Battle Angel (14 page)

Panicked sailors on the deck of the carrier scrambled for their guns as the Angels neared the ship.

“Hold your fire! Goddammit, lower your weapons!” the captain screamed.

Jackson was at the head of the formation. He landed first, his folding cybernetic wings distinctly larger than the other Angels’ and glistening metallic blue under the morning sun. In one hand he held a large, glowing sword, the same kind of sword Maddy had seen when the Angels had descended on the library tower rooftop and battled with the demon. Jacks held up the sword in a sign of nonaggression as more Battle Angels slowly began to drop gracefully down onto the deck behind him, each of them with a sword. Mitch was among them, as were Steven Churchson and even Vivian Holycross’s boyfriend, Julien Santé.

Maddy descended the stairs, and Jackson looked up at her.

Maddy hadn’t even noticed that Tom had landed until, just then, he climbed out of the cockpit of his jet, pulling his oxygen mask off. Stunned, he looked at Jackson and the Angels, then up at Maddy.

Maddy’s knees shook as she walked down the bridge stairs, wavering under the emotional weight of everything that was happening.

Jacks had come.

Of course he had.

M
addy dizzied under the shock of Jackson’s arrival. Just moments before, the entire battle group had been steeling themselves for the arrival of the demons, and now everyone stood silently, in awe at the sight of upward of forty Battle Angels on the aircraft carrier. A distinct glow glinted off the swords each Angel held, the perfect Immortals looking formidable in their black battle armor. Jackson turned his pale blue eyes up to Maddy.

Maddy had thought that the dark wing she saw for a split second in her premonition had belonged to a demon, but of course she should have known. It’d been Jackson’s new wing in shadow against the sun.

Maddy took a few steps down toward the flight deck, where Jacks and the other Angels had landed, but she had to stop for a moment, holding herself up by the railing. Her head spun.

He had come to save Maddy. Just as he always had.

Tom jumped out of the open cockpit, tossing his helmet to a crewman nearby.

Making it the rest of the way down to the deck, Maddy approached Jacks. But Tom beat her to it, putting himself right between Maddy and Jackson.

“What are you doing here?” Tom said bitterly. “Haven’t you done enough damage? Go back to whatever hole your kind is hiding in and leave us to our fate.”

“I’m not here to talk to you, Tom,” Jackson said, trying to stem his anger.

“This is just some kind of Angel trick,” Tom said. He stepped up close to Jackson and looked him in the eyes. The Angel and the man faced each other eye-to-eye. A little thrill seemed to run down Jackson’s body. “Isn’t that right, Godspeed? What are you going to do this time?”

“Tom!” Maddy pulled at his arm, trying to get between the two of them. “Calm down!”

“I didn’t come to fight you. I came to help,” Jacks said, his nostrils flaring. Maddy still tried, unsuccessfully, to separate them. “But I will if I have to. Fight you, I mean. With pleasure.”

“And I’ll be glad to dirty my hands with some Angel blood!” Tom said.

“Please!” Maddy shouted, pushing them both away from each other. Captain Blake intervened and helped pull Tom back, and Mitch approached to stand next to Jackson, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“They said they’re here to help!” Maddy said.

“If you even knew the danger these Angels put themselves in by coming here, you’d be a little more welcoming,” Jacks said.

“Ensign, get the lieutenant downstairs and cool him off!” the captain shouted to a sailor. He turned to Jacks. “And you, Godspeed’s the name, right? You have thirty seconds to explain what you and your people are doing on my flight deck without prior authorization.”

Mitch stepped up. “I can do that, sir,” he said, winking at Jackson. “We’re here to kill some demons.”

• • •

The crewmen showed the Angels to their temporary living quarters. As everyone began to clear from the deck, Jacks caught up with Maddy in one of the hallways just one level down. Maddy had been trying her best to avoid his gaze ever since the Angels had arrived.

“I need to talk to you,” Jacks said, catching her by the wrist.

“Oh, Jacks . . . ,” Maddy said, looking over her shoulder for Tom. “I don’t know.”

“Maddy, come on,” he said.

“I made a promise, Jacks,” Maddy said.

“A promise to
him
,” Jacks said. “But what about the promises to me?”

“I’ve kept all the promises I’ve made to you, Jacks. Don’t be unfair.” Maddy stared intently at him. “I’m not just some waitress anymore, Jacks,” she said.

“And I’m not just some red-carpet Angel,” he said.

“What do you want from me?”

“I’m not here to change your mind. But I needed to come. I realized,
this
is my real duty. Detective Sylvester helped show me,” Jacks said. “And . . . Gabriel,” he added cryptically. “You may find it hard to believe that this isn’t just about me trying to get you back,” he went on. “But I feel it somehow. It’s somehow different.”

