Battle Angel

by Scott Speer

  Jacks didn’t even know where these words were coming from; they just flowed out like water. Looking at his audience, he saw determined faces, some with tears welling in their eyes, yet all of them with jaws still clenched in fortitude. When he saw Maddy wipe away a tear that had rolled down her cheek, he nodded solemnly and made his way to her through the crowd.

  Each Angel put down his or her sword and bowed to Jackson in respect.

  Maddy could tell that Jacks’s speech was more than just words. Something had happened to Jackson. He had become a real leader. He was no longer just the perfectly gorgeous visage on the cover of magazines and billboards, the most exemplary face of the glamorous Angels. He had become an actual leader. A figure of authority, power, and knowledge that the Angels could turn to. Whom they could follow. Whom they would follow, even if it meant their own deaths.

  To Maddy it seemed as if entire lifetimes had passed. The boy who had picked her up in his Ferrari, who was a little vain and foolishly angry that he couldn’t make her forgive him by simply smiling at her, had now become something different. Something more. Maddy realized that the things she had loved best about Jackson had come to bloom fully. He had become a true Guardian of the Godspeed class, just as his ancestors had been, and their ancestors before them, all the way back to before the recorded time of the Book of Angels.

  He was claiming his destiny, even if it would mean his death. He stood before her now, looking more serious than she’d ever seen him.

  “If I don’t come back—” he started.

  “Jacks, don’t talk like that,” Maddy pleaded. “You will come back.”

  “Maddy, it’s okay. You know what we’re facing here.” Jacks put his hand on hers. “When I’m—if I’m not here, find Sylvester. He and Susan will be able to help you, get you to safety.”

  “I’m not going to abandon Angel City, Jacks.”

  “Sometimes it’s not about what you want. Everyone needs you, Maddy. You can help coordinate the resistance if Angel City falls. We will do our best to slow the demons down—”

  “I’m not saying goodbye.”

  “—so you can keep working,” Jacks went on, clearly unable to face this difficult moment with Maddy head-on. “Linden will be waiting for you out east. The demons can only move so fast. You might be able to come up with a solution. Maybe find the bastard that’s controlling these things. The resistance can survive.”

  “You’re going to find the leader, Jacks. We already talked about this,” Maddy said, but even she could hear the note of desperation in her voice. “You’re going to make it.”

  “Well, if there’s one thing I know, Maddy, it’s that you’re going to make it. You need to make it. You’re a symbol, Maddy. What you stand for is larger than yourself. You need to survive. Me? I was just another spoiled Angel, and then I became something worse than that: a has-been. Bitter about everything I didn’t have, ungrateful for the things I did. I pushed you away because I was angry and sad and didn’t know what else to do. For some reason I’ve been given a second chance, and I want to make the most of it.”

  “What if I don’t want to be a symbol, Jacks? What if I want to fight? I’m a Battle Angel—”

  “I’ve already talked to Linden. It’s a precondition for our help. Your safety. There’s no getting around it.”

  “No! I’m going to fight,” Maddy said. “I have to! You can’t just force me to run away, Jacks. You can’t always protect me.”

  “I can try,” Jacks said. “I am here on this earth to be a hero, and I’ve only just recently realized that, up until now, I’ve failed at that. But today I get to be one. It’s an honor. And you are going to play a larger part. You have to survive, Maddy. You will survive.”

  Jacks leaned down and kissed her. His lips were light against hers, but he let them linger there for a moment. And Maddy let them linger, too. She had no choice in the matter; it was as if all of her soul and all of her body were possessed by Jackson’s presence.

  “Think of me,” he said.

  “I will,” she whispered.

  Jacks took her hand and put it against her heart. “I’m here with you.”

  Maddy was silent as the Angel walked along the flight deck to his destiny.

  • • •

  Jackson had almost reached the rest of his squadron of Angels when he heard a voice speaking from behind him.

  “Godspeed.”

  Jacks turned around. It was Tom, still with a large bandage on his head from the crash.

