by Scott Speer
“I understand,” Jacks said.
“Jacks, I was wondering if you might stop by again this afternoon. I’d like to discuss something with you,” Gabriel said with a gentle smile.
“Of course, sir,” Jacks said.
“Wonderful. I’ll see you soon,” Gabriel said. He put his hand on Jackson’s shoulder and walked off, presumably back to the Council chambers. Jacks just watched him go.
“Jacks!” Before Jacks could react, Emily was up on him, kissing him on both cheeks. “What are you doing here? Rubbing elbows with Gabriel, I see? Sit down!”
A couple of younger Angels sat at a bistro table with Emily, their Immortal Marks displayed provocatively in their low-cut designer shirts. Emily’s protégés, no doubt.
“I have to get going. . . .” Jacks tried to protest, but Emily wouldn’t take no for an answer. She grabbed his arm and tugged him to sit down.
“What were you two talking about?” Emily said, her eyes lighting up.
“Nothing.”
“Well, even if it was something, I wouldn’t want you to tell me if it was confidential,” Emily said, as if she wanted to look out for Jackson.
Normally Jacks would have tried his best to keep respectful distance from a girl like Emily, just as he had with Vivian when she’d been obsessed with getting back together with him. But now, for some reason, Jacks was letting Emily do her thing. She did sometimes make him forget about Maddy for a while, but sometimes she made him think about her even more. This time, however, even though nothing had happened between them, she was making him think of her less.
“When are we going flying again, Jacks?” she said. Her Angel friends looked Jackson up and down with moony eyes as they poked at their green juices with their straws. They had surely heard about Jacks and Emily’s recent flight after the first demon attack.
“We’re shopping for new bags,” Emily explained, without giving Jacks time to answer. “Well, I am, for sure. Ashley doesn’t know if she wants one or not. But I haven’t been able to find one yet. The selection here in the sanctuary is just, like, okay. We’re just taking a juice break.”
Above, Angel City was preparing to face its destiny with a demon enemy, and down here, Emily was going on about green juice.
“The kale in it kind of tastes weird, but you get used to it. Plus, it’s supposed to be great for your skin. You should totally try it.”
“Cool.” Jacks just nodded. He couldn’t be less interested in kale juice if he tried.
“Gosh, Jacks, you always sound so serious!” Emily teased.
The girls whispered something between each other and started giggling, their laughter echoing down the sanctuary halls. Emily leaned in and put her hand over Jacks’s as she talked, and Jacks was surprised when he didn’t pull away. She noticed and gave him a smile.
“You’re in with Gabriel. How long do you think we’ll be down here?” Emily asked.
“As long as it takes, I guess.”
“It’s not so bad as long as you’re down here,” Emily said, and her friends started giggling again.
Jacks looked at his watch, still a bit thrown by how he responded to Emily’s touch. “I should really go. I have somewhere to be, and I can’t be late,” he said.
The table grew a bit more serious. The girls didn’t ask where he was going. They didn’t have to. They knew he had to go meet Gabriel, and one didn’t really joke about Gabriel. Jackson stood to leave, and Emily didn’t stop him. The True Immortal, founder of the NAS, leader of the Angels, was waiting.
• • •
There was talk that Gabriel was grooming Jackson for something special. A wild rumor had even started that one day in the future, Jackson would be named the first Born Immortal on the Council.
Jacks was aware of the talk floating around the sanctuary, but he didn’t pay too much attention to it. It was true he was now a Battle Angel and had volunteered to lead the Angels against the humans. And he had spent more time with Gabriel these past few days than he ever had before. But really, Jacks just enjoyed hearing him talk about the days before the Great Awakening and tell the ancient tales of the Guardians and of the last Age of Demons, when the Angels had emerged victorious. Gabriel had also known Jacks’s real father pretty well. Sometimes they talked about him, too. A lot of the younger Immortals weren’t so interested in these old stories, but Jacks found them fascinating. And more than anything, he really treasured the anecdotes about his father.
