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“What do you mean?”
“Well, I felt it first and then saw it. After I focused on your frequency,” Jacks said. “Every person has a frequency. In Guardian training we learn how to tune to them so we can then do it for each of our Protections. We learn people’s frequencies. That way we can instantly feel when something bad is about to occur and then tune in through the static of all the other human beings. It sounds more complicated than it really is.”
“But with me?”
Jacks paused. “I felt your frequency that first night in the diner. How could I not?” He looked out into the night. “It’s the big secret of how we always know when our Protections are in danger. Tuning to the frequencies. Otherwise it would just be random images, feelings. Like jumbled static.”
Maddy’s heart stopped in her chest. The world around her halted. Everything faded into the background as Jacks’s words rang in her head. The Angel looked at her stunned expression.
“I know it sounds amazing, but to us it’s really no big deal, like flying or anything else we train for that the NAS keeps secret. It’s just one of those things. Like being double-jointed or something.” He laughed.
Even soaking wet, Maddy felt every hair on her body standing on end. Jacks walked over to the roof access door and tried the handle. It was unlocked. He turned to her. Despite the rain, he could see she had gone white as a ghost.
“What is it?”
“We need to go back to my house,” Maddy said. “I have to talk to my uncle.” Lightning flashed right overhead, followed by a vicious crack.
“I’m sorry, Maddy, it’s just too dangerous. They’ll be looking for us there.”
“I have to, Jacks.” Her voice was growing hysterical. “I have to talk to my uncle. It’s important.”
“Maddy, we can’t. It’s out of the question,” Jacks said.
“You don’t understand. I’m going to my uncle’s house,” Maddy yelled through the storm, “and I’m going whether you come with me or not.”
Then the night seemed to literally explode.
It was like a terrible firework lighting up the sky as a finger of lightning reached down and struck a power line on the hill not far away. The crack of the contact deafened Maddy’s ears, leaving them ringing. A plume of blinding sparks erupted from the transmission tower, momentarily illuminating the ghostly Angel City sign, and then, like strands of Christmas lights being unplugged, the streets and neighborhoods of Angel City went dark. They blinked off one by one until Maddy and Jacks were consumed in blackness. The rain continued to splash down, washing the Immortal City’s streets clean under the cover of darkness, churning filth into the overflowing gutters.
A square of light formed in the abyss as Jacks opened the roof access door, bathing them both in the dim light cast from the building’s emergency power.
“Is there any way I can get you to change your mind?” he asked.
“No,” Maddy said stubbornly.
“Okay.” Jacks sighed. “Then let’s go.” He gestured to the door.
Her heart still racing, Maddy followed him out of the rain and into the cold—but dry—stairwell. She couldn’t feel her feet on the metal steps as they descended. Maddy’s scattered mind had focused into a single laser of a thought. It was time to find out what really happened to her mother and father. Time to find out who her parents really were.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sylvester sat in his darkened cubicle in the Homicide Division, bathed in the blue glow of his computer screen and the yellow cast of the emergency lighting. The storm had knocked out the power, but the backup generator at the station had kicked on almost immediately. The reduced output was running the computers and the televisions and the few dim emergency lights. The amber glow made the normally bright and sterile police station look strange and eerie. Rivulets of rain traced down the windows as the downpour continued outside.
Sylvester’s cubicle was a temporary one that had been set up for him in the open-air bull pen the detectives all shared. He himself was usually downstairs in a windowless room, double-checking paperwork for other investigators or handling the occasional small property crime. It had been years since he had been invited upstairs. He hadn’t had time to unpack yet. All around him were unorganized stacks of folders and still-unopened file boxes. On top of one of the boxes sat a tub of Red Vines. An indulgence.
The detective had been up at 5 a.m. that morning, investigating another pair of gruesome severed wings. Another star, another Angel—Lance Crossman, who had already been missing. Now probably dead, though they hadn’t found the body yet, only his wings, which had been broken in many places, twisted and cracked. This time the killer hadn’t left them on Lance’s star—with the police barricades and the media coverage, there was no way he or she would have been able to do so unnoticed. Instead, they’d been securely wrapped and delivered anonymously to ACPD headquarters. The desk sergeant who’d had the misfortune of opening the package had been taken to the hospital in severe shock.
After that, Sylvester had gone down to Long Beach. Local police had fished a mutilated, bloated body out of the bay just hours before—Theodore Godson. At least the press hadn’t been able to get any pictures.
Other detectives in ACPD had no leads on this case, and the Angels weren’t being helpful. They’d just wanted it swept under the rug until after the Commissioning, although someone had already leaked to the press the night before that Angels were being killed. A surge of calls with supposed tips flooded the ACPD offices. Sylvester had been out interviewing potential witnesses all day and all night, trying to unearth solid intel. Or the body of this third victim. Instead all he’d been able to collect was gossip, like the fact that Ryan Templeton had had a secret cocaine problem. Not very heavenly of him.
On Sylvester’s computer screen were gruesome images of the crime scenes. Disembodied wings. Glistening blood splattered over the famous stars of the Walk of Angels. He studied the images, scrutinizing them for details that he had missed. As he did, the glitz and glamour of the boulevard seemed to mix and blur wi
th the blood and carnage in a very unsettling way.
He flipped to a prison photo of a man with an unkempt beard and an otherworldly look in his eyes. William Beaubourg. Sylvester had interviewed the three arrested HDF members at the Tombs jail downtown, trying to figure out what they knew about the murders and Beaubourg’s current whereabouts. After being released from San Quentin prison earlier this year, Beaubourg had immediately disappeared, releasing videos on the Internet that talked about the coming “War on Angels.” The jailed operatives seemed to hint to Sylvester that the HDF was behind the Angel murders. But were they just trying to gain notoriety for their cause? Sylvester was unable to piece together what Angel would be helping the HDF. But he couldn’t rule them out.
And then there was Mark. Sylvester was still hunting for hard evidence—all the dots weren’t connecting to point to Mark Godspeed as the culprit. But Sylvester’s gut told him that the Archangel was somehow involved. The detective had already cleared Jackson. His alibi had entirely held up, and he had been seen in public during the time at which forensics figured Templeton was murdered. Plus Sylvester’s long-honed intuition told him the Godspeed kid was clean. Unlike most of the Immortal City.
