Angel: Private Eye Book One

by Odette C. Bell

  Chapter 14

  I had no idea how much time had passed. I could have been down here a few minutes, or a few days.

  My thoughts… my mind… everything was threatening to shut down. Too much fear. Too much spine-tingling, soul-crushing fear.

  I was done sweating. Done shaking. Done crying. My poor body was so fatigued, my nerves so raw, all I could do was sit there and stare with wide, bloodshot eyes at the darkness just beyond my chair.

  I waited for him to come back and for the inevitable to happen. Though I wanted to tell myself I would die rather than sign a contract with Van Edgerton, the more he left me alone, the less I believed I could do it. I still remembered, in exquisite, painful detail just how awful it had felt when that vampire had pressed a drop of his blood against my lip.

  It had almost killed me. If he’d forced any more blood in my mouth, maybe it would have.

  I began shaking my head in nasty, snapped movements that stressed the muscles so much I felt a twinge deep into my shoulder. If I didn’t stop madly shaking, I’d probably dislocate a joint. Did I stop? Could I stop? God no. God no.

  A few times I experimentally tried calling Benson’s name. I dipped my head back, let my pulsing, shuddering lips jerk open, and I called for him. Begged for him. Offered the darkness anything if only Benson would come to my aid. A few days ago, I would’ve cringed at the thought of pinning my last hope on that man. Now he was my everything, the only way I would see another day.

  But Benson never arrived, no matter how badly I hurt my throat in screeching his name.

  Someone else did.

  It wasn’t Theodore. It was the vampire who’d dragged me in here. The guy who’d messaged me with those placards from the side of the street.

  He’d obviously been tasked with checking on me. Every few hours, I heard his languorous footsteps as he pushed out of the darkness. He would suddenly appear by my side, lean down, and sniff me. And yeah, that was just as creepy and spine-tingling as it sounded. Every time I would stiffen to the point of shattering as I watched him tensely out of the corner of my eye.

  Just as I dipped my head back and called for Benson once more, the vampire appeared, laughing, stretching his shoulders to the side as he licked his lips with a quick, darting movement. “Little Lizzie, Benson isn’t coming. No one knows you’re missing. Even if they did, they’d have no idea you’re here. You have to face facts, you’re going to die. Theodore will bleed you dry.” His gaze flashed with unmistakable greed as his eyes locked on my neck. “Ever been bled by a vampire, little Lizzie? They say it’s the best way to die. Beats heroine, and cocaine doesn’t even come close. We can make you feel like you’re tripping off on cloud nine. If I’m real good, and I ask Theodore real nice, I bet he’ll let me take the first bite.”

  I shuddered. Of course I shuddered. I practically fell off my chair as I shook. But at the same time, my brow knotted in confusion. Had Theodore not told his groupie that my blood would kill a vampire?

  It certainly seemed that way as the guy took another long, pointed look at my neck.

  “I bet you taste like strawberries, little Elizabeth. You see, different people taste like different things. Susan Smith was like honeydew melon dipped in tequila.”

  Though I really should have fallen off my chair at the admission I would taste like strawberries, I locked on what he’d just said. “Susan Smith? You killed Susan Smith?” Something shook through my voice. Indignation. Anger. Rage.

  The guy didn’t pick up on it.

  He just shrugged from under the confines of his leather jacket. “Sure did. Found out something she wasn’t meant to. Discovered Theodore was breaking Regulation 12. So she had to die.” The vampire gestured wide and shrugged as if he were admitting to something as innocent as double parking in order to take a sick friend to the hospital.

  My fear… my fear was burning away. It was burning away because that rage was getting brighter and brighter. It was chasing back the prospect that I may have to sign a contract with Van Edgerton. It was chasing back the gut-clenching fear of the vampire staring at my neck in hunger. It was chasing back everything and replacing it with bone-crunching rage. “How dare you,” I said, except my voice in that moment couldn’t exactly be classed as normal. I didn’t simply speak, I commanded. I bellowed at the man with all the force and import of god parting a cloud and smiting someone with a bolt of pure vengeance.

  This time the guy noticed. This time the vampire shifted back, jerking his head to the side as if he’d just been slapped. His eyes grew wide, and he sneered. A hiss of breath darting sharp through his teeth like a snake suspiciously tasting the air. “What did you just say?” he asked after a considerably long pause.

