Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

The short, powerful man looked at her, taking a large puff off his cigar before blowing out an enormous cloud of thick grey smoke.

“That ain’t to say you can’t do it. Just know I’ll be watching you. Closely.”

With that, he walked across the office and back around to sit at his enormous walnut desk, where he began checking emails on his silver-and-black PowerMac, a small concession to modern days. He still puffed away on his cigar.

Maddy stood there, frozen, unsure what to do. After a moment, Kreuz looked up at Maddy, annoyed.

“What are you still doing here? You got training to do.”

Blushing in confusion, Maddy turned around and walked out of the door.

Sadie was standing by the receptionist, one hand poised on a box of tissues. Maddy’s hands were shaking from the encounter, but Sadie almost seemed disappointed that Maddy wasn’t more crushed. She moved her hand away from the tissues and, leaning down, picked up a brand-new laptop that was sitting on the desk. It had the initials MMG engraved on it.

“This is yours,” Sadie said as she handed it to Maddy, who had never had her own brand-new computer before – Kevin had only been able to buy used ones for her. And she certainly had never had her own new two-thousand-dollar MacBook Pro.

“Well, thanks,” Maddy said, letting out her pent-up breath and examining the object in her hands.

The receptionist spoke into her headset: “Churchfield on two.” Then, after patching the call through to Kreuz: “Gary, you’re on with Louis.”

From inside the office, Maddy could hear Kreuz starting to yell on the call.

Sadie looked at her watch.

“We’re running late. Let’s get you to your first class.”

Maddy nodded, looking for a brief moment over her shoulder to the door that led back into Kreuz’s office as his muffled yelling continued.

She was astonished to find that the hallways inside the office and classroom buildings that flanked Louis’s enormous office were all marble. They passed door after door of Angel instructor offices and old classrooms, and Maddy wondered how Northwestern would’ve stacked up. Sadie finally stopped outside a door. Maddy looked through the window into the classroom. A younger Angel in a tan corduroy jacket with elbow patches perched on a desk, looking over some notes. The room looked strangely conventional. And otherwise empty.

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Oh, Mr Kreuz felt that you should have private tutors, especially to begin with. That way you wouldn’t feel as behind as you would with the rest of those who are training to be Guardians. It’s really for your own good.”

Maddy’s brow creased as she tried to figure out what kind of game Kreuz was playing.

“OK. Private tutor. Got it.” Maddy thought about how she’d never had a private anything, much less a person dedicated to teaching her. “Anything else I should know?”

“That about covers it. If you need anything, you know where to find us,” Sadie said. She put her slight hand on Maddy’s shoulder and squeezed it in encouragement, the first friendly sign she’d given Maddy. “And good luck.”

The door opened with a creak as Maddy pushed it and stepped into the classroom.

The corduroy-clad Angel shuffled his notes together and looked up. “You must be Maddy. I’m Philip. We’ll be working together for a while.”

Maddy shook his hand and settled into a chair, nervously lowering her book bag to the ground. She found she was actually anxious to discover what her first lesson in being a Guardian was going to be: freezing time like Jacks could do? Some cool trick where she got to dial in to a Protection’s frequency and wouldn’t have to have the disturbingly random and hard-to-act-upon “static” images that had been with her since childhood, like the one of the boy in the fire? Something even more useful and amazing she couldn’t even imagine?

“We may as well get started,” Philip said. Maddy leaned forward, her eagerness showing despite herself.

Reaching down to a bag at the foot of th

e table with both hands, Philip pulled out an enormous textbook. He threw it on the table between them, where it landed with a thundering thud. The book was old, a dark olive green, and had no pictures or graphics on the outside. Maddy thought it must be at least two thousand pages long. Simple black lettering was pressed into the front cover of the book: ANGEL AERODYNAMICS.

She reached forward and timidly flipped the book open. The pages were crammed with text, with only the occasional graphical aid. There were also endless formulas and algorithms: calculus and algebraic figures spread across the pages. Maddy had to stifle a groan.

“This should keep you busy for some time,” Philip said calmly. “I’ll be back in three hours to see how you’ve done on the exercises in the first three chapters.” The Angel rose from his chair to leave the room.

“But— ” Maddy started.

Philip turned at the door, his ear cocked, with a wicked look on his face.