Fallen Fire: The Complete Series, page 33
To make matters worse, there was no way of destroying them. Once carved, it was there to stay. They were sealed away within the citadel, most likely in some deep vault. The angels protected them from the wrong hands, thus protecting us.
Lucifer didn’t answer Lilith, simply faded away with that menacing grin firmly in place. Not that he needed to say anything.
He wanted Demonbloods to come here. If that happened… Oh, God. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Uriel?” Lilith again. “If you’re still here, which I’m assuming you are, you must listen to me. If you feel anything for your friend, you’ll leave here and leave him with me. It’s for his own safety. Lucifer wants him dead. He is the sacrifice required to bring the dark lord back. Charlie’s father marked him for that role and was the man who woke up your soul. He did this to you, burned you in that fire, died before he could finish his task.”
I was cold rather than spinning into hot fury. I couldn’t speak to her with the ring on, so I let the coldness claim me into its hold as I listened. Because this was utterly unreal. Charlie’s father was the professor? His face had been blown off… But… This wasn’t real.
I looked to the Felineblood, who was also a frozen thing, appearing to be in the same chilly grip as me. Far worse, though. His father had disappeared, and now he was hearing this?
Why should I trust a woman who tried to kill me, even if it did kind of explain why she wanted him alive?
Bitch…
“Uriel,” she said again, “I implore you.”
She implored me?
“You must realize how dangerous you are, how much of a risk you pose. Yes, I want you dead, but if you leave Charlie here and leave this city, I won’t hunt you.”
Liar. The best way to deal with a problem was to exterminate it. Did she take me for some kind of fool? Her game playing was weak. I didn’t believe her, and I didn’t believe Lucifer. All I believed in was getting my friend to safety. He wasn’t safe here, and neither was his mother.
Flee the city? Oh, she’d hunt me. That I did trust. She’d hunt me and use Charlie as a tool to succeed.
Lilith wanted me dead. Her stormy eyes reflected that, and they transformed now—stormier, potent with frustration.
I put Charlie’s mother down as an inner wheel turned.
“You will never get your hands on Brett Keller, Uriel. Mark my words. You cannot enter that lab, and you cannot break my prisoner out from under my roof. I’ll destroy you. I’ll find a way. You may have overcome dragon’s bane, but there will be another way. I won’t allow you to spread your pain again. Never.”
There it was. Her truth. I hadn’t taken long to break back through her attempts at peaceful resolution.
The spark to light up my frozen dark.
My inner fire was raging.
19
I was getting good at this game—having developed a quick understanding of the rules.
First Michael, now Lilith, both of them trying to force me into showing myself.
Even as I shifted into my dragon man form, tearing open my clothes, red-gold scales of armor dispersing across every inch of my skin, the copper ring held on tight to my finger. In fact, it expanded with my size increase this time.
My lips stretched in what must have been a terrible grin, much like Lucifer’s, as Lilith carried on ranting, threatening my life—all of that repugnant, useless waffle.
She was about to get her backside handed to her.
“Zayn…” Charlie whispered. And it was only a whisper, only a flutter in my ears.
I had big fish to fry.
Literally.
Helpless, useless, Lilith and her followers and the ridiculous clockwork figures were sitting ducks.
“If only the angels would strike you down,” she said, then laughed. “My prisoner isn’t freely available. I would never allow his freedom to be that easy.”
I set the flames free in a mighty stream of heat. They quickly engulfed her, those around her, and the corridor went up with them.
The intensity of my dragon fire wasn’t like any other fire. It burned hotter, faster, and it was quickly spreading this way. Those clockwork creatures were already melting into pools of liquid metal.
“By the angels!” Charlie cried amidst the screams of agony.
Lilith’s was the loudest, the most furious. She bellowed my name, lost in the blazing inferno, somewhere in the heart of that beautiful orange.
I had to be fast now. I scooped Charlie’s mother back into my arms and said to him, “Stay by my side.” I hurried up to the mezzanine.
“This place is a maze,” Charlie panicked. “I don’t know the way. It moves around and—”
Adjusting his mother by slinging her over my shoulder, I kicked through the wall with one strike, breaking apart a flimsy wall, at least to my strength, that opened up into another corridor.
Charlie said nothing as he followed me. My flames were licking at our trail fast. I wasn’t playing any more games, abiding by the rules of this damn mansion.
I burst through another wall, into a room with a window. Shutters had come down to seal us in, dusted with magic.
Not a problem with the copper ring. I placed Mrs. Ellison down. It didn’t cross my mind whether or not Charlie could carry her because I wouldn’t let him. I was saving them both.
“Keep back,” I commanded.
Smoke was already curling under the door.
I smashed the glass, pushed the shutters off the window as if they were nothing but cardboard. It clattered away, and I picked Charlie’s mum back up again, hoisting her under one arm, and I took him under the other.
He hissed, struggled as the door split, the room filling with smoke. “What—”
“I’m flying us out of here.”
He wasn’t strong enough against me, and within seconds we were outside in the rain. Those storm clouds had rolled in closer, darkening the day.
