Devil Inside

From The Roaring Flames Of Hell.

 *AN - For those of you following the soundtrack to this book, it has to be Bring Me Back To Life by Evanessence for this one :) *

Kate remembered nothing about their encounter with the vampire. Her mother went into fuss overdrive, believing her daughter had fainted and convincing herself it had something to do with the head injury she’d sustained after their car accident. That seemed so long ago to Elsa now.

At any rate, Kate was immediately put under house arrest ‘for her own protection’ and Elsa was left without her friend for a few days. This meant no one to talk to and alhough she couldn't share many of her new worries with Kate, she did wish she could talk to her about Sebastian and his continued black mood and aversion to her company. The further he pushed her away, the more she found she wanted to know about him. She’d almost forgotten that she fancied him at all; he had become a research project of sorts.

Her other research project was herself. After watching Lucca climbing across the ceiling and realising the possibilities of her own strength when she’d fought with the vampire that had tried to attack Kate, Elsa had spent a lot of time talking to Hesper about exactly what she was and was not capable of. It turned out the ‘was not’ list was pretty damn short.

Today she was trying to take her mind off the fact that it was her dads birthday, a painful reminder that everyone she loved was continuing to age without her and that her friends and family would eventually be gone, leaving her alone and eternally seventeen. Elsa had discovered some empty industrial buildings just outside of town, nice and remote with no one around. In the spirit of research, she decided this would be the perfect place to explore some of her new talents. She had made her way to the highest pint of the building she could find, deftly climbing the outside of the building. Spiderman has nothing on me.

Elsa stood on the edge of the roof on the tips of her toes. Her balance was perfect and she felt totally confident. She leaned forward as far as she could without falling and smiled to herself, marveling at how easy it was, secure in the knowledge that even if she did fall, she would be fine. Broken bones would heal and she would feel very little pain. A fall from this height couldn't kill her. Hesper had told her there were only two kown ways to kill a vampire. You must remove either the heart or the head completely from the body ... Elsa could see why her dad hadn't wanted to talk to her about it. It was exhilarating leaning into the empty air, knowing she couldn't really be hurt didn't stop it being exciting, but still the idea of even a little bit of pain in the event of a fall made her ensure she kept her balance. She knew though, that if she was careful, she should simply be able to jump from this height and land perfectly on the ground below as if she had just hopped off a step. She lifted one foot off the roof and spread her arms then, because she couldn't resist trying it at least once, she jumped.

There was a whooshing noise and a body slammed into her from nowhere, strong arms grabbed her tightly and all of a sudden she was being unceremoniously dumped inside the building on a dusty floor.

“What the hell were you doing? Trying to kill yourself?” her would be saviour was stood over her, his face contorted in anger.

“Sebastian?”

He clenched his fists obviously furious but that was not what was holding Elsa's attention. It was the two huge, black feathered wings sprouting from his back, arching up above his head and reaching right down to the floor. There as a sheen of sweat on his skin, his features were more prominent somehow, more angular, and there were ridges on his back where the smoother contour of his spine should have been. But those wings, Elsa thought they were the most breathtaking thing she had ever seen.

“Are you an angel?” she asked breathlessly, he looked so beautiful standing in shadow with just a dim light shining through a grimy window to highlight the contours of his body and the glossy black feathers of his wings.