Natural Born Angel (12 page)

Maddy gasped: silver threads seemed to come alive and move throughout the wings. They also had a slight purplish glow. She turned around and craned her head to look at her back and see the entire span of wings. Beneath the shredded holes in her sweatshirt, she could see the faint glow from the base of her wings, where her Immortal Marks normally were. She turned back to face the mirror.

She reached and touched her own wing. The feathers were sharp, insistent. They were hot to the touch, alive, electric.

She had wings.

Maddy looked down at the floor – there were only the slightest few drops of blood, nothing near the terrible mess she had dreamt of. Her wings had already apparently cleaned themselves off, just as she had seen Jacks’s do in the rainstorm following her save. They gleamed.

Cautiously poking her head out into the hall, Maddy made sure that Uncle Kevin had, in fact, disappeared downstairs. She crept down the hall to her bedroom and quickly closed the door. She had some thinking to do – it wasn’t every day you grew wings, after all.

Maddy picked up her phone and saw that she had a missed call from Jacks. She paused, looking at the name JACKS on her call log. What was she going to say: “Hey, I just got some wings. Want to go get pizza?”

She set the phone to silent and placed it back on her desk.

A light, warm wind gusted through Maddy’s open window, sending a few papers tumbling end over end in her room. She noticed that she could slightly feel the breeze on the feathers of her wings. She walked to the window to close it, but paused as she looked out at the hills beyond. They had sunk into twilight, the Angel City sign blazing like a beacon. The soft wind blew again. She closed her eyes, feeling its warmth against her cheek.

Maddy opened her eyes and stepped closer to the window. Then, as if automatically, her right foot stepped on to the window sill. Then her left foot. She looked down, feeling as if she were in a dream.

Everything in her body told her:
do it
.

Maddy leapt from the window.

The sick feeling of gravity smashing her stomach up into her throat, like the sheer drop of a rollercoaster, hit her. White-hot adrenaline tore through her body as the ground below rushed towards her. A scream began to grow from within her. Then, suddenly, almost as if under their own power, she felt the wings behind her flap once, then set. Just as she was about to hit the ground, she levelled off, careening past the oak in the back garden, sending early leaves scattering. Then, with a taut strength powering through her wings, she flapped awkwardly above the diner and was flying off through the Angel City night.

The warm night air whipped her hair and clothes as Maddy tried to use her wings to move towards the Angel City sign just up the hill. She gained more and more elevation as she tested her wings, which seemed to respond to her, even though they felt like something that wasn’t really part of her. Her flying was stilted, awkward, not like the graceful flight she’d experienced with Jackson.

Higher and higher she climbed, passing the Angel City sign, until she at last turned to look back on the Immortal City. It was a vast grid below her, millions of lights, each one representing a person, a dream. She could clearly see Angel Boulevard down below her, a glittering neon slash burning in the night.

A shout of sheer delight escaped Maddy’s lips. She couldn’t help it, even if it was awkward.

She was flying.

Thrusting her wings, Maddy rose even higher, and then dived, banking down the hill. She buzzed over the tops of the tall palms, experimenting with letting her hands tuck beside her, flowing with the airstream. The exhilaration of it completely overwhelmed her. This wasn’t like when she had gone flying with Jacks. This was totally different. She felt
powerful.
She felt a surge of energy that she had never felt before. Something in her
turning on.
An
awakening
. A feeling that this was who she was. This is where she had always belonged. This really was the
new
Maddy.

She closed her eyes, and slowly twisting in the dark air, she let the freedom course through her entire body, her entire being. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced – she was untethered from the earth. She opened her eyes and looked out again at the twinkling lights of the Immortal City. Everything seemed so insignificant from up here. Everything in perspective.

Pumping her wings hard, she shot further up. She attempted to spin right, hard, and her wing froze for a moment. Maddy panicked as she began plummeting towards the ground hundreds of metres below. Her wings flapped back and forth, almost uselessly. It only took a few moments for them to correct themselves, however, and she was flying along again, trying to maintain a straight course. She definitely had some learning to do.

Trying to gain some speed, Maddy turned right again to follow the Angel City freeway as it threaded its way up the hilly Cahuenga Pass. The cars seemed miniature from this high up, mere toys. As she neared the top of the hills towards the canyons, she clumsily banked left, towards Jackson’s house. Mansions sped by underneath her, islands of light in the narrow dark canyons below. She thought she recognized the Godspeed residence as she weaved her way forward, towards Jackson’s own house in the canyon.

