Immortal City (9 page)

“You’re young still,” he said encouragingly. “You should, you know, see what else is out there.”

Vivian stepped in front of him and put a hand on his chest, stopping him. Her flawless brow knitted together.

“I know what’s going on, Jacks.”

Jacks paused. “What do you mean?”

“I know this whole breakup thing is just for the press, a little publicity stunt before Commissioning, right? I get it.”

Jacks blinked. He could feel the shock on his face.

“Vivian, I told you I needed time to focus before my Commissioning, and that’s the truth,” he said.

“Jacks, I
get it
.” She smiled coyly. “I’ll play along, even though, seriously, like you need any more publicity! With your wings and early Commissioning, you’re going to be the biggest Guardian ever. I just want to hear you say we’re getting back together after you get your Divine Ring.”

He said nothing, too startled to be diplomatic. Vivian took a step forward and moved her body against his. “We’ll surprise everyone. They’ll discover our secret romance on some beach somewhere. Do you have any idea how much
press
that will get? The media will eat it up. And it will totally help sales for my fashion line.”

“Vivian,” Jacks began, but she put a finger against his lips. Her emerald eyes had becoming piercing and seductive. “You’re Jackson Godspeed. I’m Vivian Holycross,” she said. “It’s just . . .
right
. Right?”

Jacks’s gaze drifted desperately to a restroom sign with an arrow hanging on the wall. “Viv?” Jacks said. “Will you excuse me? I’m just going to use the restroom.”

“Okay,” she said, her eyes dancing, “But don’t be too long.”

He turned quickly and left. Her coy smile was still in place, but she watched him go, dissatisfied.

Jacks made his way down the narrow hallway that led to the bathroom. But he passed the door labeled Gentlemen and went instead through a back door leading to the parking lot. One of the valets was standing by the Dumpsters, smoking.

“Hey man,” Jacks whispered. The valet’s eyes grew wide when he saw Jacks. “Would you mind pulling my car around?” He held out his valet ticket and a hundred-dollar bill. “And would you mind being discreet about it?”

T
he sanctuary of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church on Sunset Boulevard was nearly empty. Detective David Sylvester, who, at forty, looked ancient already, sat alone in a sea of empty pews. He wore unremarkable clothes, wire-framed glasses, and a near-constant scowl. He sat hunched, as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. His hands were clasped, fingers laced together as if he were immersed in prayer, but the detective’s eyes remained open. They drifted up past the stained-glass windows of the sanctuary, to the vaulted ceiling, and beyond. They were intent, the eyes of a man more in conversation than prayer.

The classic cathedral glowed with beauty, lit only by soft candlelight from the altar. In the grotto, votive candles danced and flickered, illuminating the gentle and ever-smiling face of the Virgin Mary. It all suited Sylvester fine. He preferred an old, imposing church where you could feel the presence of God Himself whispering to you through the walls. He believed in the things of yesterday. He still listened to records, and his home phone still had a cord. Sylvester believed in the Angel City of yesterday, and, if truth be told, he believed in the Angels of yesterday too.

The silence was interrupted by the chime of the detective’s cell phone, an unfortunate necessity for police work. His fished the thing out of his pocket and looked at the number.

“This is Sylvester,” he said into the phone tersely.

“Sorry to disturb, Detective,” an officer from headquarters said. “But we need you on a scene. Right now.” Sylvester frowned. He hadn’t been on a real case in years. He looked around the empty church.

“I’m a little busy,” he said, “Are you sure you need me?” The officer seemed to grunt.

“Jones or Chu would be more qualified, if you ask me, but the captain wants you on this one. Said something about your special background.” Sylvester considered this.

“What’s going on?” he said after a moment.

“You better just go down there and take a look.”

Sylvester took down the address and pocketed the phone. He lingered for a moment, looking at the altar and its shimmering candlelight. Why was he being called? And why now? He wondered what could be going on. Then he stood without crossing himself and walked unceremoniously out of the church.

