Passion (37 page)

She did, and it looked di erent than it had before. The veldt of stars was endless, the dark of night folded again and again over so many bright spots that the sky was more light than black. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s about to be a tabula rasa.” His lips curled into a twisted smile. “I’ve grown tired of this game.”

“This is al a game to you?”

“It’s a game to him.” He swept his hand across the sky and left a dark swath of night in his wake. “And I refuse to concede it to that Other simply because of a cosmic scale. Simply because our sides are in balance.”

“Balance. You mean, the scale between the fal en angels who al ied themselves with you, and those who al ied themselves with—”

“Don’t say it. But yes, that other. Right now there is a balance, and—”

“And one more angel has to side,” Luce said, remembering the long talk Arriane had given her at the diner in Las Vegas.

“Mmm-hmm. Except this time, I won’t leave it to chance. It was a shortsighted goal of mine, the whole starshot bit, but I’ve seen the error of my ways. I’ve been plot ing. I’ve been planning. Often while you and some past iteration of Grigori were preoccupied with your B-grade heavy pet ing. So, you see, no one wil be able to sabotage what I have planned next.

“I’m going to wipe the slate clean. Start over. I can skip the mil ennia that led up to you and your loophole of a life, Lucinda Price”—he snorted—“and begin again. And this time, I wil play more wisely. This time I wil win.” snorted—“and begin again. And this time, I wil play more wisely. This time I wil win.”

“What does that mean, ‘wipe the slate clean’?”

“Al of time is like a grand slate, Lucinda. Nothing is writ en that can’t be erased by one clever sort. It’s a drastic move, yes, and it means that I’l be throwing away thousands of years. A big setback for everyone concerned—but hey, what’s a handful of lost mil ennia in the yawning concept of eternity?”

“How can you do that?” she said, knowing he could feel her tremble in his grasp. “What does it mean?”

“It means I’m going back to the beginning. To the Fal . To al of us being cast out of Heaven because we dared to exercise free wil . I’m talking about the first great injustice.”

“Reliving your greatest hits?” she said, but he wasn’t listening, lost in the details of his scheme.

“You and the tiresome Daniel Grigori wil make the trip with me. In fact, your soul mate is on his way there now.”

“Why would Daniel—”

“I showed him the way, of course. Now al I have to do is get there in time to see the angels cast out and begin their fal to Earth. What a beautiful moment that wil be.”

“When they begin their fal ? How long did it take?”

“Nine days by some accounts,” he murmured, “but it seemed an eternity to those of us cast out. You never asked your friends about it?

Cam. Roland. Arriane. Your precious Daniel? Al of us were there.”

“So you see it happen again. So what?”

“So then I do something unexpected. And do you know what that is?” He snickered, and his red eyes gleamed.

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Kil Daniel?”

“Not kil . Catch. I’m going to catch every last one of us. I’l open up an Announcer like a great net, casting it to the forward edge of time.

Then I’l cleave to my old self and spirit the ful host of angels into the present with me. Even the ugly ones.”

“So what?”

“So what? We wil be once more starting at the beginning. Because the Fal is the beginning. It isn’t a part of history; it is when history begins. And al that has come before? It wil no longer have happened.”

“No longer have hap—You mean, like that life in Egypt?”

“Never happened.”

“China? Versail es? Las Vegas?”

“Never, never, never. But it’s more than just you and your boyfriend, sel sh child. It’s the Roman empire and the so-cal ed Son of that Other. It is the long sad festering of humanity rising from the primordial murk of the earth and turning its world into a cesspool. It is everything that has ever taken place, taken away by a tiny lit le skip across time, like a stone skipping across water.”

“But you can’t just … erase al of the past!”

“Sure I can. Like shortening a skirt’s waistband. Just remove the excess fabric and draw the two parts together and it’s like that middle part never existed. We start fresh. The whole cycle wil repeat itself, and I’l have another shot at luring in the important souls. Souls like—”

“You wil never get him. He wil never join your side.”

