Natural Born Angel (34 page)

M
addy’s car squeaked to a stop in the car park along the pier. She had made it quickly – the freeways were nearly empty. Residents were advised to stay inside until further notice. Fires had already started burning in the hills. Outside Maddy’s windshield, the aircraft carrier loomed heavy on the grim grey-red horizon, a juggernaut preparing for war. Yet at the moment it floated calmly on the glassy aquamarine water of the bay.

The palm trees drifted lazily along the shore, against a sky darkening from the west. They didn’t seem to pay heed to the fact that those just below were in the moment of saying goodbye to each other, perhaps for ever.

Stepping out of her car, Maddy put on her sunglasses and started walking quickly to the mass of sailors, pilots and families congregating along the dock. The unmistakable salty presence of the ocean invaded her nostrils as she made her way towards the pier, through the crowd of families trying to say goodbye. Stunned, teary-eyed farewells were happening all around her, as sailors were being ripped from their families and sent on what many experts were already calling a suicide mission against the demon horde arising in the Pacific. The coming of the prophecy. Heading directly towards Angel City.

Maddy’s head craned around the groups of people, trying to find Tom in the mass of people. With a panic, she realized some sailors were already starting to climb the long metal staircase to the deck of the aircraft carrier. They waved regretfully down at their loved ones as they reached the flight deck and stood along the rails. A small girl holding a teddy bear wept as she saw her father disappear on to the vessel of war.

Was Maddy too late? She moved faster and faster through the people, looking for Tom.

“Tom!” she cried out, scanning the crowd. What if he’d already had to board? She wouldn’t have a chance to see him. “Tom!”

Suddenly she was in his arms, their bodies against each other, arms wrapping, faces touching. “Maddy,” he said, embracing her.

She looked up at him, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I thought maybe you’d already left.”

Tom gazed down upon Maddy, a smile in his eyes. “I’m here. I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye to you.”

Maddy pressed the side of her face against the side of Tom’s smooth uniform. What was happening? Where was her heart taking her?

“Why do you have to go?” she asked. She knew the question was foolish, something a little girl would ask. But she asked it anyway.

“We have to, Maddy,” Tom said. “Is it better to just sit here and wait for the demons to come slaughter us in our homes? We have to at least try. We’ve sworn a duty to protect this country. And we will do it. Even if we die trying.”

Maddy knew he was right.

“The Angels are refusing to help,” she said. “Archangel Holyoake just released the official statement.”

“Are you surprised?” Tom said, his expression darkening, cheeks tensing. “They were about to go to war with us over the Immortals Bill. We already knew they’d give us no aid.”

Maddy looked at him. “No,” she said. “Actually, I . . . I don’t know.” A pang crossed her heart as she thought of Jacks, alone and bitter in his jealousy, having offered to lead the Angels against them. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly?

With a panic, Maddy realized that the sailors and aviators on the dock were starting to thin out, embarking on the ship, leaving only the civilians on the dock.

A junior officer approached Tom and saluted. “Captain, we need you to board, sir.”

“Thank you, ensign,” he said. “I’ll only be a moment longer.”

Tom turned back to Maddy.

“Maddy, when you came out in public as a half-blood, and then I met you, I felt something. I felt I didn’t have to be alone any more. I didn’t have anything to prove. I could be what I was. Not feel different. Maybe even be proud.”

“No goodbyes, Tom,” Maddy sputtered out, trying to hold back tears.

“You gave me courage, everything you’ve done in so short a time. You may not see it, your incredible courage, but I do. And so does the rest of the world. You gave courage to us all with your training, your save of the girl. Maddy, you are what I would want to be.”

Emotion flooded Maddy, threatening to overtake her as she held the pilot’s hands in hers. The impending war; her love for Jacks, who was now her enemy; what she now recognized as a conflicting love for Tom – it all threatened to break through the defences around her heart and leave her surrendered, overwhelmed. She bit her lip hard as she looked up at Tom, tears rimming her eyes.

“All my achievements, my flight status – none of it matters when I think about the past couple of months with you,” Tom said. He took a breath. “I love you, Maddy.”

“Tom, we’ll have time to talk about all this when you get back.”

His voice began to waver, only slightly. “Maddy, if I don’t come back again, I want you to— ”

“You’re going to be back again,” she cut him off, the renegade tears starting to come. “You’d better.”

The brilliant sun glinted off the insignia of Tom’s crisp, navy blue uniform. A pair of gulls wheeled above in the flawless blue sky, lighter than air. Navy personnel crowded the rails of the towering aircraft carrier, looking down on the dock at those they were leaving behind.

“My grandfather always told me not to get caught up and instead to search for the one girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,” Tom said, his voice quavering. He moved in closer and looked at her with his deep green eyes. “I’m sure now that it’s you.”

The world seemed to pitch under Maddy’s feet, as if she were at sea.

“Tom. . .”

“Maddy Montgomery Godright, I want to know if you’ll be here for me if – I mean, when – I get back.”

