Nobody's Angel (The Earth Angels) (11 page)

“How efficient of you.” It was almost impossible to keep the sick horror out of her tone. But to know there had been no reason other than a brat’s curiosity behind her friend’s death filled her with gut-wrenching anger. “Another thing that baffles me is why you switched from soul-sucking—which no one would have known was murder—to the splashy murder-suicide spree you went on. Did you lose the ability to suck souls out of living humans?”

“You don’t understand anything.” A look of profound disgust crossed Abigail Denton’s face. “It’s exactly as you said—no one knew how amazing my ability was when I first sucked out the soul of my neighbor. Everyone thought she’d slipped into a diabetic coma and died on the laundry room floor, can you believe it?”

“Wow, poor you.” She heard a faint tremor in her voice, a debilitating mix of rage and icy fear. “No one knew what a monster you were...except your neighbor, of course. What did you do with her ghost once you sucked it out of her body?”

“I let her go. I didn’t know I could do so much more with it than just rip it from its shell. I only learned that trick with my dick of a cousin, Matt.”

Kendall’s stomach churned. Just when she thought he couldn’t get any worse. “The geist. He... You did that to your own cousin?”

“He deserved it. The family all thought Mr. Perfect, with his swirly blond hair and full-ride football scholarship to USC, keeled over from heatstroke, but he didn’t. It was
me
.
I’m
the one who has the power. And I’m the one who controls Mr. Perfect now.” As if to prove it, Abigail Denton pulled a carving knife out of her windbreaker.

“That’s not how you usually do things.” Out of time, Kendall thought hysterically, backing up the stairs as the coppery flavor of terror filled her mouth.
Out of time.
“Aren’t you supposed to strangle first, then stab?”

“Mom’s got crappy hands for strangling. But I think her body will last long enough to stab you to death. Or at the very least, I’ll make sure it dies trying.”

And with that, Abigail Denton lunged.

* * *

Zeke gritted his teeth. It was sheer agony to ignore the throb behind his eyes, a pain that alerted him to the nearby presence of the geist, but he had to stay focused on the ultimate prize.

And right now, that sure as hell wasn’t the geist.

He scanned the cliffs below the lighthouse, the wind whistling in his ears as he rode an updraft on its northern side while the heat wave-like rippling danced in his peripheral vision. But that was okay. For the first time since this wild goose chase began, he could now accept what that bizarre distortion meant.

The puppet master was nearby.

Perfect
.

Instinct had Zeke reaching out to pull the shadows around him as he found a good landing spot on the far edge of the structure’s granite foundation, but in a fog bank shadows were hard to come by. Then, as he cautiously rounded the thick white base of the lighthouse and spotted the source of the rippling air, he realized stealth wasn’t necessary against someone who had his eyes closed.

Habit had Zeke tucking his wings in close about his body to silence even the faintest ruffling of feathers as he took in his opponent. He wasn’t much to look at, this so-called puppet master. He was an anemic-looking man somewhere in his early twenties, dressed in thrift-store chic with a gray knit beanie over shoulder-length dirty brown hair, an oversized gray and black plaid flannel shirt and ragged jeans. All that was missing was a skateboard or maybe a cigarette hanging from his mouth to complete the cliché of lost youth.

Then again, most youths didn’t have waves of psychic energy emanating from them to a geist whose presence Zeke felt in every corner of his soul. No matter how underwhelmed he was by his opponent, he had to act before that geist was pointed at Kendall.

“Damn, dude. Do you really think I don’t know you’re there?” James Denton opened his eyes before Zeke could close the distance between them. Shock ricocheted through him when the kid’s black-as-hell eyes locked onto his, and a sudden, sick sensation of enervation slammed into him. His vision wavered, and as a knee hit the ground it dawned on him in a dull sort of way that his opponent was doing to him what he had done to that poor, twisted geist.

His soul was being sucked out.

Through the wavering reality around him, Zeke watched the young man close in, a small trickle of blood coming from his nose. Absently he wiped at the blood with his grungy sleeve and leaned over Zeke, just as Kendall’s scream pierced through the fog.

