Torment (Fallen Book 2) Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  THE BESTSELLING SERIES BY LAUREN KATE

  “Bloodsuckers are about to have some competition for the hearts of YA readers.” —The Daily Beast

  “This emotional roller coaster will have you turning the pages nonstop!” —Seventeen.com

  “This series has delivered glorious settings, fast-paced action and a love that transcends death.” —Justine magazine

  “Readers will pine right alongside Luce.” —Publishers Weekly

  “This epic romance is a perfect blend of mystery, intrigue, and celestial imagery with a beautiful, bittersweet ending.” —SLJ

  “Twilight-style success could be in the cards for the fallen-angel saga.” —The Bookseller

  “Compellingly readable … readers will be hooked on Luce’s story.” —VOYA

  “The Southern Gothic atmosphere … is so well crafted that readers can easily picture Luce walking among the marshes and crumbling buildings.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “A tantalizing, atmospheric Gothic romance, Fallen is well worth picking up.” —New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr

  ALSO BY LAUREN KATE

  THE FALLEN SERIES

  Fallen

  Passion

  Rapture

  Fallen in Love

  Unforgiven

  THE TEARDROP SERIES

  Teardrop

  Waterfall

  The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Tinderbox Books, LLC and Lauren Kate

  Cover illustrations copyright © 2010 by Fernanda Brussi Gonçalves

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ember, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, in 2010.

  Ember and the E colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:

  Kate, Lauren.

  Torment / Lauren Kate. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a desperate effort to save Luce from the Outcasts—immortals who want her dead—Luce and Daniel are forced to be apart from each other and, as she discovers more about her past lives, Luce starts to suspect that Daniel may have lied to her about their shared past and that she may have been destined to be with someone else all along.

  ISBN 978-0-385-73914-6 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-385-90773-6 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-375-89717-7 (ebook)

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Reincarnation—Fiction. 4. Angels—Fiction.]

  I. Title. II. Title: Torment.

  PZ7.K15655Tor 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010035306

  ISBN 978-0-385-73915-3 (tr. pbk.)

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1_r7

  FOR ELIZABETH, IRDY, ANNE, AND VIC.

  I HAVE BEEN SO LUCKY TO HAVE YOU.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First, inexpressible thanks to my readers for all the effusive and generous support. Because of you, I may just have to keep writing forever.

  To Wendy Loggia, whose belief in this series was a great gift, and who knows just how to make it more like what it always wanted to be. To Beverly Horowitz for the sharpest pep talk I’ve ever received, and the dessert you stuffed into my purse. To Krista Vitola, whose good-news emails have made so many of my days. To Angela Carlino and the design team, for the jacket that could launch a thousand ships. To my traveling partner Noreen Marchisi, Roshan Nozari, and the rest of the tremendous marketing team at Random House. You are magicians. To Michael Stearns and Ted Malawer, tireless geniuses. Your wit and encouragement make you almost too much fun to work with.

  To my friends, who keep me sane and inspired. To my family in Texas, Arkansas, Baltimore, and Florida for so much exuberance and love. And to Jason, for every single day.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by this Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Prologue - Neutral Waters

  Chapter 1 - Eighteen Days

  Chapter 2 - Seventeen Days

  Chapter 3 - Sixteen Days

  Chapter 4 - Fifteen Days

  Chapter 5 - Fourteen Days

  Chapter 6 - Thirteen Days

  Chapter 7 - Twelve Days

  Chapter 8 - Eleven Days

  Chapter 9 - Ten Days

  Chapter 10 - Nine Days

  Chapter 11 - Eight Days

  Chapter 12 - Seven Days

  Chapter 13 - Six Days

  Chapter 14 - Five Days

  Chapter 15 - Four Days

  Chapter 16 - Three Days

  Chapter 17 - Two Days

  Chapter 18 - Thanksgiving

  Chapter 19 - The Truce is Broken

  Epilogue - Pandemonium

  Excerpt from Unforgiven

  About the Author

  For, if I imp my wing on thine

  Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

  —GEORGE HERBERT, Easter Wings

  PROLOGUE

  NEUTRAL WATERS

  Daniel stared out at the bay. His eyes were as gray as the thick fog enveloping the Sausalito shoreline, as the choppy water lapping the pebble beach beneath his feet. There was no violet to his eyes now at all; he could feel it. She was too far away.

  He braced himself against the biting gale off the water. But even as he tugged his thick black pea coat closer, he knew it was no use. Hunting always left him cold.

  Only one thing could warm him today, and she was out of reach. He missed the way the crown of her head made the perfect resting spot for his lips. He imagined filling the circle of his arms with her body, leaning down to kiss her neck. But it was a good thing Luce couldn’t be here now. What she’d see would horrify her.

  Behind him, the bleat of sea lions flopping in heaps along the south shore of Angel Island sounded the way he felt: jaggedly lonely, with no one around to hear.

  No one except Cam.

