Fallen: Angels in the Dark (5 page)

A branch snapped behind him and Cam whirled around, fists clenched, the cigarette still clipped between his lips. Interesting. It was one of the females, alone. She hadn’t sensed his presence on the other side of the tree. Her silver bow was not even drawn.

“Got a light, Outcast?”

The girl blinked her white eyes, which made Cam feel nauseated and almost a little bit sorry for her. Almost.

“The Outcasts do not play with fire,” she said in a hollow voice, her pale fingers moving toward the inner pocket of her tan trench coat.

“Yes, that always was the Outcasts’ problem, wasn’t it?” Cam played it cool. No reason to alarm her. That would only draw the starshot faster. He snapped his fingers, igniting a small flame, and held it up to light the cigarette.

“You are spying on her.” The girl jerked her blond head upward, toward the deck where—it was true—Lucinda was seated on a bench, looking striking in a rose-red sweater and her newly bleached hair. She was talking to some Nephilim friend, talking in the open, trusting way she used to talk to Cam. Her hazel eyes wide, her lips pursed with that old sadness. Cam could look at her all day.

Alas, he forced himself to turn back to the lifeless creature before him. “I’m protecting her from the likes of you,” he spat. “There’s a difference, baby, not that you’d be able to see it.”

He stole another glance at Luce. She had risen from the bench. Her eyes traveled down the deck stairs, which led too close to Cam’s hideout in the woods. What was she doing? He stiffened. Was she coming over?

The starshot whizzed through the air when Cam was least expecting it. He sensed it at the last possible second and dodged to the right, scraping his cheek against the tree trunk, catching the shaft of the arrow in his leather-gloved hand. He was trembling, but he would not give the
Outcast the satisfaction of knowing how close she had come. He pocketed the arrow.

“I’d use this to extinguish you,” he said lightly, “but it would be a waste of a perfectly good starshot. Especially when it’s so much more fun to beat you Outcasts up.”

Before the girl could draw another arrow, Cam lunged at her and grabbed her by the ponytail. He kneed her in the stomach, hard, then jerked her head back and punched her sideways in the face. She cried out and something cracked, maybe the bone of her nose, but Cam kept punching, even as the blood began to flow—from her nose, from her lip, down his fist. From the moment he started whaling on the Outcast, he forced himself to tune out her girlish whimpers. Otherwise, he couldn’t have gone on like that. The Outcasts were sexless, lifeless, worthless—but in spite of all that, they were a threat to everything that mattered most to Cam.

“You will”—punch—“not”—knee snap—“get her.”

The Outcast gagged as she coughed up one of her teeth and spat blood across Cam’s T-shirt.

“Spoken like someone who never even had a chance.”

He punched her again, right in the eye. “I did. You hear that, Outcast? I may have lost it, but I used to have a chance.”

Beating up the Outcasts was easy—too easy. It was a pointless exercise, like an old video game you’d bested but played again out of boredom. They’d heal like all the fallen, no matter how much damage he inflicted.

The Outcast grunted as Cam gave her skull a final kick that knocked her to the ground. She landed facedown in the mulchy leaves. After that, she did not move. So it was up to Cam to yank her to her feet and shove her bloodied body back from whence it had come.

“Tell your friends you are not welcome in this forest!” he shouted after her, watching as she tugged open an Announcer and fell inside.

He leaned back against the redwood and took a long, calming drag on his cigarette just as Lucinda started down the stairs.

Luce looked around the quiet cave, surprised to find that the angels, demons, Outcasts, and the transeternals had all fallen fast asleep. The last thing she remembered was Dee’s instruction to wait until the moon hit the
Qayom Malak
in precisely the right place before the ceremony of the three relics could begin.

What time was it? Rays of sunlight streamed through the mouth of the cave.

A warm hand squeezed her shoulder. She turned and her hair brushed Daniel’s cheek. “By a stroke of luck we find ourselves alone,” he laughed.

She grinned, whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”

They scrambled down the path, laughing like children, holding hands. When they rounded a curve on the path and found themselves looking out across a great vista of the endless desert, Daniel swept her up in his arms again.

“I can’t keep my hands off you.”

Luce kissed him greedily, let her hands fondle the white expanse of his wings. Like Daniel, they were strong and awe-inspiring and absolutely gorgeous. They rippled with pleasure under her hand. Daniel shuddered, exhaled deeply.

“Do you want to fly somewhere?” he asked.

Luce always wanted to be in the air with Daniel. She grinned. “Sure. Wherever. I just want to be with you.”

He looked into the distance.

“What’s wrong?”

“If it’s all the same to you,” he said, “it might be nice to stay on the ground. I have this urge to let go of who we are. Just be two people, a boy and a girl, hanging out.”

He eyed her nervously until she let go of his wing to take his hand.

“I know what you mean. I’d love to.”

Daniel looked grateful as he rolled his shoulders forward, coaxing his enormous wings back into his shoulders. They retreated slowly, smoothly, until they’d become two small white shoots in the back of his neck. Then they were gone completely and Daniel was merely Daniel. When he smiled, Luce realized how long it had been since she’d seen
him without his wings.

“It’ll be nice to keep our feet on the ground,” she said, looking down at her boots and Daniel’s sneakers, both caked with desert dust.

Daniel was looking over her shoulder, down into the dry plain below. “Or maybe just slightly off the ground.”

“What do you mean?” She spun around and stood on tiptoes to see where he was looking.

“Have you ever ridden a camel?”

“I don’t know,” she challenged him. “Have I?”