Sylvester’s unmarked cruiser made its way toward Angel Boulevard, passing closed stores and shuttered cafés. Dark palms above shuddered in the night breeze. The city seemed naked, raw, without the neon, double-decker buses, and throngs of visitors. A pocket of drunken tourists staggered down the sidewalk on a side street. They had all bought matching SAVE ME! T-shirts and were taking pictures of each other. The detective shook his head. The Angels could only protect a few, but every year millions still dreamed it was somehow going to be them, that they were going to be on ANN with the Angels and other Protections, that they would be saved, and
everyone
would see it. They believed the lottery would come through. Or they’d make their millions and then have their own Guardian in no time, taking their rightful place among the Immortal City’s beautiful and glamorous elite. The detective knew better. He had spent too many years observing the dirty truth about Angel City to get taken in by what he considered a fairy tale. Through it all, though, the Angels still seemed to keep clean. They’d moved up to their houses in the hills years ago to keep from getting splashed with the mud from down below. Sylvester turned right on Angel Boulevard, leaving the group of tourists laughing in the night.

The crime scene was alive with activity. Floodlights illuminated a section of the Walk of Angels cordoned off with yellow police tape. An Angel City Police Department chopper droned overhead, its searchlight slicing through the night. Sylvester pulled up in his cruiser and waited for a moment in the car, observing the busy scene through his windshield. It was the first time in a long while he had been at an active crime scene. He had almost forgotten the chaos. The adrenaline. The rush. He opened the car door and made his way out into the cold and noise.

“Hey, you can’t come in here,” a uniformed officer said as he approached the tape. Sylvester fumbled out his badge. “Oh. Sorry, sir,” the officer said, and held up the tape.

Sylvester ducked under and took in the scene. On the sidewalk he saw a white sheet covering a lump directly over one of the famous Angel Stars. There were gangs in Angel City, and the occasional homicide was not uncommon. And it was certainly nothing that he was normally trusted with.

The one thing that caught his attention was that the bulge under the sheet looked small. Too small, he thought, to be a body. As he looked around for the sergeant, he thought he heard one of the officers mumble something as he passed.
Burnout,
he thought the man had said. Sylvester stiffened, plunging his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, and tried his best to put the man—and the past—out of his mind.

When Sylvester finally found him, Sergeant Bill Garcia looked especially upset.

“Hey Bill, what’s going on?” said Sylvester. Garcia seemed surprised to see him.

“They put you on this?” Garcia said, worry edging his voice.

Sylvester nodded.

“Guess so. What’s this all about?”

When the veteran sergeant looked at him again, Sylvester was startled to see fear glimmering in his eyes.

“Come on, sir,” Garcia said. They walked together toward the sheet on the sidewalk. “Everyone keeps asking me if it’s ever happened before. I tell them I don’t know. I mean”—he paused—“not like
this
. I don’t know these things, Detective, I just do my job.”

“Settle down, Bill. What’s going on?”

“I mean, we’re running gang interdictions tonight, usual procedures, but this doesn’t even seem like our jurisdiction anymore—” Sylvester stopped and held up his hand. The sheet was at their feet.

“Bill, stop. What’s the big deal?”

Garcia pursed his lips.

“The big deal? Come take a look, Detective. I’ll show you the big deal.”

The sergeant knelt down and Sylvester followed. Out of the corner of his eye, Sylvester realized the other officers on the scene were staring in their direction. Either watching him or curious as to what was under the sheet. Or both. Garcia took the edge of the sheet in his hand and raised it.

The gory mess on the sidewalk was perfectly reflected in Sylvester’s glasses. Two severed Angel Wings had been neatly placed over the Angel Star, crossed one on top of the other. Their ragged stumps glistened with thick, glittering Angel blood. Steam rose faintly from the wings in the cold night air. Whatever had happened, it had been very recent.

A jolt ran through the detective’s body. He ran the back of his hand over his mouth.

“Is this for real?” Sylvester asked.

“Yes, sir,” Garcia said, “This is for real. And read the name on the star.”

Sylvester pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and used it to lift one of the wings, just enough to look under. The gold lettering, though spattered in blood, was still readable.

