The Fallen Sequence (39 page)

Their drumming was so loud, Luce had to cover her ears. On the ground, Penn was crouched with her head between her knees. But Daniel and Miss Sophia stoically
watched the sky as the cacophony grew and changed. It began to sound more like very loud sprinklers going off … or like the hiss of a thousand snakes.

“Or this?” Cam asked, shrugging as the hideous, formless darkness settled around him.

The insects each began to grow and unfold, becoming larger than any insect could ever be, dripping like glue and growing into black segmented bodies. Then, as if they were learning how to use their shadow limbs as they formed, they slowly hoisted themselves onto their numerous legs and came forward, like mantises grown to human height.

Cam welcomed them as they swarmed around him. Soon they had formed a massive army of embodied night behind Cam.

“I’m sorry,” he said, smacking his forehead with his palm. “Did you tell me
not
to do that?”

“Daniel,” Luce whispered. “What’s happening?”

“Why did you call an end to the truce?” he called to Cam.

“Oh. Well. You know what they say about desperate times.” Cam sneered. “And watching you plaster her body with those perfectly angelic kisses of yours … it made me feel
so
desperate.”

“Shut up, Cam!” Luce shouted, hating that she’d ever let him touch her.

“In good time.” Cam’s eyes rolled over to her.
“Oh yes, we’re going to brawl, baby. Over you. Again.” He stroked his chin and narrowed his green eyes. “Bigger this time, I think. A few more casualties. Deal with it.”

Daniel gathered Luce in his arms. “Tell me why, Cam. You owe me that much.”

“You
know
why,” Cam boomed, pointing at Luce. “
She’s
still here. Won’t be for long, though.”

He put his hands on his hips, and a series of dense black shadows, now shaped like endless fat serpents, slithered up along his body, encircling his arms like bracelets. He petted the largest one’s head dotingly.

“And this time, when your love blows into that tragic little puff of ash, it’s going to be
for good
. See, everything’s different this time.” Cam beamed, and Luce thought she felt Daniel quake for just a second.

“Oh, except one thing is the same—and I do have a soft spot for your predictability, Grigori.” Cam took a step forward. His shadow-legions inched up accordingly, making Luce and Daniel, and Penn and Miss Sophia, inch back. “You’re afraid,” he said, pointing dramatically at Daniel. “And I’m not.”

“That’s because you have nothing to lose,” Daniel spat. “I would never trade places with you.”

“Hmmm,” Cam said, tapping his chin. “We’ll see about that.” He looked around, grinning. “Must I spell it out for you? Yes. I hear you may have something
bigger
to lose this time. Something that’s going to make annihilating her so much more enjoyable.”

“What are you talking about?” Daniel asked.

To Luce’s left, Miss Sophia opened her mouth and let out a howling string of feral noises. She waved her hands wildly over her head in a jerking dancelike motion, her eyes almost transparent, as if she were in some sort of trance. Her lips twitched, and Luce realized with a shock that she was speaking in tongues.

Daniel took Miss Sophia’s arm and shook her. “No, you are absolutely right: It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered, and Luce realized he could understand Miss Sophia’s strange language.

“You know what she’s saying?” Luce asked.

“Allow us to translate,” a familiar voice shouted from the roof of the mausoleum. Arriane. Next to her was Gabbe. Both seemed to be lit from behind and were enshrouded in a strange silver glow. They hopped down from the crypt, landing next to Luce without a sound.

“Cam’s right, Daniel,” Gabbe said quickly. “Something’s different this time … something about Luce. The cycle could be broken—and not the way we want it to. I mean … it could end.”

“Someone tell me what you’re talking about,” Luce said, butting in. “What’s different? Broken how? What’s at stake with this whole battle, anyway?”

Daniel, Arriane, and Gabbe all stared at her for a moment as if trying to place her, as if they knew her from
somewhere but she’d changed so completely in an instant that they no longer recognized her face.

Finally Arriane spoke up. “At stake?” She rubbed at the scar on her neck. “If they win—it’s Hell on earth. The end of the world as anyone knows it.”

The black shapes screeched around Cam, wrestling with and chewing on each other, in some sort of sick, devilish warm-up.

“And if we win?” Luce struggled to get out the words.

Gabbe swallowed, then said gravely, “We don’t know yet.”

