Fallen Series 04 - Rapture Read online

  She gave one last wave to Daniel, watching from the car, took a deep breath, and used her thumbs to pry the lower panel from the cracking blue paint of the sill.

  It slid right up. Someone inside had already popped out the screen. Luce paused, stunned as the white muslin curtains parted and the half-blond, half-black head of her onetime enemy Molly Zane filled the open space.

  “’Sup, Meatloaf.”

  Luce bristled at the nickname she’d earned on her first day of Sword & Cross. This was what Daniel and Roland meant when they said they’d taken care of things at home?

  “What are you doing here, Molly?”

  “Come on. I won’t bite.” Molly extended a hand.

  Her nails were chipped emerald green.

  She sank her hand into Molly’s, ducked, and sidled, one leg at a time, through the window.

  Her bedroom looked small and outdated, like a time capsule of some long-ago Luce. There was the framed poster of the Eiffel Tower on the back of her door. There was her bulletin board of swim team ribbons from Thunder bolt Elementary. And there, under the green-and-yellow Hawaiian-print duvet, was her best friend, Callie.

  Callie scrambled from under the covers, dashed around the bed, and flung herself into Luce’s arms.

  “They kept telling me you were going to be okay, but in that lying, we’re-also-completely-terrified-we’re-just-not-going-to-explain-a-word-to-you kind of way. Do you even realize how thoroughly spooky that was? It was like you physically dropped off the face of the Earth—”

  Luce hugged her back tightly. As far as Callie knew, Luce had been gone only since the night before.

  “Okay, you two,” Molly growled, pulling Luce away from Callie, “you can OMG your faces off later. I didn’t lie in your bed in that cheap polyester wig all night enacting Luce-with-stomach-flu so you guys could blow our cover now.” She rolled her eyes. “Amateurs.”

  “Hold on. You did what?” Luce asked.

  “After you . . . disappeared,” Callie said breathlessly,

  “we knew we could never explain it to your parents. I mean, I could barely fathom it after seeing it with my own eyes. When Gabbe fixed up the backyard, I told your parents you felt sick and had gone to bed, and Molly pretended to be you and—”

  “Lucky I found this in your closet.” Molly twirled a short wavy black wig around one finger. “Halloween remnant?”

  “Wonder Woman.” Luce winced, regretting her middle school Halloween costume, and not for the first time.

  “Well, it worked.”

  It was strange to see Molly—who’d once sided with Lucifer—helping her. But even Molly, like Cam and Roland, didn’t want to fall again. So here they were, a team, strange bedfellows.

  “You covered for me? I don’t know what to say.

  Thank you.”

  “Whatever.” Molly jerked her head at Callie, anything to deflect Luce’s gratitude. “She was the real silver-tongued devil. Thank her.” She stuck one leg out the open window and turned to call back, “Think you guys can handle it from here? I have a Waffle House summit meeting to attend.”

  Luce gave Molly the thumbs-up and flopped down on her bed.

  “Oh, Luce,” Callie whispered. “When you left, your whole backyard was covered in this gray dust. And that blond girl, Gabbe, swept her hand once and made it disappear. Then we said you were sick, that everyone else had gone home, and we just started doing the dishes with your parents. And at first I thought that Molly girl was a little bit terrible, but she’s actually kind of cool.” Her eyes narrowed. “But where did you go? What happened to you? You really scared me, Luce.”

  “I don’t even know where to start,” Luce said.

  There was a knock, followed by the familiar creak of her bedroom door opening.

  Luce’s mother stood in the hallway, her sleep-wild hair tamed by a yellow banana clip, her face bare of makeup and pretty. She was holding a wicker tray with two glasses of orange juice, two plates of buttered toast, and a box of Alka-Seltzer. “Looks like someone’s feeling better.” Luce waited for her mom to put the tray down on the nightstand; then she wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist and buried her face in her pink terry cloth bathrobe. Tears stung her eyes. She sniffed.

  “My little girl,” her mom said, feeling Luce’s forehead and cheeks to check for fever. Even though she hadn’t used that soft sweet voice on Luce in ages, it felt so good to hear.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s too sick for Black Friday.” Luce’s father appeared in the doorway, holding a green plastic watering can. He was smiling, but behind his rimless glasses, Mr. Price’s eyes looked concerned.

  “I am feeling better,” Luce said. “But—”

  “Oh, Harry,” Luce’s mom said. “You know we only had her for the day. She has to be back at school.” She turned to Luce. “Daniel called a little while ago, honey.

  He said he can pick you up and take you back to Sword & Cross. I said that of course your father and I would be happy to, but—”

  “No,” Luce said quickly, remembering the plan Daniel had detailed in the car. “Even if I can’t go, you guys should still do your Black Friday shopping. It’s a Price family tradition.”

  They agreed that Luce would ride with Daniel and her parents would take Callie to the airport. While the girls ate, Luce’s parents sat on the edge of the bed and talked about Thanksgiving (“Gabbe polished all the china—what an angel”). By the time they moved on to the Black Friday deals they were on the hunt for (“All your father ever wants is tools”), Luce realized that she hadn’t said anything except for inane conversation fillers like “Uh-huh” and “Oh really?”

