The Fallen Sequence (105 page)

Luce was the only one watching as the girl became, out of nowhere, a column of fire. So fast.

The acrid smoke swirled over Daniel. His eyes were closed. His face glistened—wet with tears. He looked as miserable as he had looked every other time she’d watched him watch her die. But this time, he also looked sick with shock. Something was different. Something was wrong.

When Daniel had first told her about his punishment, he’d said there had been some lives in which a single kiss had killed her. Worse, in which something short of a kiss had killed her. A single touch.

They had not touched
. Luce had been watching the whole time. He’d been so careful not to come near her. Did he think he could have her longer by holding back the warmth of his embrace? Did he think he could outwit the curse by holding her always just out of reach?

“He didn’t even touch her,” she murmured.

“Bummer,” Bill said.

Never touching her, not once the whole time they were in love. And now he’d have to wait it all out again, not knowing whether anything would even be different
next time. How could hope live in the face of that kind of defeat? Nothing about this made sense.

“If he didn’t touch her, then what triggered her death?” She turned to Bill, who tilted his head and looked up into the sky.

“Mountains,” he said. “Pretty!”

“You know something,” Luce said. “What is it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “Or nothing I can tell you.”

A horrible, desolate cry echoed across the valley. The sound of Daniel’s agony resounded and returned, multiplied, as though a hundred Daniels were crying out together. Luce brought the opera glasses back up to her face and saw him dash the flowers in his hands to the ground.

“I have to go to him!” she said.

“Too late,” Bill said. “Here it comes.”

Daniel backed away from the cliff edge. Luce’s heart pounded for fear of what he was about to do. He certainly wasn’t going to sleep. He got a running start, picking up inhuman speed by the time he reached the cliff’s edge, and then launched himself into the air.

Luce waited for his wings to unfurl. She waited for the soft thunder of their grand unfolding, opening wide and catching the air in awesome glory. She’d seen him take flight like this in the past, and every time, it struck her to her core: How desperately she loved him.

But Daniel’s wings never shot out from his back. When he reached the edge of the cliff, he went over like any other boy.

And he fell like any other boy, too.

Luce screamed, a loud and long and terrified cry, until Bill clapped his dirty stone hand over her mouth. She threw him off, ran to the edge of the cliff, and crawled forward.

Daniel was still falling. It was a long way down. She watched his body grow smaller and smaller.

“He’ll extend his wings, won’t he?” she gasped. “He’ll realize that he’s going to fall and fall until …”

She couldn’t even say it.

“No,” Bill said.

“But—”

“He’ll slam right into that ground a couple of thousand feet down, yes,” Bill said. “He’ll break every bone in his body. But don’t worry, he can’t kill himself. He only wishes he could.” He turned to her and sighed. “Now do you believe his love?”

“Yes,” Luce whispered, because all she wanted to do at that moment was plunge off the cliff after him. That was how much she loved him back.

But it wouldn’t do any good.

“They were being so careful.” Her voice was strained. “We both saw what happened, Bill:
nothing
. She was so innocent. So how could she have died?”

Bill sputtered a laugh. “You think you know everything about her just because you saw the last three minutes of her life from across a mountaintop?”

“You’re the one who made me use binoculars … oh!” She froze. “Wait a minute!” Something haunted her about the way her past self’s eyes had seemed to change, just for a moment, right at the end. And suddenly, Luce knew: “What killed her this time wasn’t something I could have witnessed, anyway.…”

Bill rolled his claws, waiting for her to finish the thought.

“It was happening inside her.”

He applauded slowly. “I think you might be ready now.”

“Ready for what?”

“Remember what I mentioned to you in Helston? After you talked to Roland?”

“You disagreed with him … about me getting close to my past selves?”

“You still can’t rewrite the story, Luce. You can’t change the narratives. If you try to—”

“I know, it distorts the future. I don’t want to change the past. I just need to know what happens—why I keep dying. I thought it was a kiss, or a touch, or something physical, but it seems more complicated than that.”

Bill yanked the shadow out from behind Luce’s feet like a bullfighter wielding a red cape. Its edges flickered
with silver. “Are you ready to put your soul where your mouth is?” he asked. “Are you ready to go three-D?”

“I’m ready.” Luce punched open the Announcer and braced herself against the briny wind inside. “Wait,” she said, looking at Bill hovering at her side. “What’s three-D?”

“Wave of the future, kid,” he said.

Luce gave him a hard stare.

“Okay, there’s an unsonorous technical term for it—
cleaving
—but to me,
three-D
sounds much more fun.” Bill dove inside the dark tunnel and beckoned her with a crooked finger. “Trust me, you’ll
love
it.”

TEN

THE DEPTHS

LHASA, TIBET • APRIL 30, 1740

D
aniel hit the ground running.

Wind ripped across his body. The sun felt close against his skin. He was running and running and had no idea where he was. He’d burst from the Announcer without knowing, and though it felt
right
in almost every way, something nagged at his memory. Something was wrong.

His wings.

They were
absent
. No—they were still there, of course, but he felt no urge to let them out, no burning
itch for flight. Instead of the familiar yearning to soar into the sky, the pull he felt was
down
.

A memory was rising to the surface of his mind. He was nearing something painful, the edge of something dangerous. His eyes focused on the space in front of him—

And saw nothing but thin air.

He threw himself backward, arms flailing as his feet skidded along the rock. He hit the ground on his backside and came to a stop just before he plunged off an unfathomable cliff.

He caught his breath, then rolled his body carefully around so he could peer over the edge.

Below him: an abyss so eerily familiar. He got to his hands and knees and studied the vast darkness below. Was he down there still? Had the Announcer ejected him here before or after it had happened?

