“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.
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 already 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 chok-ing 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?”
Maddy’s eyes flew open.
Her vision focused.
There was Jacks at the edge of the roof again. Ethan lay coughing blood where Jacks had just thrown him to the ground. Maddy stood where she had before.
“Y-yeah,” Maddy stammered. “Of course.”
Jacks was walking toward her again. Maddy’s mind crystallized around a single thought.
It was a final premonition. A premonition of Jacks’s mortal death.
The moment became impossibly clear to her. Maddy had the sensation of near-perfect clairvoyance. She felt her body and soul unite. With perfect clarity, she could make out every speck of dust on the rooftop. Her hearing registered every breath, every rustle of clothes, every gasp of wind.
She could still save Jacks.
Maddy ran. She willed her feet faster and faster. It was the fastest she’d ever run in her life. The rest of the world blurred on all sides of her as she focused on this one thing.
Jacks’s face grew confused. Maddy flew right by him.
She ran at Ethan, colliding full-force as he lunged at Jacks with the knife. Maddy fell on him, and the two tumbled toward the edge of the roof.
Ethan was on top of her, gasping in surprise. Maddy felt something tugging at her side, like her clothes had snagged on something. Then a warm sensation, not altogether unpleasant. She looked down. Both her and Ethan’s hands were wrapped around the knife handle. The blade was deep in her side.
She looked at Ethan. His eyes were blind with rage. If he could pull the knife out, she thought, he would go after Jacks again. She was sure of it. She had one instant to make a decision. She closed her hands tightly around his and pushed the knife as far inside of her as it would go. Then she let out a ragged, agonized breath. The blood began to flow.
The pain was startling at first, then unbearable, and finally it engulfed her, sucking her consciousness away and closing her eyes. She heard a metallic clang as the door smashed open. Willing her eyes open for a moment, she saw Detective Sylvester burst onto the rooftop with his gun drawn, followed by a fleet of cops. Her eyes fluttered closed again. Many voices, and the pounding footsteps over the rooftop. She heard Ethan shout something as the detective drove him to the ground and handcuffed him. Then everything went black.