Now came the problem. There was no way I could fly us back to Angelica City. Even from here, I could see the distant trails of starlight above the city. High alert after Lucifer’s antics.
Fire burped from the windows of the mansion. It would be consumed within a matter of minutes.
There was no choice but to take a boat back.
I flew over the panicked men and women dashing around the mansion grounds. One man was summoning water with a spell, others directing their own magical words at the fire as their mechanism worked overtime. If they had looked up, they would have seen Mrs. Ellison flying on her own.
I took us down to the beach, landing on the jetty. Thunder rumbled scarily close, and a burst of lightning followed.
Damn the angels! Damn them hindering me getting these two to safety easily. And damn me for being a coward, for hiding. I should fly proudly, flaunt myself, take them on…
…I dismissed that line of thought. Another Uriel leakage? He really was a nutcase.
The speedboat was still afloat, being thrashed around by the increasingly aggressive water. The boat that’d been moored with the dead man hanging over the side was gone.
Speedboat it was.
I carried them over the water and lowered them into the vessel. Charlie was sprayed with water immediately, and he hissed, checking on his mum.
I lowered myself into the boat, changing back to human, naked, and fired up the boat. Mercifully, it came to life with a satisfying purr.
And we were off, tearing through the water.
“You killed her,” Charlie said. He was barely audible against the thunder, the ocean, and the rain pounding the boat.
“I had to.”
“I know. I just… You killed Lucifer’s wife.”
“I’m not sure he’ll care that much.”
“Fudge!” Charlie squeaked.
We met a swell, the wave forming as if the back of a giant was rising from the depths. I braced myself, the ride bumpy, but we made it over safely, albeit shaky, and stomachs turned inside out.
If we didn’t get back to the city soon, we wouldn’t be so lucky.
“It’s okay, Mum,” Charlie was saying. “We’re out of there now. We’ll be back to the city soon.”
Mrs. Ellison groaned.
Thank God she wasn’t dead. She’d been so still, so rigid and cool to touch.
She wouldn’t last long in this icy wind, though, with the water constantly spraying us, the rain a beast from the sky.
“Fuck!” I spat. The speedboat was at full throttle, but not fast enough.
Angelica City had flood and storm defenses against the elements. It was a necessity for this island city and would be rendered flat in no time if those systems weren’t in place. They worked through a combination of magic and technology. Highly expensive, which was reflected in our residency tax, they lifted out of the sea, and lowered far into the depths, huge barriers of steel dripping in sapphire magic—a stylistic choice seeing as the three principal precious stone mechanisms had no other differences in levels of power, only color.
Coming up too early. We wouldn’t make it.
“No…” Charlie understood the situation too.
I considered a shift, flying the last part of our journey. To hell with the consequences, at least Charlie would be safe. Maybe being dusted by the angels was the only way to go. What was I fighting for? A return to a life I’d never be allowed to have back? I couldn’t hold on to this new control much longer. My rage was delicate and would land me in death eventually.
Everyone would be better off without me.
That almost set my body ablaze, like the time in my car. I barely held it together before I burned the boat and these two with it.
I wasn’t handing myself over to death because I wasn’t a quitter. I’d never given up on the most challenging of repairs I’d been commissioned over the years, and I wouldn’t do the same with my life. No matter what. Even if I complained about the change, it was still my life to live.
Mine.
The walls of the storm defenses were almost at full height. There were other ways in, and I’d get us in. We were going to live.
The wave that capsized us was an annoying surprise.
20
CHARLIE
Holy fudging fuck!
I kicked out and clawed at the water, doing all the bad things when underwater. Don’t panic, don’t struggle against the current.
Fudge that! This ocean was bloody freezing, so violent. My instinct was to fight it.
The fight was quickly sucked out of me.
I was gonna die here. Whoopie! Bloody typical! With that poxy storm going crazy, I couldn’t see how I was getting out of his mess. I tried to calm down as the timer ticked down to drowning, but it was useless. It was like being trapped in a washing machine from hell.
This wasn’t fair. Yeah, stomp my feet and sulk moment. When were life and death ever fair? Answer: Never!
Were Zayn and Mum okay?
Zayn had saved us from that mansion, burned it, killed Lilith, and now…
Fudge! This sucked so bad I wanted to cry, let my salty tears join this bloody salty soup. Why not add to the party?
My lungs were burning, the rest of me freezing. If drowning didn’t kill me, the cold would. Even if I wanted to get back to kicking and panicking, the window was shut. Too tired, limbs seizing up.
By the angels, this was it. What a crap way to go.
Man, I was so cold, so desperate for air or just some peace from the pain of my lungs not able to do their job.
I’d miss Zayn. I really would. I wanted to see everything to the end, even… I don’t know. I’d just miss him.
What was that blue and red light above my head?
21
Two hours after the rescue boat had saved us from the water, I was sitting in a basement at West Hospital, in some forgotten corner at a table with Officer Bob and Officer Benji, wearing a pair of blue surgeon’s scrubs seeing as I’d arrived completely naked.
