Natural Born Angel (5 page)

“Oh, come off it, Mark,” a different Archangel said, his voice booming. “You can’t silence everyone.”

The room erupted into argument. Max stood very uncomfortably near the glass doors.

Maddy looked at the squabbling Archangels. Blood flushed her face. She found she was getting angry. A newfound strength filled her.

She stood up from her chair.

All eyes turned to her as the Archangels slowly quietened down.

“If you didn’t think I had what it took to be a Guardian, why did you ask me to start training in the first place?” Maddy said. “I don’t know what Angel abilities I have, or will have. I can’t say when my wings will come, or even what they’re going to look like. I can’t even say if I’m going to like being a Guardian. But I can say that the reason I want to become a Guardian is to protect the ideal of doing one’s duty, to help mankind.”

Maddy’s eyes scanned the room, anger loosening her tongue. She felt like she’d been tricked, swindled into coming somehow. Reaching in her pocket, she pulled out her father’s Divine Ring. She felt like she was watching herself in third person.

“I know that even though most of the Archangels during the Troubles have since resigned, some of you could have been against my father and mother, what they stood for, and are probably against me now. But I know that this Immortal Ring should mean the same for everyone in this room – even if they are a jerk. And I believe in what it means, too.” Maddy put the ring back in her pocket, her hand shaking. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more important things to do with my time than get insulted.”

And with that, Maddy turned and walked out the glass doors, leaving the roomful of stunned, silent Archangels behind.

She was stone silent in the passenger seat as Jacks rumbled down Melrose back towards the heart of Angel City. She didn’t notice the tourists, the oversized billboards with beautiful Angels splayed across them hawking their wares, the palm trees, the boutique stores, all moving past the car windows outside. She felt Jacks steal a glance at her. He started to say something, but then thought better of it.

She finally broke the silence, her fingers tensely digging into the supple leather of the seat. “Oh my God, Jacks, what have I done?”

Jacks looked over at her in sympathy.

“I’m sure it couldn’t have been
that
bad.”

“Jacks. I told an Archangel he was a jerk.”

“Oh.” Jacks’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. He took a left and burned up La Cienega towards the Halo Strip.

Maddy let out a long breath. In approximately ninety seconds she had destroyed whatever chance she’d had of becoming a Guardian. She was truly surprised to find that she was sad.

It was now too late to join Northwestern this term. In fact, she wasn’t even sure they would let her have a place there at all, since she had given up her spot at the very last minute. She might even have to reapply
everywhere
. In the meantime, maybe she could start some classes at Angel City Community College, which was in a squat grey cement block building within walking distance of Kevin’s house. A far cry from the leafy campus she was envisioning in the plush suburbs outside Chicago. She wondered if Kevin would let her start picking up shifts again, even though the new waitress was doing such a good job.

Maddy’s phone buzzed in her bag. She was almost afraid to check it.

“You don’t have to get that right now if you don’t want to,” Jacks said, eyeing Maddy with concern.

“I might as well get it over with,” Maddy said. She reached in her bag, pulling out the phone. Her stomach flipping, she looked down at the screen.

It was a text from Mark.

It read:
“You’re in.”

D
arkness reigned along the Angel City street, an unnatural quiet whispering in the fronds of the palms as they rustled in the night above. A block or two away, the occasional car would pass along the sleepy streets, its headlights brightly burning before leaving the night to its darkness and silence. Two streetlamps cast a hard orange glare on the street at the end of the block, and a crisp white security light shone right in front of the building. The rest was shrouded in darkness.

The darkened palms, shifting softly back and forth with the warm night wind, were the only witness to the two dark figures that crept silently towards the offices.

Without exchanging a word, they moved quickly along the pavement, passing the thick glass doors of the impressive building and heading to a service door off to the side. One, slightly shorter, carried a boxlike object under his arm. Both wore dark masks that covered most of their faces. Etched perfectly on the glass façade of the structure were the words ANGEL ADMINISTRATION AFFAIRS.

The two paid no attention to the lights still on in the fourth-floor offices. With complete precision, the two dark figures worked in concert. The first placed the metal box on the ground, opening it slightly. His hands reached inside, his fingers working quickly at some unknown task. The other stepped to the service door. Looking back and forth first, he pressed a gun-like object to the steel door. He pulled the trigger. The device obliterated the door’s metal lock. The
THWOOMP
of the mechanism echoed into the night. But then all was quiet.

The figure crouched at the box turned to look up at his partner by the door. The latter nodded slightly. Closing the box, the squatting figure carefully lifted it under his shoulder once again and moved to the door. He waited.

The man with the gun device holstered it and then placed the palm of his hand flat against the steel of the door, softly. He pushed with the slightest of pressure, and the door swung easily open, its hinges squeaking slightly.

The two quickly stepped across the threshold into the pitch-black hallway beyond the door. Two criss-crossing torch beams disappeared into the dark belly of the building.

The alarm began, a high drone. It carried through the quiet night. A dog began howling in response, followed by another. Slowly, lights began to flicker on in the occasional apartment down the street: someone peering suspiciously out of the window, only to think better of it. An elderly man with insomnia opened his door and craned his head to look towards the source of the droning alarm.

