Natural Born Angel

by Speer, Scott

  Jackson looked at Maddy. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, his voice lowering. “Maybe I overreacted. If you say he’s just a friend . . . I have to trust you. Out of anyone, I should know not to always believe what the media says.”

  Maddy moved closer to Jackson again. He let her embrace him this time. “I’m sorry, Jacks.” She pressed her face against his shoulder.

  “How did we get here?” Jacks asked, shaking his head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “I think you should probably call Darcy now.”

  “I . . . OK. That sounds like a good idea.”

  Stepping away from Jacks, Maddy picked up her phone and made the dreaded call to her publicist.

  Darcy wanted Maddy out, in public and looking happy, so the next day saw Maddy jaunting all over the Immortal City. The blogs were still on fire over the potential love triangle, and the Angel networks had locked on to it with a death grip.

  The day started with very public morning coffee with Jacks, of which the paparazzi caught every moment. Plentiful Angel City sunshine shone down on smiling Maddy and Jacks. When asked about Tom, Maddy said, “He’s been a great help in my flight instruction,” and left it at that. Although she knew that might sting the pilot’s pride, she couldn’t worry about that now. She had to salvage things. Maddy and Jacks walked away hand in hand, the photographers’ cameras snapping and whirring.

  She then went home and changed. Darcy was insisting she make an appearance at the launch of a new Angel organization that funded the arts for young Angels with the help of corporate sponsor BMW. She didn’t really want to go, but given the problems she’d just landed on the lap of her publicist, she also didn’t want to be too difficult.

  “MADDY! MADDY! HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH TOM? WHAT DOES JACKS HAVE TO SAY? MADDY, RIGHT HERE!”

  Maddy didn’t answer; she just smiled and waved, walking in among the other Angels as the photogs did their thing.

  Suddenly, to the side, Maddy saw a group of protesters penned off by metal fencing. They waved signs and were shouting at her and the other Angels as they arrived. The signs bore graphic pictures from the bombing.

  They pressed angrily against the barricades, which normally held back rabid Angel fans, not Angel detractors. The ACPD and private security attempted to keep them back from the red carpet, which baked under the hot sun.

  They screamed:

  “ANGELS ARE MURDERERS!”

  “LIARS!”

  “WHY ARE YOU HIDING CHURCHSON WHEN YOU’RE ALL GUILTY?!”

  “YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR WINGS!”

  Maddy’s brow knit in concern as she looked at the people so furiously screaming at them. Suddenly a few of the protesters reached into their rucksacks and began hurling rotten vegetables towards the Angels. The girl Angel just in front of Maddy received a disgusting splat of a tomato that exploded across her expensive, almost sheer dress. She shrieked. Other Angels began dodging the rotten veggies, and Maddy ducked under what looked like a putrid yam as the police extended their batons to try to handle the crowd, which was becoming more and more unruly.

  In a daze, Maddy rushed into the reception area for the event, where she was ushered towards the back gardens. Calming classical music was playing on the speakers as she passed a priceless fountain that had been designed by one of the twentieth century’s greatest Swiss architects. The shouts of the protesters had already faded into the background. All the museum staff had big plastic smiles on their faces, as if they had no idea there was practically a mob scene just outside.

  Maddy thought of the fury in the protesters’ eyes. And how strange she felt being the target of it. It was unsettling. Didn’t they know that she, too, disapproved of the terrible thing Churchson had done? That most Guardians probably also felt awful and hoped they would find the Archangel and bring him to justice?

  It was a sunny, warm day, even though winter was just a page or two away on the calendar. The organizers had decided to hold the luncheon in the back sculpture garden of the museum. Maddy looked at the modern art masterpieces sprinkled throughout the garden. The museum itself loomed large in the background like a behemoth, a work of art itself. She knew the pieces were supposed to be very “important”, but some of them just looked like a block of black marble, not sculpted at all. One was brass and looked just like a giant balloon animal, the kind you get from a clown when you’re a child.

