Battle Angel (4 page)

He turned back to Jackson.

“For the mortals, there is a cycle of birth and death,” said Gabriel. “This, sadly, may be their death. And their fate. According to some readings of the Book of Angels, this is exactly what is supposed to happen. Everything has its place, Jackson.”

“I understand,” Jacks said, his eyes fixed on Gabriel.

“Thank you, my son. This is a difficult time for all of us,” Gabriel said. “No Angel wanted this; we have always wanted to protect humanity, and it won’t be easy for any of us. I know it will perhaps be even more difficult for you than many. But I’m glad you understand.”

The elder True Immortal now gave Jacks a bittersweet smile, but his eyes were dancing with light, still young in their Immortal age.

• • •

On their way out of the solarium, Jacks and Mark ran into Louis Kreuz, the brash and outspoken head of Guardian training. Kreuz wasn’t wearing his normal full suit, but he did have on his broad pinstripe trousers and trademark suspenders strapped over his French-cuffed Brooks Brothers shirt.

“Godspeeds,” he said, nodding, lighting a match for the Cuban cigar pressed between his lips. Surprisingly, Gabriel didn’t mind his smoking in the solarium. “Haven’t seen
you
in a bit, Jackson.” His eyes seemed to study Jackson’s face a little more closely than usual. “Been in to see the Big Cheese?” he said, nodding toward the Council chambers.

“Hi, Louis,” Jacks said. He liked Kreuz—quite a bit, actually. Louis had supported him strongly throughout all his training. “Good to see you,” he said awkwardly, still lost in thought after his meeting with Gabriel. “Sorry to be so short, but we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

Kreuz shot Jacks a strange glance as he and Mark walked away, then took a puff from his finally lit cigar and shook the match in his big fingers until the flame went out.

Jackson and Mark continued down the long sanctuary halls, dozens of Angels nodding at them as they walked along. The two Godspeeds together—Jacks still in his Battle Angel armor, Mark in his tailored suit—made an impressive duo.

“Jackson, I’m very proud of how you’ve been handling yourself through all this,” Mark said. “You’ve shown yourself to be a true Angel and patriot for the Immortals.”

They walked a few steps before Jackson responded.

“I’ve seen what can come of having . . . other loyalties,” Jacks said.

“Believe me, we’ve had many long debates about whether there are circumstances under which we could help the humans,” Mark said. “And it just isn’t possible.”

“Like I told Gabriel, Mark, I understand,” he said.

“Good,” Mark said as they entered an atrium. “And I’m sorry that he mentioned . . . Madison in there, Jacks. It’s no secret among the Council that you two were quite serious. Gabriel pressed me hard, and I was honest with him about your feelings. As you know, it’s always best to be absolutely honest with Gabriel and the Council.”

“There’s nothing to be said about it, Mark,” Jackson said, cool and crisp. “I just want to carry out our duty.”

“Good,” Mark said. He clapped a hand on Jacks’s shoulder. “Your mother has been wondering about you. Will you come say hello? Just for a second?”

• • •

The Godspeed quarters were large and suitably appointed for Angels of their standing, with Chloe having a whole section to herself since Jacks had his own place. Chloe was shopping with friends somewhere in the sanctuary when Jacks and Mark arrived, but Jackson’s mother, Kris, was there to greet them. Mark drifted off into the master bedroom, leaving mother and son alone in the room.

“Jackson,” she said. She came up and gave him a hug, then stepped back to look at him in his armor. “Look at you. Wow. How does it feel . . . ? The armor, I mean.”

His mother’s voice sounded as if it was coming from a thousand miles away. Jackson’s mind was elsewhere. Outside in the sun. Standing on a pier.

“Jacks, are you okay?” Kris asked.

He turned away from her. “Of course. Nothing’s wrong, Mom,” Jackson said, trying to hide the pain in his voice. “It’s wonderful to see you.”

But his mother knew her son too well, and she placed a consoling hand on his armored shoulder.

“Is it her?” Kris asked. “Up there, left to whatever the Dark Ones will do?” Jacks kept silent. He was tired of everyone prying into his personal life. Everyone seemed to have an opinion.

“You know, I lost your father, Jacks,” she went on. “You can talk to me if you want to. I’m here.”

“I know,” Jacks said, nodding. “Of course I know.” The thoughts, first of Maddy and then of his father, practically gutted him. But still, he wanted—he needed—to be strong.

Kris didn’t press him, but her eyes reflected a silent compassion back to Jackson. Part of him wanted to open up to her, but that part was overruled by the part that was so hurt that it didn’t want to let anything—or anyone—in.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I know I must seem a little . . . off. It’s just that I haven’t been getting very much sleep lately,” Jacks said. “I really should go back to my rooms. I have some stuff to do for Gabriel.”