  When her parents finally stood up to take their plates into the kitchen, and Callie started to pack, Luce went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  She was alone for the first time in what seemed like a million ages. She sat down on the vanity stool and looked in the mirror.

  She was herself, but different. Sure, Lucinda Price looked back at her. But also . . .

  There were Layla in the fullness of her lips, Lulu in the thick waves of her hair, Lu Xin in the intensity of her hazel eyes, Lucia in the twinkle in her eyes. She was not alone. Maybe she never would be alone again. There, in the mirror, was every incarnation of Lucinda staring back at her and wondering, What is to become of us?

  What about our history, and our love?

  She took a shower and put on clean jeans, her black riding boots, and a long white sweater. She sat down on Callie’s suitcase while her friend struggled to zip it up.

  The silence between them was brutal.

  “You’re my best friend, Callie,” Luce finally said.

  “I’m going through something I don’t understand. But that thing isn’t you. I’m sorry I don’t know how to be more specific, but I’ve missed you. So much.” Callie’s shoulders tensed. “You used to tell me everything.” But the look that passed between them suggested both girls knew that wasn’t possible anymore.

  A car door slammed out front.

  Through the open blinds Luce watched Daniel make his way up her parents’ path. And even though it had been less than an hour since he had dropped her off, Luce felt her heart pick up and her cheeks flush at the sight of him. He walked slowly, as if he were floating, his red scarf trailing behind him in the wind. Even Callie stared.

  Luce’s parents gathered in the foyer with them. She hugged each one of them for a long time—Dad first, then Mom, then Callie, who squeezed her hard and whispered quickly, “What I saw last night—you, stepping into that . . . that shadow—was beautiful. I just want you to know that.”

  Luce felt her eyes burn again. She squeezed Callie back and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Then she walked down the path and into Daniel’s arms and whatever came along with them.

  “There you are, you lovebirds you, doin’ that thing that lovebirds do,” Arriane sang, bobbing her head out from behind a long bookcase. She was sitting
cross-legged on a wooden library chair, juggling a few Hacky Sacks. She wore overalls, combat boots, and her dark hair plaited into tiny pigtails.

  Luce was not overjoyed to be back at the Sword & Cross Library. It had been renovated since the fire that had destroyed it, but it still smelled like something big and ugly had burned there. The faculty had explained away the fire as a freak accident, but someone had been killed—Todd, a quiet student who Luce had barely known until the night he died—and Luce knew there was something darker lurking beneath the surface of the story. She blamed herself. It reminded her too much of Trevor, a boy she’d once had a crush on, who had died in another inexplicable fire.

  Now, as she and Daniel rounded the corner of a bookshelf to the library’s study area, Luce saw that Arriane was not alone. All of them were there: Gabbe, Roland, Cam, Molly, Annabelle—the leggy angel with the hot-pink hair—even Miles and Shelby, who waved excitedly and looked decidedly different from the other angels, but also different from mortal teens.

  Miles and Shelby were—were they holding hands?

  But when she looked again, their hands disappeared under the table they were all sitting at. Miles tugged his baseball cap lower. Shelby cleared her throat and hunched over a book.

  “Your book,” Luce said to Daniel as soon as she spotted the thick spine with the brown crumbling glue near the bottom. The faded cover read The Watchers: Myth in Medieval Europe by Daniel Grigori.

  Her hand reached automatically for the pale gray cover. She closed her eyes, because it reminded her of Penn, who’d found the book on Luce’s last night as a student at Sword & Cross, and because the photograph pasted inside the front cover of the book was the first thing that had convinced her that what Daniel told her about their history might be possible.

  It was a photograph taken from another life, one in Helston, England. And even though it shouldn’t have been possible, there was no doubt about it: The young woman in the photograph was her.

  “Where did you find it?” Luce asked.

  Her voice must have given something away, because Shelby said, “What is so major about this dusty old thing, anyway?”

  “It’s precious. Our only key now,” Gabbe said. “Sophia tried to burn it once.”

  “Sophia?” Luce’s hand shot to her heart. “Miss Sophia tried—the fire in the library? That was her?” The others nodded. “She killed Todd,” Luce said numbly.

  So it hadn’t been Luce’s fault. Another life to lay at Sophia’s feet. It didn’t make Luce feel any better.

  “And she almost died of shock the night you showed it to her,” Roland said. “We were all shocked, especially when you lived to talk about it.”

  “We talked about Daniel kissing me,” Luce remembered, blushing. “And the fact that I survived it. Was that what surprised Miss Sophia?”

  “Part of it,” Roland said. “But there’s plenty more in that book that Sophia wouldn’t have wanted you to know about.”

  “Not much of an educator, was she?” Cam said, giving Luce a smirk that said, Long time, no see.

  “What wouldn’t she have wanted me to know?” All the angels turned to look at Daniel.

  “Last night we told you that none of the angels remember where we landed when we fell,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah, about that . . . How’s it possible?” Shelby said. “You’d think that kind of thing would leave an impression on the old memorizer.”