  Darcy helped introduce Maddy to all the important people at the event. She posed for more pictures with the BMW backdrop and gave some sound bites about how important it was to fund the arts.

  Throughout the event, Maddy’s mind kept wandering back to what had happened yesterday, with both Tom and Jacks. She had texted the pilot an apology. Maddy was sure the media had been hounding him all day – she’d seen footage of him getting into his pickup and driving away from base last night with a bunch of photographers taking photos of him. He didn’t look too happy to see them.

  But Tom was more concerned about her: “Are you OK? Is there anything I can do?”

  “I’m fine, Tom,” she had written. And left it at that.

  She was also concerned about Jacks. Even though he seemed to believe her that Tom was just a friend, he still had an edge, an edge that, she realized, had been growing in him over recent months. Whenever it was almost too much, Jacks seemed to pull back just in time. Become old Jackson again. The one she felt so calm around, the one who could still turn her into a silly, Angelstruck girl.

  A voice came from Maddy’s side. “You must be Maddy. I’m Rachel,” a young woman said. She was wearing a matching lavender skirt and top. She was blushing. “I’m the event producer, and I just want to thank you so much for coming. Have you been to the sculpture garden before? What’s your favouurite piece?”

  A photographer came up to take some photos, and a few other people at the event stepped closer, curious to hear Maddy’s response. Out of the corner of her eye, Maddy saw Darcy eyeing her.

  “I. . .” Her mind was going blank.

  Maddy stood there, her mouth agape for a moment.

  “What I mean is. . .” she said, her words growing faint. But it wasn’t because of the question.

  “Maddy?” Rachel said. “Are you OK?”

  But Rachel’s voice was already somehow distant, in some other world. It was like Maddy was going through a tunnel.

  Maddy’s mind suddenly was overtaken by the clearest of images snapping into focus: the instrument panel in the cockpit of a small jet. The digital screens were crisp. And flashing red. The numbers on the screens were fluctuating wildly. And then out of the window. The emerald-blue water. Rushing towards the glass, impossibly fast. It took her breath away.

  Maddy saw the water strike the cabin. She saw the nose crumple towards the pilot. There was no time to see more.

  The Gulfstream jet disintegrated against the water surface just as surely as if it had been striking concrete.

  A spray of water and plane. And body parts.

  Maddy was there as it happened, with pity and fear as instant death took the man.

  She instantly knew the frequency. That energy, that aloof entitlement. It was now revealed for what it really was: cowardice. She saw the man’s eyes, long tunnels with ghosts in them. Then the image widened out, and she saw the bloated, flushed face.

  Maddy’s eyes shot open, a shriek having just left her lips. Rachel and Darcy and others were standing near her. Are you all right? Are you all right? Their voices still seemed far off. Blood roared in Maddy’s ears.

  She’d seen the face of Jeffrey Rosenberg.

  CHAPTER 30

  In the sudden rush of adrenaline, extending her wings didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had prior times. The oblong wings reached out, then crouched in towards her body, coiled, ready. Their purplish luminescence pulsed with the rush
. Even now they felt like before, like something attached to her body, instead of entirely part of it. Like wearing a very large backpack that, impossibly, seemed to weigh almost nothing.

  People in the sculpture garden were speechless, their mouths open in shock.

  Maddy crouched, leaning slightly forward as she had been trained. She made a move as if to jump straight up into the air. As she did, she felt the wings flex, with a tremendous whoosh of air that blew back her ponytail and whipped her loose hair around her face. She felt her shoes leave the ground. When she looked down, she saw the museum receding until it was no more than a toy box, the cars winking sunlight up at her. Her necklace snapped wildly around her neck. Her heart hammered relentlessly in her chest, and she fought to breathe against the rush of the air as her wings pushed her into the unblemished sky.

  Less than graceful, she levelled off and beat her wings furiously against the sky. Below, the world looked suddenly calm and silent. The only sound was the rush of air in her ears. She thought of her training with Tom. It was all for this.