“I win,” the puppet master said, smiling.

Chapter Eleven

She should have remembered the superhuman movements of her attacker at the hospital, Kendall thought in a rush as Abigail Denton once again swung her knife, missing her by inches. With the stairway leading to the lighthouse blocked, she spun and ran as fast as she could back up toward the parking lot, speeding up dozens and dozens of stairs in the fastest climb she had ever done in her life. The fog had lifted enough for her to see the top of the stairs, but it was so far away, it looked like it was miles above—

A sharp pain in her calf dropped Kendall like a stone. She belly-flopped onto the stairs, striking her ribs and chin into the risers, but the pain of it didn’t register as she threw a terrified glance over her shoulder.

With her breathing a wet, tortured sound and her sweat-dampened face twisted with dark glee, Abigail Denton stood above her, knife raised for the finishing blow.

Without a thought, Kendall rolled off the steps under the lowest guardrail and onto the rocky bluff. With the stairway built on the crest of the rocky finger of land, the ground sloped sharply downward toward the cliffs, and in a panic she had to jam her heels into the ground to stop from sliding any closer to the edge. Pain spread like wildfire from where the knife had sliced through her jeans and into her calf muscle, the warm gush of blood washing down her leg. Blood also dripped from her throbbing chin where she’d smacked it against the stairs, but there was no time to wipe it away as her assailant leaned over the railing.

“Uh-oh. Now you’re really in trouble.” The white veiling in Abigail Denton’s eyes shifted and swirled like smoke, while her breathing worsened and her complexion turned a muddy gray. “Carved up like a Christmas turkey by me, or a lethal dive off the cliffs. Either way, it looks like these are your last moments of...” The taunting voice squeaked on the last syllable, and the white veil thinned until it was nearly invisible. She blinked and looked down at the knife. “What...?”

“Mrs. Denton.” Scrambling to her feet, Kendall winced when her slashed leg screamed at her. “You’ve got to throw that knife away before you kill someone.”
Like me
.

She looked from the knife to Kendall, whose chin and neck were now awash with blood. She gasped, and the knife tumbled from her arthritic fingers to the rocky ground on which Kendall stood. “I don’t...understand...” She grabbed at her chest a moment before her head jerked to the side in an all-too familiar gesture, and with a curse Kendall plucked up the knife and tossed it out to sea. This was seriously not going to plan.

Damn it, Zeke, get to James Denton already.

“Wow, almost lost it there.” The white veil was back, stronger than ever, and her expression sharpened with cruel pleasure. “You know, I think I might be spreading myself too thin. Sucking out your boyfriend’s soul while still trying to keep my puppet in this disintegrating old body is putting a much bigger strain on me than I thought it would. My mom never did take care of herself.”

The blood in Kendall’s veins iced over, and the world suddenly stilled. It wasn’t possible, what James had just said. It
couldn’t
be. “Zeke!”

“I’ve never done so much all at once before, and I gotta admit I’m feeling the strain. I didn’t expect you guys to try the old divide-and-conquer thing, so hat’s off to you. Too bad for you that I’m better than even I thought.” With a grace that Abigail Denton never could have pulled off, her body was made to vault over the handrail. A sharp snap like a twig breaking sounded when she landed, and her left side seemed to crumple. “Whoopsie. Guess Mom needs to take more calcium. Oh, well. Since I think she’s having a heart attack anyway, I doubt a busted ankle matters at this point.”

“You sick bastard. This ends
now
.” Anguish mingled with rage until it was all she knew, and with a scream borne from of the depths of desperation, Kendall launched herself at James Denton’s puppet.

* * *

Kendall
.

Somewhere, Kendall was screaming.

On one knee and with vision fading, Zeke focused on that shivery sound until it became his world. Kendall needed him. She was fighting that bloodthirsty geist all on her own, with its superhuman strength that would do more than just tear her apart. It would tear her from him. He’d just found her, this courageous, magnificent woman who accepted him without question and gave him a peace he had never known.

