Page 11 (1/2)
All she had to do was follow his dark violet gaze
When Daniel had swuh in a different place than they’d entered Where before, Luce realized, they’d seen the sunken cathedral fro from their sunken towers--now they were almost precisely above the center of the church, where the nave would once have been
Now they were flanked by two longs rows of flying buttresses, which would once have held up the now-cru nave of the church
The arched buttresses were black with moss and weren’t nearly as tall as the spires of the façade Their slanted stone tops broke through the surface of the water--which roup of twenty-odd Outcasts presently surrounding Luce and Daniel
When Luce recognized them--a field of tan trench coats, pale skin, dead eyes--she stifled a gasp
"Hello," one said
It wasn’t Phil, the smarmy Outcast who’d posed as Shelby’s boyfriend, then led a battle against the angels in Luce’s parents’ backyard She didn’t see his face a the Outcasts, just a troop of blank and listless creatures she didn’t recognize and didn’t care to get to know
Fallen angels who couldn’t make up their minds, the Outcasts were in some ways the opposite of Daniel, who refused to take any side but Luce’s Shunned by Heaven for their indecisiveness, struck blind by Hell to everything but the di asse at Luce the way they had the last tihastly, vacant eyes that could not see her body yet sensed so in her soul that said she was "the price"
Luce felt exposed, trapped The Outcasts’ leers made the water colder Daniel swaainst her back He had unfurled his wings in the water
"You would be ill-advised to atte the stirring of Daniel’s wings under the water "One glance behind you should convince you of our superior numbers, and it only takes one of these" He parted his trench coat to reveal a sheath of silver starshots
The Outcasts had them surrounded, perched on the stone rehty, seedy, with their trench coats knotted at their waists, concealing their dirty, toilet paper–thin wings
Luce remembered from the battle in her parents’ backyard that the female Outcasts were just as callous and remorseless as the males That had been only a few days earlier, but it felt like years had passed
"But if you’d prefer to test us" Lazily, the Outcast nocked an arrow, and Daniel could not completely mask his shudder
"Silence" One of the Outcasts rose to stand on the buttress He was not wearing a trench coat, but a long gray robe, and Luce gasped when he reached up to pull back the hood and exposed his pallid face He was the pale chantingher the whole ti she said to the priest He must have followed her here His colorless lips curled into a srowled "She has found her halo"
"This is no business of yours," Daniel shouted, but Luce could hear the desperation in his voice She still didn’t knohy, but the Outcasts were intent onLuce their business They believed she held some sway over their redeic eluded her now just as much as it had in her parents’ backyard
"Do not insult us with your lies," the robed Outcast boomed "We knohat you seek, and you know ourclearly," Daniel said "You’re not seeing this for what it is Even you cannot want--"
"Lucifer to rewrite history?" The Outcast’s white eyes bore into the space between him and Luce "Oh yes, in fact, ould like that very --the world, our very selves as we know them noill be annihilated
The entire universe, all consciousness, gone"
"Do you really think our lives these last six thousand years are so?" The leader’s eyes narrowed "Better to wipe us out Better to erase this blind existence before we begin to fade Next tihtless eyes in Luce’s direction She watched the in on her soul And it burned "Next time ill not incur Heaven’s wrath in such a senseless way
We will be welcomed back by the Throne We will play our cards ered on Luce’s soul He smiled "Next ti, just as you do now Step aside, Outcast This war is bigger than you" The robed Outcast fingered a starshot and smiled "It would be so very easy to kill you now"
"A host of angels is already fighting for Lucinda We will stop Lucifer, and e do and there is time to deal with pettiness like yourselves, the Outcasts will regret thisyou’ve done since the Fall"
"In the next go-’round, the Outcasts willWe will charm her, as you have done We will make her believe every e say, as you have done We have studied your ways We knohat to do"
"Fools!" Daniel shouted "You think you’ll be any smarter or more valiant next time? You think you’ll remember this moment, this conversation, this brilliant plan at all? You’ll do nothing but make the same mistakes you made this time We all will Only Lucifer will remember his previous errors And his pursuits serve only his base desires Surely you recall what his soul looks like," Daniel said pointedly, "even if you see nothing else"
The Outcasts rose on their rotting perches
"I remember," Luce heard an Outcast behind her say faintly
"Lucifer was the brightest angel of all," another called, full of nostalgia "So beautiful, it blinded us" They were sensitive, Luce realized, about their defor-mity