Immortal City (31 page)

“You should know from your history class at school about the Awakening, when Angels revealed themselves to us? And you know about the establishment of protection-for-pay and the NAS Archangels?”

“Yes, of course,” Maddy said, remembering Mr. Rankin’s tedious lecture.

Kevin had begun taking the remaining mugs out of the cupboard and setting them on the counter. Maddy wondered vaguely what he was doing. A draft blew through the house, causing the candles to flicker. As Maddy watched, Kevin removed the back of the cupboard and pulled out what looked like an old scrapbook. Maddy’s heart began to hammer relentlessly in her chest. She had never seen the book before. What was it doing hidden in the cupboard?

Kevin brought the book back to the table, sat, and set it in front of him.

“A little less than twenty years ago, a young Guardian, what they call a Born Immortal, had a radical idea. He believed the Angels had become corrupt, and the system had become corrupt along with them. He argued that Angels should return to performing miracles anonymously, and for free.”

Kevin opened the book. The binding cracked as the cover came up. He started leafing through the brittle pages. There were pictures of people Maddy had never seen before. Young, beautiful faces peering out at her from the pages. Jacks craned his head to see as well. Kevin stopped on a faded photo of a young Angel. Maddy didn’t recognize him, but she was immediately struck by him. He had kind eyes and a striking, statuesque figure.

“This is him?” Maddy asked, tapping the photo.

“Yes, this is him,” Kevin said. “This is Jacob Godright.” Kevin pointed to a handsome man in his twenties standing next to him. “And this is a young human activist named Teddy Linden.”

“The senator?” Jacks asked in disbelief. “He hates Angels.”

“Or hates what they have become. That was another place and another time. You see, Jacob Godright and his followers were convinced that Angels and humans could live together as equals, work together, and even have families together. To prove his point, he secretly married a beautiful, brilliant human girl he had fallen in love with.” Kevin’s voice wavered under the weight of the words. “That girl was my sister, Maddy. She was your mother. Montgomery is your mother’s maiden name. Your real name is Madison Godright.”

He paused.

“Your father was an Angel.”

It was a full ten seconds before Maddy could speak. Or move. Or even breathe. Her galloping heart threatened to tear through her chest. She heard her uncle’s words ringing in her head.

“That’s . . . impossible.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but the word broke through her paralyzing shock. She became aware of Jacks sitting like a sculpture next to her, his face a stony mask of disbelief.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to tell you until now,” Kevin said. “I can’t tell you how much I wish things were different. How much I miss my sister.”

“But I’m not an Angel,” Maddy managed to get out.

“No,” Kevin said, “you’re not. You are human, but you have Angel blood flowing in your veins. You are one of a kind, Maddy, unique in all the world.” He smiled and gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder. Then his face darkened. “Your birth, which was thought to be impossible, became the catalyst for everything. Your parents said you were a miracle, and a sign, but the NAS called you a bastard, a half blood, and”— he paused on the word—“an abomination.” Kevin’s eyes were apologetic, but his tone was cuttingly honest. “And so, a power struggle began within the Angels.”

“The Troubles,” Jacks said.

“That’s right,” Kevin said. “The Angel Civil War.”

“My father . . .” Jacks said. Maddy watched his knuckles go white as he gripped the armrests of his chair.

“Yes, your father, Isaiah Godspeed, was a rebel along with Jacob.”

“What?” Jacks glared at Kevin, his eyes narrowing into distrustful slits. “My father fought the rebellion. He was killed putting it down.”

“No, Jacks,” Kevin said calmly. “That’s what your stepfather, Mark, wants you to think. The truth is, your father wanted to reform the Angels too. He supported Jacob and his child.”

“Why wouldn’t Mark want me to know that?” Jacks asked.