“Jacks,” Kris said, stopping him, slightly lowering her voice. “What’s happening—up there—there is no way to feel good about it.”

“It doesn’t have to feel good,” Jacks said, anger bleeding in. “It just has to be right.”

“But . . .” Here Kris paused, measuring her words. “How can you be sure of what is ‘right’? Is what you’re saying because you’re sure that what we’re doing really is right? Or are you saying it because of some anger you’re holding on to?”

Jacks looked at her with an arched eyebrow. “What are you saying? Are you telling me you’re pro-human or something?” He almost said “pro-
her
” but caught himself.

Kris’s face quivered slightly upon hearing Jacks’s words. “This isn’t about being pro-Angel or pro-human, Jacks. What I’m trying to ask you isn’t about politics. It’s about you and your feelings,” she said. Jacks and Kris both knew she didn’t have to add “about Maddy” for him to understand what she meant. Kris continued, “Things will be changing drastically in the next few days, and I just want to say, don’t forget who you are. What kind of Guardian you are.”

Something inside Jacks cracked open, just slightly. A crack in his facade, which irritated him. “I don’t know what I think, Mom,” Jacks spat out. “And sometimes I wish people would just stop asking me. Because I don’t have an answer.”

“It’s okay, honey,” Kris said softly. “There are no easy answers here. No matter what Gabriel, or even your stepfather, might say. It’s not so cut-and-dried.”

Jacks let his mother’s words touch him for a moment before suddenly making himself distant. Again, he remembered
her
at the pier, with the pilot. Her words, and how they knocked the wind out of him.

“I have to go now, Mom. I’ll talk to you later.”

• • •

“Jackson
God
speed!”

Taking a breath, Jacks stopped in the hallway on the way to his place. The Australian accent and layers of calculated, playful seduction in those two words meant it could only be one person.

“Are you really going to just walk by without saying hello?”

He slowly turned around to see Emily Brightchurch’s famous red locks and beautiful face poking out from the partially opened door. The rest of her body was hidden inside her quarters.

“Come here!” she demanded.

“Now’s not really a good time, Emily,” he said. But she had already disappeared inside, leaving the door slightly cracked.

Her voice was muffled, but he could still hear her. “Jacks, don’t be silly. Just give me a second to get ready.”

Ever since she was a teenaged Immortal arriving in Angel City from Australia, Jackson knew that Emily Brightchurch had had her sights set on him. She had been a Vivian Holycross wannabe for a couple of years, mirroring the older, fashionable, and ultrafabulous Angel’s every move when she was with Jacks. When they broke up and Jacks got together with Maddy, she told all her friends that there was only one half-human, half-Angel standing in her way. From her provocative billboard-sized ads on the Halo Strip to her semiscandalous everyday wardrobe choices, Emily played up every aspect of her sexpot personality.

And now that she and Jacks were alone in the close quarters of the sanctuary, there was no way she was letting him get away.

The door swung almost fully open, and Jacks could now hear the television chattering away from inside.

“All right, then, what are you waiting for?” Emily said.

Jacks came to the door, sighing. Emily was wearing just a towel.

“You know, they have robes, Emily,” said Jacks.

“Do they?” she said innocently, showing way too much leg for her own good. The Aussie Angel seemed suspiciously not wet for having just stepped out of the shower. Was her idea of “getting ready” for Jacks taking her clothes off and just putting on a towel?

“I really should be . . .” Jacks couldn’t finish his sentence.

Emily yanked him, unwillingly, into the room, and before he knew it, the door was closed behind him.

She eyed him up and down, a devilish grin on her face, faking modesty by wrapping her towel a bit more tightly around her chest.

“You went outside, didn’t you?” she asked.

“What?” Jackson said, taken aback.

“You don’t have to pretend with
me
, Jacks. I won’t tell anyone. I knew you were gone. I saw Mitch looking for you. Not too many places to hide down here.”

Emily looked toward the glimmering frosted glass in her room, which had been designed to look like a window onto a sunshine-filled day outside, and not like what it essentially was—a decoration in an underground bunker.

“Do you ever think about how funny it is that we Angels go
down
for sanctuary?” she said. “Shouldn’t we be going
up
?” She apparently got a laugh out of this, but Jacks was not in the mood for comedy.

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Jacks said quietly.

“But, I guess, where would we go otherwise? Home?” she said. “Do you believe what they say about Home?”

“You mean that it’s where the Angels came from? And someday we’ll go back again? Supposedly, at least.” The lore said that Gabriel had been the one to lead the Angels from Home to help humanity and that one day he would lead them back. It was his destiny.

Emily eyed Jackson as if he’d said something strange.

“I wouldn’t even want to go there. Home,” she said. “It would be boring. A lot more fun things to do down here.”

