Chapter nineteen

“L ast call,” the man said, wiping dry another pint glass

from behind the bar.

A solitary figure sitting at the bar in an overcoat nodded.

Dust hung heavy in the dark air. The bartender picked

up a broom and began sweeping.

Sylvester slowly twirled the remaining sliver of ice in

the glass of whiskey he’d been nursing for the past thirty

minutes. The dark bar was almost empty. It had been an

Angel City institution for decades, with its dark wood, deep

maroon-colored booths, and battered stools. Archangels

had sat in those booths in years past, wheeling and dealing,

and framed pictures of famous Guardians who used to be

regulars in the forties and fifties hung dusty above the mirror

of the bar.

The detective hadn’t been there in years. But he’d

needed to think. The encounter with Mark had left him

unsettled. Was the Archangel hiding something? Or

someone? Sylvester’s mind struggled to put the pieces together.

In bringing up Sylvester’s punishment, his expulsion

from the Angels, Mark had hit a nerve the detective had

long since tried to bury. Sometimes he swore he could still

feel his wings. Phantom limbs. Better not to dwell on these

things. Think of the case at hand, not time long passed, he

told himself.

It was going to rain. Sylvester felt it in his back. Pressure

was in the air.

Why would someone—or maybe some thing —be taking

justice on these Angels? What had Godson or Templeton

done, or was the reason for the murders just the order of

their stars? Did the HDF have the know-how to recruit an

unhappy Angel to their side? There had to be a part he was

missing. Sylvester turned the facts over and over in his

mind. Troublingly, his thoughts kept moving to the

Archangels themselves. Could the Archangels somehow be

cleaning out enemies from within the ranks, and if so,

would Mark even be aware of it? It could go all the way to

the Council. The more he thought about it, the more he

began to question Mark’s motives. He’d seemed evasive,

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and not too surprised when he was told his stepson’s star

was next. The detective’s head swirled with possibilities,

leads, dead ends. A file ten inches thick was waiting for him

on the passenger seat of his cruiser. A peek into the dank

underbelly of the Immortal City.

He tipped back the glass and took another sip of his

drink. The detective was woozy, but not from the booze. He

needed some sleep.

The TV above the bar was tuned to a news channel,

but of course they were talking about Angels. A group of

talking heads was on a debate-type show. On-screen was the

graphic Angels: Whose Side Are They On?

“Can you turn that up?” Sylvester asked, motioning to

the TV.

The bartender picked up the remote, bumping the

volume up a few notches. “You want the check too?” he

asked, hopefully. The handful of final other customers was

clearing out. Sylvester nodded.

A man with a goatee and glasses was speaking to the

two other experts on the show: “So what you have here,

what you have is total uncooperation on the part of the Angels,

Teri. We have no idea how these guys work. They just

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show up and do a save for the right price. There’s no transparency,

no accountability—”

“But the fact is they’re saving lives, Will. Pure and

simple. Do the math,” Teri, a woman in a power suit with

short-cropped brown hair, interrupted the goateed man.

“I’ve done the math, Teri, and the fact is that the Angels

only save a few, while the vast majority of humanity is

left out in the cold,” Will responded, his face getting slightly

red. “And now with these confirmed Angel deaths happening

in what’s being called serial killer murders, which we’ve

learned about just minutes ago, and the media hysteria that

will certainly come from them, we have absolutely no idea

what’s going on. The Angels are acting as if everything is

just business as usual.”

Sylvester sat up straight. The murders had gone public.

The Angels couldn’t keep everyone in the dark forever.

The story was too explosive.

None of the handful of other customers in the bar

seemed to pay much mind. They went there at that hour to

try to escape the Immortal City’s woes, not pay attention to

them.

The debate continued on the television:

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“Okay, okay, let’s bring it back to the original—” The

moderator attempted to steer the conversation but was interrupted

by an irate Teri.

“If we’re going back to the original question: they

can’t save everyone all the time, pure and simple,” Teri said.

“There’s just not enough for humanity. This vocal anti-Angel

minority in this country is not useful and will solve nothing.

We have to accept the Angels as they are, on their

terms. Think of how many lives they’ve saved! To do otherwise

is to give ammunition to hate groups like the Humanity

Defense Front, whose stated goal is the extermination of

Angels by any means possible!”

The third guest, a man with a buzz cut and a red tie,

spoke up. “How do we know they’re not capable of saving

everyone? And at what cost do we have them save us? And

then we have to owe these creatures that just materialized

from thin air over a hundred years ago? They know

everything about us, but they still won’t bring humans into a

Guardian training facility except for special staged press

events.” An on-screen title identified him as former army

colonel Davis A. Jessup. “What’s really going on over at the

NAS? And why has the Council of Twelve all but

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disappeared from the public eye for the past eighty years?

Certainly all of these questions are important from a national

security standpoint too.” The colonel paused. “I think

soon-to-be senator Ted Linden’s recent victory at the polls

has shown that a large part of this country wants these answers.

Now.”

Taking a pull from his glass, Sylvester continued peering

up at the television. If the public knew everything... he

thought. On-screen they cut to file footage of Ted Linden at

his victory speech. He was maybe forty-five years old and

handsome, a sleek shock of dark lustrous hair swooped back

on his head. He had a winning smile as a he gave a thumbsup

to his supporters.

“What should we think now that Angels are being

killed? And scientists also have evidence that the Angels are

actually aging faster than we thought,” Will stated. “Latest

projections have the life spans of these so-called Born Immortals

at four hundred to five hundred years. But the NAS

maintains total immortality. If the aging is really happening,

and these killings are really happening, apparently from

within the community, what else are they hiding?”

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Teri almost jumped out of her seat. “I’ve seen that report,

Will, and I wouldn’t call it ‘evidence’ as much as total

speculation! Anti-Angel elements are just trying for a power

play in this country, but it’s not going to work. Whipping

people into a false frenzy never lasts. It’s clear you’re just a

mouthpiece for Linden and his party.”

Sylvester tilted his glass back and took the final gulp

of whiskey, laying down the empty glass and a few bills on

the bar.

“Thanks,” he said to the bartender, pulling on his

jacket as he walked to the door. Stepping onto the dormant

streets of Angel City, he took in a lungful of night air. The

stars high above twinkled dimly in the sky through the light

clouds and pollution.

As soon as the door closed, the bartender walked to

the window and turned off the neon signs, also flipping the

Open sign to Closed. After bolting the door, he walked back

to the bar, under the rows of dusty old Angel photos on the

wall. He picked up the remote. Will, Teri, and Colonel Jessup

were now near screaming at each other on-screen. He

pressed the red power button and the TV switched to

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blackness, leaving the bar in silence as he continued sweeping

under the dusty, watchful eyes of glamorous Angels

past.

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