  “I said,” that rage still burned through my soul, “That you will be punished. That you will pay for your crime.” I was surprised I didn’t shake from the power of my own voice as it ripped through my chest.

  Something shook. It wasn’t just the guy. It was the massive magical chains holding me in place. They shuddered is if a strong electrical charge pulsed through them. The guy took a jerked step back, surprised, wide eyes locking on my chains as he took a startled breath. “What the hell was that? What the hell are you doing?”

  I had absolutely no idea. But I knew one thing. I couldn’t shrink from this anger anymore. From the light. From the force soaring through me. Shrink away, and I’d let Theodore snuff me out.

  So my only option was to burn as bright as I possibly could.

  In one single, shuddering, powerful moment that I would remember for my whole life, I threw myself at the vampire.

  I was tied to a chair. I shouldn’t be throwing myself anywhere. That didn’t matter.

  I lost all sense of the seat. The unyielding wood. Of the fact I was little more than a confused mouse thrown into the violent otherworld. I concentrated only on one thing. That this vampire had killed, and he would pay.

  The chains shattered. They exploded in such a pulsing blast of light that the bulb above me suddenly stirred with an earsplitting zing, and the spell casting the rest of the room into shadow broke with a crack.

  I realized I was in the very same basement I’d been attacked in by the glass demon.

  The very same set of stairs led up to my right, and behind me, covering the floor in little glistening shards, was what could only be the remains of the demon.

  None of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the fight pulsing through me as I threw myself at the vampire.

  The guy doubled back, hissing, bringing up his hand to defend himself.

  He also lurched forward, snapping toward me with one of his long legs. He was much taller than me, and his kick reached me well before I could round a hand into a fist and slam it into his jaw.

  The kick should have sent me sailing back. Should have collapsed my lungs and left me as nothing more than a wheezing mess by his shiny leather shoes.

  It didn’t. As the light pulsed through me, I lurched forward, latched a hand on his foot, and pushed. I sent him spinning backward with such force that he rolled several meters until his back smashed up against the far wall with a bone-splitting crunch.

  Just before I could think I’d finally won, he gasped, jerking a hand up almost immediately as a single drop of blood trickled down his lip. Pushing a hand into the wall behind him, he shakily got to his feet, keeping that blood-covered finger held out like a sword. “Try that again, try that again,” he screamed.

  Reason told me I should stay exactly where I was. Reason told me that Theodore Van Edgerton himself had just confirmed that a single drop of vampire blood would kill me.

  But where was reason now? Oh, reason was completely and utterly burnt away by the light driving through my soul. By the light lifting me up. By the light pushing me forward as I stalked toward him. Before I knew what I was doing, I latched a hand on his throat and pulled him up.

  Though my grip around his neck was crippling, it wasn’t enough to stop him from jerking forward
and flicking the blood at me. A few specks alighted over my cheeks, but one or two drops… they reached my lips, pushing right into my mouth.

  … I should have died. Curled up on the spot, succumbed to the poison that was vampire blood.

  I didn’t. The light burnt it up.

  That light cracked up my skin as if I’d swallowed an army of fireflies that were now tearing out of my soul.

  My lower lips jerked open, and I screamed. I screamed. But I didn’t die. The light… that holy light, it simply coursed through me and attacked the vampire blood, until it disappeared in a magical wisp of smoke.

  The guy’s eyes widened. He shuddered. And with one limp, pathetic scream, gave in to my grip. “Don’t kill me. Don’t kill me,” he begged.

  “Frank Lipscomb, you took the life of another,” I preached. It was honestly as if my voice belonged to some rattling Southern pastor, commanding his flock to stay on the righteous and true path.

  My voice didn’t just shake out of my throat, it powered through the building, cracking up the walls and sinking into the concrete with great shuddering booms.

  Before I knew what was happening, the walls… fell away. They didn’t crumble to the ground, and the roof didn’t suddenly spring down from on high and crush me flat. Instead, the spell holding this room in place completely shattered.

  And in a snap, I found myself standing in the lobby of a casino.

  Shocked patrons and staff gasped and jerked away from me.