Gabriel was a steady North Star amid so many changes throughout the years. And he was especially dependable now, even though the end of the demon war would bring about a radically different Earth for the Angels. In contrast, Jacks was just a young Guardian, still discovering what kind of life he would live.
Far, far above the Council chambers, skylights rigged with an ingenious system of mirrors and reflections spilled shafts of light from the surface down to the vast rooms underneath. The Council chambers and halls never ceased to impress Jackson. Regular Angels only saw these sacred places maybe once in their lives. Maybe. And Jackson was fortunate to have been invited in several times already.
Gabriel greeted him and they walked from the solarium into the main hall just outside the Council chambers, which were lined with Grecian columns like a beautiful chapel. The main hall itself was an enormous span of arches, with walls adorned with a jaw-dropping marble frieze, which, at its center, depicted the most famous image of Home. In it, Guardian Angels wearing ancient garb stood in a circle around a flame. The rest of the frieze told the story of the Angels in intricate detail, from their very beginnings, through the Demon Struggles for control of Home, and all the way up to the Great Awakening. Gabriel had been a witness to all this history, firsthand, not just through sculpture and song.
“You know, you remind me so much of your father, Jackson,” Gabriel said to Jacks as they strolled along the hallowed halls. He turned to Jackson, his seemingly ageless features warm and kind. He donned a simple white robe, lined with golden handspun embroidery.
“I’m honored to hear you say so, sir,” Jackson said. “From what I understand, he was a tremendous Guardian.”
“Indeed,” Gabriel said.
Jackson knew that Gabriel thought it was important that a warrior and leader have both physical courage and moral courage, and, most essentially, loyalty. Gabriel would often bring these topics up with Jacks, discussing both human philosophers and ancient Angel philosophers like Luxiticus, a brilliant thinker who was totally unknown to the humans.
“Loyalty,” Gabriel said. “It’s something the humans lack. We have been saving them for millennia, and now they turn on us at a moment’s notice with no provocation. Like ungrateful children.” Gabriel shook his head sadly. “Humanity is self-destructive, which is why we first came out of the shadows. I and the others who became the Council were tired of watching mankind kill one another, day after day, year after year. Brothers turning on each other in bloodlust. We tried to save them secretly, and then we tried to save them in public after the Great Awakening. But humanity cannot be saved from itself. We’ve tried for too long. And now it’s our time to stop and let destiny take its course.
“Mankind is perpetually at war. They are as restless as they are violent. We Angels represent their better nature. We are their ideal. We are perfect. Even you, with your new wings, are perfect.”
Jacks felt confused. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he saw on the outside, and he had a hard time reconciling those awful images with the logic of Gabriel’s argument.
“But . . . can we really blame humans for being less than perfect?” Jacks said.
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t call five thousand years of war ‘less than perfect.’ I’d call it something far, far worse. Jackson, I know you must still have sentimental attachments to the human world. But you mustn’t let those get in the way of your duty, which, first
and foremost, is always to the Angels. In my lifetime I’ve had to face difficult decisions, many of which nearly broke my heart. But I’ve always known I was performing my fated duty, not for myself, but for the good of Angels everywhere. And that’s made all the heartbreak worthwhile. You, too, have that opportunity now. We all do.”
Jackson nodded. Gabriel was right.
“They have abandoned you, Jackson.” He paused to study Jackson’s face. “I know it’s hard, but sometimes the truth hurts. She has abandoned you.”
Jacks turned away, his lips curling in bitterness.
“That’s another issue,” Jacks said. “I can’t let things get personal.”
“You’re right, son. It was wrong of me to bring that up,” Gabriel said. “I apologize. I just want to make sure we’re clear. You may face temptations, but you must strike them down.” Gabriel turned and looked to the inscriptions underneath the depictions of ancient battles. “I don’t know how I appear to you, Jackson. But you and I are made of exactly the same thing. I can feel it. And I want to protect you, as if you were a son.”