Soon Maddy was breathing hard, the muscles in her back beginning to ache with exertion. They grew tenser and tenser. Maddy didn’t want to turn back – the entirety of the city stretched out below her, and she could even see the dark sea beyond Venice Beach and Santa Monica, almost beckoning her. But she knew that she wouldn’t be able to last much longer flying, and she needed to get back to her house. She’d have to show Jacks another time; she wouldn’t be able to surprise him the way she’d hoped.

Sighing, Maddy looped widely left and turned back towards her house. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do more than continue flying in the welcoming, balmy night – except maybe fly side by side with Jacks – but she knew she’d need to get her wings in shape for longer flights, and also learn some technique. Peering into the distance, she could see the neon sign for Kevin’s Diner and set her course for it – obviously no street signs could guide her way, so she had to position herself by landmarks.

Reaching closer to home, Maddy dropped further down, towards the tops of the trees and houses. If she could help it, she didn’t want to be spotted as she came in and landed at her uncle’s. She hadn’t seen any camera flashes or heard any shouts when she left, so she was hopeful she hadn’t been seen leaving, either.

It was about then that she realized she didn’t know how to land.

Almost faster than you could keep up with, Maddy whipped over the diner and dropped down into the back garden. She dropped more quickly than she wanted, and she fell through the oak. Leaves ripped and a few branches snapped as she popped out of the bottom of the tree and landed with a thud on the grassy yard, her butt smacking the grass. It slightly knocked the wind out of her: she’d have to practise that one.

Still out of breath, but smiling in the afterglow of her first flight, Maddy stood up and dusted the leaves and grass off her behind. She began to walk into the back door of the house, but, looking up, she saw her window was still open.

Why not?

Maddy smiled to herself, and with a jump up and two inelegant pumps of her wings, she clattered in through the window. She landed just inside the sill with a
whoosh
as papers scattered, magazines flapping open with the gust of air. She landed slightly on her toes, and she leaned over with one hand to steady herself as she came to a rest before falling over and knocking her desk down with her.

Maddy’s chest heaved. Still doubled over, she couldn’t help stealing a quick peek at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of her door. The back of her hoodie was shredded – she was going to have to invest in a lot of new clothes. But that’s not what Maddy noticed.

She was glowing. She looked sexy. She liked it.

M
addy was pretty sure she’d remember the next day for the rest of her life.

That’s when it really all changed.

She woke up early, earlier than usual – more like when she used to get up for shifts at the diner. Bleary-eyed, yawning, she heard a consistent low buzz of voices. Puzzled, Maddy padded her way to the front of the house on the first floor and sneaked a peek out of the window.

“Maddy!!!” Uncle Kevin yelled from downstairs.

“Uh-oh.” She suddenly remembered she now had wings.

Somebody must have got a picture.

If she had thought the paparazzi were bad before. . . It was as though Uncle Kevin’s house had come under siege overnight. She was pretty sure even the helicopters she heard were shooting overhead footage for the breathless, non-stop coverage of
Maddy
,
the girl who had become an Angel
. A chopper roared past, rattling the plates downstairs.

Maddy’s hands automatically moved to her back, but the wings were withdrawn. She knew if she looked in the mirror, she’d just see her Immortal Marks, shimmering, waiting.

“Uncle Kevin . . . something happened last night,” she loudly started explaining as she went downstairs.

*

The day was a whirlwind. Footage had cropped up on SaveTube that claimed to show Maddy flying across Angel City around the same time she’d had her picture taken the night before: hand-held, fuzzy video of an Angel with oblong wings and a grey hoodie, flying across the glowing letters of the Angel City sign. The clip already had more than eleven million hits.

The video of Maddy’s wings had raced across the Internet within seconds, and every Angel fan was cooing over their unique shape and delicate, darker colouring. On Angel Boulevard, a Maddy impersonator had already created fake wings that looked like hers and was taking pictures with tourists on the Walk of Angels.

Maddy didn’t even want to look at her iPhone, which she had kept on silent – it was a minefield of missed calls and texts.

She hadn’t told Jacks before bed last night, and now she regretted it. There was just something that felt almost like gloating now that she had her wings, and Jacks couldn’t even fly. But she saw that Jackson had already sent her a message:

“Mads! You were flying! You looked great. Call me when you’re up!”

Maddy’s brow creased in thought – he wasn’t mad that she hadn’t told him before it broke on the blogs and on TV? Did he not feel like she had kept something from him? Thinking about it made Maddy’s head hurt. She told herself she’d deal with it later, when she had some time to think.