  I still had my hand pinned down on the vampire’s throat, and he still spluttered and gurgled under my grip. The lines of light coursing over my skin were burning him wherever they touched.

  A woman to my left screamed, and before I knew it, several security guards appeared. Except, they weren’t real security guards. They were more golems in tailored suits.

  At first, they went to throw themselves toward me, but wisely they stopped as they saw the unrivalled power cracking over my body.

  It was so bright I could barely see any more. But could I stop? Did I have the option to pause what was happening?

  No.

  I wasn’t in control anymore. Something, some incredible force from beyond was using me. And I continued to channel it as I took a jerked step forward.

  Even the golems, who were reputedly so stupid they’d accept an order to run into a volcano, hesitated.

  By now all the normal people had screamed and run from the room.

  The vampire still squirmed in my grip, grasping at my hand as it locked his throat in place.

  He would never be able to break my grip. Never be able to quench the holy outrage that powered through me at the prospect of what he’d done.

  I jerked forward, heading for the door. Some part of me that wasn’t currently busy burning with holy outrage appreciated it was a seriously bad idea to take this little party out onto the human street beyond. This atrium was familiar enough that I knew where we were – in the middle of town. Not the otherworld district, but where the humans lived. Sure, people were a little bit more comfortable with magic now, probably a lot more comfortable since those work laws had been passed and humans could theoretically keep away from the magical folk. But they would most definitely not be comfortable with a burning lady dragging a kicking, screaming vampire out onto the pavement.

  While I was aware it was a bad idea, I couldn’t stop myself. You see, I wasn’t in control. The moment I’d opened up to the holy outrage burning in my soul, was the moment it had taken almost complete control of my body. Now I sat back, practically a spectator as I continued to drag the vampire forward. Once or twice, he tried to use his blood on me again. It did nothing. The light tearing through me burnt it to dust.

  Just as I reached the doors, I heard the frantic patter of feet. Then, finally, he arrived.

  I turned, the vampire still clutched in my unforgiving grip. My muscles were so stiff, they almost creaked as I shifted over my shoulder and stared at Van Edgerton.

  He locked me in his terrified gaze, bulging eyes jerking up and down my body as he obviously took in the fact that I was glowing like a firecracker getting ready to explode.

  “What– what are you?” Theodore spluttered, lips jerking hastily around his words as his eyes bulged even more.

  I didn’t answer. All I could do was take one step to the side and stare at him.

  The rage doubled in my heart as I remembered what he’d promised to do to me. “You will pay,” I roared, voice possessed with so much force, it could have split the heavens in two.

  And hell, it did. Outside, there was such a massive clap of thunder, it was as if ten strikes of lightning struck all at once.

  As the terrifying sound drew into silence, I heard the screams of people out on the street and further into the building.

  Perhaps their fear should have gotten to me. Perhaps it should have told me to stop, to draw this fight back into the dark basement from which I’d come.

  It didn’t matter. Not to the force burning brightly in my bones. A crime had been committed, and justice had to be served.

  I took a strong, jerked step forward as I ticked my head down, locking Theodore in my burning gaze.

  I was satisfied to see him jerk back as more cold dread washed down his cheeks as if I’d slammed his face into an ice-cold bucket of water.

  “Get back,” he hissed through his teeth as his eyes continued to bulge. “Get back, Elizabeth. Get back, or I’ll kill you.” He brought up his hand, crammed a trembling finger into his mouth, and ripped a hole in his skin. Instantly a dark red drop of blood pooled over his fingertip.

  He was going to kill me. Or at least try. Because he’d failed to appreciate one fact – a fact that was only dawning on me now.

  I couldn’t be stopped. I was a bomb, one that had been set to countdown – and one that would explode, no matter what.

  I took another step forward, and Theodore screamed in anger as he lurched toward me, flicking the blood along his finger right at me.

  He was a centuries-old vampire, and his aim was just as good as Annie Oakley’s.

  The blood splattered over my face.

  Did it kill me? No. Did it even hurt? No.

  It too was burnt up by the rage of light burning within me. Perhaps, for half a second, I’d been fearful that Theodore was too strong and would harm me.

  There was nothing to fear now. Except myself.

  Some part of me realized that Theodore would be far more of an immediate threat that Frank Lampton in my grip.