Daniel hadn’t given in once across the ve thousand years she’d witnessed. No mat er that they kil ed her again and again and denied him his one true love, he would not give in and choose a side. And even if he did somehow lose his resolve, she would be there to support him: She knew now that she was strong enough to carry Daniel if he faltered. Just as he’d carried her.

“No mat er how many times you wipe the slate clean,” she said, “it won’t change a thing.”

“Oh.” He laughed as if he were embarrassed for Luce—a thick, scary gu aw. “Of course it wil . It wil change everything. Shal I count the ways?” He stuck out a spiky, yel owed claw. “First of al , Daniel and Cam wil be brothers again, just as they were in the early days after the Fal . Won’t that be fun for you? Worse stil : no Nephilim. No time wil have passed for angels to walk the earth and copulate with the mortals, so say goodbye to your lit le friends from school.”

“No—”

He snapped his claws. “Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention: Your history with Daniel? That gets erased. So everything you’ve discovered on your lit le quest, al those things you so earnestly told me you’d learned in between our jaunts in the past? You can kiss them goodbye.”

“No! You can’t do this!”

He swept her into his cold grasp once more. “Oh, darling—it’s practical y done.” He cackled, and his laughter sounded like an avalanche as time and space folded around the two of them. Luce shuddered and cringed and fought to loosen his grip, but he had her tucked too tightly, too deeply under his vile wing. She could see nothing, could only feel a rush of wind rip into them and a burst of heat, and then an unshakable chil set ling over her soul.

TWENTY

TWENTY

JOURNEY’S END

HEAVEN’S GATE • THE FALL

Of course, there had only ever been one place to find her.

The first one. The beginning.

Daniel tumbled toward the rst life, ready to wait there for as long as it would take Luce to make her way there, too. He would take her in his arms, whisper in her ear, At last. I found you. I wil never let you go.

He stepped from the shadows and froze in blinding brightness.

No. This was not his destination.

This ambrosial air and opalescent sky. This cosmic gulf of adamantine light. His soul constricted at the sight of the waves of white clouds brushing against the black Announcer. There it was, in the distance: the unmistakable three-note hum playing softly, endlessly. The music the Throne of the Ethereal Monarch made purely by radiating light.

No. No! No!

He was not supposed to be here. He meant to meet Lucinda in her first incarnation on Earth. How had he landed here, of al places?

His wings had instinctively unfurled. The unfolding felt di erent than it did on Earth—not the vast release of nal y let ing himself go, but an occurrence as commonplace as breathing was to mortals. He knew that he was glowing, but not in the way he sometimes shone under mortal moonlight. His glory was nothing to hide here, and nothing to show, either. It just was.

It had been so long since Daniel had been home.

It drew him in. It drew them al in, the way the scent of a childhood home—pine trees or homemade cookies, sweet summer rain or the musk of a father’s cigar—could do for any mortal. It held a mighty power. This was why Daniel had stayed away these last six thousand years.

He was back now—and not of his own volition.

That cherub!

The pale, wispy angel in his Announcer—he had tricked Daniel.

The pinions of Daniel’s wings stood on end. There had been something not quite right about that angel. His Scale brand was too fresh. Stil raised and red on the back of his neck, as if it had been freshly carved …

Daniel had flown into some sort of trap. He had to leave, no mat er what.

Aloft. You were always aloft up here. Always gliding through the purest air. He spread his wings and felt the white mist ripple over him.

He soared across the pearly forests, swooping above the Orchard of Knowledge, curving around the Grove of Life. He passed satin-white lakes and the foothil s of the shining silver Celeste Mountains.

He’d spent so many happy epochs here.

No.

Al that must remain in the recesses of his soul. This was no time for nostalgia.