Her face turned down, tears streaming. “Tom, don’t talk like that. Of course I’ll be here.”

Suddenly a shadow crossed over her and Tom, as if a giant bird had flown across the sun. In surprise, Maddy looked up.

An Angel with enormous wings outstretched floated to the ground in front of them, silhouetted black against the sun. Golden rays bled around the edges of the figure as it touched down.

With a shock, Maddy realized it was Jacks. But not a Jacks she fully knew. Futuristic black Angel armour clung to his muscular body, a new generation of Battle Angel protection she’d never seen before. His half-Angel, half-cyborg wings were awe-inspiring in their breadth. Jackson also looked somehow older. His jaw stronger. The lines along his cheekbones more defined and immutable.

Tom’s muscles grew taut as he realized who it was, and Maddy unconsciously withdrew from the pilot, taking a few steps away.

“What are you doing here?” Tom asked sharply, standing up straight, his shoulders broad. Jackson’s impressive new wings didn’t daunt him. “This is no place for you. You and your Angels have made your choice. You’ve abandoned Maddy.”

“Jacks . . . your wings,” Maddy said softly. “But why did you come? How did you find me?” Pain twisted her face. She thought she had already faced the agony of this choice.

“I had to come. To give you a chance,” Jacks said. “And I know your frequency better than any, Maddy. You should know that by now.”

Maddy searched his pale blue eyes. They seemed deeper, flecked with more grey than she had ever seen. They seemed almost haunted.

On the deck of the ship, some sailors noticed the Angel down on the pier. They began shouting and drawing their sidearms, pointing them at Jacks.

“You! Angel! Down on the ground! NOW!”

Jackson paid them not the slightest attention.

He motioned towards the ocean horizon, where the demon sinkhole was just kilometres off shore.

“Maddy, I’m offering you a choice,” Jacks said. “To survive. To choose your Angel side once and for all. It’s your destiny. Don’t tell me you can’t feel that, honestly, in your bones.”

The words were blunt against her ears. Maddy could feel her Immortal Marks warming under her shirt. Stirrings of her beautiful wings, which she’d come to think of as an indispensable part of her.

Jacks continued. “The humans may be right about some things. But they are also confused, and weak, about many others. The Immortals Bill is wrong, and you know it. We can work together to change things for the Angels.”

Jackson stretched his hands out towards Maddy and took a few steps forward. “I’m giving you the chance to come with me. Be with me. It’s what I want. And I know it’s what you truly want, deep down.” The biotechnology circuits in Jackson’s wings glowed deeply orange as he took a breath in, then let it out.

“Lies,” Tom said, voice dripping with anger. His finger pointed accusatorily at Jackson’s impressive figure. “More Angel lies. Maddy, they’re deserting humanity in our hour of greatest need. They’d let us be exterminated by whatever
things
are out there, coming for us. Because we wanted to end their dishonesty – their entitlement – and democratize Protection for Pay. And you can trust what they say?” Tom snorted and looked at Jackson. “She’s smarter than that, Godspeed.”

Jacks took a threatening step towards Tom.

“DO NOT MOVE TOWARDS THE LIEUTENTANT!” a marine sharpshooter from the deck of the aircraft carrier screamed down at Jackson. Jacks looked up irritatedly at him, as you would at a persistent gnat.

“You need to forget him, Maddy,” Tom said. “It’s as much for you as for me. He’ll destroy you in the end. The Angels will never change. They’re too corrupted. I’m offering you something more. Something real. Something human. Something honest.” Tom looked into Maddy’s confused eyes, the windows into her conflicted soul. “You know that that’s what’s important in your life. What you truly want.”

The pilot’s gazed directly at her, unblinking. He reached out his hand.

All the bystanders on the dock had given them a wide berth, and sailors stood along the bridge, guns trained on Jackson. Maddy was now standing between the two young men, Tom in his olive green flight suit on one side, and Jackson in his indomitable black armour on the other, his fearsome wings curling slightly in as he waited for Maddy’s decision.

Maddy’s mind flashed to Jackson and the lookout: the site of both their first date and their last meeting. She looked at the man who had been so much a part of her life and who had driven away in heartbreak and bitterness. The pain on his face. And the pain in her heart. But also her feelings for Tom, which had swept upon her – swept upon both of them – unaware. What she felt when she was with him. And how he represented everything human about her.

And now she had to make a choice.

Between Jackson and Tom. Between Angels and humanity.

The aircraft carrier towered behind the Battle Angel and the pilot, somehow cruelly beautiful against the red-tinged clouds, as Maddy drew in a breath.

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First published in the United States of America by Penguin Young Readers Group,
Penguin Books Ltd., 2013
First published in the UK in paperback by Scholastic Ltd., 2013
This electronic edition first published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd., 2013

Text copyright © Scott Speer, 2013
The right of Scott Speer to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by him.

eISBN 978 1407 13524 3

A CIP catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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