Trying to ignore the implications behind her sexy stare, Jacks turned to leave. But before he could get the door open, Emily’s voice stopped him again.

“What’s it like?” she said. “Outside, I mean. What’s going on out there? Have they started yet?”

For someone who had just recently cowered in his arms in fright at the sight of a demon flying by, Emily seemed to have recovered pretty well, Jacks thought. He remained quiet.

“Come
on
, Jacks,” she said. “I know you were up top. I’m not going to tell anyone. I just want to know if it’s started yet.” What looked like a flash of excitement flitted across her eyes.

“No,” he said. “It hasn’t.”

“Take me with you next time?” she said eagerly. “We can totally outfly the demons. I know it. You and me.”

“There’s not going to be a next time,” Jacks said, a pall casting over his face. The finality of what had happened between him and Maddy was starting to slowly sink in. Not just the initial shock of it, but the true reality.

“Jacks, are you okay? What’s the matter?” Emily said.

“Nothing,” Jacks said, but his face had grown ashen, his lips thin and colorless.

Emily pursed her lips, as if she was able to see something else on his face. “Have you been to see . . .
her
?” Emily couldn’t bring herself to say Maddy’s name. “You just need to forget about her, Jacks. And think about your future. What’s available to you right here, right now.”

But Jackson’s attention had turned inward, and even though Emily crossed her towel-clad legs an extra time in a desperate attempt to try to bring him back, it was clear that it wasn’t enough.

“I’ve got to go,” Jackson said broodingly, and turned away before she could do or say anything else.

“I’ll see you later, right?” Emily asked.

She received no answer. Jackson had already left.

U
pstairs in her room, Maddy felt a strange impulse to take an old shoe box out from under the bed. She pulled off the tape from the lid, lifted it, and spread the box’s contents out on the bed. Fanned across the comforter were ancient diaries, from way back in middle school, their covers marked with all kinds of stickers and cheerful marker graffiti.

Maddy smiled wistfully as she flipped through the pages, wrapped up in wonder at all the things that had seemed so important at the time: what boy Gwen was into at the moment, how embarrassed Maddy had felt when she tripped during an assembly, what they served and where she sat at lunch, whether she’d die before she ever kissed a boy. (
Really
kissed a boy, not just a peck like she’d done during the spin the bottle game in James Durgan’s basement that one time.)

Looking at her diaries, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—or both. When she’d had enough, she carefully put them back in the old box and slipped it under the bed, then sank down to sit on the floor with her back against the mattress edge.

Maddy started to shiver as she thought of the Darkness growing across the ocean, sprawling in the distance as it grew out of the sinkhole. The demons would cut down Tom and his fellow pilots without blinking. She could almost see the jets dissolving into blazing wreckage as the demons knocked them aside and advanced on humanity.

With a shudder, Maddy chased the bloody images from her mind. She couldn’t think that way. She couldn’t stand even another hour thinking that way, even if it might be true. She needed some kind of hope.

Spurred by this restless energy, Maddy knew she couldn’t just sit in her uncle’s house, waiting. For what, she could not say.

Nonaction is complicity
. Maddy forced herself to go outside, to do something. To get out of her own mind and feelings.
Anything
would be more productive than wallowing. On her way out the door, Kevin insisted on coming with her.

• • •

Aside from the occasional emergency siren, Angel City was eerily silent. Kevin and Maddy decided to check on the neighbors. Some had managed to evacuate via the chaotic freeways before the mandatory curfew was put into place, but others were left with no other choice but to hole up in their houses with as much food and water as possible, and hope for the best. Not everyone believed the demon sinkhole actually posed a threat, and some stubborn folks simply didn’t want to leave their homes behind, but for the most part, and for most people, there was just no way out.

A hush of expectation hung over the city. The atmosphere was strangely calm, almost like a holiday, Maddy thought to herself. Except on a holiday, tactical fighter jets didn’t scream in the sky on their hourly demon patrols.

After talking to some of their remaining neighbors, Maddy and Kevin reached the house at the end of the block, where the old woman they’d known for years still lived. They knocked on the door.

It cracked open and an old lady with a head of white hair peered suspiciously out the small opening. Two small dogs yipped at her feet.

“Mrs. Dawkins?” Maddy said. “It’s Maddy. Maddy Montgomery, from down the street.”

“Who are you?” the woman said. “You’re not going to make me leave my home!”

“I’m not here to take you out of your house, Mrs. Dawkins. I’m Maddy. Remember? I used to help you pull weeds?”

The suspicious lines around the old woman’s face softened. Just a bit.