Gwen had also texted from university: “
Girl, you are like SO BIG right now!
”

By far the biggest number of calls and texts had come from Darcy, who was ecstatic that her client had finally got her wings.
“We’re going to get DOUBLE for every appearance now, do you know that???
” one of Darcy’s jubilant texts had stated. No matter that Maddy hadn’t even done any “appearances” at all yet.

Darcy’s most recent text surprisingly didn’t even make Maddy too anxious:
“Everything’s lined up for magazine. It starts at ten, don’t be too late. TEXT ME TO CONFIRM!
”

After what had seemed like days and days of negotiations between her and Darcy last month, Maddy had agreed to do a bit of publicity. She knew she was going to have to start making concessions to the Angel way of life soon if she was going to become a Guardian. So she agreed to do a photo shoot with
Seventeen
right after she got her wings. And apparently Darcy had taken that literally to mean
right after
. Maddy had to smile – Darcy was on top of her stuff.

On her way out to the shoot, Maddy remembered to text Jacks: “
It was so great. Can’t wait to tell you about it in person. Now I’m a slave to Darcy. Hopefully she won’t make it too painful!
J”

After somehow making it through the roiling mass of photographers and fans outside Kevin’s house, Maddy drove to the address in West Angel City where Darcy told her the studio was. Her route took her past Angel Boulevard, and with a shock, she realized the gigantic four-storey screen was playing the shaky SaveTube footage of her flying the night before, with the crawl underneath: “
OVERNIGHT ANGEL SENSATION MADDY MONTGOMERY GETS WINGS
!” She slunk slightly down in her car, hoping she could just get all the way to La Brea without being recognized and mobbed.

The photo shoot didn’t seem so bad. In fact, Maddy was more than a little surprised to realize she was enjoying herself. Suddenly she couldn’t quite remember what she had been so opposed to in the first place. She even helped pick out one of the outfits. The energy of the cameras, of the people primping and fussing – it had the same feel as flying had the night before: exhilaration. And extending her wings didn’t hurt as much this time.

She was allowed to keep her photo-shoot clothes, and on her way out she couldn’t help noticing the paparazzi. Impulsively, she paused just long enough for them to get their shots of the amazing skirt and top.

All the attention today, the focus on her at the photo-shoot, her future as a potential Guardian: after years of being the wallflower at ACHS, Maddy had to admit it was kind of nice to be treated like the belle of the ball for once.

If she was choosing this path, why not enjoy it a little?

Early light clouds had cleared and it had turned into a classic Angel City day by the time she left the shoot and drove east along Melrose – crystal blue skies, a warm wind rustling the fronds of the swaying palms lining the street as the sun bore down on the beautiful Angels, Protections, and those who wanted to
be
them. The guard at the entrance to the Guardian training campus just grinned when Maddy pulled up.

“Congratulations,” he said, lifting the gate to let her in.

“Thanks,” Maddy said, smiling back. Was there anyone in Angel City who didn’t know about her wings by this point?

Sadie was waiting for her in the car park with her trademark golf cart.

“Mr Kreuz would like to see you,” she said in a sugary voice.

Inside Kreuz’s office, his second assistant leaned over her desk, listening to a phone call on her headset as she took notes. She lifted her finger up, signifying it would be just a moment. Maddy could hear Kreuz’s voice rise and yell every once in a while from the other room. He kept Maddy waiting for only a few minutes, during which time no less than ten “Maddy Montgomery” blog alerts went off on her phone, and Darcy emailed her to let her know how fantastically she’d done at the
Seventeen
shoot.

Maddy could tell from the relative silence in the other office that Louis had finished his phone call, and a minute later Sadie showed her into the training boss’s office. He sat in his chair over his desk, splitting concentration between his laptop and a stack of papers. He wore a pinstriped suit and shiny brown Italian leather loafers. His cigar chugged out massive plumes of smoke, like an old-time smokestack.

He didn’t look up as Maddy came in.

Maddy started to speak, but her tongue caught in the back of her throat. She just stood there, planted a metre inside the now-closed door, wondering how awkward Kreuz was going to let things get. She studied the photos on the walls, the details of the oak panelling, the plushness of the thick carpet. After a minute or so, Kreuz finished signing a document and finally spoke, still without looking up. His voice came like a clap of thunder: “
Wings
, huh?”

Maddy, who had thought she’d be ready, found herself tongue-tied.

“Yes, I, uh— ”

“Think you’re special?” He looked up narrowly at Maddy, his meaty hand using his lit cigar to point at her. “Every Angel has wings, you know that.”

He looked back down, shuffling through another paper and puffing on his cigar. After a moment, he peered up at Maddy again, who stood stock-still.

