Immortal City (6 page)

He also knew how much Mark wanted to see them together, and though he was usually anxious to please his stepfather, in this case, conversely, it made him even more hesitant.

Jacks let out a long breath and glanced at Mitch, who gave him an encouraging look. Vivian tucked her hair behind her ear.

“So then,” she said, “I’ll see you tonight?”

“T
here have always been Angels among us.”

New History of Angels,
McGraw-Hill, 2nd ed., p. 1

•   •   •

Maddy sat curled up in her desk with her history textbook open in front of her, trying to keep from dozing off while taking notes on Mr. Rankin’s History of Angels in America lecture. The early-morning shift at the diner was starting to catch up with her, and she shifted in her seat, willing her eyelids to stay open.

“I hope you all did the assigned reading over the long weekend,” Mr. Rankin said as he paced down the rows of desks. “And no, having read
Angels Weekly
does not count.”

A laugh rippled through the class. Mr. Rankin was a small man of about forty with a trim beard and balding hair. He held their AP U.S. History textbook aloft as he spoke. “To those of you who didn’t do the reading, staying silent will not help you. The less you participate, the more likely I am to call on you.” The class let out a collective groan. Maddy might not follow the Angels, but she
had
done the required reading. However, she was always quiet in class. As Mr. Rankin got started, her eyelids grew impossibly heavy.

“So, who can tell me about the history of Angels before the National Angel Services formed?” A hand shot up in the front. Mr. Rankin pointed.

“Well, in the beginning, miracles were performed anonymously,” a boy said. Mr. Rankin nodded.

“And how were Angels on Earth governed?”

“There was a royal class?”

“Legend has it, yes,” Mr. Rankin said. He paced down Maddy’s row. “As with much about the Angels, they will not confirm or deny many things about their existence here on Earth, including much about their early history. Some historians speculate there was even a battle long ago between the Angels and Dark Angels, or demons, for supremacy on the planet, a battle won by these royal classes.” Maddy sat up in her chair again, trying to look as awake as possible as he passed. “So the Angels were anonymous. Then what happened?”

“The Civil War,” someone in the back called out. Maddy felt her eyelids closing.

“The American Civil War, correct.” Mr. Rankin went to the board and wrote
Civil War.
“After the awful bloodshed of that conflict, brother killing brother, Angels decided there was no longer any point to staying hidden and serving man out of kindness.” He paused. “To put it bluntly, we didn’t deserve it. So the original Angels, the True Immortals—twelve Archangels, mostly male, but we’ll talk more about that when we discuss the suffragette movement—came forward and presented their case to the U.S. government. They were led by Gabriel and came to be known as the Council of Twelve. With the help of President Grant, Angels made their power into a service and entered American capitalism.”

Mr. Rankin wrote
American capitalism
under
Civil War
and circled it. He began slowly pacing in front of the room again. “The Angels organized themselves into classes, formed families, and started having children. These Born Immortals matured to adulthood at a human rate, but then their aging almost came to a halt. Born Immortals do appear to slightly age over a very long span of time, although the Council officially claims they are immortal. They, in turn, had more children. As their numbers grew, the National Angel Services was formed. Now, who can tell me about the NAS?”

No takers. Mr. Rankin’s eyes scanned the room and fell on Maddy curled up in her chair, her head nodding.

“Maddy?”

Maddy looked up, surprised. “Yes?”

“We’re waiting.”

“I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”

Mr. Rankin gave a tight smile and walked toward her. “Repeating the question won’t do any good if you haven’t done the reading.”

Maddy sat up and cleared her throat. She felt confidence flare in her quiet gaze, and the small history teacher stopped walking and stood where he was.

“The National Angel Services opened in 1910 in Angel City, and a group of Born Immortal Archangels was created to oversee it. The original Council of Twelve male True Immortals granted the NAS powers to regulate the employment of Guardian Angels all over the world, and the system was called protection-for-pay. The governing body of Archangels spread Angels across the globe, but everything stayed headquartered in Angel City.”

