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Before Jacks could take a stab at the answer, a voice called out from behind them.
“He must have broken that bond when he went into league with the demons.”
It was Sylvester.
“Detective!” Jacks said. “You woke up! Are you okay?”
“I’ll live.” The detective held his broken arm with his good hand. “That was probably the only real sleep I’ve gotten in the past couple of weeks.” He looked at Jacks and Maddy with concern. Jackson’s face had been more than bloodied in the battle, and Maddy’s amateur bandage job was coming apart at the seams.
“Don’t worry. This looks worse than it is,” Jacks said.
The detective gazed down with a mixture of wonderment and pity at the robe that had, until just moments ago, graced Gabriel’s powerful frame. They were now little better than rags.
• • •
The three stumbled out of what was left of the Council chambers. Crumbled marble, broken glass, splintered columns, and collapsed beams littered the sanctuary halls, evidence of the quake. The sanctuary was ruined, and from this point forward would be known as the lost underground city of the Angels.
Emergency power flickered in the corridors, lighting all the dust swirling in the air. Along a corridor, the wall of televisions was nothing but flickering static behind them.
After encountering a number of blocked passages, Jacks, Maddy, and the detective at last made it to the main ele
vator to the surface. The doors appeared to be undamaged, but Jacks still looked dubiously at the call button. He pressed it, but the elevator didn’t respond.
“We’re going to have to climb up.”
They found the emergency stairwell and started making their exhausted climb up to the surface. What they would encounter up there, they had no idea.
After they had been climbing for a few minutes, they found that the quake caused by Gabriel’s death had caused a portion of the stairwell to collapse. Their path wasn’t fully blocked, thankfully, and they began pulling some of the rubble down in big chunks. And then they kept climbing.
At last they reached the exit. Maddy held her breath as Jackson opened the door to reveal the vast ruins of the once-grand glass cube structure. A warm breeze ran up the hill as the three of them walked through the wreckage to the ridge that looked over the city, not one of them wasting the energy to look back. Maddy greedily gulped at the fresh air, thankful to be free of the stifling stairwell.
Dawn peeked out from the horizon, finally breaking through the cover of bloodred and black clouds. Welcome bands of orange and purple streamed across the sky as the smog began to dissipate.
Jackson tentatively eyed the sky above, still prepared to do battle with any remaining Dark Angels. But there were none.
“Look!” Maddy cried, pointing toward the ocean.
Gabriel’s demise had caused the demons to lose their impetus. The Dark Angels were fleeing, their Dark Master now dead. Jacks, Maddy, and Sylvester watched as bands of furious Battle Angels drove the demons back into the ocean, this time for good. Flashes of light burnished on the horizon, each one marking the demise of a Dark One.
Tears of joy streamed down Maddy’s face. She leaned on Jackson as they looked down from the hill upon the city, gleaming with the day’s first light.
A new dawn had broken over Angel City. The warm golden light revealed a city rife with smoke, destroyed buildings, a populace in hiding, and so many dead soldiers, citizens, and Angels. But this was not a broken city. Angel City had survived. As Jackson, Maddy, and Sylvester looked out on the destruction, it was clear that it would be different from now on—far different than anyone could have ever imagined.
But the Immortal City had proved itself immortal. It was a new day.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Maddy, Jacks, and Sylvester had stepped out of the Council chambers and into the sunlight of a new world. A different Angel City.
“Jacks . . . ,” Maddy said, overwhelmed by all that had happened. She held on to his arm as she looked out across the Angel City basin. “They’re gone, Jacks. It’s all over.”
“I feel like I’m dreaming,” Jacks said. In the distance Angels were returning from the final mission of the battle, flying to the appointed meeting spot at the base of the Hills. “But then I look at you, and I know it’s real.”
A few steps away from them, Detective Sylvester was saying a prayer of thanksgiving under his breath. Lifting his glasses, he dabbed at his eyes, which were tearing up.
“Sylvester . . . ,” Jackson said. “What you did . . . Thank you. You saved my life.”
“Just doing my duty,” the detective said, choking back emotion. “I suppose that’s why I ended up here.” He looked at Maddy and Jacks. “Why we all ended up here.”