That was why his wings hadn’t burst forth. They’d remembered this life’s agony and stayed put.

Tibet. Where just his words had killed her. That life’s Lucinda had been raised to be so chaste, she wouldn’t even touch him. Though he’d ached for the feel of her skin on his, Daniel had respected her wishes. Secretly, he had hoped that her refusal might be a way to outsmart their curse at last. But he’d been a fool again. Of course, touch wasn’t the trigger. The punishment ran far deeper than that.

And now he was back here, in the place where her
death had driven him into a despair so overwhelming that he’d tried to put an end to his pain.

As if that were possible.

The whole way down, he’d known he would fail. Suicide was a mortal luxury not afforded to angels.

His body trembled at the memory. It wasn’t just the agony of all his shattered bones, or the way the fall had left his body black and blue. No, it was what came afterward. He’d lain there for weeks, his body wedged in the dark emptiness between two vast boulders. Occasionally he’d come to, but his mind was so awash in misery that he wasn’t able to think about Lucinda. He wasn’t able to think about anything at all.

Which had been the point.

But as was the way of angels, his body healed itself faster and more completely than his soul ever could.

His bones knit back together. His wounds sealed in neat scars and, over time, disappeared completely. His pulverized organs grew healthy. All too soon his heart was full again and strong and beating.

It was Gabbe who’d found him after more than a month, who’d helped him crawl out from the crevasse, who’d put splints on his wings and carried him away from this place. She’d made him vow to never do it again. She’d made him vow to always maintain hope.

And now here he was again. He got to his feet and, once more, teetered at the edge.

“No, please. Oh
God
, don’t! I just couldn’t bear it if you jumped.”

It wasn’t Gabbe speaking to him now on the mountain. This voice dripped with sarcasm. Daniel knew who it belonged to before he even spun around.

Cam lounged against a wall of tall black boulders. Over the colorless earth, he’d spread out an enormous prayer tapestry woven with rich strands of burgundy and ochre thread. He dangled a charred yak’s leg in his hand and bit off a huge hunk of stringy meat.

“Oh, what the hell?” Cam shrugged, chewing. “Go ahead and jump. Any last words you want me to pass along to Luce?”

“Where is she?” Daniel started toward him, his hands balling into fists. Was the Cam reclining before him of this time period? Or was he an Anachronism, come back in time just as Daniel had?

Cam flung the yak bone off the cliff and stood up, wiping his greasy hands on his jeans. Anachronism, Daniel decided.

“You just missed her. Again. What took you so long?” Cam held out a small tin platter brimming with food. “Dumpling? They’re divine.”

Daniel knocked the plate to the ground. “Why didn’t you stop her?” He had been to Tahiti, to Prussia, and now here to Tibet in less time that it would take a mortal to cross a street. Always he felt as if he were hot on
Luce’s trail. And always she was just beyond reach. How did she continue to outpace him?

“You said you didn’t need my help.”

“But you saw her?” Daniel demanded.

Cam nodded.

“Did she see you?”

Cam shook his head.

“Good.” Daniel scanned the bare mountaintop, trying to imagine Luce there. He cast a quick eye around, looking for traces of her. But there was nothing. Gray dirt, black rock, the cut of the wind, no life up here at all—it all seemed to him the loneliest place on earth.

“What happened?” he said, grilling Cam. “What did she do?”

Cam walked a casual circle around Daniel. “She, unlike the object of her affection, has an impeccable sense of timing. She arrived at just the right moment to see her own magnificent death—it is a good one, this time, looks quite grand against this stark landscape. Even
you
must be able to admit that. No?”

Daniel jerked his gaze away.

“Anyway, where was I? Hmm, her own magnificent death, already said that … Ah yes! She stayed just long enough to watch you throw yourself over the edge of the cliff and forget to use your wings.”

Daniel hung his head.

“That didn’t go over very well.”

Daniel’s hand snapped out and caught Cam by the
throat. “You expect me to believe you just watched? You didn’t talk to her? Didn’t find out where she was going next? Didn’t try to stop her?”

Cam grunted and twisted out of Daniel’s grip. “I was nowhere near her. By the time I reached this spot, she was gone. Again: You said you didn’t need my help.”

“I don’t. Stay out of this. I’ll handle it myself.”

Cam chuckled and dropped back onto the tapestry rug, crossing his legs in front of him. “Thing is, Daniel,” he said, drawing a handful of dried goji berries to his lips. “Even if I trusted that you
could
handle it yourself—which, based on your existing record, I don’t”—he wagged a finger—“you’re not alone in this. Everyone’s looking for her.”

“What do you mean,
everyone
?”

“When you took off after Luce the night we fought the Outcasts, do you think the rest of us just sat around and played canasta? Gabbe, Roland, Molly, Arriane, even those two idiot Nephilim kids—they’re all somewhere out there trying to find her.”

“You
let
them do that?”

“I’m not anyone’s keeper, brother.”

“Don’t call me that,” Daniel snapped. “I can’t believe this. How could they? This is my responsibility—”

“Free will.” Cam shrugged. “It’s all the rage these days.”

Daniel’s wings burned against his back, useless. What could he do about half a dozen Anachronisms
blundering about in the past? His fellow fallen angels would know how fragile the past was, would be careful. But Shelby and Miles? They were
kids
. They’d be reckless. They wouldn’t know any better. They could destroy it all for Luce. They could destroy Luce herself.

No. Daniel wouldn’t give any of them the chance to get to her before he did.

And yet—Cam had done it.

“How can I trust that you didn’t interfere?” Daniel asked, trying not to show his desperation.