Mr. Rankin’s eyebrows rose. He opened his mouth to speak, but Maddy continued: “Still, no one knew where the Angels came from. Every religion and culture has their own stories of supernatural protectors and messengers, guides. According to the Council, and then the NAS, this was who the Angels were. Beyond that, where they came from depends on what church you attend—if you attend church at all. The Council left the debate to the scholars and preachers, keeping most of their secrets from the public. Most people just accepted the Angels, like you accept the sun coming up in the morning.”

“That’s right, Maddy, very good—”

“The Angels charged a lot of money for what turned out to be a priceless service, and as they got richer, they charged even more.” Then she stopped and added, “Not that I care, but it seems like a pretty lousy thing to do.”

The classroom went dead silent. Mr. Rankin opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a sound coming from the hallway, a sound that made Maddy’s blood run cold.

It was a scream. Raw and terrified.

Frantic footsteps echoed down the hall, followed by more horror-filled shrieks. A blond junior, Samantha Cellato, burst into the classroom, sobbing. Her shirt and hands were covered with dark crimson stains.

Blood.

Mr. Rankin blinked, then rushed to the girl. Maddy just stared, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

“It exploded. It just exploded,” Samantha mumbled over and over. “I think she’s dead.”

More muffled screams rang out down the hall. Maddy looked through the door to see kids running for the front of the school as smoke began to fill the corridor. Somewhere in the building a fire alarm wailed.

Reacting more than thinking, Maddy leapt up and ran out of the classroom. She wasn’t even sure where her feet were taking her, but she could see smoke pouring from the biology lab at the far end of the hall and headed in that direction. She burst through the doorway to the lab and nearly gagged at the grisly scene in front of her.

The remains of an exploded propane tank lay on the ground. Mrs. Neilson, the bio teacher, was lying on the floor next to several other kids. Dark pools of blood were spreading out underneath them, reflecting yellow licking flames. Both of Mrs. Neilson’s hands were gone.

“Maddy?”

Maddy’s eyes popped open. She was panting, as if out of breath, and she could feel dampness on the nape of her neck. She looked up at Mr. Rankin, who seemed to be patiently awaiting a response. That tight smile back on his face. Maddy remembered what she was going to say.

“The National Angel Services was formed, and . . .” Maddy trailed off. A shaky, clammy sweat had broken out all over her body. She trembled.

“And?” Mr. Rankin looked confused.

All at once Maddy leapt to her feet and dashed down the row of desks. In a flash she was past Mr. Rankin and out the door. She knew she would have no more than a few seconds. She could only hope she wasn’t too late.

Running as fast as her legs would carry her, Maddy sped toward the biology lab at the far end of the hall. She burst through the door.

“Excuse me, young lady!” Mrs. Neilson shrieked, standing over her Bunsen burner. Maddy had already focused her eyes on the gray metallic lighter in Mrs. Neilson’s hand.

“Don’t!” she screamed.

Mrs. Neilson raised the lighter as she opened her mouth to respond, and in one fluid movement, Maddy lunged at her. She tackled Mrs. Neilson, linebacker style, and sent them both tumbling to the floor. Mrs. Neilson’s head hit the tile with a vicious crack, but she seemed to be okay because she began punching and kicking Maddy in an uncoordinated frenzy.

“Oh my God, help! Help! I’m being assaulted!” she screamed. Several of the students stood up, but no one made a move toward the front of the class. They all just stared at the bizarre sight of a teacher and a student wrestling on the ground. Maddy batted away Mrs. Neilson’s slaps and punches as she wrestled the lighter out of her hand, trying desperately to avoid creating any sparks. Mr. Rankin came running into the classroom.

“What the hell is going on in here?!” he demanded.

Gasping for breath, all Maddy could choke out was, “Check the propane tank.” Mrs. Neilson stopped struggling and gave an inquisitive look to the large, spherical tank just a foot away from her. Then she scrambled on her hands and knees away from Maddy and sat in the corner, wiping her nose between sobs. Mr. Rankin walked over to the tank and examined it. He put his ear to the valve, and his eyes grew wide.

