her get up off me. The Darkness had other ideas.
With a snarl I flipped the girl back under me. My right hand burned. I glanced down to find it glowing white hot, fingers cherry red. Fire danced at the tips of my fingers. I glanced back at the girl and raised my hand. The sneer left her face and for the first time she looked truly afraid. I lowered my hand toward her chest as the Fire roared inside me.
“Morgan, stop!” Inigo’s voice cut through the haze in my head. I glanced at him, confused. “Morgan, we need her. OK? You have to stop.”
He knew. Inigo knew about the Fire. How did he know? I glanced back down at the girl under me. She suddenly looked incredibly young and scared. The glow in my hand dimmed to orange, then red, and finally turned normal, the Fire slowly receding as my anger ebbed.
I glanced back up. Kabita was getting Inigo out of the chains and Trevor had a pair of handcuffs out. He motioned me to get up.
Dazed, I climbed off her and let him do his agent thing. She didn’t even struggle, as he snapped the cuffs around her wrists. I felt like I’d just woken from a dream, everything felt so out of focus and confused.
I ignored Trevor and his prisoner and headed over to where Inigo had sunk to the floor. I was pretty sure the only thing holding him up was the stove. Kabita had found a first aid kit somewhere and was trying to clean him up.
“Here, let me.” I knelt beside them and took the kit from her. She gave me a strange look, but nodded and moved back. I pulled an antiseptic pad from the kit and gently swiped it over a cut above his eye. He hissed as the medicine went to work cleansing the wound. “You really ought to see a doctor. She beat you up pretty good.” Not to mention there were chain shaped burn marks on his wrist and across his throat. Weird.
“No doctor.” His voice was rough. “She didn’t do any damage that won’t heal.”
“Excuse me? She hit you in the stomach with a bat. You could have internal bleeding, you stubborn man.”
“No doctor.” His voice was firm.
I clenched my jaw. I didn’t care what he said, he needed a freaking doctor. Sooner rather than later. “How’d she get you in the first place?” I knew from experience Inigo was not an easy person to sneak up on. His clairvoyance probably had something to do with it.
“She’s a Hunter. She caught me off guard.”
“I’m a Hunter and I can’t sneak up on you like that.”
“She’s different.” He caught my eye and gave me a look as though willing me to understand. “Her skill set is different than yours. She’s a Dragon Hunter.”
I whirled and gave the girl a hard look. “Jade?”
Her head snapped up. “How do you know my name?”
I stood up and stalked toward her, leaving Kabita to finish fixing up Inigo. “You’re Jade Vincent, originally named Dara Boyd. Born in London, England. Disappeared five years ago.”
“My name is Jade.” Her voice was stubborn with just a hint of petulance. There was still a lot of the child about Jade Vincent.
“Fine. Jade.” I squatted down to her eye level. “You know Alister Jones.”
She shrugged. “Yeah. He’s like, my godfather or something.”
Kabita and I exchanged looks. She obviously hadn’t known about this godfather business. Must have been part of A
lister’s cover.
I nodded. “He sent you to live with the Vincents as soon as you turned eighteen.”
A nod. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
My turn to shrug. “I have my ways. So, tell me, Jade, why’d you go back to London? Let me guess. You wanted to help out your godfather, Alister.”
She smirked.
A light bulb went off. “You killed Alison Reynolds.”
Jade settled herself more comfortably on the dirty floor, though I couldn’t imagine it was too comfortable with her hands cuffed behind her back. “Bravo. Got it in one. Alison knew too much. And when she started calling police departments asking questions, she had to go.”
“What sorts of questions?”
She shrugged. “Unsolved murders. Little favors I did for my godfather.”
“So Alister brought you out of hiding to take care of his problem. Cover his ass.” Fury was riding me, but I beat it back. I needed to think clearly. “How did you do it? Slice her open like that?” It would have taken some doing to mimic a dragon claw.
“Trade secret.”
The bitch just smiled at me. Gods, how I wanted to slap that smug look off her face.
“Why did you frame the dragons?” Trevor interrupted.
She gave him a bland look. “Hello! It wasn’t Alison’s fault she had to die. Her death shouldn’t be without meaning. What better way to die than to die serving your country and bringing down our enemies, restoring MI8 to its rightful place.”
It made sense. While the other agencies carried on officially, MI8 languished in obscurity. So part of it, at least, was Alister’s driving need for power. He wanted MI8 back at the top of the intelligence food chain. Unfettered by ethics and laws. A race war with the dragons would do that, hurried along by the fears of a nation. Fears fueled by lies.
I shuddered at the thought of it. If Alister had accomplished his mission, he’d have no doubt been given complete power over all the supernatural races. Gods knew what Alister would do with that kind of power, but I’d bet my life it was nothing good.