“Theodore Godson,” he read aloud.

Garcia nodded. “Theodore Godson was reported missing earlier today.”

He pulled the sheet over the wings again, and the two men stood up. Sylvester looked down the length of the deserted boulevard. All of a sudden he seemed to have a terrible headache. He pulled his glasses off his face and began to polish them with the end of his shirt.

“What do you think, Detective?” Garcia asked.

“If someone cut off his wings, then he was probably mortalized.”

“Mortalized?”
Garcia said.

“Yes,” Sylvester said. “He was made mortal.” Sylvester was surprised to realize he was out of breath. A cold sweat had broken out on his forehead.

“Excuse me, sir, aren’t Angels
immortal
?”

“Yes, well . . .” He paused again and had to lean against a wall. The ground had begun to move under him. Garcia looked at him, concerned.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Just give me a second,” said Sylvester, clutching the wall. A sudden wave of nausea had risen in his stomach.

“Sir, are you . . .” The sergeant trailed off, peering back toward the other police.

Sylvester steadied himself and after a few moments turned back to Garcia. The sergeant was looking at him with concern. So were the other officers, the forensics team, everyone. He gazed back into their disbelieving eyes.
No one thinks I can do this,
he thought. The spotlight of the chopper cut through the scene again, pointing at the severed wings on the sidewalk like a white finger in the night. Sylvester peered down the street. A few straggling tourists had seen the light and were coming over to investigate what was going on. Sylvester straightened and put his glasses back on.

“Get that chopper out of the sky,” he suddenly barked. Then he turned to Garcia. “We’re going to keep a low profile starting right now. Absolutely no press. You keep your men buttoned up, okay?” Garcia nodded. “Who else knows about this?”

“Just a few of the responding officers,” Garcia said, surprised by the sudden confidence in the detective’s voice.

“Okay, let’s keep it that way,” Sylvester said. “Document the crime scene and then clean everything up like it never happened at all. Have those wings taken to forensics and find out who they belong to.”

Garcia had begun taking notes.

“Contact the Angels and get them involved. I want someone I can interface with on this, preferably someone close to the Council. Got all that?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sylvester looked back at the other officers. They had all gone back to their work.

“So, what am I writing in the report then? Homicide?”

“Maybe,” Sylvester said as he walked briskly back to his car. “We won’t know for sure until we can find Theodore Godson. But if those really are his wings . . . it’s not good.”

“We’ve been getting reports of HDF activity in the run-up to the Commissioning. Do you think . . . ?” Garcia kept trailing Sylvester. “I mean, um, when was the last time something”—Garcia stumbled on his words—“well, something like this happened? In this way.”

“Something on your mind, Garcia?” Detective Sylvester paused. The sergeant shook his head and dropped his head. Sylvester looked off into the distance as he continued, his expression hard: “It’s been . . . a while.”

Garcia crossed himself.

“I didn’t even know it could.”

“Walk with me,” Sylvester said gruffly. They rounded the corner, and Sylvester stopped in front of a darkened souvenir shop. It was Sylvester’s turn to question the sergeant.

“Garcia, are you going to be able to handle this?” Garcia considered, then nodded weakly.

“Okay, then I’m only going to explain this once. There are two kinds of Angels in the world. True Immortals and Born Immortals. True Immortals are, as the name suggests, truly immortal. Born Immortals can become mortal if their wings are removed and their supernatural powers are stripped. This is normally done for disciplinary purposes, by the Archangels, at the order of the Council.” Sylvester looked into Garcia’s eyes. “But last time I heard, Theodore Godson hadn’t missed a save. He’s not even in the Guardian ranks anymore; he stepped down from that a couple years after he was promoted to Archangel. Although judging by his recent behavior with women and drinking, he’s been a bit of an embarrassment to the Archangels. Anyway, it wouldn’t be like this.” He motioned toward the boulevard. “Not this brutal. The Council is much more . . . civilized. This would be impossible to do, except for the most powerful Angels.”