Maddy could tell Jacks was serious.

He put his hand up to Maddy’s cheek and lightly brushed it. She allowed it to rest there for a moment before turning away.

“Tom might see us,” Maddy said.

“Seriously?” Jackson said. “You were my girlfriend for how long, Maddy?”

“I don’t want any more problems,” Maddy said. “Jacks. It’s . . . it’s too late for this.” Maddy burned with guilt. “If this isn’t about . . . you and me, then why are you and Tom
still
fighting?”

“I can’t . . . help it,” said Jacks. “Even just seeing him near you, I start to feel crazy.” The Battle Angel sighed. “But I know this is bigger than either of us, Maddy.”

“I know,” Maddy said, somehow not able to look Jackson in the face. She was afraid of what would happen to her, inside, if she did. She thought of Tom’s warm embrace around her, and the promise she’d made to him.

“After you saw me, Detective Sylvester found a way to come see me in the underground sanctuary.” A darkness cast over Jacks’s face. “To persuade me to join the humans.”

“
Sylvester
convinced you?” Maddy asked. “And what’s a sanctuary?”

“There’s a lot you need to get caught up on,” Jacks said. “And he didn’t convince me right then. Although, he did help widen the crack of doubt I first felt when you and I met at my house. I was so angry when you met me.” He paused, and Maddy remained silent. “I was almost blind with rage. But our abandoning humanity, no matter how right it may be for the Angels, it didn’t feel right to me. Deep down, if I admitted it, I had doubts all along.

“In the end, to be honest, I did come because of you,” Jackson went on. “But not why you’re thinking. Gabriel wanted me to do something. . . .” The Angel’s expression turned inward for a moment. “I almost did it. I was so close. But then I thought about you, Mads. Your face came up. And I was ashamed.

“I realized how far I’d gone. Toward hate. Because of hurt. Or whatever it was. And I knew I couldn’t do what Gabriel had asked. He wanted me to take another Angel’s life.” Jacks paused, and Maddy looked at him with deep concern. “And not only that. But I knew I needed to help the humans. And protect you. Even if you were with . . . him. That it was the right thing to do. That it was my real duty. No matter what Gabriel and the Council would think. How much they would damn me and defame me to the rest of the Immortals.

“I remembered something my mom said to me: to not forget what kind of Guardian I was. And I had,” Jacks said, his voice coloring with emotion. “So I approached those other Angels I thought might want to come with me. Guardians I knew who would follow me. And others came, too, those I didn’t even ask. They believed in me. It was a strange feeling, after so much doubt and anger about you turning me down and turning away from the Angels. To have these other Guardians believe in me, to want to follow me.” His gaze drifted back to the coastline. “We left before the Council even knew what was happening. I had to do it; no matter how much I may agree with Gabriel on other issues, this isn’t one of them. And these Angels came with me.”

Maddy looked softly into the Angel’s eyes as he finished telling the story of how he had become a traitor in the eyes of Gabriel and the others. How difficult it must have been for Jacks to make that decision and bring these Angels to humanity’s side.

“Sylvester has a theory that something is controlling the demons,” Jacks said. “That there is a leader moving them beyond chaos and destruction into something more calculating and planned. And much more dangerous.”

“He told me about it,” said Maddy. “But what can we do?”

“It just makes it that much harder,” said Jacks. “We won’t be able to predict their moves. They’re not just going to be moving in to kill. If Sylvester’s right, they have some other plans, too.”

Maddy looked at him with questioning eyes.

“Like . . . what?”

“I’m sure we’ll find out,” Jacks said grimly. “We need to flush the head demon out into the open. But how we will do that, I don’t know. We might have to wait until they’re actually attacking. And then we can make our move.”

“But how would you ever find . . .
it
?” Maddy thought back to the chilling vision from her nightmare this morning, of the Dark Angel that was larger and more terrifying than any she’d ever seen.

“I don’t know yet,” Jacks admitted, looking down the hallway. “But if we can find it and kill it, we could end this whole thing. It might be our only hope. But we will have to hold them off long enough.”

Maddy thought about how hopeless it all sounded. But what other plan did they have? They’d have to pin everything on Sylvester’s theory and try their best to hunt down the head demon. She nodded at Jacks, then looked up the stairs to the bridge, where the captain was commanding the carrier.

“The military won’t need me anymore,” Maddy said. “Not with you and the rest here. They don’t know it yet. But you can see when the demons will attack better than I can.”