  “I just wanted to say . . . thank you,” Tom said. “For finding me out there.” He motioned to the expansive ocean. “But mostly just for coming. You and your Angels. You’ve given the people some hope.” He motioned toward Angel City, which, from their vantage on the carrier, seemed close enough almost to touch.

  Jackson didn’t say anything. He knew how hard this was for Tom after everything that had happened. Silence hung between them as they studied each other. The pilot in his flight suit, the Angel in his black battle regalia. Tom and Jacks had never been able to be in the same room longer than five minutes without shouting at each other. Now they had a moment to size each other up in thoughtful silence.

  “She loves you, you know,” Tom said.

  Jacks stayed quiet for a moment, looking down at the flight deck. Then he met eyes with Tom. “Take good care of her.”

  “What?” Tom said.

  Jackson just turned and started walking toward the stairs to the hangar, where the rest of the Immortals were waiting. The ocean wind whipped his hair as he walked away.

  “Godspeed!” Tom shouted after him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” But he received no reply.

  From the side of the flight deck, three military policemen and ensigns materialized and approached Tom. The pilot looked at them, annoyed.

  “What is it?” Tom said.

  “Sir, we’ve just received direct orders from President Linden that you and Lieutenant Commander Montgomery are to be transported as soon as possible to safety at a secure location east of Angel City, where you’ll be further assisting the resistance. Your demon expertise is far more valuable than your tactical skill in this battle. You are recovering from a concussion, and are under mandatory break from flying. In your state—”

  “My state is that I’m ready to kick some demon ass. You can’t ground me! I’m fine! I need to be up in the air. That’s where I’ll be able to protect Maddy best. This is a war. I’ve trained my whole life for this.” He rounded on the MP. “We’re going directly to Blake. When he hears about this—”

  “Sir, Captain Blake has already signed off on it. The call came from President Linden himself. There are no options, Lieutenant. You have to leave. You have forty-five minutes to get your things ready. You’ll be fully briefed on the helicopter. We are under strict orders to bring both you and Lieutenant Commander Montgomery directly to the president.”

  Godspeed.

  Angrily, Tom looked up to find Jackson, but he was no longer on the flight deck. The Angel was already gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The flames waved, quivering like a moving wall. They began at the beach and snarled above the rooftops, snapping and crackling in the masked daylight, starting to move away from the ocean and into Angel City.

  There had been no warning. No jets flying over, no air raid sirens. The demons were coming by land this time. They would be infesting the city, block by block. They would be methodical. No one would escape.

  The steady crack-crack of gunfire came from the front line of resistance: a ragtag group of locals, combined with a squadron of U.S. soldiers who had been stationed in nearby Venice Beach. They were armed with rifles, shotguns, pistols. Anything they could get together.

  The tony beachfront properties of Santa Monica had been transformed into a snarl of barbed wire and sandbagged machine-gun nests. A makeshi
ft barricade had been erected with the barbed wire and boards. Snipers were set up in smashed-open windows of multimillion-dollar beach homes, mortars placed in driveways next to the latest BMWs imported directly from Munich. All along this front line of defense, soldiers and citizen militia volunteers alike had been stationed and put into position. They stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to make a stand against the demons.

  • • •

  From far above in the dim darkness, the entire coastline as far as Jackson could see glowed red and flashed with explosions and gunfire. From the water, like lanterns of doom, he could see the dull black-red smoldering of the demons underwater as they advanced up out of the ocean and onto the beach. As they stepped ashore with their foul, unthinkable claws, they were met with the rapid fire of the machine-gun nests.

  This was the Immortal City’s last, desperate stand. Each block would be paid for in blood both human and Immortal.

  Jackson soared above with his formation of renegade Battle Angels just behind, regarding the spectacle with wonder. It was quiet up there, somehow, as the Battle Angels flew wing-to-wing in their black armor in the darkness. But it didn’t stay quiet for long.

  Jacks pulled his sword out from behind his shoulder. He turned and looked to the Angels aloft behind him, soaring on the cool ocean breeze. Farther out, he could hear the navy’s air support drawing closer. He nodded to Mitch.