“I understand,” Jackson said. “And thank you.”
“None of this means we don’t have compassion for the humans. I will always have compassion for them, even though they turned on us. As a young Angel, I, too, once struggled with the love of a human,” Gabriel said.
Jacks’s eyes opened in shock. Gabriel? In love with a human?
“Shocking, I know. This was before our Home had become fully hidden from humanity, when human civilization was just emerging. A young woman, more beautiful than anyone—human or Angel—I had ever seen,” Gabriel said. “She was enchanting. And she enchanted me. I knew there was no way it could work, that we could never really be together. But I trusted her anyway. And in the end, she let me down.”
Gabriel’s eyes came back into focus as he left behind memories of his ancient love and returned to the present.
“Even though they are simply humans, Jackson, they are dangerous. Don’t ever let them have you forget that.”
They’d circled back to the main atrium in front of the inner Council chambers. Gabriel stopped and looked right at Jackson.
“Jackson, you know how much I have enjoyed getting to know you,” he said.
“I’m humbled to hear you say that,” Jacks said.
“But there’s another reason I asked you to come see me today, in private,” Gabriel said. “I’ve already discussed this with Archangel Godspeed, and he believes you might be ready.”
“Sir?”
“Even here, deep in the sanctuary, there are Angels I cannot trust,” Gabriel said. “Those who would work against us, for whatever reasons they foolishly believe.”
“I . . . have heard some rumors.”
“Those rumors are, perhaps, sadly true. Not even the NAS is clean. I need someone I can trust, someone who’ll remain close to me, to help me find the rotten apples in the ranks. I know your mettle and your convictions, Jackson, which is why I’m asking for your help. These are trying times, and we need to fish out the traitors together. When I do call upon you, I will be entrusting you with the most important tasks.” Gabriel looked at Jackson. “If you’ll accept, naturally.”
“Of course I will, sir,” Jacks said without hesitation. He immediately thought of how having some kind of higher duty here could help him move on and get over all the pain he’d endured these past few days. As he moved on, he could help Gabriel and the Angels become stronger.
“It makes me happy to hear it, Jackson,” Gabriel said, smiling. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for the afternoon session with the Council.”
With a short word of goodbye, Gabriel was escorted by an assistant into the inner Council chambers.
Jacks’s mind was swimming as he was led back to the sanctuary by another Council assistant. Maybe Jacks really was being groomed by Gabriel, and all that talk amounted to more than just rumors. Gabriel was bringing him in as a confidante. For Jacks to go from an injured, washed-up Guardian to working as a personal aide to the True Immortal responsible for bringing the Angels into the modern age . . .
He was so caught in this tumble of thoughts that he almost didn’t feel his phone vibrating in his pocket.
He had a text message.
And it was from Maddy.
“Hey.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Just like every other establishment in town, the old dive bar on the far side of Angel Boulevard had been closed for the four days the curfews and checkpoints had been in place. The owner, who doubled as the bartender, had ignored the evacuation warning and was now trapped in Angel City with the rest of the civilians. But where would he have gone, anyway? Angel City was his home, and this bar was his life.
Tonight, just as he’d done the previous four nights, he crept down to the bar, which was conveniently located below his apartment, to check in and make sure everything was safe and sound. He opened the door as slowly and quietly as possible, looked in on the dark and empty space, and sighed. Closed again. He wished the demons would just come in and get it over with.
Well, almost closed.
The bar was officially closed to the public, but he did have a few especially loyal customers who had permission to call him at home and request a nightcap at their favorite dive. Two such customers were Detective Sylvester and a mysterious, beautiful older woman who gave the bartender an Angel vibe, but he couldn’t be totally sure she was Immortal. He knew better than to ask too many questions. But they were allowed in whenever they felt like it—Detective Sylvester had really helped him out during the vice squad crackdowns of ’94, so the bartender owed him, and was a man of his word.
