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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.
She fell back as the weight of Jacks’s body hit her, collapsing on the concrete. She was barely aware of the roof access door flying open and the police streaming out, the two officers shoving Ethan to the ground. She struggled to sit up and took Jacks’s face in her hands.
“Jacks?” she panted, hysterical.
His eyes were a
lready draining of their color again, turning that same unseeing gray. She could see him try to smile.
“You love me?” he asked, his voice raspy. “I thought you . . . never understood what the big deal was about Angels.” He coughed, and blood began dripping out the side of his mouth, faster and faster.
“You’re going to be fine, just hang on,” she said desperately. But as she watched, the light in his eyes dimmed and then finally went out, extinguished. His body became impossibly heavy, and still.
Maddy shouted his name again and again. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t. She shook him violently, but he only bobbed lifelessly like a doll. Somewhere nearby, a girl was sobbing uncontrollably. Maddy looked at the perfect, divine features that had become so familiar to her. They were still so beautiful, but cold and vacant now, like an abandoned house. She tried to hold on to the feeling of his presence, but it was fading too and, in another moment, would be gone forever.
Maddy listened to the sobbing girl again before choking and realizing it was her.
She had been too late after all. She closed her eyes and let the agony overwhelm her.
In the darkness, she heard a voice.
“Maddy?”
It was Jacks. She must be hallucinating. Her mind had taken her away with him as he died. She savored the sound of his voice.
Then he spoke again. “You came for me?”