  So I tossed Frank aside. He slammed onto the ground by my feet, instantly trying to crawl back, legs moving so frantically they were like the scuffling claws of a crab.

  “You will await your damnation,” I said in a booming voice.

  A circle of light appeared around Frank, locking him in place.

  He hissed and screamed until he stopped, becoming as limp as a doll thrown in the trash.

  The guy wasn’t dead. Don’t ask me how I knew that. I just did.

  Because he hadn’t properly paid yet. He would have to account for his sins, and only then would his punishment be allotted.

  The magical circle would lock him in place, though. So, for now, I was free to lock my righteous attention on Theodore.

  He turned tail and ran, moving desperately as he shot through the atrium and chucked himself up a grand, sweeping staircase that led to a mezzanine level.

  My movements were slow. Deliberate. Unhurried. Locking a hand on the banister and shifting forward with my head tilted to the side, the reflected light burning off my face catching every shiny surface, I followed.

  Just as I reached the mezzanine level, Theodore threw himself into a lift. I had just enough time to appreciate the terror ripping through his gaze before the lift doors shut closed behind him.

  Slowly, deliberately, not exactly hurriedly, I walked toward another lift. I jammed my finger into the controls, waiting for the doors to open, then slowly shifted inside.

  I headed for the r
oof.

  Don’t ask me how I knew where he was going. But I knew. Or at least, it new.

  I had a moment of silence as the lift road up to the top floor. And in that moment of silence, that gram of awareness in my mind that hadn’t been burnt apart by the light was terrified of what I was doing. At what I’d become.

  Nothing scared me, and nothing could stop me. I knew, 150%, that I would make Theodore Van Edgerton pay for his crimes. For every crime he had committed in his centuries of life. Every murder. Every assault, everything he had ever done. Every felony against the soul and every act against God.

  The doors opened with a ping.

  I walked out.

  I could not ride the elevator all the way to the top of the building. Because, in another moment of insight, I realized that Theodore had climbed all the way up to the roof. No doubt he had some magic spell up his sleeve and intended to flee the building, lick his wounds, and come back with everything he had in a last-ditch, desperate attempt to make me pay and then finally kill me.

  I would not give him that opportunity.

  I reached the small set of stairs that led onto the roof. I took them.

  The door to the roof was open, banging around in an incredible wind that felt strong enough to tear the building down.

  Though it beat against me as I thrust forward through the door, it couldn’t pull me from my feet. Nothing could.

  As I walked out onto the roof, he stopped and spun.

  Theodore Van Edgerton grasped something from his pocket and threw it at me.

  I had no idea what it was, but it slammed against me, a crackle of magic coursing over it and discharging around my face and chest. I instinctively knew that if I hadn’t been engorged on this powerful light, that spell would have killed me.

  It would turn me to ash in an instant.

  Instead, it arced off me, discharging in great big crackles and thick smoke that rivaled the plumes that could be seen after a nuclear explosion.

  Theodore practically swallowed his eyes as I walked forward and broke through the thick smoke, my form coming back into view. Before I knew what was happening, my lips opened a crack. “Theodore Van Edgerton, you will pay for the numerous crimes you have committed over your long, hate-filled life. You will pay, you will give penance. You will repent, and you will pay,” my voice dropped down so low it rumbled like an engine ready to take flight.

  It also gouged at my throat, made it feel as if I’d swallowed pure lightning. I was becoming aware of it now, that the longer I gave into this power – this impossible rage – the more it affected me. Though this righteous rage filled me with strength and had saved my life, now I could feel my limbs start to buck under its force, feel my throat start to crumple under its words.

  I had to stop. I had to stop it before it was too late and it tore me apart. But I had no idea how to end it.

  Theodore shrieked in frustration as he realized his spell hadn’t killed me. He kept plunging hands into his pockets, clearly searching for something that would rip my skin for my bones and save his life.

  Nothing could save his life. He was damned. Just as I caught myself thinking that I tried to stop. Tried to remind myself I was no murderer.

  It didn’t matter.

  I loomed upon him.

  My heart started to beat faster. Not just from the power pushing through my body, but from the fear of knowing what I would do next. I was getting ready to burn him. Burn him alive, with my light.

