Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

Sylvester let out a long breath. Pulling his glasses off, he polished them with the white dress shirt he wore under his rumpled sports coat.

“It seems so far away now,” Sylvester said. “Even though I think about it every day. It’s difficult for me to talk about.”

Jacks looked up at the detective. “Maybe it could do some good.”

“Maybe.” The detective walked to the kitchen and came back with a glass of Scotch, neat. “I was a Guardian. Around the same time your real father and your stepfather were both also coming up as Guardians. It was a great time for the Angels. Each year more and more Protection policies were coming in, and the NAS wasn’t nearly as controlling of things as it is now. Not as corporate. It was a golden age for Angels in America, in my opinion.

“I lived in a house up off Laurel Canyon. Not as much a house as a mansion.”

Jacks involuntarily raised an eyebrow as he glanced around the detective’s current humble apartment.

“Yes, I too once lived like the Angels, Jacks,” Sylvester said. “My bonuses each year kept getting larger and larger. I was young, only twenty-two, twenty-three. I loved the Angel life and it loved me. I had a girlfriend I was in love with. Sylvia. She was about to be Commissioned.

“I didn’t have much to do with humans. I generally stuck to Angels and the Angel events. The way my father did, and the way his father had taught him. But then a child changed my life. She was eleven, maybe twelve. This was when I was still a new Guardian. She was the daughter of my housekeeper. Her father had left them, moved to Texas when she was just a baby. She and her mother lived in the side guesthouse on my estate.

“Penelope – that was the girl’s name – she and I would sometimes play chess. She’d win half the time, and I wasn’t letting her. She was smart. And she would make me laugh. I’d never had any siblings and it was . . . fun . . . to have a laughing kid around. I wasn’t much more than a kid myself, frankly. I often helped her with her schoolwork. After a short while, I started to think of her as a member of my own family. And something about that girl made me start to think, just a bit, mind you, about the selfish Angel life I was living.”

Sylvester paused to take a drink of his whisky. He stared at his distorted, amber reflection at the bottom of the glass before beginning the next part.

“It was a beautiful day. The most beautiful day you could ask for in Angel City. Especially in those days, when the pollution was much worse.

“Penelope and her mother, Maria, were on their way to visit relatives in East Los Angeles. They insisted on taking the bus, even though I offered to drive them. I think Maria would have been embarrassed if I saw where their family lived.” Sylvester shook his head. “That’s what being an Angel causes in other people.”

“What happened?” Jacks asked.

“The driver of the bus was on the freeway when she had a diabetic seizure. At sixty miles per hour, the bus began ploughing towards the edge of the overpass they were crossing.

“I had the vision. Of Penelope and her mother’s death. It was brutal, searing my mind. I saw her frequency instantly. It was of her dying under the crushing weight of the bus as it toppled off the overpass and on to the road below. She was, of course, not a Protection. Maria could have worked and saved for thirty years and never have afforded a Protection policy. I know now this is why my father didn’t want me consorting with humans. Not because he was a snob.

“Before I knew what I was doing, my wings were out. I blasted through the plate glass window of my home to fly to the speeding bus on the freeway. I was there, Jackson. I had made it in time. In a blur, I was beside the bus, ready to make the save, as the bus smashed through the concrete like it was papier-mâché and plunged straight off towards the streets below.

“But I— ” Sylvester’s voice broke for a moment with years of emotion. “I hesitated. Just for a moment.”

Jackson shivered.

“I thought about the consequences. Of making the unsanctioned save. Of losing my wings. I hesitated. Instead – instead of just saving her. I was thinking of my miserable self. Instead of that beautiful girl. It was just a moment. But it was enough.

“The bus began collapsing on to itself with force against the tarmac, like an accordion. I shot down and used my time-bending to freeze the accident. It took everything I had in me. Chunks of concrete hung in mid-air, enormous sparks were flying up from the crumpling front of the bus on the street, frozen in space. The terrified expressions of those on the street below were fixed on their faces. I still remember everything as clear as yesterday. I smashed in through the bus window and found Penelope and her mother there. They were frozen. Her hair was floating up towards the back of the bus. Shrapnel and purses and eyeglasses and blood were floating back up there, too. All frozen like a snapshot. And I was too late. Penelope’s bottom half was already crushed. But she had a strangely peaceful look on her face. I just looked down at her legs and lower torso mangled in the metal, and I started to weep. The bus began to slightly shift as my grip on the time-bending began to slip. I ripped open the metal, reached down, and pulled Penelope and her mother from the wreckage just as the bus smashed fully down and toppled over.

“I kneeled on the pavement and had Penelope over my knees. Her eyes opened for a second. She was conscious and saw me. And you know what that little girl said to me? ‘It doesn’t hurt.’ She died in my arms.”

Jacks looked at the detective, his blue eyes wet. He didn’t speak.

“Maria survived her injuries but was never the same. She was heartbroken. She got a settlement from the city and the bus administration and moved back to El Salvador. Every Christmas I get a postcard.

“The NAS was able to conceal from the public the fact that an unsanctioned save had been made. But I was punished immediately. The ADC took me that night. Not that I cared. Pulled me out of a bar downtown, where I was hoping to obliterate myself. After how I’d failed to save Penelope . . . I didn’t

even want to live any more. My girlfriend, Sylvia, begged me to fight, but I knew it was useless. She ended up getting Commissioned as a Guardian in Rio de Janeiro. I’ve never seen her since. They’ve made sure of that. And they took my wings.

“I joined the ACPD. Changed my last name to what was then my middle name: Sylvester. I tried to start a new life to cover my guilt and shame. Thought I could bury myself in the department. A rumour circulated at ACPD that I’d missed the save of a Protection and that that’s why I was disgraced, all washed up. If they’d only known how much worse it was than that.”

“I’m . . . sorry,” Jacks said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I— ”

“There’s no way to have known, Jacks,” Sylvester said. “That is why I do what I do. Not because any of it could ever bring an innocent child back, or erase what I did when I didn’t save Penelope in time because I was thinking of myself. But somehow, some way, I can at least make the account slightly more even.” He knocked back the rest of his drink before putting the glass down with a clink. “Jackson, you’ve saved someone you loved and almost paid the ultimate price. But you saved her. Never forget that.”

Jackson’s thoughts streamed back to Maddy. His voice was studied. “I won’t.”

“And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to eat my dinner before it gets too cold.”