“Because when Maddy was only a few weeks old, Jacob and Isaiah approached him for help. They were all classmates, and Mark—Isaiah’s cousin—was already a rising star, an ambitious political prodigy. The Jackson Godspeed of his day,” Kevin said, nodding toward Jacks. He turned the final page of the scrapbook. It was blank. Maddy looked at the yellowed, brittle page. Like a future cut unnecessarily short.

“Mark refused to support them and turned them away. With the ranks closed against them, Maddy was brought to me under cover of darkness. The next day, both Jacob and Isaiah were captured by the Council’s Disciplinary Agents, mortalized, and killed in cold blood. Regina, my sister, was also murdered. Kris Godspeed and her child, Jackson, were spared. In exchange for not helping the rebels, Mark was given his position as Archangel and quickly rose in the NAS.

“Jacks,” Kevin said, his tone suddenly gentler, “your mother didn’t know. And still doesn’t. She is innocent. In her grief, she gave in to Mark’s advances and they married.”

Kevin closed the scrapbook and put his hands on the dusty cover. Jacks had turned and stared unseeingly out the kitchen window. Kevin looked at Maddy.

“The Angels promised never again to interfere with your life so long as you lived it out normally, without any knowledge of your past or what you actually are. I agreed, and you’ve been with me ever since.”

The lump in her throat was back and throbbing as it rose. She had come to speak to Kevin in hopes of finally clearing up the foggy dream world of her past. Now she realized that dream was a nightmare, a nightmare he had been protecting her from. She wasn’t just an average, unremarkable girl. She was a perversion of man and Angel. A monster. No wonder she had always felt like a freak.

She literally was one.

Maddy could feel her eyes swelling, and she didn’t know if she would be able to stop the tears. Unsteadily, she got up from the table and walked through the living room to the window. The rain had finally stopped, replaced by fog that hung low over the wet street. Maddy watched a man out walking his dog in the mist.

Jacks sat unmoving in his chair. Now it was his turn to decide what to believe.

“And now they’re hunting me for saving her,” he said softly.

“They’re probably hunting you both,” Kevin said. “Now that you’ve saved Maddy, Jacks, both of you are a threat to the Archangels’ power, a reminder of other . . . ideas about how the Angels should be. Descendants of the rebels, acting rebelliously. Dangerous. They will never allow the two of you to be together. No matter what it takes. If they can, Council Disciplinary Agents will kill you both.”

Maddy heard the scrape of chairs on the linoleum as Jacks and Kevin got up.

“You’ll have to excuse me when I say I don’t like Angels,” Kevin said, and then he offered his hand. “But thank you for saving my niece’s life.” Jacks looked at Kevin’s hand for a moment and then took it. The two shook.

Maddy continued staring out the window in silence. She watched as Jacks’s reflection appeared behind her in the glass. She wondered if he would have some lame condolence. The Immortal Angel telling the freak of nature
I feel your pain
or something pathetic like that. At least she could stop wondering if he actually cared about her or not. Now, for sure, she knew he would want nothing to do with her.

Jacks stood beside her. Instead of saying anything, she felt his fingers trace up her palm and then lace into hers. He had taken her hand before, quickly and for functional reasons—usually to drag her off to someplace she didn’t want to go—but he had never
held
her hand. Not the way couples did in parks or lovers did in old movies. Maddy stood there and felt the heat of his grip. It made her think of that first night in the diner, when they had talked about pretend memories and she had felt so connected to him. But now they were further apart than ever, she had to remind herself. One an Angel and the other an
abomination
.

“We should get going,” he said finally. Maddy couldn’t believe he hadn’t said
I
should get going, but she was too numb to care. Or think.

“Who is that?” Jacks said. He was looking at the man with his dog.

“I don’t know,” Maddy said. “A neighbor, I guess.”

“How long has he been there?” His tone at once severe.

Suddenly the lights inside the house sprang to life. The refrigerator whirred back on, and the TV in the living room blinked to life.

“—Manhunt under way for Angel Jackson Godspeed . . .”
a reporter was announcing under a scrolling breaking news banner.