Nearly a minute after disappearing into the doorway, the two figures emerged from the dark interior of the building, the alarm still insistently wailing. Neither was carrying the box any more – it had been left inside.

When later questioned by the Angel City Police Department, the only thing the sole witness – a paralegal who had come downstairs to stretch his legs and get some fresh air – could say for certain about the events was that he had seen two shapes moving across the street. The rest was unclear – he hadn’t been wearing his glasses, after all. Those had been sitting on his desk up on the fourth floor, where his entire team and an outside group of temp workers had been working late into the night to meet a deadline for the Angel lawyers. There were at least a hundred and thirty-five workers on the floor. The overtime pay was good, the witness explained tearfully.

Quickly scanning the street to check if it was clear, the two dark figures moved at a trot down the pavement towards a residential neighbourhood. Reaching the corner of the dark residential street, they went separate ways without a word, one turning right towards Beverly, the other going left towards Melrose.

The street was once again abandoned, the alarm wailing over an empty scene.

A security guard who had been drowsing in his old silver Toyota Corolla finally woke to the noise of the alarm. Sputtering and muttering, the overweight guard drew himself up out of the reclined driver’s seat and opened the car door.

“
Goddammit
,” he cursed under his breath as he collected himself. How long had he been napping? It couldn’t have been that long. But now the alarm was going off – this could mean his job. Scanning the street, everything seemed normal except for the alarm. He fumbled for his long torch and flipped it on. Stepping down the pavement, he walked under the towering glass façade of the building. He reached the glass front doors and checked them. They were still locked snugly tight. The guard’s brow cinched in concentration. He shined the light slowly inside the glass of the doors, its beam moving back and forth across the lobby, but he could see no movement.

He felt at his waistband but couldn’t find the keycard for the side door into the lobby. Must have left it in the car. So, reaching to his waist, he pulled up a huge steel ring that had at least two dozen keys attached to it. Narrowing his eyes, the guard began going through the keys. He tried one, and then another, but none of them fitted. Exasperated, he continued looking through the keys for the right one, then thought better of it.

Dropping the ring back to his side, he started stepping carefully through the short, manicured bushes that edged the front of the building, shining his light through the glass inside. The beam shone weirdly into the dark, empty building, reflecting off the shiny floor of the minimalist lobby, casting fractured, monumental shadows.

Suddenly the searching beam found something out of place, only a metre inside the glass wall.

“What the hell?” the guard muttered to himself, looking at the black metal box through the glass. Scratching his head, the guard walked back to the front doors. He pulled the huge ring of keys from his pocket and began searching for the right one. He tried one. Not right. He cursed. Tried another. This one didn’t fit either.

The legal workers from the fourth floor started emerging from the stairwell into the dark lobby, which was illuminated by flashing alarm lights. Bleary-eyed from too much work and too little sleep, they stumbled into the lobby, grumbling, dozens of them.

“Must be another false alarm,” a man with a stained white shirt and a brown tie complained under his breath. “Should have just stayed upstairs with Phil and the others.”

Many of the office workers just stood in the lobby, yawning, waiting for the alarm to be reset, looking at the vending machines. There’d been two false alarms in the past month. Some of the workers had begun exiting the building through the side door with their keycards to get a bit of fresh air before heading back up to their late shift. They stood outside, just feet away from the sheer glass walls of the building, the ANGEL ADMINISTRATION AFFAIRS lettering just above their heads.

The alarm continued to drone.

Then, in a panic, the security guard began yelling at the workers, rushing towards them with his torch.

“Move! Move! Get away!” the guard shouted. “For God’s sake, mo— ”

Before he could finish his sentence, he was incinerated in a hellish firestorm of flame and glass.

The front of the lobby exploded outwards on to the street in an enormous, ballooning orange cloud as the bomb detonated. The forty or so people just inside the doors never even knew what happened as they were instantly reduced to fiery ashes. The entire glass façade with the ANGEL ADMINISTRATION AFFAIRS lettering burst outwards in the fire of the bomb, and the force of the inferno instantly pulverized those unfortunates still standing on the pavement. Light from the flames reflected off the millions of shards of glass as they shattered, falling like razor-sharp snowflakes, tinkling, along with whatever remained of the dead office workers, on to a row of burning parked cars. Flames from the cars licked angrily at the sky, roiling black smoke and fire up into the dark.

One woman, her face covered in dark soot and crimson blood, had been saved because she had been standing behind a car. She screamed in agony, her leg a mess of blood and bone. Another man rolled on the lawn, his flaming clothes melted to his body. Most of the others weren’t so lucky, the front pavement a scene of mayhem and carnage beyond what even the most terrorized imagination could envision.

Somewhere in the distance, a police siren began. Then another. The building alarm itself had been abruptly silenced by the blast.

The trees in front of the building rocked back and forth, their palms flaming and sizzling blood-red in the night.

