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Hello bunnies, finally another chapter! I wanted to upload chapter 8 too, but it's not finished yet and I thought one new chapter was better than none. I promise there'll be more soon. Thanks again for all the encouraging reviews, they help keep me inspired!

Chapter 7: Wreckage

Despite a very late and eventful night, I found myself awake quite early. I had a shower to get rid of any blood and grime left over from our nocturnal adventure, then dried and plaited my hair, got dressed in jeans and a black blouse, and went downstairs.

In the daylight I realised what a mess had been made. There were holes in the plaster and the wood paneling of the walls, dust and glass littered the floor, and I barely recognised the furniture. Blood was spattered fairly liberally to finish off the scene. I picked my way past the debris, noticing a particularly wide smear of dried blood on the floor where the body had been. When I got up that morning, Kurtis and the body had both disappeared. As I was pretty sure the body had stayed dead and not walked out on its own, the most likely option was that Kurtis had taken it somewhere to dispose of it. I checked in the garage. He had taken my Land Rover, which I supposed was better than pinching the Aston Martin or the Bentley, but I admit it irked me that he'd taken a vehicle without asking. Then again, I supposed that clearing up bodies for me after a gunfight could be viewed as quite a romantic gesture in the bizarre world that Kurtis and I inhabited.

I wandered through to the study to see if there was anything that could be salvaged from the charred mess in the bin. It wasn't good. What hadn't been burnt beyond recognition had been caked with scum from the fire extinguisher and ruined anyway. I picked through the meaningless fragments anyway, more to pass time until Kurtis returned than anything else. I tried to look on the bright side: Cappadocia was a strong lead, and the underground cities were easy to find. And if there was a dig currently underway there, maybe I could even get us a place on it… Meeting Nikolajev had certainly been fortuitous.

After some time I heard the front door open and went out into the hall to greet Kurtis. He looked disheveled, and had dark stains on the knees of his jeans which I took to be muddy earth.

"Hi," he said, seeing me there.

"Morning," I replied brightly. "So what did you do with him?"

He wagged a finger at me. "Now that would be telling. Don't worry, it's dealt with."

"Hmm," I said sceptically. "I hope I'm not going to have any real skeletons popping out of my closet at Hallowe'en."

"No, no, you'll have to make do with the metaphorical ones. I'm sure you have plenty of those."

I smiled, deciding to let that one go. "Did you sleep okay?"

He yawned. "Yeah. Not for long enough though. Have you had breakfast? I'm starved."

"I'll make us something," I replied, turning towards the kitchen.

He followed me, peering into the fridge over my shoulder. I grimaced. Cooking was not my greatest talent, and I wasn't getting any inspiration from the ingredients on display. As a teenager at finishing school I had been taught how to eat impeccably, but not how to boil an egg. My lack of enthusiasm must have showed, because he gently moved me out of the way and started pulling out packets of food.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "I'll make us something while you go and start making a plan."

"A plan for what?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes. "That's a good start."

I left him to his own devices in the kitchen and went to sit at the dining table with a pen and notepad. I scribbled down all the most important points I could remember from the information I had lost, and some details about Nikolajev and his theories, more to get my brain into gear than as an aid to memory. I thought about the questions we needed to answer, the puzzles that needed solving. What Nephilim artifacts had been found in Cappadocia? Was it possible that Nikolajev's team had found the location of the Nephilim ark? If any more of the half-breeds had survived, how could they be killed? And what had happened to Karel in the Strahov? The thought was deeply unsettling. He had been hurt badly but I didn't dare hope that he had been destroyed. It was likely that he was recovering somewhere, planning his next move. All these thoughts busied my mind, but one was more important than all others – who had sent soldier boy to kill us last night? A number of people knew that I was researching the Nephilim because they had helped me gain access to the papers and books that were now ash. But most were old friends that had been happy to help me out.

I was mulling this over when I was distracted by the smell of bacon. A minute later Kurtis came in bearing two plates of bacon and scrambled eggs, then left again to fetch a pot of coffee and two cups.

"Disposing of a body for me and then making breakfast," I remarked. "You're becoming quite the gentleman." He sat down opposite me at the huge table and smiled, then poured himself a cup of coffee. "Oh God, I hope you washed your hands," I added suddenly.

He reassured me that he had, so I tucked in. It was fabulous. Food can have such a fantastic grounding effect.

"So how's the plan coming?" he asked, interrupting my gluttony. I pondered the question of our would-be assassin. A new idea occurred to me.

"No one knew you were going to be staying with me here last night," I said. "Even I didn't know until yesterday evening. So it's more likely that our visitor was only after me."

"Sounds reasonable," he replied. "But more importantly, how did he get into the house?"

I frowned. "That's what I don't understand. No one's got past the security before. I still have to check the cameras." I polished off my food, and then carried my coffee through to a small room at the back of the house. I sat down in front of the security monitors and started to scan through the footage from the previous night. Kurtis stood in the doorway and watched. I took my time, not wanting to miss anything from the ten or so cameras.

"Anything?" Kurtis asked after a while.

"No." I rubbed my eyes. "I don't get it. I suppose someone could have climbed over the outer wall and avoided the gate, although they would have been lucky not to get spiked in the process. And it's possible they could have hidden in the garden and not been seen on camera. But to get to the house from the garden, you have to cross the path –" I gestured to the screen which showed a section of lamplit gravel path – "and there are lights all around the house, so you'd definitely be seen."

We talked through the possibilities, but there wasn't any other way of getting into the house undetected, aside from being invisible of course. Kurtis made an unsettling suggestion.

"Your butler's away at the moment, right?" I nodded. "And I guess he has keys and alarm codes, all that stuff?" I nodded again, worried. "Could anyone have got to him?"

There was a telephone on the desk and I reached for it now. I quickly dialed Winston's sister's number and after a few rings she answered. I spoke to Winston, who had had a perfectly normal time since leaving the Manor the day before and hadn't been approached by anyone. I decided not to tell him about the intruder just yet; I didn't want him to worry for the rest of the weekend. After hanging up the phone, I sat back and sighed.

"So we don't know how he got in, or more importantly who sent him." We sat deep in thought for a few minutes, the puzzle turning over and over in my mind. I decided to look at it from a different perspective – how did I get into my house? Suddenly a solution struck me. My eyes widened in alarm, and I got up and hurried to the garage that adjoined the house. Kurtis followed close behind. I stopped short at the Aston Martin, heart sinking. The boot had been prised open from within. Unbelievable.

"My God," Kurtis muttered behind me. Both of us had been in the garage that morning, but the Aston Martin was parked at the furthest end from the door and we hadn't noticed it.

"Looks like we picked up some excess baggage last night," I said, wincing at the damage to my beautiful car. "You know what this means?"

"You're going to find his body and kill him again? He deserves it," Kurtis said wistfully, looking at the bent metal.

"It means that someone at the banquet had a bone to pick with us. That's the only place I've taken this car in the last week."

He caught my eye. "Nikolajev?"

"I don't know. He certainly didn't seem suspicious when I was talking to him. But then again, I'm a dreadful judge of character. I've been double-crossed more times than I care to remember."

"Well, I think it's time we paid Tobias a visit," Kurtis said, and I nodded.

"Even if it wasn't him, he'll need to be warned. He's bound to be another target, with everything he knows about the Nephilim." We went to fetch our guns.

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:o Next time – we finally get to some baddies! See you soon :)