“I don’t know,” she said softly. “Kill Daniel?”
“Not kill. Catch. I’m going to catch every last one of us. I’ll open up an Announcer like a great net, casting it to the forward edge of time. Then I’ll cleave to my old self and spirit the full host of angels into the present with me. Even the ugly ones.”
“So what?”
“So what? We will be once more starting at the beginning. Because the Fall is the beginning. It isn’t a part of history; it is when history begins. And all that has come before? It will no longer have happened.”
“No longer have hap—You mean, like that life in Egypt?”
“Never happened.”
“China? Versailles? Las Vegas?”
“Never, never, never. But it’s more than just you and your boyfriend, selfish child. It’s the Roman empire and the so-called 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 little skip across time, like a stone skipping across water.”
“But you can’t just … erase all 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 will repeat itself, and I’ll have another shot at luring in the important souls. Souls like—”
“You will never get him. He will never join your side.”
Daniel hadn’t given in once across the five thousand years she’d witnessed. No matter that they killed 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 matter 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 guffaw. “Of course it will. It will change everything. Shall I count the ways?” He stuck out a spiky, yellowed claw. “First of all, Daniel and Cam will be brothers again, just as they were in the early days after the Fall. Won’t that be fun for you? Worse stilclass="underline" no Nephilim. No time will have passed for angels to walk the earth and copulate with the mortals, so say goodbye to your little 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 little quest, all 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 practically 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 chill settling over her soul.
TWENTY
JOURNEY’S END
Of course, there had only ever been one place to find her.
The first one. The beginning.
Daniel tumbled toward the first 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 will 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 all places?
His wings had instinctively unfurled. The unfolding felt different than it did on Earth—not the vast release of finally letting 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 all 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. Still 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 matter 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 foothills of the shining silver Celeste Mountains.
He’d spent so many happy epochs here.
No.
All 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 flat plain of brilliant 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—calling 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 different Archangel. This used to be their headquarters, a place to worship, to attend, to call 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 mattered. 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 called upon to choose sides.
He arrived in that blink of a moment after Lucifer’s betrayal but before the Fall.
The great rift was coming during which some would side with Heaven and some would side with Hell, when Lucifer would turn into Satan before their eyes, and the Great Arm of the Throne would sweep legions of them off 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 all the brightest souls. His past self would be down there; all of them were. It was so bright Daniel couldn’t see clearly, but his memory told him that Lucifer had been permitted 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.