Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)

“It fits you perfectly,” the agent said.

Jacks looked at Gabriel and the Council. A bead of sweat emerged on his forehead. He trembled for a moment, the muscles straining in his neck. Concentrating.

Suddenly, razor-sharp, Jackson’s new wings ripped forth from underneath the battle armour, a full three metres of them, with an enormous whoosh. They were bigger than ever. The famous wings glowed blue once again, but this time they were built out partially with titanium, and golden threads of circuitry ran and glowed throughout. The part-Angel, part-robotic circuitry was visible just underneath the strange, translucent skin. They grew brighter and dimmer with each breath he took in and let out. Hot to the touch, the wings were bristling with strength, their metal steaming. They were stunning, utterly intimidating.

“Your Angelic perfection had been sullied, broken,” Gabriel said, admiring the wings. “And you now might be different with these wings on your back. Not entirely Angel. But they might make you better than perfect, my son.”

Jackson turned to Gabriel, cold anger in his voice. “We all have to make sacrifices. As one of the Godspeed class, I

am now ready to make mine. We must win. There is no other option. They’ll take away our way of life, if given a chance. We can’t let them do that.”

To Jackson’s side, Mark nodded slowly. Knowingly. “It’s true. We all must fight for what we want to keep.”

Jackson’s shocking blue eyes were distant, bitter.

“I will do it. I will lead us against the humans.”

CHAPTER 36

It was dark and cold in the concrete pit known as the Angel City River. What had once been an actual river was now nothing more than a filthy cement gutter running through the overpopulated sprawl of the Angel City basin. Mist hung heavy in the air, forming ghostly halos around the street lamps that lit the river’s graffiti-covered banks. Clusters of insects circled around the lights in the restless night.

Tonight, like most of the year, the river was almost entirely dry, causing the sound of Detective Sylvester’s and Sergeant Garcia’s footsteps to echo eerily in the emptiness as they clambered down the gently sloping concrete. The two carefully made their way down the concrete ravine. The leather of Sylvester’s shoe sole slipped as he descended further towards the bottom, but he steadied himself on a faded and mangled Big Wheel.

Gerald Maze. The name Minx had given him, weeks ago. It had been a dead end. The detective and Sergeant Garcia had run the name through all the databases, but the most recent data that came up was from eight years ago, and that was out in Imperial County, not Angel City. Maze was likely just one in a sea of nameless nomads, pitching tents at night in the squalid alleys of downtown Angel City, living day by day, bottle by bottle. They’d put out an all-points bulletin on him in the database. And nothing. Then, miraculously, on a stop-and-search by a uniformed cop downtown, he’d popped up. Disturbing the peace: he’d been hollering at passersby while drinking beer out of a Styrofoam cup. He had been prophesying mankind’s doom. He said he’d seen it. Looked into the eyes of doom and lived to tell the tale. ACPD had him drying out in a cell downtown in the Twin Towers jail. Sylvester and Garcia were there in twenty minutes.

The man was borderline delusional, a drunk and a crackpot. A few days in jail would probably improve his situation. Or at least the shower, complimentary from the county, would improve his smell a bit. He may have been antisocial and slightly crazed. But there was something in his eyes that told Sylvester to believe him.

At first, Gerald was suspicious of Sylvester, his eyes rolling wildly in his head. But once he realized the detective might take him seriously – and that he could maybe shave a few days off his jail time – he began talking.

Gerald told them a story. A story about how he’d been down in the dry ravine of the Los Angeles River, looking for something he’d hidden. A bottle, if you must know. He’d hidden it a week ago. Or maybe a month. He couldn’t remember. But he was looking for it.

And that was when he saw them.

And smelled them.

The doom. Fire and smoke. He’d heard the men’s screams. Their pleas. Begging to just kill them. He’d seen it all with his own two eyes.

He hadn’t stopped running until he’d reached Santa Fe and Third.

When Sylvester asked him exactly where this happened, Gerald was able to give them specific directions by landmarks. The detective wrote them down. On his way out, he put in a good word for Gerald with the duty officer. “See that he’s out tonight.”

Now Sylvester and Garcia found themselves following Gerald’s path. They were close – Sylvester could somehow sense it. He just needed to see it for himself. He recalled his infuriating meeting with the Council. Gabriel’s flippant attitude. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he just needed to be doing something. He just couldn’t sit and wait for it.

Rats large enough to be small cats scattered as Sylvester and Garcia made their way along the river’s left bank, their shoes squishing and crunching over God-knew-what. The hazy blue light of one of the men’s mobile phones glowed in his hand as GPS showed a map of where they were.

The men navigated around myriad bizarre items dumped down the river’s banks and forgotten. A baby carriage. A couch. A mannequin. A boat full of old tyres.

“There’s the boat he mentioned, detective,” Garcia said, motioning.

Sylvester nodded. It was here. Somewhere near.

“Let’s cover this ground here; we’ll move in squares. Something’s got to turn up.”

The two began inspecting the concrete ground in front of them. They moved methodically back and forth across the dry riverbed. Nothing was coming up.

Suddenly, near the bank, Garcia stopped: “Jesus.” The sound of crickets hung in the night. “You’d better come here, David.”

Detective Sylvester walked near the bank. There, on the concrete, was a deep, dark stain. Maybe six metres across. It was blood. The stain was deep, not fresh. It extended to the bank. To a circular opening, one of hundreds that lined the river’s shore.