“It’s leaking,” he said with alarm. “We have to evacuate this classroom. Now.”

•   •   •

Maddy spent the next period in the nurse’s office, which smelled of Band-Aids and alcohol, before being called before the principal’s desk. Mrs. Neilson agreed not to press charges, and in exchange, Maddy was given lunch detention the following day. Conversely, she was also thanked for helping detect the gas leak, although no one could quite figure out how she had known. Maddy, who didn’t want to open the can of worms that telling them the truth could cause, said she had smelled something walking past the lab. She was sent back to class and tried to finish out the rest of the day ignoring the whispers of her classmates.

The day had gone in her mind from hopeful to disastrous. She felt like a freak, like someone entirely different and out of step with the world. But that, she told herself, was nothing new.

After the final bell buzzed, Maddy pulled her hood over her hair and walked quickly home. She didn’t bother going inside but hurried across the yard and down the small hill to the office door of Kevin’s Diner, where she changed into her waitress’s uniform. Since Tracy had scheduled the night off, Maddy would be spending the rest of her day working the evening shift.

“How was school, Maddy?” Kevin called from the kitchen as Maddy threw her backpack in the office, pinned on her name tag, and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

“You know, uneventful,” she replied, trying to sound as convincing as she could.

“Really? Classes were okay?”

“Yup,” she said, coming into the kitchen and smiling vaguely. She hated to lie, especially to Kevin, but she couldn’t see any way around it. She wasn’t going to tell him about what happened. Being a freak at school she was willing to accept, but she didn’t want to be one at home too. She grabbed her notepad and pen and swung into the dining room before Kevin could ask anything else.

After about an hour, Gwen, Gwen’s friend Jessica, and Samantha Cellato came in. Jessica and Samantha were both juniors, and Sam had been in the biology lab for Maddy’s little performance with Mrs. Neilson. Maddy put them in a booth in the rear, and they all ordered the hamburger dinner. They had, undoubtedly, come in to talk over the incident at school.

“You made the Lunch Special,” Gwen said as Maddy arrived with their Diet Cokes. Of course, Gwen wasn’t talking about food. The Lunch Special was the gossip blog of Angel City High, where a junior named Blake Chambers dished on the goings-on of the school. Gwen held out the Berry for Maddy to read.

The screen featured a blowup of Maddy’s hideous junior-year picture and the headline “MADDY MONTGOMERY ATTEMPTS TO TORCH BIO LAB.” She read Blake’s words aloud.

“‘Dear Maddy, thank you, on behalf of the student body, for trying to set fire to the school. It would be an improvement, no doubt. Next time, though, please wait until the fire starts before beating up Mrs. Neilson for giving you an A–.’” Maddy winced. Jessica giggled.

“Did you get in trouble?” Sam asked, her eyes wide.

“Lunch detention tomorrow,” Maddy said. “I don’t really care. It will give me time to work on my applications.”

“Well, I mean, but how did you
know
?” Jessica asked as she plopped a straw in her Diet Coke and took a deep pull. Gwen looked at Maddy, her face sincere.

“Did . . . it . . . have to do with what happens?” she asked quietly.

“Happens?” Samantha asked avidly.

“Nothing,” Maddy snapped, glaring at Gwen. “It’s nothing. I’ll be right back with those hamburger dinners.” Maddy left the table, annoyed and a little embarrassed. Gwen lowered her voice.

“Maddy has this thing. She . . . sees things sometimes.”

“What!?” Jessica gasped, her eyes lighting up.

“Shut up, Jessica!” Gwen hissed, but not before Uncle Kevin peered inquisitively out from around the fryer. Gwen gave him a wave. Kevin waved back.

“Not all the time,” Gwen whispered, “just sometimes, she’ll start to see things that don’t really make sense. But they’re usually bad—”