Natural Born Angel

by Speer, Scott

  “I – I didn’t have protection,” Lauren stammered. “How did you save me?”

  Maddy felt her face screw into an inscrutable mask. Hot tears rushed up towards her eyes. She turned away, looking off the end of the pier to the shimmering blue ocean, which would have been Lauren’s unmarked watery grave, her body trapped in the twisted and incinerated jet. Maddy remained silent.

  “God bless you,” Lauren said, weeping.

  Maddy looked over at Lauren, and then to Rosenberg. “God already did.”

  The crowd was getting more boisterous as word spread that Maddy was on the pier with her first saves. More pictures, more tweets, more Facebook updates – and inevitably more questions about how she saved someone who wasn’t a Protection. “But I need to go now.”

  Applause rose from the crowd. A woman in the front row dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and a man next to her gave Maddy a hearty thumbs-up. Maddy deployed her wings and, to the thrill of her audience, rocketed elegantly and effortlessly into the cloudless sky.

  Soon the pier floated away underneath her, becoming smaller and smaller, set against the vast blue of the ocean.

  Wings spread and taut, Maddy soared back towards Angel City. A cool breeze had picked up, and she floated along the slipstream. Maddy tried to take a deep breath of the cool air. The true enormity of what she had done started to hit her. An unsanctioned save. A numb terror crept into her bones as she thought about the Angel Disciplinary Council Agents in their black uniforms, ruthless in their pursuit. They’d be after her, and they would cut off her wings. There seemed to be no way she’d be able to escape them. Maddy figured that if the Angel Disciplinary Council were going to come for her, she may as well make it easy for them by flying. They could have her within seconds if they wanted to. She wouldn’t stand a chance. Soon she was over Beverly Hills and could see the enormous black shiny box that was the NAS headquarters.

  As she flew ever closer to Angel City proper, Maddy’s body began shaking. An unsanctioned save. Punishable by wing removal. And mortalization. Though Maddy figured she probably wasn’t Immortal anyway, being only half-Angel. Funny, she thought semi-hysterically, that was one question that hadn’t been addressed in training.

  Her wings.

  Maddy realized how much she’d actually come to love them, how they really had become part of her. Part of her full identity. For the first time in her life she’d really felt complete, she realized. Her mind cast back to the terrible nightmare of them being monstrous and deformed, and instead how beautiful and perfect they really were when they finally emerged.

  And now her wings were going to be taken away in a merciless disciplinary action.

  With a shudder, she wondered how badly it would hurt.

  But after a few more minutes of flying, Maddy realized curiously that no one was coming. No ADC agents. She had the skies to herself. Looking off into the distance, Maddy set her course for the Angel City sign and thrust her wings to gain speed.

  Maddy landed a couple of blocks away from Kevin’s Diner so she wouldn’t be spotted by any photographers. She dropped into someone’s back garden. The little dog tied up in the back began yipping ecstatically as soon as he saw Maddy land, tugging against his lead.

  “Shhh,” Maddy said to the dog, putting her finger to her lips before quietly slipping out on to the street.

  CHAPTER 31

  She was soon outside Kevin’s. Partially hiding from across the street, she watched the block for a few minutes, monitoring to see whether anyone who looked like one of the disciplinary agents was lingering around. She also anxiously kept casting her eyes to the sky, adrenaline pumping in her veins, convinced that the ADC was going to come any moment to shear away her wings as punishment for her unsanctioned save. But everything still looked safe outside the house.

  Where were they? Were they just toying with her? Part of her just wanted to cry. But she stopped herself.

  Maddy slipped in the side door of the diner and then through the back garden to the house. Finally, she was able to take a breath, although her hands were still shaking in fear of what was going to happen. She had broken the rules. Consequences must be paid. She leaned against the kitchen counter in the familiar setting for a moment, just breathing.