“They’ll have to pull my cold, dead body out of here before I leave my house and my babies behind!” The two lap dogs yipped even louder at this, as if agreeing with their batty owner. Behind Mrs. Dawkins, coming from the living room, Maddy could hear the TV news loudly blaring updates about the demon attack.

“Well, please, just stay inside. If anything should happen . . .” Kevin said, then stopped himself. “Well, it’s just best to stay inside. I’ll check on you later to make sure you’re okay.”

Mrs. Dawkins opened the door slightly more to look Kevin up and down. “Thank you,” she said, then closed the door. The barking dogs and the loud TV faded as Maddy and Kevin walked down the street.

“Let’s go back to the house,” Maddy said. “I want to see if I can get in touch with the authorities. They’re going to need me, Kevin. I just know it.”

“I had a feeling you’d say something like that. I’m going to be worried about you, kiddo,” Kevin said, squeezing her shoulder. Before they knew it, they were back at the house.

“I have no choice, Kevin,” Maddy said. “I need to do something.”

“I know. I know you do,” he said. “It’s just . . . it’s so hard to watch you go out, to step right into something I can’t even imagine. It’s selfish of me, I know. But I always want to protect you.”

Maddy felt strange as she and Kevin walked into the house. Her mind was racing, and she realized she hadn’t eaten anything all day. This was no good; she needed to stay sharp. She was going to force herself to at least drink some juice.

Each step she took toward the kitchen seemed so real, so clear, yet somehow distant, as if she were floating above, watching someone else do it.

“Kevin, is there any apple juice left?” Maddy asked. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, and the voice sounded far off. Her feet felt controlled by a puppeteer as she watched them stepping off the carpet and onto the scuffed linoleum of the old kitchen.

Kevin walked into the kitchen and passed in front of Maddy. Her eyes followed him slowly, and it almost seemed like there were blurry streams of light trailing him as he walked by.

He opened the fridge and looked inside. “We sure do have some apple juice. You want a big or little glass?”

“Little.”

Kevin pulled a cup down from the cupboard and began filling it as Maddy cast her eyes toward the window and looked to the city. She thought of her Protections, almost all of whom had probably been able to leave the city. The most fortunate ones always were able to get out and save themselves first. Either way, she couldn’t feel their frequencies anymore. The Global Angel Commission, the organization in charge of handling “the Angel question,” had banned Angel activities, and with the Angels now nowhere to be found, they knew no one was going to protect them now. Those who had the money to escape were taking no chances, fleeing however they could, whether by private jet, helicopter, or even hired boat. As usual, the people who couldn’t afford those luxuries were left behind to protect themselves against the unknown.

Maddy just stood there as Kevin put the juice away, her hands held tensely against her chest, when suddenly something struck her like a thunderbolt. Nausea spread from her stomach through her limbs. She was definitely not okay.

“Kevin, I don’t feel so good.”

He turned around, and, seeing her ghostly face, he put the glass of juice down on the counter.

“Maddy? Maddy!”

Maddy felt the ground disappear underneath her. She was falling, falling into nothingness. There was no bottom. There would be no end. At once, a maelstrom of fire and smoke exploded before her eyes. And there was blood. She couldn’t see it, but she knew she sensed the smell of blood. Out of the flames emerged two eyes, then almost what looked like limbs as she kept falling, each one on fire and boiling with dark smoke. A Dark One. The
thing
seemed to grin at her.

Maddy opened her mouth to scream, but as the fire consumed her, no sound escaped.

Suddenly she found herself back in the kitchen, staring at her uncle as he took her by the shoulders.

“Maddy!” Uncle Kevin shouted. “Are you okay?”

She was standing upright, safe there with Kevin. The Dark Angel, the fire, the smoke—all of it was gone. Then she realized what had happened. It had been a premonition. She shook like a leaf in a winter storm.

This had been her strongest premonition since the one of Jackson’s death, right before she saved him.

“Was it . . . did you have one of . . . those things?” Kevin never really knew how to talk about her powers.

Before she could answer, the ground suddenly began to quake violently. China rattled in the cupboards as Kevin steadied himself against the counter. The glass of juice smashed to the floor, shattering. Just as he was standing up straight again, Kevin had to grip the counter tighter to stay steady as an even larger tremor rolled across the Angel City basin. The quake rumbled louder than thunder.

Suddenly, an air raid siren began howling in the distance, rising above the din of all the car alarms set off by the quakes.

Maddy kept her balance throughout the event, just staring, almost blankly, out the kitchen window in shock. The absolutely terrifying vision she’d had was still frozen in her mind: an almost abstract, grisly scene of destruction.

But what was happening now wasn’t just a vision.

When she finally turned back to her uncle, her brownish-green eyes deepened into a gray sadness as she watched him struggle to keep upright against the force of another tremor shuddering the floor underneath their feet.

“It’s starting.”