“Maddy, you’re nearly the best I’ve ever seen,” said Susan. “Your frequencing is incredible. Your premonition ability may be the best among all active Angels. You can help us hold them off while we try to hunt the leader.”
“There are more demons than you can possibly imagine. Their numbers are beyond counting,” Sylvester said. “They have been waiting for centuries, quietly causing chaos around the globe when they needed to feed, but otherwise remaining in the shadows. Building their numbers. Stocking their army. All for this opportunity. We can’t let them win. We need you, Maddy.”
She looked at their pleading faces and knew what she had to do.
“When do I start?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sanctuary’s artificial sun had already set by the time Jacks made his way back to his quarters. The corridors were strangely quiet, the only sounds being the classical music that was piped in through skillfully hidden speakers, and Jackson’s own footsteps. This was nothing compared with the noise in his head, however.
Meeting Maddy had sent him in a tailspin, and he wondered why he’d ever agreed to see her in the first place. As if anything good could have come of it. He knew that a small part of him thought that maybe Maddy had changed her mind, was going to come running to him, beg for his forgiveness, want to join the Angels. But he knew now that was only wishful thinking. She had rejected him and the Angels twice already. Why would things change now? This was his stubborn Maddy, not just some fickle Angelstruck girl.
Jackson wasn’t going to tell Gabriel about Maddy. If Jacks had just listened, really listened, to what the elder Angel had been telling him about the difference between Angel loyalty and human “loyalty,” he wouldn’t be in this whirlpool of sadness to begin with.
Rounding the corner toward his rooms, Jackson passed a small garden studded with slender trees and a series of reflecting ponds surrounded by grass and flowers.
Suddenly, from the garden shadows, he heard a voice.
“Hello, Jackson.”
Jacks wheeled around. He thought he recognized the voice.
And deep in his mind, he associated it with danger.
Glass glinted, catching a ray of light as the speaker leaned forward.
“Will you come and sit with an old friend, just for a minute?”
Jacks felt a shock as a small shaft of light gave the face a brief moment of clarity.
“Detective Sylvester?”
“Shhh,” Sylvester said. “I’m not exactly welcome here.”
Leery, Jacks kept his distance. “They say you’re with the anti-Angel group.”
“They say a lot of things. Some of them are false, some of them are true. You’ll have to decide which is which. Will you listen to me, just for one moment?”
“If anyone sees us . . .”
“No one will bother us. I’ve arranged for that.” Sylvester said this with such confidence that Jackson was taken aback. Was the detective here to do more than just talk?
“How did you get in here?”
“We have friends everywhere, Jackson. There are many who do not want to just stand by while humanity is crushed by the demons. Even some in the sanctuary.”
Jacks stared hard at the detective. He had seen him recently during the Angel bombing crisis, but that seemed like a lifetime ago.
“The humans made their own choices,” Jacks said. “Now they must face the consequences.”
“That may be true. But many in human history have made mistakes only to learn from them later. That’s what being human is. They’re not perfect, Jacks, but they still deserve the opportunity to survive.”
“Five thousand years of war is a little less than perfect, Detective Sylvester.”
“You sound a lot like someone else I once knew.”
Jacks looked away. “It’s right there in the Book of Angels,” Jackson said.