  After searching for a bit, Maddy found the cordless phone handset smashed between the couch cushions – Uncle Kevin still had a landline. She dialled Jackson’s mobile phone number. No answer. She left a voicemail, telling him to pick up when she called from the landline number. After a minute, she dialled again. No answer. What was he doing? She needed him now, more than ever.

  She dialled again.

  Still no answer.

  Maddy put on an old shirt from her upstairs wardrobe to replace the blouse that was now shredded in the back from her wings, and then went in the back of the diner. She crept up to the kitchen and looked in.

  “Maddy!” her uncle said, relief spreading across his face. She could hear the TV in the dining room breathlessly reporting details of her save.

  “Just a second.” Kevin undid his apron and hung it on a hook just outside the kitchen. He walked into the living room. Maddy peered out and saw him flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED. There was only one table with customers, and they were just paying the bill. They quickly stood up and left.

  Maddy looked cautiously out into the car park to see if any suspicious characters were outside, but the coast still seemed clear. She walked into the dining room and sat down in her favourite booth, near the back where no one could see her inside. Jana looked at her with big eyes.

  “Go ahead and take the rest of the night off, Jana,” Kevin said.

  The wide-eyed waitress mutely nodded and disappeared to the back, her pumps squeaking on the linoleum.

  The Magnavox was playing footage of Maddy’s save.

  The bottom of the right-hand corner of the screen read: “Courtesy of SaveTube.” Maddy was shocked to find it was raw footage from her Angelcam.

  “The controversy continues to grow, threatening now to explode. Angels: saving us, or letting us die? Operatives from an unspecified activist group hacked the Angelcam system this afternoon and immediately released unedited footage of Guardian Maddy Godright saving both a Protection and a non-Protection in a thrilling, spectacular save off the coast of Santa Monica today. So far, no comment from the NAS, but the furore grows across the country.”

  It felt uncanny to Maddy as she watched the first-hand footage of herself making the save. It all seemed so quick: the ocean hurtling towards them through the window on the flight deck, Rosenberg’s unconscious face, Lauren crouched between the seats, the orange fireball as the Gulfstream morphed into incinerated gas, metal and nothingness.

  Kevin brought two mugs of coffee over and settled into the booth with Maddy. He glanced out to where paparazzi waited on the other side of the street.

  “I just couldn’t,” she said, looking into Kevin’s eyes. “I just couldn’t leave her behind.”

  The door chimed, and both Kevin and Maddy turned their heads to the door. To her astonishment, it was Tom.

  “Tom.” Maddy breathed the name. She was surprised to find relief heavy in her voice.

  “I came as soon as I heard what happened,” he said, walking in tentatively and nodding to Kevin in the formal yet friendly way he seemed to do everything. “Are you OK?”

  “I think so,” Maddy said, emotion starting to well within her with the realization of what she’d done. She looked up at Tom with terrified eyes. “They haven’t . . . come for me yet. For my wings.”

  “We won’t let them do that,” Tom said, exchanging a look with Uncle Kevin. “There’s no way they’d be able to anyway: you’re just too big, Maddy.”

  “What?” Maddy said.

  “Your save is everywhere. Everyone knows what you did. There’s no way the NAS could politically risk coming after you,” Tom said.<
br />
  “He’s right,” Kevin said. “You know they would have been here already. Remember last time? They were everywhere.”

  “I don’t know. . .” Maddy said, her mind still submerged in fear of the agents in their futuristic black armour. She still remembered the ruthless grip on her throat in Kevin’s living room. The unblinking, pitiless eyes behind the mask.

  Tom sat down in the booth next to Maddy, opposite her uncle.

  Kevin stood up. “I’ll get another cup of coffee.”

  Tom turned to her.

  “Maddy, I saw your flying. You were amazing,” Tom said quietly.

  The report on the television continued.

  “A statement from the White House said there will be a quick investigation into the day’s events and that, quote, ‘action will be swift’. President Linden won the election as a third-party candidate on an anti-Angel platform, and experts expect the new president to take this opportunity to push forward his mandate.”