They named the camel Woody, because he looked like a 1970s Woody Allen, with his red, wavy unkempt mane—though he was seven feet tall, with a double hump and two crooked front teeth. They found him grazing at the foothills of Mount Sinai with two other less amusing camels. When Daniel laid a hand on his flank, Woody didn’t kick and snort at the invisible touch; he leaned in and nuzzled Luce’s unseen face, looking lovably paranoid.

“This is the one,” Daniel said.

“We can’t just take him! What if he belongs to someone?”

Daniel raised a hand to shield his eyes and made a show of looking across the vast ocean of sand. “We’re just borrowing him for the day.” He wove his fingers together and bent down to make a step for Luce with his hands. “Come on. Up you go.”

She laughed as she swung one leg over the camel, delighted by the feel of sliding down to the base of his back between his humps.

“How are you going to get up, normal boy?” she asked.

Daniel stared at the hump a foot over his head and scratched his chin. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

He asked for her hand and jerked himself up but lost his footing and landed on his back in the dirt.

“A temporary setback,” he grunted.

For the second attempt, he came around the other side and tried to hoist himself up like a swimmer climbing out of the deep end. He slipped and fell on his face. Woody spat.

“Okay,” Luce called, trying not to laugh. “Third time’s the charm!” The first two times had charmed her, too, and a fourth would charm her even more.

Daniel grunted again, and when he reached for her hand, Luce really put her back into pulling him up. She could feel his body rising from the ground and was surprised by how light he felt in her arms. He landed behind her, directly on the hump, in the splits, and bellowed with pain. Luce lost it.

She was laughing so hard it required an apology, which was tough to accomplish through a delirious convulsion. Daniel finally laughed when her fit of giggles almost sent her tumbling off the camel.

When they finally calmed down, Luce turned to look at Daniel. She ran a finger across his lips. “It still feels like we’re flying.”

“I guess we always are.” Daniel kissed her finger, then her lips, and without coming up for air, gave Woody a gentle kick to get him moving.

Woody wasn’t a thoroughbred. They sauntered across the plain with the distant hope of reaching the ocean. It didn’t seem likely, but it also didn’t matter. Luce thought this endless stretch of packed brown sand looked like the most beautiful place on earth.

They rode in happy silence until something struck Luce. “I don’t think I ever have been on a camel before.”

“No.” She could hear the smile creep into in his voice. “You haven’t. At least, not when I’ve been around. Were you able to pull that from the memories of your past?”

“I think so. It’s weird, I searched for it, but—recently when my mind circles around a memory and finds something I’ve done before, I feel this warmth.” She shrugged. “Since I didn’t feel anything this time, I guess it means I haven’t had this experience before.”

“I’m impressed,” Daniel said. “Now how about you tell me about something for a change? Tell me about your time at Dover.”

“Dover?” That caught her by surprise. She would rather talk about any of the past lives she’d visited in the Announcers than her experience at Dover.

They passed a barren tree trunk, which looked like it hadn’t seen a leaf in centuries. They passed a dried-up river and a dirt path that didn’t lead anywhere. There was no one around to judge her. Only Daniel.

“It was three years of boredom followed by one catastrophe that left a boy I knew dead,” she said finally. “It makes me sick to think about because I—”

“Trevor’s death wasn’t your fault.”

She swerved around to face him. “How did you know?”

“There was someone else behind it. Someone who knew you would feel terrible about that fire—and
wanted
you to. Someone who wanted you to believe that what happens inside you when you care for someone is fatal.”

“Who would do that?” Luce whispered.

“Someone who wanted you never to fall in love. Someone jealous of what you and I have together.”

“A person died because of that jealousy, Daniel. An innocent boy who had nothing to do with our curse or our love.”

“I didn’t know it was happening. I would have stopped it. I’m sorry, Luce. I know you’ve suffered.”

Luce rubbed her forehead. “You’re saying the person behind Trevor’s death killed him so that I wouldn’t fall in love with you?”

“Yes.”

“Only … it didn’t work.”

“No,” Daniel said. “It didn’t.”

“Because of the curse? It still brought us together—”

“Because no curse is stronger than our love.”

They climbed another mountain, then another. The sun beat down like hands upon their shoulders. They slid off Woody to walk to the edge of a cliff. The drop was steep and scary, but below them the ocean crashed against the shore, a fantastic bolt of blue after so much brown. They could never get down there without flying. But Luce looked at Daniel and Daniel looked at Luce, and they smiled, knowing they had made a pact: a simple date, no wings. That was fine with both of them.

“Come here.” Daniel touched a flat rock at the edge of the cliff, motioning for Luce to sit down. They watched the ocean for a moment, saw two back container ships like glaciers near the horizon.

“It feels like the world is ours today, doesn’t it?” Luce said sadly.

Daniel spun her to him, touched the tip of her nose with his. His hand parted the buttons on her jacket, then slipped under her shirt, caressing the small of her back.

He kissed her with a new brand of abandon. His touch was smooth and soft and desperate all at once. Her mouth bore down on his as he squeezed her, lifting her on top of him, burying his free hand in her hair. Their limbs overlapped, taut with expectation. Their mouths were hot and tangled. Luce felt dizzy and alive, as if their souls had twined together. It was almost too much to bear. She could never get enough. But she would try.

“I love you, Daniel,” Luce said between breaths.

“I love you, too,” he replied. “More than anything. More than—”

Boom
.

It sounded like thunder, the brewing of a dark tornado. Luce jumped awake inside the cave, where she must have fallen asleep on Daniel’s shoulder.…