Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

It was a sunny, warm day, even though winter was just a page or two away on the calendar. The organizers had decided to hold the luncheon in the back sculpture garden of the museum. Maddy looked at the modern art masterpieces sprinkled throughout the garden. The museum itself loomed large in the background like a behemoth, a work of art itself. She knew the pieces were supposed to be very “important”, but some of them just looked like a block of black marble, not sculpted at all. One was brass and looked just like a giant balloon animal, the kind you get from a clown when you’re a child.

Darcy helped introduce Maddy to all the important people at the event. She posed for more pictures with the BMW backdrop and gave some sound bites about how important it was to fund the arts.

Throughout the event, Maddy’s mind kept wandering back to what had happened yesterday, with both Tom and Jacks. She had texted the pilot an apology. Maddy was sure the media had been hounding him all day – she’d seen footage of him getting into his pickup and driving away from base last night with a bunch of photographers taking photos of him. He didn’t look too happy to see them.

But Tom was more concerned about her: “Are you OK? Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m fine, Tom,” she had written. And left it at that.

She was also concerned about Jacks. Even though he seemed to believe her that Tom was just a friend, he still had an edge, an edge that, she realized, had been growing in him over recent months. Whenever it was almost too much, Jacks seemed to pull back just in time. Become old Jackson again. The one she felt so calm around, the one who could still turn her into a silly, Angelstruck girl.

A voice came from Maddy’s side. “You must be Maddy. I’m Rachel,” a young woman said. She was wearing a matching lavender skirt and top. She was blushing. “I’m the event producer, and I just want to thank you so much for coming. Have you been to the sculpture garden before? What’s your favouurite piece?”

A photographer came up to take some photos, and a few other people at the event stepped closer, curious to hear Maddy’s response. Out of the corner of her eye, Maddy saw Darcy eyeing her.

“I. . .” Her mind was going blank.

Maddy stood there, her mouth agape for a moment.

“What I mean is. . .” she said, her words growing faint. But it wasn’t because of the question.

“Maddy?” Rachel said. “Are you OK?”

But Rachel’s voice was already somehow distant, in some other world. It was like Maddy was going through a tunnel.

Maddy’s mind suddenly was overtaken by the clearest of images snapping into focus: the instrument panel in the cockpit of a small jet. The digital screens were crisp. And flashing red. The numbers on the screens were fluctuating wildly. And then out of the window. The emerald-blue water. Rushing towards the glass, impossibly fast. It took her breath away.

Maddy saw the water strike the cabin. She saw the nose crumple towards the pilot. There was no time to see more.

The Gulfstream jet disintegrated against the water surface just as surely as if it had been striking concrete.

A spray of water and plane. And body parts.

Maddy was there as it happened, with pity and fear as instant death took the man.

She instantly knew the frequency. That energy, that aloof entitlement. It was now revealed for what it really was: cowardice. She saw the man’s eyes, long tunnels with ghosts in them. Then the image widened out, and she saw the bloated, flushed face.

Maddy’s eyes shot open, a shriek having just left her lips. Rachel and Darcy and others were standing near her. Are you all right? Are you all right? Their voices still seemed far off. Blood roared in Maddy’s ears.

She’d seen the face of Jeffrey Rosenberg.

CHAPTER 30

In the sudden rush of adrenaline, extending her wings didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had prior times. The oblong wings reached out, then crouched in towards her body, coiled, ready. Their purplish luminescence pulsed with the rush

. Even now they felt like before, like something attached to her body, instead of entirely part of it. Like wearing a very large backpack that, impossibly, seemed to weigh almost nothing.

People in the sculpture garden were speechless, their mouths open in shock.

Maddy crouched, leaning slightly forward as she had been trained. She made a move as if to jump straight up into the air. As she did, she felt the wings flex, with a tremendous whoosh of air that blew back her ponytail and whipped her loose hair around her face. She felt her shoes leave the ground. When she looked down, she saw the museum receding until it was no more than a toy box, the cars winking sunlight up at her. Her necklace snapped wildly around her neck. Her heart hammered relentlessly in her chest, and she fought to breathe against the rush of the air as her wings pushed her into the unblemished sky.

Less than graceful, she levelled off and beat her wings furiously against the sky. Below, the world looked suddenly calm and silent. The only sound was the rush of air in her ears. She thought of her training with Tom. It was all for this.

Within a minute, the beach came into view, with the Angel mansions crowded against it. The impressive homes seemed small now, like mere toys. The sunbathers and volleyball players were now as small and insignificant as ants.

The black cruciform of her Angelic shadow flew along the sand of the beach, and in seconds, Maddy was soaring over the Pacific Ocean. She swept her wings back, picking up as much speed as she could with her wings, and squinted into the distance. She could see nothing but brilliant, untarnished blue. It was even hard to tell where the sky ended and the ocean began. Her eyes darted wildly along the horizon, burning in the brilliant glare of the sun, scouring the distance for something, anything.

Then she saw it.