Outside, the neighborhoods of Angel City lit up one by one along the grid as power was restored. The man with the dog suddenly looked directly at Maddy standing in the open window and vanished. He disappeared in a literal blur and was gone, leaving the dog to look around inquisitively and sniff at its lifeless leash.

Maddy turned toward Jacks, breathless.

His face was twisted in sudden despair.

“How much time do we have?” she asked.

He grabbed her by the back of her hoodie and pulled her away from the window.

“It’s already too late.”

F
rom Maddy’s point of view, three things seemed to happen simultaneously. First, the house itself seemed to simply explode. The windows, which a moment before had been cold and still and covered in raindrops, suddenly disintegrated into a thousand glittering pieces. The front door disappeared, blown into razor-sharp splinters that knifed their way through the living room. In the kitchen, utensils, teacups, and plates were tossed into the air like lethal confetti.

Second, something collided violently with Jacks. Maddy saw it only out of the corner of her eye. It came through the window, moving so fast it was nothing more than a blur in her peripheral vision. A blur with
wings
. Jacks was propelled backward through the furniture and into the old TV, which gave a buzzing death cry as it shattered.

Third, as she turned to look back at Jacks, Maddy felt the fingers of an iron grip wrap around her throat. Another winged blur had come through the living room window, and this one had come for her.

She flew backward like a pinball, hitting the wall of school photos and sending most of the frames shattering to the floor. The impact was so violent she was momentarily disoriented.
Angel blood . . . perversion of nature . . . Council will kill you if they can
. The words mixed with a strange image of a dark figure with
glowing
eyes. She must be dreaming. She had to be imagining the phantom before her.

The need for oxygen brought Maddy suddenly, painfully back to the present. She was staring into an expressionless black mask with gleaming, computerized eyes. The Angel stood larger than Jacks by nearly a foot, was muscularly built, and wore some kind of futuristic black armor that covered his entire body. His wings were armored too and black, like bat wings. Whatever Maddy had imagined Angel Police would look like, it wasn’t this. The mask made the Angel look like a ghoulish robot.

Her mouth opened to scream, but the vise-like hand that was around her throat simply tightened and choked off the sound. She flailed. She clawed at the enormous arms and willed her feet to move, but the Angel’s grip constricted like a snake. Her knees buckling under her, Maddy felt her body surrender. The Angel lifted her by her neck and threw her against the far wall.

She heard the crack as her head smacked against the stone fireplace. A high-pitched ringing began in her left ear. She tried to roll over and scramble away, but the Angel was over her at once, pinning her to the ground. His speed and strength were spectacular. Overwhelming and absolute. She saw a heavy glass paperweight sitting on a stack of bills on the corner table, grabbed it, and swung it at the Angel’s head. He caught her arm midswing. She heard the crackle of a radio from somewhere within the mask. The voice was cold and indifferent.

“I have the girl. Prepare for extraction.”

It was already over.

Behind her, in the direction of the kitchen, Maddy heard a male scream. She recognized it at once. Kevin. She had never heard him scream before. The sound made her blood run cold. This was all her fault. She had led them to a trap.

Maddy looked into the masked Angel’s glowing, electronic eyes. His mouth was hidden, but Maddy had the strangest feeling that he was grinning at her.

In an instant, the glowing eyes looked up, as if in surprise.

Jacks’s hand whistled through the air, catching the Angel’s arm and bending it in an impossible angle. Jacks’s other fist blurred, his Divine Ring a flick of light in the dark room, landing a crushing blow into the black mask.

The look on Jackson’s face was something she had never seen before. His eyes flared, ferocious. They burned with a kind of fire. Maddy could only think of one word to describe it:
wrath
. His mouth opened to release an inhuman roar. Wings burst from behind him, broad and menacing. Maddy’s mind flickered back to what Jacks had told her at the outlook:
a Battle Angel’s wings
.