  Within a minute, the beach came into view, with the Angel mansions crowded against it. The impressive homes seemed small now, like mere toys. The sunbathers and volleyball players were now as small and insignificant as ants.

  The black cruciform of her Angelic shadow flew along the sand of the beach, and in seconds, Maddy was soaring over the Pacific Ocean. She swept her wings back, picking up as much speed as she could with her wings, and squinted into the distance. She could see nothing but brilliant, untarnished blue. It was even hard to tell where the sky ended and the ocean began. Her eyes darted wildly along the horizon, burning in the brilliant glare of the sun, scouring the distance for something, anything.

  Then she saw it.

  The Gulfstream G4, inbound to the Santa Monica Airport. A plane, Maddy knew, that would soon be at the bottom of the ocean.

  Suddenly the private jet banked wildly and climbed, all at once, for a brief moment before stalling into a nosedive. The plane was spinning as it descended, and Maddy had to dive directly down to catch up with it. Her hair tie was long gone. Her hair lashed at her face now, but she didn’t have time to bother with it. It was all happening so fast.

  Her shoes touched the metal of the wing, but the plane was spinning, and the wing turned over and over before she realized what was happening. Maddy clutched the wingtip, her wings flailing to regain control of herself. She felt strength she’d never imagined coursing through her veins, every fibre of her being turning to Angel instinct.

  Black smoke began pouring from one of the engines. She’d have to move fast.

  Inside, oil billionaire Jeffery Rosenberg was already passed out in the cockpit, his body hunched over the wheel, causing the plane to spin wildly out of control. Maddy grabbed the handle on the cabin door and tore at it with all her strength. The exertion sent pain searing through her arms, but the door ripped free of its hinges with a groan and in an instant was gone into the clear blue sky.

  Wow. Maddy had of course been taught about the increase in strength and ability during a save, but since an Angel only experiences it during a real save situation, there had been no way to train for it except through simulation. She was surprised that it was both easier and much more difficult than the computer simulations.

  Hooking her feet and hands around the door frame, Maddy thrust herself inside the cabin of the jet with a single, powerful burst of strength. Another hot dagger of pain raced down her back as her wings banged against the top of the door frame.

  I left my wings out. She retracted the throbbing wings and looked around, holding on to anything she could in the depressurized cabin. Wind violently smacked at her face. Debris of every kind was tearing loose from the cabin’s interior and rocketing past Maddy’s head. She made her way up the aisle and reached the flight deck in one swift move.

  Maddy discovered Rosenberg in the cockpit, slumped out of his chair and hanging by his seat belt like a morbid marionette, his face a mask of pain. He appeared to have put on at least fifteen pounds since Maddy had met with him just after her Commissioning, which almost seemed impossible.

  His lifestyle was going to kill him sooner than he’d thought.

  I didn’t want one that’s half.

  She remembered the man’s words, spoken arrogantly and with a wave of his hand, as he answered emails on his smartphone.

  Now the words rang in Maddy’s ear as she snapped the seat belt with her bare hands and pulled Rosenberg’s prodigious mass out of the chair. She glanced out of the window and saw the white caps of Santa Monica Bay rushing up at them. She had six seconds at most. Maybe less. Threading her hands under the man’s arms, Maddy dragged him down the aisle and towards the cabin door as the air frame spun and shook uncontrollably around them. She glanced out of another window and saw only churning ocean.

  Three seconds.

  Then Maddy saw her, crouched against the seat, her eyes a blaze of terror: it was Rosenberg’s assistant. The one Maddy had met as well.

  The girl was going to die.

  Before she knew what was happening, Maddy had freed one hand and extended it forward inside the cabin.

  She cried out in terrible pain, using every fibre of her Angel being. She didn’t know if she’d be able to do it. Time manipulation had never been her strong suit, after all.

  Suddenly the water outside the jet, merely fifteen metres away, stopped. The jet didn’t get any closer. The whitecaps froze in place; droplets of seawater splashed up and froze just above the ocean surface. Maddy grunted in concentration, her body shaking and convulsing as she attempted to maintain the local time bend using the technique Susan had taught her. She was doing it!

