The Last Angel by Jon Jacks
‘But they didn’t use the switch?’ Si shared his confusion with a sly glance Chrissy’s way.
As they stepped into the hall, Emma shook her head.
‘No, they left it: I checked it, once they’d gone. I was hiding, but they were loud, arguing. Most of them were saying they didn’t have the right to do it: that they had to save the children.’
Once again, Chrissy and Si swapped confused glances. Jial’s eyes widened, however, in a way Chrissy had seen before: when she had just heard something remarkable but, perhaps, also understandable.
‘They can’t realise how bad things are,’ Jial said.
‘You sure you heard that right?’ Chrissy asked Emma. ‘They didn’t do it because they wanted to save the children?’
‘They were arguing – I might’ve been confused,’ Emma admitted blankly.
In the front room that Chrissy and Si had originally entered by, Emma coolly pulled back what appeared to be a regular piece of wall panelling, revealing a steel cabinet. The cabinet, as she had explained earlier, was unlocked.
The cabinet door swung silently open on well-oiled hinges.
And inside was a simple, strangely innocuous looking red switch.
*
‘Huh, it looks like the kind of switch you use to turn off the electricity – not fry the brains of every monster in town.’
Si chuckled bitterly. He immediately regretted his touch of black humour, however, when he caught Chrissy fretfully chewing her bottom lip.
She’d been bitten, of course. As had Emma. Did that mean that they would die too when they flicked the switch? Or would it only affect those who were currently transformed into chiasmus?
‘You sure you want to go ahead with this, Chrissy?’
Chrissy stopped chewing her lip. She looked back towards Emma. Emma had stepped back from the cabinet, allowing Si and Chrissy better access.
Emma was motionless, smiling not a little inanely, Si thought as he followed Chrissy’s gaze. Thankfully, she didn’t realise that, in less than a few seconds, she might no longer be alive.
Chrissy was fully aware, however, that in the blink of an eye, the tripping of a small, red switch, she might suddenly cease to exist. Si could see that awareness, that awful dilemma that her own end might be near, on her strained face.
What would she decide? he wondered.
Steeping closer towards him, Chrissy moved his hand away from the switch.
‘It has to be me that does it.’ She said it with only the barest of tremors in her voice. ‘You could never forgive yourself Si, if… if, well you know.’
She gave him a wan smile. He reached for her free hand, gripped it tightly. Then, still holding her hand, he swung it around her back, embracing her hard and lovingly as he buried his face in her shoulder.
‘I…I love you!’ he whispered.
‘I love you too.’
Moving their faces a little way back from each other, they kissed. They let the kiss linger, wanting it to go on and on. That way, the switch would never have to be flicked.
It was Chrissy who finally pulled away, whispering, ‘I have to do this: for everyone’s sake. To save the children.’
Si sadly nodded his agreement.
‘But, Si…please hug me tightly if…if anything does seem to be going wrong, okay?’
‘Okay.’ He tried to smile.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
‘Here goe–’
‘Wait…’
Jial’s hand was on Chrissy’s, stopping it a hairbreadth away from flicking the switch.
*
Chapter 46
‘What they said, those people who came to flick the switch: that they didn’t have the right, that they had to save the children?’
Jial’s face was pained. It was the look of someone who was trying to work out just how much more they needed to say, and how best to say it.
Neither Chrissy nor Si said anything. They just continued to stare back at Jial expectantly.
‘They were right,’ Jial continued. ‘There are things you should know before you flick that switch.’
‘I know I’m putting myself in danger.’
Chrissy felt strangely irritated by Jial’s interruption. This was a hard enough decision to make as it was, without any unnecessary delay.
‘No, no; you don’t know. Not everything you need to know.’
With Jial still holding it, Chrissy let her hand fall away from the switch.
‘Go on.’
‘You’re doing this to protect your parents, yes?’
Chrissy looked back towards Si, exchanging puzzled frowns. Wasn’t it obvious they were doing this for their parents? Where was this going?
They both gave Jial a nod of agreement.
‘Ah, well,’ Jial began uncertainly. ‘See, they’re not your parents: not your real parents.’
Chrissy and Si’s confused frowns became bewildered, sheepish grins.
‘Jial, is this some sick joke?’ Si acidly chuckled.
‘This is going too far, Jial,’ Chrissy agreed with a sour glower.
‘I mean, not my parents?’ Si added sarcastically. ‘These are the parents who risked their lives to save me, right? The Mom and Dad who supposedly aren’t my Mom and Dad who were prepared to sacrifice themselves to make sure the police didn’t take me in.’
Emma watched from afar. Her blissful gaze implied that she wasn’t completely following the arguments.
‘They love you Si, it’s true. Love you as a real mum and dad should. As does Chrissy’s mum and dad. And, before they were killed, Emma’s parents loved her too. I know this to be true.’
Jial fleeting looked back towards Emma, who smiled as if appreciating the comment. Jial coughed before continuing.
‘You were orphans, and they adopted you–’
‘Wait, wait a minute here!’ Si blurted out. ‘When you first started this ridiculous conversation, I thought maybe you meant my parents weren’t my real parents, or perhaps Chrissy’s. But now you’re saying you mean both of – and even poor Emma here too?’