T
he offices of the NAS, where Maddy had been just yesterday, now transformed into a kind of command centre. Inside a small auditorium that also served as an enormous conference room, Archangels perched around a massive table, their faces gaunt from concern and lack of sleep. Many high-profile Guardians sat in seats in the circular auditorium, along with a number of human lawyers, who were seated just behind the main table. A number of chisel-jawed, black-suited Angel Disciplinary Council Agents stood discreetly at the exits of the auditorium, ensuring safety. Frantic assistants flitted in and out of the room. Phones rang constantly. Footage of the smouldering carnage that had been the front façade of the Angels Administration Affairs building a few blocks away played on the massive projection screen at the head of the room. Pillars of smoke swirled up from the glowing ashes of the wreckage on the screen.

A technician readied equipment for a video conference with Angel branch headquarters in Paris, London, Rio and Beijing.

In the far corner, Mark Godspeed looked contemplatively out of the tinted windows that formed a gleaming wall – a wall that looked down on to Beverly Boulevard from many stories up. Golden morning sun filtered through the thick glass. Behind Mark, the newscast scrolled the latest fatality count for the bombing: eighty-three and growing – all humans, but the attack had clearly been on the symbolic seat of Angel business.

Archangel Holyoake brought his fist down on the solid oak table with a thump, causing the half-drunk cups of coffee on the table to shake. Holyoake was a hulking figure, his bulk contained under a steely blue suit, powder blue shirt and silver tie.

“We have to come out strong. This bombing is a frontal assault, and we need to respond accordingly! We cannot be seen as weak!”

A female Archangel shot Holyoake a glance. “William, how many times do we have to go over this? We have no solid idea where this threat is coming from, or who it could even be. No one is claiming responsibility yet. Jumping to conclusions now would be foolish and would open us up to serious criticism further down the line.”

“We need to practise restraint,” Archangel Steeple agreed.

A deep voice erupted down the table. It was Archangel Charles Churchson, who stood up to address the assembled Angels. Mark turned his head slightly towards Churchson as he spoke, although he still maintained his gaze out of the shimmering window.

“Don’t play dumb. It must be Senator Linden and his people. It’s the logical next step for their organization, even if he is running a presidential campaign,” Churchson said gravely. “He’s campaigning on an anti-Angel platform, and some are starting to listen to his lies. The proposed ‘Immortals Bill’ would be the single most dangerous threat to Angels since the Great Awakening. He’s fuelling hatred, turning humanity against us. They’re making a power play, and they won’t stop until we’re totally rendered toothless, intimidated and weak. Some violent act like this was bound to happen. The question is, what will we do about it? Stand by and watch as they attack our prized institutions? Or something else.”

More than a few heads at the table were nodding in agreement with Churchson.

Mark Godspeed turned all the way around to the assembled Angels in the room and spoke. “Regardless of what’s decided here today, we must ensure safety and security for Angels across Angel City and the world. Whatever it takes.”

“Mark’s right,” Holyoake said. “And part of ensuring safety is ensuring that the investigation is done properly and that we bring the perpetrators to light. That’s why we must conduct the inquiry entirely. We can’t trust a human police force. With the growing influence of Linden and his agents of hate, we can be sure there will be moles in all the human agencies.”

Mark disagreed. “We do have friends within the police department. Perhaps we can use their resources, as well.”

“We cannot trust them. Full stop,” Archangel Churchson said. He turned to the bank of nondescript men sitting along the wall. “How has our closing out of the police been going?”

One of the lawyers responded. “The scene was sealed for Angels-only access shortly after ACPD arrived from the 911 call. The police complied.”

“Good,” Archangel Churchson said. He took a drink from his coffee mug and set it back on the table.

The glass doors to the conference room swung open. Jackson Godspeed stood there in a grey hoodie and dark blazer. A number of Angels turned to the door, surprised to see him.

“Jacks, what are you doing here?” Mark said. “I thought you were with your mother and sister.”

The world’s most famous Angel scanned the room, seeing Archangel Churchson’s nephew, Steven, along with a couple other Guardians from his Commissioning class last year. His cheeks burned hot with anger and embarrassment for a moment as he thought about how he hadn’t even been called for this most important of meetings. He addressed his stepfather.

“I’m a Guardian, aren’t I? Even if I can’t fly right now,” Jacks said. “I’ve sworn to uphold and protect the ideals of the NAS.”

A few of the Angels uncomfortably studied the table in front of them rather than match Jacks’s direct gaze.

Mark stood up from his chair and walked over to Jackson. He put what was meant to be a conciliatory hand on his shoulder.

“Jacks, you’ll be no good to us at all if you don’t get better,” Mark quietly said. “You need to focus on your recovery. Get your wings back.”

Jackson’s gaze floated past his stepfather and up to the devastation and disaster of the bombing playing on the screen. Fury and determination combined in his glinting blue eyes.

“No, Mark. I want to help. I
need
to help,” Jacks said emphatically. “I want to bring whatever monster did this to justice. I have to be useful somehow. Just doing anything. You’ve got to put me to work.”

Mark seemed about to protest again when a voice spoke. Faces turned. It was Archangel Churchson.

“Let him stay.”