  In a moment Maddy was by the girl’s side, scooping the terrorized assistant up from the floor and over her shoulder. Then, as if in a flash, she was at the door with both Rosenberg and his assistant. The local time bend was starting to shimmer and shudder as Maddy lost concentration.

  Come on, just two more seconds, come on, come on.

  With an audible growl, Maddy shoved Rosenberg through the gaping cabin door and on to the wing. She jerked the assistant out of the door and gathered the girl under her arm.

  Maddy paused only a moment to look at the fast-approaching water as her local time bend began to dissipate. The waves suddenly began rolling across the ocean, the screaming of the diving jet taking over all sound as they careened to doom. A feeling bloomed in Maddy’s stomach that she hadn’t yet felt during the save. It crept up through her chest and sat tingling in the back of her throat.

  Fear. Maddy crouched, exploded off the wing, and rocketed directly skyward as the Gulfstream slammed into the Pacific Ocean. The impact ignited the fuel tank, incinerating the plane as it twisted and shattered with a terrible metal shriek. Maddy glided back towards the coast, Rosenberg still over her shoulder, the girl under her arm. A single thought echoed in Maddy Montgomery Godright’s mind as she touched down on the Santa Monica Pier.

  That was close.

  *

  Rosenberg regained consciousness lying comfortably on a stretcher, paramedics tending to him, tourists and onlookers crowding around. He squinted up at Maddy, the pier’s Ferris wheel spinning in the background behind him.

  “You gave us a scare,” Maddy said.

  The man looked all around, struggling to put the fragmented pieces of his memory together. “What happ— Who are you?” Then he gazed into Maddy’s face again, and recognition flashed across his eyes.

  “My God. It’s you.”

  Maddy smiled. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “No, I just . . . I just never thought it would happen to me.”

  “No one does. It was a heart attack. Minor. You’re going to be fine. My Archangel will be contacting you tomorrow to debrief you. Until then, rest easy. They’ve contacted your family to let them know you’re OK.”
/>
  Rosenberg’s face turned ashen. “Lauren,” he said gravely. “I . . . I killed her. She was on the plane.”

  Maddy nodded to their right. Rosenberg looked over and saw his assistant, sitting, covered in a blanket and talking to a Santa Monica paramedic.

  “Lauren?” he said, confused. “You’re alive?”

  He looked at Maddy.

  “How. . . ?”

  An ambiguous look crossed Maddy’s face. “I just had to,” she said. “What’s . . . done is done. It can’t be changed now.”

  Maddy’s mind spun dizzily as she realized she’d just made an illegal save.

  The onlookers had grown to an excited crowd. Dozens of mobile phone cameras clicked, capturing Maddy post-save. Fans screamed as the cameras snapped. A team of Santa Monica police arrived and did their best to hold the crowd back.

  “Maddy’s first save! Maddy’s first save!” some of the onlookers shouted, taking more pictures, unable to believe their good luck in witnessing the historic occasion.

  The photos were doubtlessly already being picked up by blogs and news outlets around the world. A strange, inevitable panic entered Maddy. They were taking pictures of Maddy with her Protection, Jeffrey Rosenberg. And his assistant, Lauren. Not her Protection. An illegal save.

  “You know what my last thought was?” Rosenberg stammered, his mind reeling with the memory. “I remember thinking, This is it. This is how I die.”

  The man had tears in his eyes.

  “You saved my life . . . and Lauren’s.”

  “Yes, I did,” Maddy said, surprised at the emotion coming out of Rosenberg. She’d read his frequency the moment he came into the conference room at the NAS, and she hadn’t felt this.

  The hot liquid spilled from his eyes, running down his ample cheeks.

  Maddy walked over to Rosenberg’s assistant.

  “How are you?” Maddy asked awkwardly. Lauren looked at her with wide eyes. She was still shaking. The girl knew she should be dead.