  “Now!” Jackson shouted, spiraling straight down.

  With a great collective war cry, the Angels all drew their Divine Swords and began plunging one by one through the thin clouds into the hell that awaited them on the land below.

  The demon army just kept coming. Like some unending nightmare you could never wake from, the beasts kept emerging from the water.

  Now on solid ground, Jackson and his Angels fought them hand to hand in the streets. Smashing back and forth between buildings, the Angels wanted to slow the demons, hoping to coax the leader out, exposing itself, as they advanced. They would only have so much time to try to strike at this heart of the demon army. But who knew when that time or opportunity would present itself? Jacks had to trust the resistance to keep trying to track their patterns and home in on a source. Otherwise all—everything—could be lost.

  In the air, the military’s support was negligible—unless the demons were somehow forced into the open, the jets and bombers couldn’t get a clear shot. They were strafing and bombing the open beach when the demons were emerging, but all it did was slow them, not stop them. The beautiful Santa Monica beach was becoming pocked with huge bomb craters as the demons moved forward, unleashing themselves on the city.

  The battle lines were being pushed back toward Angel City already. How long until they had to make a final stand, Jackson did not know. But he knew it couldn’t be too much longer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Tom scornfully looked out onto the flight deck at the helicopter waiting to take him away from his duty. The crew was just waiting for Maddy to show up with her bag, and then he’d be whisked away. He was a pilot in the U.S. Navy, and this was his country’s darkest hour. He felt sick.

  He’d been under guard since they notified him of Linden’s decision to take him and Maddy to safety, away from the battle. Tom knew that Jackson had cut this deal with the president, and just thinking about it made him nearly blind with rage. He was supposed to be fighting, not running away. Even if he was supposed to be running away with Maddy . . .

  The officer in charge looked at his watch.

  “Williams, will you go hurry Lieutenant Commander Montgomery? We were supposed to depart three minutes ago.”

  The petty officer saluted and went belowdecks to the living quarters. Tom looked up at the red tinge starting to appear on the horizon near Angel City.

  Five minutes later, the officer returned, his face as white as a sheet.

  “She’s gone,” he reported. “We can’t find her anywhere. She left this.” The crewman handed Tom a letter.

  The pilot’s blood went cold.

  Numbly, silently, Tom opened it. He could have predicted what it would say, but he never would have guessed how short it would be.

  I’m sorry.—M

  In shock, the pilot let the paper slip out of his hand and watched it drift slowly down to his feet. Everyone was silent. Tom just stared at the paper resting between his feet.

  Suddenly he made a quick move to break past the crewmen waiting to escort him off the carrier, but they quickly cut him off and grabbed his arms, stopping his progress.

  “No! No! No!” Tom struggled, his teeth grinding, spit running off his lip as he used every ounce of strength to escape.

  “Lieutenant, calm down! Calm down or we’ll have to restrain you!”

  Tom swung at one of the MPs, and before he knew it, three of them had him pinned to the ground.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this is an executive order. It doesn’t matter where the lieutenant commander is—we can’t wait for her. We have no time. She will have to meet you there.”

  One of the MPs held him as the other bound his wrists together with a plastic tie.

  “This is just until we get you there. It’s our ass if we lose you,” he said. “I apologize, sir.”

  “Maddy . . .” His eyes were hollow as the MPs led him onto the helicopter.

  The crewmen on board gave a thumbs-up, and the helicopter began rising off the flight deck.

  Tom rested his head against the window and looked blankly out the scuffed glass from inside the chopper. His face was pale, like a specter of himself. Powerful gusts from the rotors of the helicopter and the crosswind off the ocean whipped his flight suit back and forth, but he didn’t even blink.

  They began their journey to safety. Without Maddy.

  • • •

  “Lieutenant, I’m sorry we had to use force back there,” an MP said. “But orders are orders. You understand, don’t you?”

  Tom didn’t reply. He just kept staring out the window.

  Suddenly, he thought he caught a glimpse of a purple glow amid the clouds below. Maddy’s wings? He shifted to get a better look.