  No, no, I screamed in my head. I can’t do it, don’t make me do it.

  There was no one to listen to me, no one to help me. I’d called this power upon myself when I’d given in to the rage that split through my heart.

  And just as I took one more looming step toward him, bringing my hands wide almost as if I was about to spread a set of invisible wings, I knew what I had to do.

  Close down the anger. Push it back, curl back in on myself. It would be the only way to save Theodore and myself. For I knew if I let my body give in to the burning light, it would burn me too.

  I’m not a murderer, I’m not a murderer, I kept screaming in my head until finally my lips parted and the words burst from them.

  I stopped. Hesitated. Though part of my body wanted to continue to push forward, wanted to wrap my burning hands around Theodore’s throat, I held onto just enough control to stop myself in place.

  Theodore’s eyes, which had been pulsing with fear seconds before, narrowed in a snap. Because Theodore Van Edgerton was a vampire. A true vampire of old. He had lived through countless centuries, stolen countless lives. He knew how to survive, but more importantly, he knew how to kill.

  He saw my weakness, and instantly, before I could do anything, capitalized on it.

  Theodore darted forward, wrapped one arm around my body, and hauled me toward the edge of the roof.

  The wind was howling now, screeching, driving through the streets like an army baying for my blood.

  I didn’t even have time to scream, to beg for my life. We were already on the edge of the roof. He was already lifting me up as I kicked my legs desperately, as I locked them onto the railing and tried to save my life.

  Though there was still leftover light cracking over my skin, and I could hear it sizzling and burning his flesh, it didn’t matter. With an earsplitting, bone-crunching cry that curdled through my gut, Theodore Van Edgerton pushed.

  He pushed me off the roof.

  At the last moment, I held on. I thrust a hand forward and snagged his sleeve.

  I dangled over the edge of the roof, body buffeting against the sheer, glass wall as the wind groped at me with a giant’s grip.

  I no longer had the power of the light. I’d forced it back. So, by all rights, simple Lizzie shouldn’t have been able to keep hold of Theodore Van Edgerton’s sleeve. I did. I even found the strength to twist my grip up and grab his wrist instead.

  He hissed at me, clutching my hand, trying to rip me off.

  I didn’t let up. I squeezed close against the onslaught of the wind, I held on for all my life.

  With a scream jerking from his lips and shuddering higher than the gale, he shoved forward and brought a leg up.

  He leaned forward and grabbed something out of his pocket. In a moment of wide-eyed terror, I realized it was a knife. He thrust toward me, angling toward my thumb, the blow more than vicious and strong enough to strike it from my bone.

  Just at the last moment, I heaved forward, running my legs up the side of the wall and grabbing his hand that held the knife.

  It overbalanced him. And Theodore Van Edgerton fell over the railings. With nothing more to hold onto, I fell too.

  My mind shut down as the purest kind of fear I’d ever felt shot through me.

  I saw flashes of the edge of the building. Glass, steel, even a flagpole with its flag madly jerking in the wind. I was going to die. Die. No more second chances.

  Just as that thought soared through my mind, it broke something. The last lock holding my true power in place. As I was halfway down the side of the building, ready to give in to the tight embrace of death, something exploded over my back.

  Light. Oh, and feathers.

  In a moment of pure, immense power, I, Lizzie Luck, grew a set of wings. Pulsing, white, bright, and made of feathers spun from light, they erupted over my back and furled around me. Instantly, they stopped me, and I paused, locked in the sky, my fatal descent cut short.

  Theodore was right beside me, as I still had a hand locked on his.

  As my wings formed and held me in place, I watched startled fear power over his face.

  Fear.

  I couldn’t quite feel it anymore. Couldn’t quite feel anything as this incredible, light, beautiful sensation rippled through my heart. It was exactly as if I’d just been embraced by an angel.

  Despite what Theodore had done to me. Despite the horrors he promised, I did not let him drop. Instead, I tightened my grip on his wrist. I would save him. Or at least, I’d try to.<
br />
  As a blast of wind shot around the side of the building, it slammed into me. Having wings was pretty new, and I didn’t tilt them to the side in time to fight against the gust.

  If I’d listened, I would have heard a low, by-now-familiar muttering caught along the gale.