Kendall
.

She was his reason for being. She was both his secret fantasy and breathtaking reality. She was his only thought, his only need. For the first time in his life, he looked forward to the future, because she was going to be a part of it.

She was everything.

And oh God, he was losing her.

“No!” With the last of his strength, Zeke pushed to his feet. His moves were painfully sluggish, like he was moving through water. But he had to move. He had to get to the puppet master. He had to save Kendall. And not just to keep his city or himself off of heaven’s radar.

He had to, because that’s what he was born to do.

His ability to blur was nowhere to be found, but he could still move, and that was enough. Through the warping haze, he saw his attacker’s eyes widen before he took a step back.

“Damn, dude, how the hell are you—”

Zeke didn’t give him time to finish. His arm felt like it weighed a ton as he threw a fist. A satisfying spurt of blood geysered from Denton’s shattered nose as he sprawled like a ragdoll to the safety railing overlooking the Pacific, and suddenly Zeke’s vision cleared. The visual distortion vanished as his strength came back in a euphoric rush, and it was his turn to close the distance while James staggered.

“You...you
hit
me.” Leaning hard against the railing, he cupped a hand over his pulverized nose and blinked dazedly. “You asshole, you broke my nose!”

“I’m about to break a lot more. That’s what happens in a fight to the death, you idiot.” The words came out as bleak and desolate as Zeke felt, but there was no turning from the truth now. “When I first learned a human might be behind the geist attacks, I didn’t want to hear it. Because deep down I knew the only way to stop you would be to...” His jaw knotted on words that tore a hole right through the center of his soul. “Would be to end you, or die trying. You’ve already proven that no one—especially Kendall—will be safe as long as you’re alive. I can’t allow that.”

“I—” Whatever Denton was going to say vanished as something caught his attention at the other end of the lighthouse’s platform. A stabbing throb behind Zeke’s eyes was the only warning he had.

* * *

Abigail Denton’s eyes cleared a heartbeat before she fell, her eyes open and staring blankly up at the gray sky. Torn between horror and relief, Kendall realized Denton’s mother was no more, and the geist had vacated a now-lifeless shell to merge with the dissipating fog. Its apparent vanishing was fine with her...unless Denton was using it to attack Zeke.

“Oh, God.” Her heart lurched at the thought of Zeke being double-teamed, and it got her running as fast as she could toward the stairs. Vaulting up onto the Stairway to Heaven made her sliced calf spasm in protest but she ignored it as she sprinted down the remainder of the steps. Pain could wait until later—if there
was
a later. If the geist and its master were tearing Zeke apart, she couldn’t imagine what sort of future there could be, and not just because there would be no stopping that unholy duo if Zeke was defeated. She knew without being told that defeat equaled death in Zeke’s mind, and that was something she point-blank refused to face. Zeke couldn’t die. He
couldn’t
.

The fog was getting serious about lifting as she made it to the landing. Jagged gasps tore from her throat as sounds of a scuffle on the far side drew her past the tower’s white base. She got a fleeting glimpse of a dazed and bleeding James, a vision more satisfying than she could have imagined, and Zeke—strong and unharmed—standing over him with eyes glowing with a power that came not just from his lineage, but from the ferocious strength of a man hell-bent on doing what was right, no matter the cost.

All that, and a great lover to boot. No wonder she loved him.

Before she could do little more than collapse against the side of the lighthouse in relief, a nebulous cloud of what her brain told her was fog abruptly engulfed Denton.

Her throat closed on a gasp.
“What
—
”

James Denton’s thin face blanched with terror as his sneakered feet left terra firma, and in a move that defied gravity he was flung by an invisible hand out to sea. In a flash that blurred his movements around the edges, Zeke dived after him.

“Zeke!” Staggering to the railing, Kendall watched the two plunge downward, all the while expecting Zeke’s wings to unfurl and carry him to safety. Any minute now it would happen. Any
second
...