Suddenly Daniel stumbled back, away from Luce, and pointed at her. “Sh-she hasn’t been …,” he stammered, covering his mouth. “The kiss,” he said finally, stepping forward to grip Luce’s arm. “The book. That’s why you can—”

“Get to part B, Daniel,” Arriane prompted. “Think fast. Patience is a virtue, and you know how Cam feels about those.”

Daniel squeezed Luce’s hand. “You have to go. You have to get out of here.”

“What? Why?”

She looked at Arriane and Gabbe for help, then shrank away from them as a host of silver twinkles began to flow over the roof of the mausoleum. Like an endless stream of fireflies released from an enormous mason jar. They rained down on Arriane and Gabbe, making their eyes shine. It reminded Luce of fireworks—and of one Fourth
of July, when the light had been just right and she’d looked into her mother’s irises and seen the fireworks’ reflection, a booming silvery flash of light, as if her mother’s eyes were a mirror.

Only, these twinkles didn’t peter into smoke like fireworks. When they hit the cemetery grass, they bloomed into graceful, shimmery iridescent beings. They weren’t exactly human shapes, but they were vaguely recognizable. Gorgeous, glowing rays of light. Creatures so ravishing that Luce knew instantly they were an army of angelic power, equal in size and number to the great black force behind Cam. This was what true beauty and goodness looked like—a spectral, luminescent gathering of beings so pure it hurt to look directly at them, like the most glorious eclipse, or maybe Heaven itself. She should have felt comforted, standing on the side that
had
to prevail in this fight. But she was starting to feel sick.

Daniel pressed the back of his hand to her cheek. “She’s feverish.”

Gabbe patted Luce on the arm and beamed. “It’s okay, sugar,” she said, guiding Daniel’s hand away. Her drawl was somehow reassuring. “We’ll take it from here. But you have to go.” She glanced over her shoulder at the horde of blackness behind Cam. “Now.”

Daniel pulled Luce to him for one last embrace.

“I’ll take her,” Miss Sophia called loudly. The book was still tucked under her arm. “I know a safe place.”

“Go,” Daniel said. “I’ll find you as soon as I can. Just promise me you’ll run from here, and that you won’t look back.”

Luce had so many questions. “I don’t want to leave you.”

Arriane stepped between them and gave Luce a final, rough shove toward the gates. “Sorry, Luce,” she said. “Time to leave this fight to us. We’re kind of professionals.”

Luce felt Penn’s hand slide into hers, and soon they were running. Pounding up toward the gates of the cemetery as quickly as she’d bounded down on her way to find Daniel. Back up the slippery mulch slide. Back through the jagged live oak branches and the ramshackle stacks of broken headstones. They hurdled the stones and jogged up the slope, making for the distant ironwork arch of the gates. Hot wind blew her hair, and the swampy air still lay thick in her lungs. She couldn’t find the moon to guide them, and the light in the cemetery’s center was gone now. She didn’t understand what was happening. At all. And she didn’t like it at all that everyone else did.

A bolt of blackness struck the ground in front of her, cracking the earth and opening up a jagged gorge. Luce and Penn skidded to a halt just in time. The gash was as wide as Luce was tall, as deep as … well, she couldn’t see down to the dark bottom. The edges of it sizzled and foamed.

Penn gasped. “Luce. I’m scared.”

“Follow me, girls,” Miss Sophia called.

She led them to the right, winding among the dark graves while blast after blast rang out behind them. “Just the sounds of battle,” she huffed, like some sort of strange tour guide. “That will go on for some while, I fear.”

Luce winced at every crash, but she kept pushing forward until her calves were burning, until behind her, Penn let out a wail. Luce turned and saw her friend stumble, her eyes rolling back in her head.

“Penn!” Luce screamed, reaching out to catch her just before she fell. Tenderly, Luce lowered her to the ground and rolled her over. She almost wished she hadn’t. Penn’s shoulder had been sliced through by something black and jagged. It had bit into her skin, leaving a charred line of flesh that smelled like burning meat.

“Is it bad?” Penn whispered hoarsely. She blinked rapidly, clearly frustrated at being unable to lift her head up to see for herself.

“No,” Luce lied, shaking her head. “Just a cut.” She gulped, trying to swallow the nausea rising in her as she tugged Penn’s frayed black sleeve together. “Am I hurting you?”

“I don’t know,” Penn wheezed. “I can’t feel anything.”