  Theodore was slammed to the side. I jerked a hand out, trying to catch him, but it was too late. The wind snatched him away from me, and he fell.

  I tried to jerk down, tried to catch him, but I couldn’t fly. All I could do was float, gently, effortlessly heading toward the ground.

  I slammed my hand over my eyes as Theodore Van Edgerton hit the ground several hundred meters below.

  Vampires can survive much. But he did not survive this. Theodore Van Edgerton died.

  I sailed all the way down to the ground, landing with the lightest touch, my feet practically kissing the pavement. The wings made me so buoyant, that as another gust of wind pushed into me, I drifted a few feet off the ground, only to float down again and touch the pavement like a feather.

  There was no one around on the street. At least, no people.

  Just as I tried but failed to maneuver toward a streetlamp to hold my floating body in place, I heard a car door slam. Someone walked toward me. Someone with their hands pushed hard into their pockets. Someone with the most charming, enigmatic, and yet unnerving smile I’d ever seen. And that someone – oh, you know it could only have been one person.

  William Benson strode toward me.

  His expression, well, it was half controlled. Half the William Benson I knew. The other half – heck, it looked as if he’d just seen an angel.

  Again I desperately tried to grasp toward a streetlamp and hold myself in place. Another gust of wind blew me off course, and I flew a few feet into the air.

  William, with his hands still crammed into with pockets, walked over until he was right underneath me. Slowly, he turned his head up. He stared at me.

  “What– what’s happening to me? What’s happening to me?” I demanded as my wings caught the wind once more.

  He didn’t answer. Simply continued to stare, eyes roving over me until he tucked his lips in, half closed his eyes, and finally managed that smile I knew all too well. There was a different edge to it this time, though. He no longer looked as if he held all the cards.

  He cleared his throat. “Do you want to come down from there, Lizzie?” He uncharacteristically used my first name. The interaction was normal enough that I could momentarily forget the horrors of what had just happened.

  I spluttered at him. “Yes, I want to come down from here. But I can’t. What the hell is happening to me?” I demanded in a shaking tone.

  He paused. His lips parted. “Hell? Lizzie, it’s heaven.”

  That word and the promise it entailed, oh boy did it have an unsettling effect on me. It pushed away the light touch of my wings, and before I knew it, they disappeared completely. Which was a bit of a bother, as I was about 5m up.

  Abruptly, I fell. Before I could charge head-first into the pavement, William brought out his arms and caught me.

  I slammed against that rock solid chest, those powerful arms wrapping around me tightly and locking me in place.

  William Benson turned his head down and looked at me.

  There it was again – that expression – the one that told me he no longer held all the cards.

  I gulped at it. An in-control, arrogant William Benson was one thing – a simple, ordinary guy unsure of how to handle the situation, oh my god, that was much worse.

  I watched him swallow. “We were looking for you,” he admitted.

  “We?”

  “Mr. Marvelous and half of the Hope City PD. You’ve been gone for two days, Lizzie.”

  I blinked in complete surprise. “Two days? But I… it couldn’t have been more than several hours.”

  He shook his head, pressing his lips together in an unmistakable grim expression. “I’m sorry to say, but I thought we’d lost you.”

  Was it just me, or was there an unmistakable twinge of fear rippling through his tone? Not the kind of fear you’d use at the prospect of losing someone contracted to you. But the kind of fear you’d use at the prospect of losing someone who meant a little bit more to you.

  Just before my stomach could lurch at that prospect, I realized something rather important – I was still in Benson’s arms.

  Maybe Benson realized it, too, because with a flash of a flattering smile, he helped me to my feet. With a hand still locked warmly on my shoulder, he turned to face me. “I take it you can stand?”

  Apparently, I could, but that didn’t stop my treacherous body from leaning supportively into his grip. I tried to remind myself that hey, he was a vampire king and the only thing I should be doing with his hand was shoving it in handcuffs.

  Instead, I looked up at him. “What happened to me?” I asked earnestly.

  “Lizzie Luck,” he paused. It was a long, drawn-out pause. The kind of pause that didn’t just get your attention, but held you in place promising you you were about to learn the most important fact of your life. “Our contract is now over.”

  I blinked, disconcerted. “What?”

  “I now know what you are,” he said.

  I stopped breathing.