Page 42 (2/2)

No longer have hap--You ypt?

Never happened

China? Versailles? Las Vegas?

Never, never, never But it's more than just you and your boyfriend, selfish child It's the Ro sad festering of hu fro its world into a cesspool It is everything that has ever taken place, taken away by a tiny little skip across ti across water

But you can't justerase all of the past!

Sure I can Like shortening a skirt's waistband Just reether 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 iet hiiven in once across the five thousand years she'd witnessed No ain and denied hiive in and choose a side And even if he did somehow lose his resolve, she would be there to support hih to carry Daniel if he faltered Just as he'd carried her

No matter how e a thing

Oh He laughed as if he were euffaw 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 Caain, just as they were in the early days after the Fall Won't that be fun for you? Worse still: no Nephiliels to walk the earth and copulate with the oodbye to your little friends from school

No--

He snapped his claws Oh, one ot to ets 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 theoodbye

No! You can't do this!

He swept her into his cold grasp once --it's practically done He cackled, and his laughter sounded like an avalanche as time and space folded around the two of therip, 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 the over her soul

Chapter Twenty

JOURNEY'S END

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

The first one The beginning

Daniel tu 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 frohtness

No This was not his destination

This aulf of adaht of the waves of white clouds brushing against the black Announcer There it was, in the distance: the un softly, endlessly The music the Throne of the Ethereal Monarch ht

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 hi was to , but not in the way he so 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 homear--could do for any hty power This hy 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 soel 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 hi 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 reia