Jacks regarded her. “Seriously?” he said. “Maddy, no one has advance premonition vision like you do. Your instructors have told you that.”

“I thought Susan was just saying that to make me feel better,” Maddy said.

“No. You’re our best chance of seeing them before they fully attack,” Jacks said.

“What if this . . . leader is somehow blocking me?” asked Maddy. “My frequencing, I mean. During the first wave I had a vision, but it was only just seconds before. And afterward, almost all I got was static when I tried to focus in on frequencies. What if I don’t see it in time?” Maddy motioned to the door that led into the living quarters. “They’re all counting on me. Their lives are dependent on it.”

“Susan said you’re the most talented she’s seen,” Jacks said. “If you’re somehow getting blocked, you’ll find a way around it. I have faith in you.”

Maddy just nodded. She was going to have to start having some faith in herself, too, she thought.

“I brought something,” Jacks said. “Something for you.”

Maddy eyed the Angel as he reached for a slim package wrapped in cloth.

“We were able to get this before we left,” Jackson said.

“What is it?”

He unrolled the fine textile before her. Suddenly her eyes were lit with the glittering of a gold-hilted sword blazing under the light. It was just like the swords all the other Angels had brought with them.

“Take it,” Jackson said. “It’s yours.”

Maddy eyed the weapon nervously—she’d never even held a sword before. But she was also inexplicably mesmerized by it, and beheld it with a great sense of wonder.

“Jacks, I never got any Battle Angel training. I don’t even know how—”

“Just take it.” Reaching forward, he placed the weapon in her tentative grasp. She felt its weight in her hands; it was heavier than it looked. Jackson watched her.

“When the time comes, it won’t feel heavy at all,” he said.

She examined one side of the blade. Fine engravings had been etched along the dark gray steel, which dazzled under the light.

“Turn it over,” Jacks said.

The golden hilt was engraved with the name GODRIGHT.

Maddy gasped, as if she’d seen a ghost. As she held the sword, she swore she could feel a strange presence.

“Why does it have my name?”

“It was your father’s, Maddy. And his father’s before him. And his before him. This sword goes back generations upon generations. Forged by the finest Angel craftsmen of the ancient times. A Divine Sword to smite evil in the world. The evil of demons. They were made for all the Angel families. For so long now they’ve mostly been used as mere showpieces, beautiful antiques, with the Dark Angels in hiding for so long. But now they are back. And now this sword is yours.”

Maddy could feel the history coursing through the steel, straight into her. She had the uncanny feeling she’d held the sword before, that it was part of her and had been missing her—that they’d been missing each other. They shouldn’t have been parted, but now they were reunited. Suddenly, she realized her Divine Ring and the sword were both glowing. Together, and in harmony.

“Are you okay?” Jacks asked. There were tears in Maddy’s eyes as she held her father’s sword in her grip. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she moved, letting it slip off.

“Jacks . . . thank you,” Maddy said. “After everything I put you through, I—”

“No regrets,” Jacks said.

Before he knew it, he was hugging her—he was just so used to it. They both tensed up, and Maddy shifted away, neither of them entirely sure how to act around each other, now that she was with Tom. Maddy wanted to make sure she wasn’t mean to Jacks, but she also wanted to be fair to Tom. She couldn’t even really tell what she was feeling; the emotions were coming on so fast and so strong. She just wanted to hold it together and, most of all, not make things worse than they already were.

After a moment Maddy spoke.

“Where did you get it?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Archangel Archson. She and Sylvester were able to find it and get it out. Don’t ask me how.”

“And how does it . . . work?” Maddy held the sword up higher. Immediately she could again feel its power flowing into her. The light reflecting off it was a brilliant golden hue.

“The evil and chaos of the demons can overwhelm an Angel fast. Their dark powers are often too strong. These Divine Swords were forged as equalizers. The Righteous Blade, they sometimes call it.” Jackson quickly pulled his sword from the sheath on his back. It made a smooth
whoosh
as he drew it in a flash. He sliced the dazzling blade deftly back and forth in the air in front of him before turning it over to examine it. Maddy noticed that GODSPEED was written distinctly on the hilt in gold, although the edges of the letters had slightly rounded with age. “When wielded by an Angel, a Divine Sword can slay a demon. The Dark Ones will fear them. And then they will fear us. For as long as we last, at least.”

“Jacks . . . ,” Maddy said. But she knew it was no good to try to sugarcoat their situation. Jacks was right. Even with the help of the Angels, they were all facing the end. What could forty Battle Angels do against an army? This was just how they would be facing their end. Everyone either hiding in a hole or coming out into the daylight to do what was right.