Battle Angel (Immortal City 3)

• • •

Maddy couldn’t tell how long she’d stayed in the diner after Jackson left. She became lost in thought, her mind trying to make sense of all that had just happened. She thought about what he was asking. To go away with him. Forever. To somewhere he couldn’t even fully explain to her. To the place from which the Angels had come. To Home.

Suddenly, the front door jingled, and Kevin entered the diner, breaking Maddy’s daze.

“Hey, Mads,” he called, carrying some sacks into the kitchen. “I thought maybe I’d find you over here. I saw the light had been turned on.”

Maddy smiled at him but didn’t answer.

“I brought back some enchiladas from the shelter, if you’re hungry. They’re vegetarian.”

“No, thanks, Kevin,” she managed.

Kevin continued to talk as he walked into the kitchen, upping the volume of his voice so she could still hear him.

“Everyone was talking about your appearance with Linden at the shelter. What in the world is going on? Do you know?” Kevin came out of the kitchen and into the dining area. “Maddy, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Kevin,” Maddy said, trying to put on the best smile she could muster. “Just a little tired after all the excitement. I think I’m going to go back to the house.”

What could she say to Kevin? That she had to decide whether or not to leave him and the humans, forever? Maddy knew she was going to have to make this decision on her own, whether she liked it or not.

“All right, Maddy. Let me know if you need anything,” said Kevin. He opened the front door for Maddy and watched her walk out.

• • •

Upstairs in her bedroom, Maddy looked out the window toward the hill that held the remnants of the Angel City sign. It had been battered and bruised, and was now barely readable. But one of the first things the relief crews had done was train a temporary spotlight on the sign

. The gesture provided a symbol to the people—and the world—that the spirit of Immortal City could not be stifled. The light radiated across the Angel City basin, illuminating an exhausted, but not defeated, city. They might be kicked down, bruised, even shattered—but they had not been defeated.

Looking at the sign, Maddy suddenly knew where she needed to go. She pulled on her hoodie and her favorite jeans. She slipped down the stairs quietly and went out the back door.

Maddy could have walked to this place in her sleep: down from Franklin, then right at Angel Boulevard toward the Walk of Angels. How many times had she made this walk when she was just a student at ACHS, dreaming of college and getting out of Angel City?

Most of the damage had been done farther west, across Highland. But still, the tourist shops here had yet to open up again, and most were boarded up or had their metal grates drawn down and locked with thick padlocks.

Maddy could see vague shapes moving behind a few grimy, darkened windows. She swiped away the dust on the outside of one of the windows and cupped her hand over the glass to look in.

Inside were all the souvenirs and tchotchkes you’d expect to see at your standard tourist store on Angel Boulevard. Something for every Angel fan in your family. There was the “My Wife Went to Angel City and All I Got Was This Stupid Mug” mug. The classic oversize “I Was Saved in Angel City” T-shirt, Immortal City snowglobes, costume Angel wings. And then she saw it—an action figure.

Of her.

The box read, MADISON GODRIGHT, GUARDIAN FIRST CLASS. WITH RETRACTABLE GLOWING WINGS! *BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED* NEW!!

Her action figure came dressed in a sexy Angel gown—a red-carpet look—but the box advertised that inside there was an “action” outfit that resembled the training suit she’d worn during Guardian school. The doll’s wings were out, and they hadn’t done a totally bad job of making their purple color seem slightly translucent. They even looked like they glowed a bit.

Maddy was transfixed by the figure. She had seen an early mock-up of it, but not the finished product, because it came out right when her illegal save caused the huge scandal.

She thought of kids taking her figure home with them after a family vacation, looking to her as some kind of hero.

Maddy slowly backed away from the window. Her hand had made a clear print in the dusty glass. She turned and looked down the abandoned boulevard. There was no traffic; the street was still closed except to police and emergency vehicles. She walked into the empty street, stopping on the double yellow line in the middle at a portion that was cracked, probably from one of the earthquakes that had heralded the demon approach.

She looked both ways down the boulevard and tried to imagine an Angel City without Angels.

The night was quiet, the machines of the recovery effort at rest for the evening.

It was a short walk down the Walk of Angels, past the checkpoint on Highland and the battle monument. Past the Temple of Angels, too. Her pulse quickened as she thought of what had happened there. But that was not why she had come.

Her feet took her to the now-familiar spot of Tom’s memorial. His leather jacket still lay there below his picture.