  He was crouched in front of Daniel, tying a rusty anchor around the bulging, wet figure at their feet. Even engaged in something so sinister, Cam looked good. His green eyes had a sparkle and his black hair was cut short. It was the truce; it always brought a brighter glow to the angels’ cheeks, a shinier sheen to their hair, an even sharper cut to their flawless muscled bodies. Truce days were to angels what beach vacations were to humans.

  So even though Daniel ached inside each time he was forced to end a human life, to anyone else he looked like a guy coming back from a week in Hawaii: relaxed, rested, tan.

  Tightening one of his intricate knots, Cam said, “Typical Daniel. Always stepping aside and leaving me to do the dirty work.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m the one who finished him.” Daniel looked down at the dead
man, at the wiry gray hair matted to his pasty forehead, at his gnarled hands and cheap rubber galoshes, at the dark red tear across his chest. It made Daniel feel cold all over again. If the killing weren’t necessary to ensure Luce’s safety, to save her, Daniel would never raise another weapon. Never fight another fight.

  And something about killing this man did not feel quite right. In fact, Daniel had a vague, troubling sense that something was profoundly wrong.

  “Finishing them is the fun part.” Cam looped the rope around the man’s chest and tightened it under his arms. “The dirty work is seeing them off to sea.”

  Daniel still gripped the bloodied tree branch in his hand. Cam had snickered at the choice, but it never mattered to Daniel what he used. He could kill with anything.

  “Hurry up,” he growled, sickened by the obvious pleasure Cam took in human bloodshed. “You’re wasting time. The tide’s going out.”

  “And unless we do this my way, high tide tomorrow will wash Slayer here right back ashore. You’re too impulsive, Daniel, always were. Do you ever think more than one step ahead?”

  Daniel crossed his arms and looked back out at the white crests of the waves. A tourist catamaran from the San Francisco pier was gliding toward them. Once, the vision of that boat might have brought back a flood of memories. A thousand happy trips he’d taken with Luce across a thousand lifetimes’ seas. But now—now that she could die and not come back, in this lifetime when everything was different and there would be no more reincarnations—Daniel was always too aware of how blank her memory was. This was the last shot. For both of them. For everyone, really. So it was Luce’s memory, not Daniel’s, that mattered, and so many shocking truths would have to be gently brought to the surface if she was going to survive. The thought of what she had to learn made his whole body tense up.

  If Cam thought Daniel wasn’t thinking of the next step, he was wrong.

  “You know there’s only one reason I’m still here,” Daniel said. “We need to talk about her.”

  Cam laughed. “I was.” With a grunt, he hoisted the sopping corpse up over his shoulder. The dead man’s navy suit bunched up around the lines of rope Cam had tied. The heavy anchor rested on his bloody chest.

  “This one’s a little gristly, isn’t he?” Cam asked. “I’m almost insulted that the Elders didn’t send a more challenging hit man.”

  Then—as if he were an Olympic shot-putter—Cam bent his knees, spun around three times to wind up, and launched the dead man out across the water, a hundred feet clear into the air.

  For a few long seconds, the corpse sailed over the bay. Then the weight of the anchor dragged it down … down … down. It splashed grandly into the deep aquamarine water. And instantly sank out of sight.

  Cam wiped his hands. “I think I’ve just set a record.”

  They were alike in so many ways. But Cam was something worse, a demon, and that made him capable of despicable acts with no remorse. Daniel was crippled by remorse. And right now, he was further crippled by love.

  “You take human death too lightly,” Daniel said.

  “This guy deserved it,” Cam said. “You really don’t see the sport in all of this?”

  That was when Daniel got in his face and spat, “She is not a game to me.”

  “And that is exactly why you will lose.”

  Daniel grabbed Cam by the collar of his steel-gray trench coat. He considered tossing him into the water the same way he’d just tossed the predator.

  A cloud drifted past the sun, its shadow darkening their faces.

  “Easy,” Cam said, prying Daniel’s hands away. “You have plenty of enemies, Daniel, but right now I’m not one of them. Remember the truce.”

  “Some truce,” Daniel said. “Eighteen days of others trying to kill her.”

  “Eighteen days of you and me picking them off,” Cam corrected.

  It was angelic tradition for a truce to last eighteen days. In Heaven, eighteen was the luckiest, most divine number: a life-affirming tally of two sevens (the archangels and the cardinal virtues), balanced with the warning of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In some mortal languages, eighteen had come to mean life itself—though in this case, for Luce, it could just as easily mean death.

  Cam was right. As the news of her mortality trickled down the celestial tiers, the ranks of her enemies would double and redouble each day. Miss Sophia and her cohorts, the Twenty-four Elders of Zhsmaelin, were still after Luce. Daniel had glimpsed the Elders in the shadows cast by the Announcers just that morning. He had glimpsed something else, too—another darkness, a deeper cunning, one he hadn’t recognized at first.

