Immortal City (Immortal City 1)

“Now they’ll come for me.” She looked back at him. His face had hardened.

“What?”

“The Angels.” He paused. “The Council’s Disciplinary Agents.”

“Because you saved me?” she asked in disbelief. The idea of Angel Police flickered in her mind. What would that even look like?

“Because I saved someone who wasn’t supposed to be saved. There are consequences in my world, Maddy.”

“What consequences?” The lightning flashed again and this time she saw fear in his eyes.

“They’ll take my wings,” he said quietly.

“They can make you . . . they can take them?” A stab of panic hit her stomach.

“Yes,” he said, his mouth a grim line. “The Archangels would never admit it officially, although somebody out there sure seems to know about it. They’ll remove my wings, which will draw the immortality out of me. They’ll do it slowly and make sure they do it right.”

“They can’t do that. You’re Jackson Godspeed.”

“They can. And they will. There is a system to uphold. Disciplinary Agents are hunting me as we speak.” Jacks’s face was miserable but resolute. “Nothing is impossible when you break the rules.”

Maddy shook her head, as if the movement could somehow shake the reality away. She simply couldn’t believe it. That by saving her he had actually, knowingly put himself in line for a consequence this severe. So much was kept hidden about the Angels, about how they handled their internal affairs—brutally, it turned out. All the while they put on a smooth, clean exterior for the public and the media.

“What can I do?” she said finally.

Jacks looked at her through the deluge.

“Come with me.”

There he stood in the pouring rain, the image of shirtless soaked perfection. He stood before her offering her a choice just like he had the night they went flying. She was at another crossroads. She knew she could just leave. Knew she probably should.

But they were going to take his wings, and it was all her fault. Her fault for going to the party, her fault for trying to follow through with her plan, her fault for leaving and insisting on walking home. Could she really leave him now? Before she had even decided, her mouth opened.

“Yes,” she said. Just like when he had invited her to the party. It simply came out, as though her true desires could no longer be repressed.

Jacks smiled a dripping, radiant smile. A flash of lightning lit the roof, followed closely by a bark of thunder.

“There are Angels I know who will help us. I can’t fly or the ADC will take me immediately. We need to get off this roof and lie low, travel on foot.”

Maddy nodded. Her decision made, questions began pounding her mind. She pulled out her BlackBerry Miracle and tried to power it up. The screen was black and lifeless.

“Dead from the rain,” Jacks said. “Mine too. They can track them anyway. Come on, let’s get going.”

Jacks began walking toward a door on the far end of the rooftop. Maddy lingered for a moment, thoughtful.

“How did you know?” Maddy asked.

“What?” He strained to hear her over the roar of the downpour.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” she said again. She might not follow the modern Angels, but one thing she did know from her required Angel History reading was that they never disclosed how they made their saves. They simply performed them, leaving the public to guess about their trade secrets.

Jacks’s eyes searched hers. How many rules could he break in one night? “You know I’m not allowed to tell you this.”

Maddy stood where she was. Something in her needed to know. “Do you trust me?” she asked quietly. The rain continued pounding down across the Immortal City.

After a moment, Jacks let out a long breath and spoke. “I saw it,” he said simply.

She looked at him through the cascading liquid.