The massive splash as they hit the rock-strewn waters below tore a scream from her that she never heard, a devastated wail of horror and anguish and an awful, never-ending despair. Disbelief ripped through her like shrapnel as she stared at the spot where they had entered the water a hundred feet below. Waiting for him to appear.

Waiting in vain.

No
.
God, please, no.

This couldn’t be. Zeke couldn’t just...cease to be. She screamed his name again, in desperation. In denial. He was so strong, so good. He was too good to die.

This couldn’t possibly be.

She stood for what seemed like eons, until she no longer had the breath to scream, until she no longer had the strength to stand. Until there was no life left in her. How could there be? Zeke wasn’t coming back to her the way he was supposed to. Zeke was...was...

Gone.

Kendall shuddered and pulled her knees up to her chest, huddled on the ground without remembering how she got there. Gulls cried and wheeled overhead, the restless pulse of the surf pounded against the cliffs below, but otherwise there was silence. The world would always be silent now in her ears, because the one voice she wanted to hear was gone. Forever gone.

“Kendall.”

Her heart stilled. Which was odd, because she’d thought it had already died. With the last of her strength, she blinked eyes blinded with tears she didn’t know she was crying, and lifted her head.

Zeke.

Dripping wet, he hunkered down and pulled her onto his lap, the black curtain of his wings drawing close around them to form a protective bubble. “Damn, you’re one bloody mess. Can you hear me, sweetheart?”

“Zeke?” Afraid to believe her own eyes, she touched his adored face in tremulous wonder. Then slapped the crap out of it. “Don’t you
ever
scare me like that again, you
bastard
.” And she kissed him before she could pass out from sheer, unadulterated relief.

When at last he pulled back, they were both breathless and there was a red hand-shaped welt on his cheek. “You have every right to beat the crap out of me, Kendall. The last thing I wanted was for you to be injured.”

“It was the fear I’d lost you that killed me, you idiot.” A storm of love raged within her as she locked her arms around his neck. “What the hell were you thinking, diving after Denton like that?”

He rested his brow against hers. “I acted on instinct.”

“Instinct?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I knew I had to finish Denton in order to make the world a safer place. But when the geist threw him over the railing all I could think was that it wasn’t fair—Denton didn’t even have a fighting chance. I couldn’t stop myself from trying to save him.”

“Zeke—”

“I know, okay? I get it.” He pulled back far enough to give her a hard look that dared her to bitch at him. “Putting myself at risk while trying to save the guy who’s doing his best to kill me probably doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, but I never claimed anything in my crazy life makes sense, including me. This is just who I am.”

Her throat tightened until it was hard to breathe. Whether he knew it or not, he was exactly the kind of man she needed him to be. “Fair enough. Just promise me that next time I call your name you answer me double-quick, or I swear I’ll kill you myself. Got it?”

“Got it.” His arms wrapped around her as if he feared she’d slip away. “I’ll always be there when you call. Always.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“I mean it, Kendall.” He gave her hair a gentle tug so he could look into her eyes. “I’m talking long-term here, and I need to know if you can handle being with me. You know my lifestyle is...unconventional.”

“You’re a hero.” She shrugged, because it really was that simple. “Complete with super powers, a hidden fortress, a kinky mask I can’t get enough of, and every now and again, a crazy-powered nemesis no one but you can handle. Aren’t I a lucky girl?”

“I’m the lucky one.” He kissed her again, and it was a kiss filled with burgeoning promise. “You won’t have to worry about this latest nemesis, at least. Along with poor Abigail Denton, James didn’t survive his puppet’s attack, and I’ve already passed on all three souls. As of now, we’re free to get on with the rest of our lives.”

“Together.” Her arms tightened around him and she sent up a silent prayer of thanks that Zeke was, if only for the moment, safe. “The one question I have now is whether or not I can talk you into wearing the mask while I have my wicked way with you. What do you think my chances are?”

A laugh escaped him as he stood with her in his arms, his wings spreading out wide behind him. “Pretty damn good,” he promised, and they shot off into the air.

* * * * *