  “I would’ve let her die,” Maddy said, shaking her head. “That’s what they would have wanted me to do.” A sick feeling was in her stomach. “What’s happened to me?”

  Tom had been silent, just letting her talk. He put a calming hand on her shoulder. Then it felt so natural for Maddy to lean her head against his shoulder. She could feel the pilot’s body just next to her rise and fall with each breath.

  “But you didn’t let her die. That’s what separates us from them, Maddy.”

  “Us?”

  The door jingled again. Her head still against Tom’s shoulder, Maddy’s eyes drifted to the door.

  It was Jacks.

  He looked directly at Maddy with her head on Tom’s shoulder, a strange expression crossing his face.

  “Jacks!” Maddy said, sitting up. She could feel Tom stiffening next to her, his body coiling up in a defensive posture.

  The Angel walked further into the diner, his eyes moving coolly back and forth between Tom and Maddy.

  “What. Are. You. Doing?” Jacks asked, his neck muscles tensing and releasing.

  “She’s upset. I was comforting her,” Tom said.

  “Nobody was asking you,” Jacks said.

  “He just got here, Jacks,” Maddy said. “It’s not— ”

  “What is it then?” he said.

  Maddy just shook her head silently. This was the worst thing that could have happened.

  Tom turned and looked at Maddy. “Are you OK? Being here with him?” Maddy put her head in her hands but nodded. “I’m going to leave, then. You need to resolve some . . . things. If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

  “You don’t have to go, it’s fine— ” Maddy was clutching at straws.

  Tom smiled grimly. “No, I can tell when I’m not welcome.”

  “Don’t, Tom – you’re always welcome,” Maddy said. “I’m sorry, it’s all just complicated right now.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for. We can’t all be Angels,” he said.

  “That’s not what— ”

  Tom passed closely by Jacks as he walked to the exit. The Angel and the pilot stiffened as they neared each other.

  “You might want to appreciate what you have, rather than take it for granted like everything else in your life,” Tom said, mere inches from Jackson’s face. The door jingled, and he was gone. The muted, deep rumble of his pickup entered the diner and then slowly faded.

  Maddy looked at the Angel in front of her. “Jacks, don’t start.”

  The report on the TV continued. They were replaying Maddy’s unsanctioned save on loop.

  Jacks glanced up at the TV, then down at Maddy. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “I was able to save her. How could I let her die?” Maddy said. “Jacks, I did the same thing you did with me last year.”

  “It’s different.”

  “How? How is it different?”

  “I don’t know. It just is,” he said.

  “I had to save her,” Maddy said, shaking her head. Lauren’s terrified eyes still haunted her memory. Maddy glanced out of the window to the car park. “Why aren’t they here yet?”

  “I don’t know. The agents should have been here by now,” Jacks said. “With me, they were able to spin the story. Turn me into a villain. Nobody saw what actually happened. There’s no spinning now for you. The Angelcam footage was out instantly; everybody knows what happened, and that she wasn’t a Protection. If anything happened to you, the uproar would be unforgettable. ‘Punished for saving a life’. And the Archangels and the Council, their backs are against the wall. President Linden was looking for anything, any excuse to show that Protection for Pay isn’t necessary. That Guardians could be saving anyone out there, that we Angels are supposedly in it only for profit and power, and that we don’t care who lives or dies as long as we’re paid. Any reason he could get to make a move against us. And you handed it to him on a silver platter.”

  “But I couldn’t leave her. How could we let them die? We could save all of them!”

  Jacks snapped with anger. “You may be right. But don’t act naive, Maddy! Where do you think it all comes from? Your apartment? Your car? The clothes you wear for the photographers? From nowhere? That you get it for just being you? It comes from Protection for Pay. Pure and simple.”

  His words cut Maddy deep, like a jagged knife, but she knew they were true. She knew they’d been true for a while. Maddy felt the ground underneath her start to crumble, her sense of self shaken to the very core.