His special customers were in tonight, and they’d brought along a short, stout man in a snazzy suit who looked strangely familiar. The windows had been blacked out to prevent anyone from seeing any activity, and inside a single candle burned atop a table in the back.
The bartender wiped the layer of dust off the tabletop and nodded to the group.
“Whiskey rocks, Jim,” Sylvester said.
“I’ll have the same,” Susan Archson said.
“Just a Seven-UP for me,” said the third man. “And go easy on the fizz—I gotta drive back.” Sylvester was glad to see that even in this dark hour Louis Kreuz still had his sense of humor. He was a remarkable Angel who had held the Guardian training program together for nearly a century through sheer force of will and a stand-up personality. His style was old school—he hailed from Central Europe and had been around since the Golden Age of Angel City—but it was still more than effective. Sylvester saw him as an essential part of Angel culture, and a colorful symbol of the Immortals’ past and present in Angel City.
And he was also the resistance’s mole working inside the sanctuary. The Thorn.
Kreuz liked the code name. It tickled his particular sense of humor.
The fact that Louis was working with Sylvester and Susan, that he’d been instrumental to the resistance’s founding, was monumental. But it also made Angel life incredibly dangerous for him. Every day he stayed in the lion’s den that was the sanctuary was another day he could be found out, which is why he took every precaution possible. He used only backup burner phones with untraceable SIM cards, so he could send coded texts to Susan and Sylvester for them to decode on the other end. He had a special “dead-drop” system, where he would leave documents for an unknown agent to pick up and deliver to the resistance. And if all else failed, his assistant, also a resistance member, had a surefire contingency plan should anyone ever come looking for him in the middle of those nights when he had to steal away from the sanctuary to attend a clandestine meeting.
“Any problem getting out tonight?” Sylvester asked.
“Nope, not a one. The boys have the system down pretty good,” Louis said. He looked at David and Susan. “All right. Let’s get start
ed. You first.”
“We’ve established lines of communications with Linden and the top officials of the Global Angel Commission,” Archangel Archson said.
“Good. Don’t talk to anyone even remotely associated with Angel City. Get as close to Linden as you can,” Louis said. “I don’t even know if I trust all his Cabinet members. If Gabriel has infiltrated any part of the GAC, he’s not letting on one bit. At least not to me.”
“What about David’s fear that the demons have somehow evolved?” Susan asked. “Some of the information we got from the field shows sightings of demons that are larger, more advanced than any of the Dark Angels the Immortals faced in ancient times. And they were so methodical, so . . . deliberate and organized. Are the Angels saying anything about that?”
“Are you talking about some kind of . . . super demon?” Kreuz asked.
“If only,” Sylvester said darkly. “I have a theory. Some thing is controlling them. A leader. They’re sending out scouts, finding our weaknesses. Wearing down the human psyche. They’re making sure that Angel City will be that much easier to conquer. Normal demons wouldn’t do that on their own. No. There is a leader among the Dark Ones. If we can find it . . . we could end this. We’ve just got to be one step ahead of them. We need to find its patterns, its weaknesses. That’s our key to finding the leader, and the leader is our key to defeating these demons. We cut the head off the leader, we cut the head off the entire army.”
“So . . . you’re saying we wouldn’t like to meet this head demon in a dark alley,” Louis mused. “As far as head demon, or super demons, if the NAS experts monitoring the demons know anything about it, they ain’t saying. Seems like they mostly just want to lie low, keep the sanctuary in one piece, and dodge any cross fire.”
“It seems like just yesterday I was tracking that lone demon Angel killer . . . ,” Sylvester said. “Now we’ve got an entire army to hunt.”
“Look on the bright side,” Louis said. “At least property prices are finally going to go down. Even if it is going to be a hell of a lot hotter with all these demons around.” He couldn’t help laughing at his own joke—classic Kreuz, Sylvester thought.