I was okay, completely unharmed after the ordeal. No hypothermia, nothing. Unlike Charlie and his mum, who were both being treated for hypothermia. Thankfully, not severe, but that didn’t lessen my worry. Mrs. Ellison had also suffered a concussion from Lilith’s strike.
The rescue boat had been a gift at the right moment to save my friend. Even as the storm raged, the team onboard the boat had got us out of the water safely and back into the protected city.
Because I was fine and still looked at through a lens of suspicion, I was hauled off to the basement for questioning by these two men.
“Yet again, you are involved in an unusual incident, Mr. Valentine,” Officer Bob said, sipping his treacle-like coffee from a Styrofoam cup.
I didn’t touch mine. The smell of it was bad enough, and my head was aching. Not as bad as it usually was after shifting, but still a dull throb. I put this lessened horrendous hangover down to not being in my dragon man form for very long.
That was my reasoning, at least.
“Trust me, I wish things were different,” I replied.
Bob nodded, making a note in his pad.
Officer Benji just watched me with greater suspicion than the angels. I got a genuine air of dislike coming from him, probably because he had a big crush on Charlie.
“Must be really annoying,” Bob continued. “I know I find it annoying. Really pisses me off, actually. I know something’s very wrong with this whole situation, with the pairing of you and Charlie. Did he tell you about his deadline?”
“What?”
“His deadline. We have an agreement. He has to tell me everything tomorrow night. That’s how I know there’s a lot more to this story, to you.”
Charlie had said that? Shit.
Bob sniffed. “I like that lad. A lot. I know I give him a hard time, but it’s for his own good. He isn’t cut out for this. He’s not his dad.”
Mr. Ellison… The professor… Possibly…
“Dave Ellison was a great private detective, knew his stuff. Charlie’s street smart, but he’s not built from the dark stuff. I keep trying to throw him off the path to this life, but he keeps coming back. And now you.” He said that last part with a snarl.
I resisted throwing the coffee in his face.
“Fancy telling me what’s going on? Save him the trouble?”
I didn’t answer. Maybe I needed a solicitor, although I wasn’t under arrest. I could get up and walk away at any moment.
“No?” he said. “It might help. I just don’t understand how someone gets so involved in the wrong things. And by that, I mean things relating to the dragon man. The car fire, the fire at Belle Mansion, pulling off that wasp man’s head. And don’t say it’s because you’re working on a case together, because that’s bullshit. Why else would Charlie make a deal with me? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because he was desperate to get away because he’s hiding some really dark stuff from me. He’s in over his head, and you’re to blame. He doesn’t deserve to be in deep with drama like this.”
Again, I had the desire to douse his round face in hot, brown liquid. “If you have an appointment, I won’t stand in the way of it.” Why was I even talking to these men? Okay, to keep the peace, but they had nothing. They couldn’t arrest me for being in the wrong place at the wrong time—or the right place. I should be at Charlie’s side. He would be fine, but I wanted to see that.
“We’re really not getting anywhere, are we?” I said.
“How so, Mr. Valentine?”
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Answers,” red-haired Officer Benji cut in, the blushing of his fair cheeks bringing out his freckles.
“Aren’t you getting those from Charlie tomorrow?”
Bob nodded, appearing to want to throw his coffee at me too. “Feel free to leave whenever you like. If you don’t want to talk to us, that’s fine. I’m not going to arrest you. Are you feeling okay after that ordeal in the ocean?”
“Yes.”
“You seem very well.”
I stood up. “I think we’re done here.”
Neither of them said a word as I turned to leave.
The hospital was abuzz with so much gossip as the public TV screens played the overwhelming news stories. All that in one day? Madness! Simply madness. The wasp man and the man who’d pulled his head off, the citadel attack, and now Belle Mansion burning down.
Lilith’s home still burned, regardless of the rain and magical attempts to extinguish the flames.
My fire really was a destructive force.
Good.
Lilith had left me with no choice. Once again, I had been placed in a kill or be killed situation.
The fire surely would’ve killed Brett Keller too, and that was fine with me. Not that I was celebrating his death, but with him out of the picture, so was the lab. This was the end. I wasn’t getting in there now. The other locksmith hiding in New Zealand was untraceable. Too many false leads when looking into her. I didn’t believe she was even in that country anyway.
The end didn’t mean there weren’t loose threads. If only the whole Lucifer wanting a diamond mechanism angle hadn’t come up, plus the awful possibility of Charlie’s dad being a complete prick.
Not now. I just wanted to see my friend, get a decent cup of coffee—a fix of something that wasn’t sludge mixed with rocket fuel.
There was a café on the ground floor, a franchise of a major coffee shop chain that had premises around the world. Parasitic how the company had spread, but they made a wonderful cappuccino.
I didn’t mention the diamond mechanisms to the police officers, and they didn’t bring up the citadel attack because they clearly had no idea I’d been there. That was a relief.
At the café, I ordered the largest size they had from a bored barista and two pain au chocolat. My sweet tooth again, one that didn’t really exist before the change. I even had three sugars in my coffee, which was horrifying to the Zayn part of me.
