Angel: Private Eye Book One (30 page)

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 towards another lift. I jammed my finger into the
controls, waiting for the doors to open, then slowly shifted
inside.

I headed for the roof.

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 rivalled 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
towards 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 towards 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 left over 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 towards me, angling towards 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.

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 towards 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
towards a streetlamp to hold my floating body in place, I heard a
car door slam. Someone walked towards 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 towards 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 towards 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?”