“Girls, what
is
the holdup?” Miss Sophia had doubled back.

Luce looked up at Miss Sophia, willing her not to say how bad Penn’s injury looked.

She didn’t. She gave Luce a swift nod, then stretched her arms beneath Penn and lifted her up like a parent carrying a child to bed. “I’ve got you,” she said. “It won’t be long now.”

“Hey.” Luce followed Miss Sophia, who carried Penn’s weight like she was a bag of feathers. “How did you—”

“No questions, not until we’re far away from all of this,” Miss Sophia said.

Far away
. Luce wanted nothing less than to be far away from Daniel. And then, after they’d crossed the threshold of the cemetery and were standing on the flat ground of the school commons, she couldn’t help herself. She looked back. And instantly understood why Daniel had told her not to.

A twisting silver-gold pillar of fire burst forth from the dark center of the cemetery. It was as wide as the cemetery itself, a braid of light rising hundreds of feet up into the air and boiling away the clouds. The black shadows picked at the light, occasionally tearing tendrils free and carrying them off, shrieking, into the night. As the coiling strands shifted, now more silver, now more gold, a single chord of sound began to fill the air, full and unending, loud as a mighty waterfall. Low notes thundered in the night. High notes chimed to fill the space around
them. It was the grandest, most perfectly balanced celestial harmony ever heard on earth. It was beautiful, and horrifying, and everything stank of sulfur.

Everyone for miles around must have believed the world was ending. Luce didn’t know what to think. Her heart seized up.

Daniel had told her not to look back because he knew the sight of it would make her want to go to him.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Miss Sophia said, grabbing Luce by the scruff of the neck and dragging her across campus. When they reached the gymnasium, Luce realized that Miss Sophia had been carrying Penn the whole time, using only one arm.

“What
are
you?” Luce asked as Miss Sophia pushed her through the double doors.

The librarian pulled a long key from the pocket of her beaded red cardigan and slipped it into a part of the brick wall at the front of the foyer that didn’t even look like a door. An entrance to a long stairway opened silently, and Miss Sophia gestured for Luce to precede her up the stairs.

Penn’s eyes were closed. She was either unconscious or in too much pain to keep them open. Either way, she was staying remarkably quiet.

“Where are we going?” Luce asked. “We need to get out of here. Where’s your car?” She didn’t want to scare Penn, but they needed to get to a doctor. Fast.

“Quiet, if you know what’s good for you.” Miss Sophia glanced at Penn’s wound and sighed. “We’re going to the only chamber in this place that hasn’t been desecrated with athletic equipment. Where we can be alone.”

By then, Penn had begun groaning in Miss Sophia’s arms. The blood from her wound was a thick, dark stream on the marble floor.

Luce eyed the steep staircase. She couldn’t even see its end. “I think for Penn’s sake we should stay down here. We’re going to need to get help pretty soon.”

Miss Sophia sighed and laid Penn down on the stone, quickly popping back up to lock the front door they’d just come through. Luce fell to her knees in front of Penn. Her friend looked so small and fragile. In the dim light coming from the delicate wrought iron chandelier overhead, Luce could at last see how badly she’d been injured.

Penn was the only friend Luce had at Sword & Cross she could really relate to, the only one she wasn’t intimidated by. After Luce had seen what Arriane and Gabbe and Cam were capable of, few things made sense. But one did: Penn was the only kid at Sword & Cross like her.

Except Penn was stronger than Luce. Smarter and happier and more easygoing. She was the reason Luce had made it through these first few weeks of reform school at all. Without Penn, who knew where Luce would be?

“Oh, Penn.” Luce sighed. “You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you all fixed up.”

Penn murmured something incomprehensible, which made Luce nervous. Luce turned back to Miss Sophia, who was closing all the windows in the foyer one by one.

“She’s fading fast,” Luce said. “We
need
to call a doctor.”

“Yes, yes,” Miss Sophia said, but something in her tone sounded preoccupied. She seemed consumed with closing up the building, as if the shadows from the cemetery were on their way here right now.

“Luce?” Penn whispered. “I’m scared.”

“Don’t be.” Luce squeezed her hand. “You’re so brave. This whole time you’ve been such a pillar of strength.”

“Give me a break,” Miss Sophia said from behind her, in a rough voice Luce had never heard her use. “She’s a pillar of salt.”