Immortal City

“I’m doing my duty.”

Raising the knife over Jacks’s back, he brought it swiftly down. There was a sound like a pop as the blade sank into the Angel’s flesh at the base of the wing, then a wet snap as the knife severed the wing from the body. It went lifeless and fell to the concrete with a thud.

“No!” Maddy screamed. She reacted on instinct and ran toward Jacks. At once a black shimmer crossed her vision. A low, inhuman growl made her blood run cold. The last time she had heard it, she had been in the high school.

The demon emerged from the night in front of her. It was large, at least ten feet tall, but it had no definite features. Its shape kept shifting and changing. Maddy froze, her limbs refusing to move.

“I see you’ve already met my Guardian Angel,” Ethan said, smiling. Maddy realized the thing was hard to see because its skin really was shimmering. It was more than just shimmering. It was on fire. The creature was literally burning; the licking flames were black instead of orange. The fiery monster circled around Ethan and then crouched next to him, ready to strike.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Ethan.” Maddy shook with fear and fury. “Do you think you can control that thing?”

“If people can hire Angels, why can’t I hire a demon?”

Ethan said. “The price may be different, but. .”

He began to raise the knife again.

”Leave him alone!” Maddy screamed through numb lips. Ethan’s eyes flashed with anger.

“Why should I!?” he demanded. “What about our discussions at the diner and at school? Angels are all the same, Maddy, shallow, vapid, overly privileged creatures who do more harm than good.” His tone had a note of hysteria now.

His mask of calm was beginning to crack. “Don’t you understand? They aren’t the heroes, they’re the villains. I’m giving them what they deserve.”

“Why Jacks?” Her voice was barely more than a whisper now. “He never did anything to you. Or to your dad.”

She could see Ethan wince at the mention of his father, but he quickly recovered, his mouth turning into a cruel grin.

“I have you to thank for that, Maddy. At first I just wanted to kill Angels, any of them. Make them suffer.

They’re all guilty. Then I saw you with Jacks.” He sneered, standing over Jackson’s trembling form. “I wanted you, Maddy. We were supposed to be together, but you didn’t see it — yet. Was I not good enough for you? Not enough of an Angel?” Ethan spat the word out like venom. “You wouldn’t have me, so I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t have him, either.”

The words stabbed like knives.

Maddy struggled for breath as the truth sank in and the world began to spin around the rooftop.

“It’s been you all along. Not the NAS. You’ve been murdering Angels on the boulevard.” Her entire body shook as the final pieces fell into place. “We came to you for help, and you sent the demon after us at the school.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed.

“Don’t blame me, Maddy. Blame yourself. It was you who did this. The truth is, he’s far too powerful. If you hadn’t abandoned him at the train station, none of this would’ve been possible.”

Maddy blanched. He was right. It was all her fault.

Ethan seemed to smile at this.

“I know all about it. I know how you left him standing at the platform like he was nothing to you, left him to be delivered into the hands of the Archangels.” He shrugged. “I thought about just letting the NAS mortalize him, but I don’t know. I guess after I saw him with you again, I took it a little personally.” He raised the knife over Jacks’s maimed and bleeding back. “So anyway, since you obviously don’t care about him, let’s get on with it, shall we?”

“I love him!” she screamed. The words just came out.

She had never spoken them before. She looked from Ethan to the trembling Angel below him. “Do you hear me, Jacks?

I came back to tell you that I love you.” She saw a glimmer of recognition in Jacks’s eyes. The gray had turned the palest shade of blue again.

Ethan smiled like the devil himself.

“So much for true love.”

He brought the knife swiftly down again. Maddy heard the whistle of the blade through the air.

Then the slap as Jacks caught Ethan’s arm midswing.

Ethan grunted. A surprised, painful sound. Jacks’s hollow eyes had filled with color. The blueness blazed. The Angel’s fist collided with Ethan’s jaw on the left side and shattered it. The knife dropped from Ethan’s hand and skittered harmlessly to the floor.

The black shimmer crossed Maddy’s vision almost instantly as the demon lunged at Jacks.

“Jacks, look out!” Maddy yelled.

Then it happened.

As the demon sprang forward, it was hit rapidly by something that came out of the sky, something moving so fast it was no more than a blur in the night. The demon tumbled back across the roof, growling and snarling. Ethan crumpled like a rag doll to the rooftop and Jacks was on top of him at once, his fists raining down.

The demon rose up but was hit again by a blur, this time from the other direction. The blur stopped on the roof only for a moment, and Maddy saw the Angel. He was dressed in matte black ADC battle armor. He unsheathed a primeval-looking sword. A sword? Maddy looked up.

They came streaming down through the night, seemingly from nowhere, a legion of Battle Angels in close formation. All wore the futuristic, black battle armor of the ADC.

The Angels rolled one by one like fighter jets and dove toward the hell that awaited them on the rooftop. Turning, the demon launched itself away, disappearing into the black night without a trace. The legion rocketed over the rooftops of downtown in pursuit.

Maddy looked back to the Angel and the boy fighting in front of the full moon. Jacks roared with fury as his iron fists found their mark again and again. Maddy turned away as Ethan’s nose exploded.

In a movement so fast it was almost invisible, Jacks picked Ethan up and pushed him to the edge of the roof.

Ethan let out a surprised cry as his heels balanced on the edge of the abyss. Then his expression hardened, and he smiled.

“Do it, Jacks,” Ethan’s bloody mouth mumbled. “Do it and prove me right. Prove that you’re no hero.”

For a terrifying moment Maddy fought her own urge to run forward and push Ethan off the edge.

“No, Jacks,” Maddy at last shrieked from where she stood. “No!”

Jacks looked at her. She could see the conflict in the Angel’s burning, murderous eyes. Then slowly, slowly, they softened. Relief rushed into her as Maddy looked at the old Jacks she knew. He pulled Ethan away from the edge and let go of him.

Ethan’s broken body crumpled to the ground. He coughed, then sucked in deep, rasping breaths wet with blood.

Jacks turned toward Maddy. His one remaining wing drooped behind him. “Maddy?” Jacks said, still in disbelief.

“You came for me?”

“Of course,” she breathed. She took a step toward him, then found herself running toward him. She wanted to collapse into his arms. Like a silly Angelstruck girl, she thought. Like Gwen. She didn’t care. Maddy watched him smile as he took a step toward her. Then she saw a strange gleam move through the air behind him.

Jacks stopped. And stiffened. His eyes looked to her desperately.

“Jacks?” Maddy said.

Then she saw it. The knife tip protruding from his chest. Ethan stood up shakily behind Jacks, holding the hilt of the blade with both hands. He shoved the knife in again and then let go. Jacks began to fall.

Maddy dashed forward and made it to Jacks just in time to catch him.