  Cam’s face reddened. “You try falling for nine days through multiple dimensions and trillions of miles, landing on your face, breaking your wings, rolling around concussed for who knows how long, wandering the desert for decades looking for any clue as to who or what or where you are—and then talk to me about the old memorizer.”

  “Okay, you’ve got acknowledgment issues,” Shelby said, putting on her shrink voice. “If I were going to di-agnose you—”

  “Well, at least you remember there was a desert involved,” Miles said diplomatically, making Shelby laugh.

  Daniel turned to Luce. “I wrote this book after I lost you in Tibet . . . but before I’d met you in Prussia. I know you visited that life in Tibet because I followed you there, so maybe you can see how losing you the way I did made me turn to years of research and study to find a way out of this curse.”

  Luce looked away. Her death in Tibet had made Daniel run straight off a cliff. She feared its happening again.

  “Cam is right,” Daniel said. “None of us recall where we landed. We wandered the desert until it was no longer desert; we wandered the plains and the valleys and the seas until they turned to desert again. It wasn’t until we slowly found one another and began to piece together the story that we remembered we’d once ever been angels at all.

  “But there were relics created after our Fall, physical records of our history that mankind found and kept as treasures, gifts—they think—from a god they don’t understand. For a long time three of the relics were buried in a temple in Jerusalem, but during the Crusades, they were stolen, spirited away to various places. None of us knew where.

  “When I did my research several hundred years ago, I focused on the medieval era, turning to as many resources as I could in a kind of theological scavenger hunt for the relics,” Daniel continued. “The gist of it is that if these three artifacts can be collected and gathered together at Mount Sinai—”

  “Why Mount Sinai?” Shelby asked.

  “The channels between the Throne and the Earth are closest there,” Gabbe explained with a flip of her hair.

  “That’s where Moses received the Ten Commandments; that’s where the angels enter when they’re delivering messages from the Throne.”

  “Think of it as God’s local dive,” Arriane added, sending a Hacky Sack too high into the air and into an overhead lamp.

  “But before you ask,” Cam said, making it a point to single out Shelby with his eyes, “Mount Sinai is not the original site of the Fall.”

  “That would be way too easy,” Annabelle said.

  “If the relics are all gathered at Mount Sinai,” Daniel went on, “then, in theory, we’ll be able to decipher the location of the Fall.”

  “In theory.” Cam sneered. “Must I be the one to say there is some question regarding the validity of Daniel’s research—”

  Daniel clenched his jaw. “You have a better idea?”

  “Don’t you think”—Cam raised his voice—“that your theory puts rather a lot of weight on the idea that these relics are anything more than rumor? Who knows if they can do what they’re supposed to do?” Luce studied the group of angels and demons—her only allies on this quest to save her and Daniel . . . and the world. “So that unknown location is where we have to be nine days from now.”

  “Fewer than nine days from now,” Daniel said. “Nine days from now will be too late. Lucifer—and the host of angels cast out of Heaven—will have arrived.”

  “But if we can beat Lucifer to the site of the Fall,” Luce said, “then what?”

  Daniel shook his head. “We don’t really know. I never told anyone about this book because, Cam’s right, I didn’t know what it would add up to. I didn’t even know Gabbe had it published until years later, and by then, I’d lost interest in the research. You had died another time, and without you being there to play your part—”

  “My part?” Luce asked.

  “Which we don’t really yet understand—” Gabbe elbowed Daniel, cutting him off. “What he means is all will be revealed in the fullness of time.” Molly smacked her forehead. “Really? ‘All will be revealed’? Is that all you guys know? Is that what you’re going on?”

  “That and your importance,” Cam said, turning to Luce. “You’re the chess piece that the forces of good and evil and everything in between are fighting over here.”

  “What?” Luce whispered.

  “Shut up.” Daniel fixed his attention on Luce. “Don’t listen to him.”

  Cam snorted, but no one acknowledged it. It just sat in the room like an uninv
ited guest. The angels and demons were silent. No one was going to leak anything else about Luce’s role in stopping the Fall.

  “So all of this information, this scavenger hunt,” she said, “it’s in that book?”

  “More or less,” Daniel said. “I just have to spend some time with the text and refresh my memory. Hope-fully then I’ll know where we need to begin.” The others moved away to give Daniel space at the table. Luce felt Miles’s hand brush the back of her arm.

  They’d barely spoken since she’d come back through the Announcer.

  “Can I talk to you?” Miles asked very quietly. “Luce?” The look on his face—it was strained about something—made Luce think of those last few moments in her parents’ backyard when Miles had thrown her reflection.

  They’d never really talked about the kiss they’d shared on the roof outside her Shoreline dorm room.

  Surely Miles knew it had been a mistake—but why did Luce feel like she was leading him on every time she was nice to him?

  “Luce.” It was Gabbe, appearing at Miles’ side. “I thought I’d mention”—she glanced at Miles—“if you wanted to go visit Penn for a moment, now would be the time.”

  “Good idea.” Luce nodded. “Thanks.” She glanced apologetically at Miles but he just tugged his baseball cap over his eyes and turned to whisper something to Shelby.

  “Ahem.” Shelby coughed indignantly. She was standing behind Daniel, trying to read the book over his shoulder. “What about me and Miles?”