He slowed and approached the Meadow of the Throne. It was just as he remembered it: the at plain of bril iant white cloudsoil leading up toward the center of everything. The Throne itself, dazzlingly bright, radiating the warmth of pure goodness, so luminous that, even for an angel, it was impossible to look directly at it. One could not even get close to seeing the Creator, who sat upon the Throne clothed in brightness, so the customary synecdoche—cal ing the whole entity the Throne—was apt.

Daniel’s gaze drifted to the arc of rippled silver ledges circling the Throne. Each one was marked with the rank of a di erent Archangel.

This used to be their headquarters, a place to worship, to at end, to cal on and deliver messages for the Throne.

There was the lustrous altar that had been his seat, near the top right corner of the Throne. It had been there for as long as the Throne had been in existence.

But there were only seven altars now. Once there had been eight.

Wait—

Daniel winced. He knew he’d come through the Gates of Heaven, but he hadn’t thought about precisely when. It mat ered. The Throne had only been imbalanced like that for a very short period: the sliver of time right after Lucifer stated his plans to defect but before the rest of them had been cal ed upon to choose sides.

He arrived in that blink of a moment after Lucifer’s betrayal but before the Fal .

The great rift was coming during which some would side with Heaven and some would side with Hel , when Lucifer would turn into Satan before their eyes, and the Great Arm of the Throne would sweep legions of them of the surface of Heaven and send them plummeting.

He drew nearer to the Meadow. The harmonious note grew louder, as did the choral buzz of angels. The Meadow was glowing with the gathering of al the brightest souls. His past self would be down there; al of them were. It was so bright Daniel couldn’t see clearly, but his memory told him that Lucifer had been permit ed to hold court from his repositioned silver altar at the far end of the Meadow, in direct opposition to—though not nearly as high as—the Throne. The other angels were assembled before the Throne, in the middle of the Meadow.

This was the rol cal , the last moment of unity before Heaven lost half its souls. At the time Daniel had wondered why the Throne ever permit ed the rol cal to occur. Did he who had dominion over everything think Lucifer’s appeal to the angels would end in sheer humiliation? How could the Throne have been so wrong?

Gabbe stil spoke of the rol cal with startling clarity. Daniel could remember lit le of it—other than the soft brush of a single wing reaching out to him in solidarity. The brush that told him: You are not alone.

Could he dare to look upon that wing now?

Perhaps there was a way to go about the rol cal di erently, so that the curse that befel them afterward did not strike so hard. With a shiver that reached his very core, Daniel realized that he could turn this trap into an opportunity.

Of course! Someone had reworked the curse so that there was a way out for Lucinda. The whole time he’d been racing after her, Daniel had assumed it must have been Lucinda herself. That somewhere in her heedless ight backward through time, she’d opened up a loophole.

had assumed it must have been Lucinda herself. That somewhere in her heedless ight backward through time, she’d opened up a loophole.

But maybe … maybe it had been Daniel al along.

He was here now. He could do it. In some sense, he must already have done it. Yes, he’d been chasing its implications through the mil ennia he’d traveled to get here. What he did here, now, at the very beginning, would ripple forward into every one of her lives. Final y, things were beginning to make sense.

He would be the one to soften the curse, to al ow Lucinda to live and travel into her past—it had to have begun here. And it had to have begun with Daniel.

He descended to the plain of cloudsoil, edging along the glowing border. There were hundreds of angels there, thousands, l ing it up with lustrous anxiety. The light was astonishing as he slipped in among the crowd. No one perceived his Anachronism; the tension and fear among the angels were too bright.

“The time has come, Lucifer,” his Voice cal ed from the Throne. This voice had given Daniel immortality, and al that came with it. “This is truly what you desire?”

“Not just for us, but for our fel ow angels,” Lucifer was saying. “Free wil is deserved by everyone, not just the mortal men and women whom we watch from above.” Lucifer appealed now to the angels, burning brighter than the morning star. “The line has been drawn in the cloudsoil of the Meadow. Now you are al free to choose.”