  A shaft of sunlight punctured the clouds, and something gleamed in the corner of Daniel’s vision. He turned and knelt down to find a single arrow planted in the wet sand. It was slimmer than a normal arrow, a dull silver color, laced with swirling etched designs. It was warm to the touch.

  Daniel’s breath caught in his throat. It had been eons since he’d seen a starshot. His fingers quaked as he gently drew it from the sand, careful to avoid its deadly blunt end.

  Now Daniel knew where that other darkness had come from in this morning’s Announcers. The news was even grimmer than he’d feared. He turned to Cam, the feather-light arrow balanced in his hands. “He wasn’t acting alone.”

  Cam stiffened at the sight of the arrow. He moved toward it almost reverently, reaching out to touch it the same way Daniel had. “Such a valuable weapon to leave behind. The Outcast must have been in a great hurry to get away.”

  The Outcasts: a sect of spineless, waffling angels, shunned by both Heaven and Hell. Their one great strength was the reclusive angel Azazel, the only remaining starsmith, who still knew the art of producing starshots. When loosed from its silver bow, a starshot could do little more than bruise a mortal. But to angels and demons, it was the deadliest weapon of all.

  Everyone wanted them, but none were willing to associate with Outcasts, so bartering for starshots was always done clandestinely, via messenger. Which meant the guy Daniel had killed was no hit man sent by the Elders. He was merely a barterer. The Outcast, the real enemy, had spirited away—probably at the first sight of Daniel and Cam. Daniel shivered. This was not good news.

  “We killed the wrong guy.”

  “What ‘wrong’?” Cam brushed him off. “Isn’t the world better off with one less predator? Isn’t Luce?” He stared at Daniel, then at the sea. “The only problem is—”

  “The Outcasts.”

  Cam nodded. “So now they want her too.”

  Daniel could feel the tips of his wings bristling under his cashmere sweater and heavy coat, a burning itch that made him flinch. He stood still, with his eyes closed and his arms at his sides, straining to subdue himself before his wings burst forth like the violently unfurling sails of a ship and carried him up and off this island and over the bay and away. Straight toward her.

  He closed his eyes and tried to picture Luce. He’d had to tear himself away from that cabin, from her peaceful sleep on the tiny island east of Tybee. It would be evening there by now. Would she be awake? Would she be hungry?

  The battle at Sword & Cross, the revelations, and the death of her friend—it had taken quite a toll on Luce. The angels expected her to sleep all day and through the night. But by tomorrow morning, they would need to have a plan in place.

  This was the first time Daniel had ever proposed a truce. To set the boundaries, make the rules, and draw up a system of consequences if either side transgressed—it was a huge responsibility to shoulder with Cam. Of course he would do it, he would do anything for her … he just wanted to make sure he did it right.

  “We have to hide her somewhere safe,” he said. “There’s a school up north, near Fort Bragg—”

  “The Shoreline School.” Cam nodded. “My side has looked into it as well. She’ll be happy there. And educated in a way that won’t endanger her.
And, most importantly, she’ll be shielded.”

  Gabbe had already explained to Daniel the type of camouflage Shoreline could provide. Soon enough, word would spread that Luce was hidden away there, but for a time at least, within the school’s perimeter, she would be nearly invisible. Inside, Francesca, the angel closest to Gabbe, would look after Luce. Outside, Daniel and Cam would hunt down and kill anyone who dared draw near the school’s boundaries.

  Who would have told Cam about Shoreline? Daniel didn’t like the idea of their side knowing more than his. He was already cursing himself for not visiting the school before they made this choice, but it had been hard enough to leave Luce when he did.

  “She can start as early as tomorrow. Assuming”—Cam’s eyes ran over Daniel’s face—“assuming you say yes.”

  Daniel pressed a hand to the breast pocket of his shirt, where he kept a recent photograph. Luce on the lake at Sword & Cross. Wet hair shining. A rare grin on her face. Usually, by the time he had a chance to get a picture of her in one lifetime, he had lost her again. This time, she was still here.

  “Come on, Daniel,” Cam was saying. “We both know what she needs. We enroll her—and then let her be. We can do nothing to hasten this part but leave her alone.”

  “I can’t leave her alone that long.” Daniel had tossed out the words too quickly. He looked down at the arrow in his hands, feeling ill. He wanted to fling it into the ocean, but he couldn’t.

  “So.” Cam squinted. “You haven’t told her.”

  Daniel froze. “I can’t tell her anything. We could lose her.”

  “You could lose her,” Cam sneered.

  “You know what I mean.” Daniel stiffened. “It’s too risky to assume she could take it all in without …”

  He closed his eyes to banish the image of the agonizing red-hot blaze. But it was always burning at the back of his mind, threatening to spread like wildfire. If he told her the truth and killed her, this time she would really be gone. And it would be his fault. Daniel couldn’t do anything—he could not exist—without her. His wings burned at the thought. Better to shelter her just a little longer.