Sylvester’s head swirled with the revelations, implications and even more questions the mysterious man’s unexpected visit had brought.
He couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going to happen when the public found out that an Archangel had set up the bombing to stir anti-human sentiment in the Angel community. And Sylvester had thought the bombing had had something to do with the demon attacks. How wrong he had been.
It turned out that the Dark Angels might be coming for something much, much worse.
Sylvester went to his bookshelf. Next to the King James Bible, he had the Apocrypha, which included the Gospels of Judas and Tom. Next to the Apocrypha, he had The Book of Angels. It had surfaced in the Middle East in the 1930s and got an incredible amount of attention by a public hungry for everything Angel.
Most of it just told biblical stories from the viewpoint of the Angels. Except for the ending sections, which were all new. They were also the bloodiest and the most famous sections, with plenty of demons and carnage. The Angels had put a lot of effort into proving that the later apocalyptic sections in The Book of Angels were not ancient, just the work of some crackpot in the nineteenth century. “Scary bedtime stories,” as Mark had called them. But there were still many people who believed they were prophecy.
The detective flipped through the yellowed pages and found the passage the man had begun quoting.
“And then when the seven burn across the earth, evil will rise upon you from the West. The Darkness will come from a pit in the Great Ocean, out of which no light has ever been seen, straight from the depths of the other world. Death will surely find a home with you, and mercy shall be driven out b
y the hordes of doom. And you will beg for the end.”
Sylvester felt a coldness creep along his spine. He slowly closed the book, and then sat down at his kitchen table.
He reached over for his landline telephone, but then paused. Fumbling in his pocket, he pulled out his old mobile phone, a Nokia. Scrolling through the numbers he found it: MARK GODSPEED.
Mark answered on the fourth ring.
“Yes, I know what time it is, Mark,” Detective Sylvester said. “I have some news about Archangel Churchson. But you’re going to need to help me.”
CHAPTER 27
The day after receiving her Protections, Maddy had to go to the NAS media offices, which were only a few blocks away from the regular NAS headquarters in Beverly Hills, to get fitted with her Angelcam. Although the Angelcam had only been around for a little over two years – and a lot of those two years had been spent in trial and error with prototypes – it was now one of the most popular additions to Guardians ever. Now that they were HD, being able to watch a save first-hand through footage from the tiny camera was almost too good to be true for Angel fanatics. Saves were becoming more and more watched around the world, and every new save on SaveTube was getting millions more hits than the one before. Angel analysts expected Maddy’s first save to be the most-watched save of all time. The question on everybody’s lips was, when would it happen?
At the media office, Maddy showed up with a piece of jewellery, as they requested: her mother’s necklace. “Sorry, it’s a little crazy down here,” the technician said, pounding a flurry of keystrokes as he finished calibrating her ’cam. He turned to her. “But let’s get to work.”
The Angelcam was the world’s most advanced camera, a trade secret owned by the Angels. It would make a fortune if the technology was released to the public, but the Angels were content to keep it to themselves right now and reap the profits from the footage of their hottest Guardians making saves around Angel City and the world.
After her necklace was fitted with it, Maddy looked at herself in the mirror. You’d never know she had a camera on her. It was almost microscopic. She looked at the monitor next to the technician, and it was showing amazingly clear, crisp and steady live footage, even though she was shaking back and forth. The technology was amazing. Looking at herself in the mirror, she then looked into the LCD monitor, training the camera into it. On the TV it looked as if there were a thousand Maddys extending for ever. She smiled, her white teeth extending into infinity on the screen.
“Guardian, you are ready for your close-up,” the Angel technician said, smiling.
The technician’s intern, a pimply college student majoring in Angel Studies, suddenly burst into the room, his face in a panic.
“What is it?” the Angel technician asked, looking annoyed at the intern.
“It’s, uh, uh— ”
The technician pushed past the intern to where a group of Angels and interns were standing in a group, watching something.
Maddy followed her Angelcam technician out of the door and found everyone glued to the large TV mounted on the wall of the waiting room. Most seemed to be standing, mouths open, in shock.
On the screen was file footage of Archangel Charles Churchson, in a black tuxedo and bowtie, attending an Angel charity event earlier that year. Maddy recognized Churchson as the goateed Archangel she’d called a jerk during her meeting at the NAS. The one who had been against her becoming Guardian.
Bold script on the screen read: ARCHANGEL IMPLICATED IN BOMBING THAT KILLED NINETY-TWO INNOCENTS.
The voice of the anchor back in the studio was announcing: “NAS officials have denied they had any clue of Churchson’s plot, and promise to do everything to help authorities bring him to justice. But Angel observers wonder if the damage done is already too late to fix.”
“What’s going on?” Maddy asked the intern.
“Archangel Churchson was the one behind the bombing; he was trying to frame the HDF and make Linden look bad,” the intern reported breathlessly.
“What?” Maddy gasped.
“Protests in major cities around the globe have already erupted, demanding justice and a full inquiry into the Angels and their hierarchy. Presidential candidate Teddy Linden has announced a press conference one hour from now. Still no official word from Gabriel and the True Immortals at this time. Stay with us as we follow this shocking scandal and the outrage around the world!