  She’d let herself be transformed into the very rich and famous Angel she had once hated.

  “I may not even like it. But that’s just the way things are,” Jacks said bitterly.

  Anger and shame loosed Maddy’s tongue as she turned on Jacks.

  “You talked me into it, Jacks, you brought me along— ”

  “I’m tired of hearing that, Maddy. You knew what you were doing when you became a Guardian!”

  “I did not. You told me it could change!”

  “Well, maybe I was wrong,” Jacks said.

  Silence hung in the large dining room. Orange evening sun was filtering through trees across the street, starting to steam into the front windows of the diner.

  Maddy reached for Jacks’s hand. The warmth and smoothness of his fingers gave her some comfort. But only momentarily, before he pulled his hand away.

  He turned and looked at her, his perfect Immortal features rimmed by the fading sunlight glinting through the window.

  “Originally, I was coming to find you here for another reason, Maddy,” he said. “It seems almost stupid now.”

  “What reason?” Maddy asked.

  Jacks looked away. He didn’t speak for a few moments. And when he did, it sounded like his words were carefully chosen.

  “It’s my wings,” he said deliberately. “The Archangels have found a way for me to fly again.”

  “What? How?” Maddy asked in disbelief. “That’s amazing!”

  “There’s a new technology. My wings will be part natural, and part . . . metal or something. They’ve developed the technology for strategic uses. I’m going to become a Battle Angel.”

  “What technology? I don’t understand, Jacks.”

  “Apparently they’ve been developing it for years. I was trying to tell you the other day, but you weren’t listening to me.”

  “Jacks, I— ” Maddy said.

  “Just like you haven’t been there for me the past few months,” Jacks continued.

  Maddy’s face burned. She knew he was somewhat right.

  “The procedure is happening next week,” Jacks said. He looked out of the window as brazen red streaks from the sunset cut across the Angel City sky and then turned to Maddy, his eyes glinting in the light. “Maddy, I’ll be able to fly again.”

  CHAPTER 32
r />   As Sylvester sat down, he examined the marble frieze that ran around the four walls of the domed hall. Light knifed down from a narrow skylight at the top of the dome, dust motes dancing in the stark sunbeams. The beams glared on the polished marble floor. The frieze, a wide horizontal band running the length of the walls, was stunning in its detail and artistry. In marble relief, it showed the ancient stages of the Angels’ history and scenes from the Bible. It also depicted other moments in Angel history that humans would never have known about. There was Greek text under each of the scenes.

  One section of the frieze, which was carved in deep red marble and had been restored from an ancient Angel ziggurat, had a language Sylvester had never even seen. He recognized the scene, though: the epic final battle of the Angels over the Dark Angels, who had just become demons. What had started as a civil war had quickly turned into an all-out struggle for Angel survival. Those rebelling, the fallen Immortals, had become grotesque, distorted and demonic, and obsessed with destroying Angelkind. Untold amounts of Angel blood had been spilled in the Demon Struggles.

  The panel showed an Angel in full battle dress plunging the tip of a blessed battle sword into the heart of a demon. Whoever the artist was, he had been extremely meticulous in creating the detailed flame that actually was the demon. Sylvester was impressed with his level of skill. And dedication. It must have taken years, just that small section.

  His eyes took in the whole scene. He was alone in the expansive hall, waiting.

  He had never been here before, but then again, not many had. Not many Angels even knew this place existed, although of course they had heard rumours. This temple had been carved deep out of the earth over a century before. The light high above came from a latticed and intricate skylight at ground level.

  The detective coughed. It echoed loudly throughout the marble hall. Reaching in the pocket of his old overcoat, he extracted a throat lozenge and popped it in his mouth.

  Soon he heard footsteps. An almost ethereal young Angel woman appeared, walking across the hall. Her skin was milky, almost translucent, her hair so blonde it was nearly white, and her eyes a ghostly blue. She wore a strangely modern robe, its golden threaded detail along the seams gleaming as she passed through a beam of light from above.