Jial bowed her head in a mix of shame and sad agreement.
‘Every child in Hermon: every child and teenager in Hermon has been adopted.’
*
Chapter 47
‘This…this whole thing just gets crazier by the minute!’
Si waved his arms in disbelieving dismay.
‘Every kid in Hermon was an orphan? We’ve all been adopted?’
‘I said Hermon was specially created, deliberately cut off from the rest of the world.’
Jial’s face creased as if she were in agony. Neither Si nor Chrissy could determine if this was because she was finding it painful to tell them these things, or because she was in physical pain.
‘It was to help save you from the influx of chiasmus. We could give you a new life here, a better life. And part of making that life safer, of course, was surrounding you with love. We could raise you in a calm, soothing environment. One that would avoid the life of overwrought emotions and violent hormonal changes a teenager usually suffers.’
Chrissy and Si were so furious they spoke over each other.
‘So because we’re orphans, you thought you could just lock us away from the world?’
‘You’re saying it was for our benefit? But you didn’t think we had the right to know we were taking part in some sort of vast, awful experiment?’
Jial tentatively bit her lip, as if once again either unsure how much more she should say, or how best to say it.
‘Yes, you’re right – it was an experiment. But it was either that or…or to have you killed.’
‘Killed? Is that what happens in this modern world we’ve been excluded from? Orphans are killed.’
Jial shook her head.
‘No; but potential chiasmus are killed.’
Si spun around on the balls of his feet as he held his head in his hands. He was vainly trying to make sense of all this new
‘This...this is…’
He angrily turned on Jial.
‘You’re saying all the kids in Hermon are potential chiasmus? How, how do you know that? Were we bitten at some point, when we were all too young to remember?’
‘I never even knew these beasts existed,’ Chrissy insisted. ‘Let alone ever coming across one that bit me!’
‘You were all too young to remember. And it was a thankfully brief transformation; that’s why we hoped we might be able to treat you, to stop it happening again. The later in life a transformation happens, the harder it is to control.’
Jial noted how Si glanced Chrissy’s way, recognising in his anguished stare his fear that this might include her own, latest transformation.
‘That’s because the teenage brain is growing a little haphazardly, a little out of kilter with your rapidly maturing body. But get past that stage without a permanent transformation, and you’re safe.’
‘Hence there being no need for the calming influence of angels once we get past twenty?’ Chrissy looked hopefully towards Jial for confirmation.
‘Exactly.’
‘And the armoured vans taking away the kids? It wasn’t for their protection, was it? It was because, without their angels, they might become chiasmus? And that van we saw in the convoy: the beasts had smashed out of it, hadn’t they?’
As Jial nodded once more in agreement, she grimaced. She carefully caressed her side, as if nursing an internal injury. Seeing her in agony like this – not that she had ever seen Jial suffer physical injury before – Chrissy almost instinctively reached out to comfort her; but she held back.
Jial had been hiding so much from her, and for so long too.
Jial had been lying to her. For years.
Chrissy doubtfully eyed the switch, the switch waiting to be flicked by her.
As if accurately gauging her thoughts, Si spoke up for her. He kept his voice calm and reasonable, despite a trembling of barely restrained anger.
‘So if all the kids are potential beasts, this switch could wipe us all out. And all to save people who aren’t even our real parents?’
Jial sighed. Whether it was a sign of resignation or of pain, Chrissy couldn’t be sure.
‘No one’s really sure what effect the switch has. No one’s ever tried it before, obviously. It sends out a pulse that, hopefully, just affects the more primitive brain of a fully transformed chiasmus.’
‘How can we trust you on this?’ Chrissy glared at Jial. ‘You’ve lied to us – to me – so much!’
Jial shrugged, a move that appeared to make her cringe as a surge of pain coursed through her.
‘You can’t,’ she admitted. ‘You can’t because I honestly don’t know the truth about this myself: no one does. Who will it affect? Yes, it could be you Chrissy, and Si, and Emma. It could just be the ones who are fully transformed.’
She shrugged again, but this time a little more carefully to avoid any chance that she was hit by a further surge of pain.
‘That’s why the people who came her – your parents, or at least representatives of your parents – chose not to flick the switch. They weren’t sure who it would kill. And therefore they decided that they would “save the children”; even though that meant they themselves would most likely die. And they did that despite a life of loving children who, at any time, might have transformed and killed them. ’
‘No, no; you’re wrong, so wrong Jial!’ Chrissy vehemently declared. ‘Even as a beast, I realised I loved Si! I didn’t kill him! And I love Mom and Dad – I would never kill them!’
‘But Chrissy, you already have killed your parents.’
Jial paused a little before continuing, giving a bewildered, sceptical Chrissy and Si a brief moment to consider this.
‘How else would we know you were potential chiasmus? How else would you become orphans?’
‘You mean,’ Chrissy said flatly, forcing herself to shake off an implicit need to deny Jial’s implication, ‘we killed our real parents.’
*
Chapter 48
Instinctively drawing together, Chrissy and Si held onto each other tightly.
‘Can…all this be true?’ Si murmured, dumbfounded.