“You know the worst thing an Angel can do?” He arched an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Maddy admitted.

“Believe her own press,” Kreuz stated.

He leaned back in his chair and spun slightly so that he could see out of the window and look at the manicured grounds of the Angel training facilities.

“My job is to make sure that my nominees go out there, get Commissioned, and are the best Guardians they can possibly be. I come from the golden age of Guardians. Things were different. There was no question what an Angel stood for in this town. Nowadays the scandals and the public appearances and events and the rehabs and the reality shows, and Angels make millions and millions outside of Guardianship in endorsements, products and anything else we can dip our wings into. But for me, it’s about the saves. No matter what.”

He turned away from the window to face Maddy.

“Do you think you’re any different, kid?” he asked.

“No, Mr Kreuz.”

His dark eyes scrutinized her. She felt like a bug on a pin.

“You’ve got friends in high places. They’re trying to push you through. I’ve seen some of your scores. You’re doing fine in Aerodynamics, Frequencing, doing OK in Theoretical Protections. But you’re
weak
in other areas.” He pointed his menacing cigar at her again. “You gonna try to tell me you ain’t weak in some spots?”

Maddy gulped, feeling the slightest bead of sweat on her forehead, her face flushing. “No.”

“Good,” he said. “I also wanted you to be aware that I’ve received some . . . information . . . that
distresses
me, to say the least.”

“Information?” Maddy asked. One name flashed through her mind:
Emily
. But what could Emily possibly have told Kreuz? Her mind raced a mile a minute.

“Yes. I’ll be looking into the situation personally. If I need you, you’ll hear from me.” Kreuz kept his gaze on her for a moment, then looked back down at the papers on his desk. “Now go and learn how to fly. I saw you in that video; you got a lot of work to do.”

Twenty minutes later, Maddy found herself staring into an enormous space the size of at least a few football fields inside building #7, one of the hangar-like structures built past the offices. The vast expanse in front of her looked like an obstacle course, except instead of just running along the ground, the obstacles were built on the walls and ceiling, too. Bright lights arced across the course, and an enormous air conditioner hummed, pumping chilly air into the building as the sun baked outside. She saw hoops arranged in jagged lines, vertical gaps between two blunt walls, a dramatic Angel-made valley full of jags and crannies, and even a strange plastic corkscrew-type length of Angel-sized tubing.

The whole thing would have been overwhelming even
without
Maddy being totally distracted by what Kreuz had told her about the mysterious “information”.

“Welcome to Proving Ground 1. My name is Professor Trueway. We’re beginning with basic agility work,” the instructor, who Maddy had heard was a former Angel Disciplinary Council Agent, said. Although he wasn’t wearing his futuristic bat-wing armour, the black jumpsuit the flight instructor wore reminded her of the ADC garb somehow. She shuddered to recall the ADC’s pursuit of her and Jacks through the skyscrapers downtown. The agents had been incredible fliers – almost as good as Jacks.

Maddy herself was wearing a flight-training uniform that was black with grey trim, and although it wasn’t really Spandex, it was close enough to make Maddy feel a little body conscious. The back had slits for wings to expand without damaging any of the fabric.

The instructor continued: “This goes against some theories, which say you should teach an Angel straight speed first. But after losing a couple Protections in the ’70s, we re-thought a lot of the curriculum, and agility now begins flight training.”

A door off to the side opened up, and Emily walked into the room, wearing her flight uniform. You could see every curve on her body as she stood next to Instructor Trueway. She was stone-faced.

“I trust you know each other?”

“Oh, Maddy and I go way back,” Emily said.

“Wonderful,” Trueway said, totally oblivious to the thick-as-tar hostility that hung in the air between the two girls.

The instructor held a small control in his hand. He typed in a code, and a strange whirring occurred on the course. “We’ll start you on the easiest level.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Maddy saw the slightest of sardonic smirks creep on to Emily’s mouth.

To Maddy’s astonishment, portions of the obstacle course began to flip like segments on a cube, rotating around so that an entirely new face was exposed in each section. There were far fewer hoops and obstacles on this level, and the jagged valley had been replaced by a calm, undulating hillock.

“Emily has been so kind as to demonstrate the proper technique for these courses.” He motioned to the Aussie Angel. “Emily?”

“No problem,” she said. Maddy’s hair blew back as Emily’s wings suddenly ripped out, spreading open. She looked at Maddy. “Should be quite easy.”

Emily leaned slightly forward, on the balls of her feet. Her wings were not fully spread, maybe sixty per cent. Maddy noticed immediately how much bigger than her own wings they were.