  On second glance, he saw nothing. His eyes were just playing tricks on him.

  In the distance, toward Angel City, Tom could see the battle unfolding. The demons were flying around to avoid heavy fire, and flashes of artillery and bombs lit the darkened, cloud-canopied sky. He could see that the battle was moving farther into Angel City proper. The Dark Angels had broken through the frontline defenses along the beach. Along the normally glamorous, palm-lined Wilshire Boulevard, tanks were firing as demons assaulted the military positions. Their rounds flew through the alleys between the shiny, glass-skinned Angel office buildings. It was bedlam. Destruction was moving slowly toward the heart of Angel City. Judgment had come for the Immortal City. Tom watched helplessly as the helicopter took him farther and farther away. Farther from the battle, and from Maddy.

  Just then, Tom saw a battalion of Battle Angels moving forward in the sky against a contingent of demons. They all seemed to be moving as one chaotic group of good versus evil toward the center of Angel City. Jackson Godspeed would be there.

  And Tom knew that’s where Maddy would be going, too.

  He realized that it didn’t matter that where Jackson was she would be going, too. He realized that he loved her more than anyone he’d ever loved before, far deeper than any other he’d ever known. He would do anything to keep her alive. Even give his life for her, if it came to that.

  Tom continued to watch out the window but kept his guards in his peripheral vision. They were engrossed in the spectacle outside, the ongoing battle, not paying attention to him.

  Tom hadn’t endured months of Special Forces training for nothing. In one clean movement he leaned forward and jumped, swinging his bound arms out in front of him.

  The MP didn’t have time to
think before Tom’s elbow was bloodying his face, before Tom managed to pull his pistol out of the holster and train it on the other MPs. They put their hands up. He had them.

  “Hell,” one of the MPs said, spitting on the ground.

  “Cut this,” Tom said to the MP with the bloody nose motioning to the plastic wrist ties on his wrists. He trained the barrel of the pistol on the MP’s temple. “Just don’t make a quick movement with the knife. I’m allergic to knives. I’m liable to sneeze and I might pull a trigger.”

  Within a few seconds, the wide-eyed MP had sawed through the plastic ties with the blade, and Tom’s wrists were free. He took the knife from the MP and disarmed the rest of the crewmen. Still keeping a pistol trained on the guards in the back, he moved toward the cockpit, where the pilot remained oblivious to the quick turn of events.

  Through the cockpit’s glass, Tom could clearly see flashes of explosions continuing to light the horizon toward Angel City.

  Tom tapped the pilot on the shoulder. He turned around, annoyed.

  “What?” he asked in a grunt, but soon came up short.

  Tom’s gun barrel met his gaze.

  “I’m sorry. But we have an unscheduled stop.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Demons had begun to hurl themselves like live bombs into the Immortal City. They dropped down and curled up into balls of black fire and smoke, exploding violence and bedlam in the buildings and streets below. Fires blazed all across the Immortal City, roaring up from buildings into the dark night.

  “Press harder!” Jacks shouted to his fellow Angels. A demon-bomb soared across the sky, and, launching himself with amazing precision, Jackson flew straight up and swung his sword at the exact right moment. A blinding light flashed off the blade as it cleaved the demon into two neat halves.

  Mitch spotted another demon, this one flying lower, heading past their defenses to the palm-lined Halo Strip. He gave a cry and hurled himself toward the beast, setting his wings hard behind him as the dark wind ripped along their sharp feathers. Intersecting the Dark Angel from the side, Mitch smashed it against the enormous billboard of a beautiful Immortal that hung over Sunset Boulevard. As Mitch and the demon ripped through the advertisement and hurtled down toward the concrete below, they struggled in midair, smashing each other by turns into the luxury apartment building at their backs. Mitch launched himself against the demon, and they crashed into the atrium of the building across the street, where they grappled in the middle of the once-glittering Halo Strip. The demon managed to trip Mitch and fling him down to the ground, but Mitch used his wings to jump back up immediately while also drawing his sword.