‘It’s awful, awful,’ Chrissy wept. ‘We were children – and we murdered our parents!’
‘All it would take would be a brief surge of uncontrollable anger to transform you,’ Jial explained soothingly. ‘You wouldn’t even know what you were doing.’
‘But how?’ Chrissy begged. ‘How were we bitten?’
Jial approached them both, placing a consoling hand on each of their remorsefully lowered heads.
‘You never were; even when you made your most recent change, Chrissy. Not every child is susceptible, thankfully. Unfortunately, more and more of you are, as if there’s something stressful in modern life – something causing distress, jealously, dissatisfaction, or perhaps even a lack of life-affirming spirituality. Whatever it is, ultimately it’s flicking a primeval, more bestial part of your DNA back into life.’
‘But if everyone has an angel who can…’
With a sympathetic smile, Jial despondently shook her head.
‘How many angels do you think there are, Chrissy? And now we no longer have enough even for Hermon’s children.’
There was a chaotic crash of splintering wood, the screech of bending steel. Breaking away from their desperately clinging embrace, Chrissy and Si spun around.
Bursting through what was left of the window’s boarding, a beast gracefully land in the middle of the room’s floor. With a lazy swipe of a powerful arm, the chiasmus nonchalantly knocked Emma aside with a heavy blow to the head. He not only knocked her unconscious, but also sent her crashing painfully into the wall.
They’d been careless, so careless.
They’d been standing in the dining room in clear view of any passing beast. Any beast would have easily seen them through the shattered boarding.
A second beast with an almost casual effortlessness loped through the opening. He unhurriedly joined his partner in the middle of the room.
They both grinned, knowing this would be easy. Their prey was trapped, defenceless.
‘Angels?’
Chrissy looked to Jial for help.
Jial’s eyes were glazed, tearful, apologising.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘There are so few lef–’
One of the beasts charged towards Chrissy.
He would have crushed her against the wall if Jial hadn’t suddenly grabbed her and pulled her aside. The beast slammed into the wall, the fake panelling splintering into a heavy rainfall of shards.
Si only briefly wondered if he should tackle the second beast, who had moved closer to the still heavily dazed Emma. Instead, he foolishly leapt onto the back of the partially fallen beast. Gaining enough momentum to send them both rolling aside, he forced the beast farther away from Chrissy, which had been his only real intention.
The beast took the blow and the roll in its stride. It easily shrugged off the struggling Si, making it all part of the same easy motion enabling it to lithely spring back onto its feet.
Chrissy dashed back towards the cabinet containing the switch.
It was their only chance.
With luck, it might obliterate the beasts while sparing herself, Si and Emma.
At worst, they would also be killed – but they were about to die anyway. And that would leave no one to make the choice whether the switch should be tripped or not.
She scanned the room, wishing to beg Si’s forgiveness with a shared, knowing look between them.
But Si was nowhere to be seen.
Rather, there were now three ferociously snarling beasts in the room.
Si had transformed.
Si was now a chiasmus.
*
Chapter 49
Yet again, Chrissy’s hand slipped away from the switch.
With Si’s transf
A beast turned to face her, growling in what could have been intense pain or an overpowering fury.
Would Si forget who she was? Would he attack her?
Her hand hovered over the switch again. This could well be the last chance for anyone to do this.
Before she could move, however, the beast launched itself towards her. She screamed in terror as the beast coolly grabbed her around the waist.
As though she were weightless, the beast lifted her high into the air in an athletically perfect move, including a curving sprint across the room.
With a deft toss, as competently performed as a winning basketball pitch, Si perfectly deposited Chrissy onto the plush, reasonably shock-absorbing quilt of a chaise-longue lying beyond the dining table.
He immediately turned. With all the power and force he could muster, he recklessly threw himself at the beast hovering by Emma. With the crump of hard muscle and immovable bone, he struck the beast’s upper chest in a violent shoulder charge that lifted it high off its feet. Unbalanced, they both toppled, falling towards a corner.
But the other beast moved every bit as swiftly as Si. Powering across the room, and leaping the remaining distance, it latched its powerful arms around Si’s thick shoulders.
Using its own incredible weight and strength to pull Si back, and combining this with a twist of its body, the beast flung Si aside. Si struggled to remain on his feet. He was hurled across the room, finally crashing into the wall with a sickeningly loud crunch.
Now both beasts jubilantly threw themselves at Si, howling with glee as they began to mercilessly pummel him. With a defiant snarl, Si fought back. He lashed out at his opponents with fully extended talons. He used his powerful jaws and flint-like teeth to gouge, rive and tear away huge chunks of flesh.
Swinging her feet off the chaise longue, Chrissy raced towards the dining table. Propelled by a powerful surge of adrenalin and a rush of blood, she nimbly jumped up on to it.
She sensed that her fear and fury was unstoppably flooding into every part of her body. It was hardening, solidifying, becoming something real and manifest in its own right. For once, however, Chrissy welcomed the realisation that she innately possessed the unimaginable power of a ferocious beast. She greeted the knowledge that she was on the cusp of transforming with unalloyed joy; for this would be the only way she had a chance of saving Si.