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"Cease your equivocation!" A louder voice called over them The robed Outcast, this scene’s leader "The Outcasts will see again in the next go-’round Vision will lead to wisdoh the Gates of Heaven We will be attractive to the Price She will guide us"

Luce shivered against Daniel

"Maybe we can all get a second chance at redemption" Daniel appealed to them "If we are able to stop Luciferthere’s no reason your kind could not also--"

"No!" The robed Outcast lunged fro ith a crackle like a snapping twig

Daniel’s wings loosened around her waist and the halo was thrust back into her hands as he rose out of the water in self-defense The robed leader was no ht cross

The Outcast flew backward twenty feet, skihted himself and returned to his perch on the buttress With a wave of his pale hand, he cued the rest of his group to rise in a circle in the air

"You knoho she is!" Daniel shouted "You knohat thisbrave instead of craven"

"How?" the Outcast challenged him Water streamed fro hard, eyeing Luce and the golden halo gleah the water His violet eyes looked panicked for aLuce would ever have expected

He looked the robed Outcast deep in his dead white eyes, extended his hand palhed darkly for a long time

Daniel did not flinch

"The Outcasts work for no one but themselves"

"You’veyou to indenture yourselves But do not work against the only cause that is right Seize this chance to save everyone, including yourselves Join us in the fight against Lucifer"

"It is a trick!" one of the Outcast girls shouted

"He seeks to deceive you in order to gain his freedoazed in horror at the robed Outcast hovering over her He drew nearer, his eyes widening hungrily, his white hands tre as they reached for her Closer

Closer She screamed--

But no one heard it, because at that ht and every particle in the atmosphere seemed to double and split, then folded in on the again

Through the thicket of tan trench coats and dirty wings, the sky had turned a diray, like it had been the last tiun to tre near

A treht to the halo, paddling frantically to keep her head above water

She saw Daniel’s face as a great creaking sounded on their left His white wings were soaring toward her, but not quickly enough

The last thing Luce saw before her head dipped under the water seeray church spire bowed over in the water, tipping down ever so gently toward her head Its shado large until with a thud it jerked her down into darkness

Luce woke up undulating on a wave: She was on a water bed

Red lace reticella curtains were drawn over the s Gray light slipping through gaps in the intricate lace suggested it was dusk Luce’s head ached and her ankle throbbed She rolled over in the black silk sheets--

and cae irla slack fist over her head "Oh," she said, soundingnext to her "How late did we stay out last night?" she slurred in Italian "That party was crazy "

Luce lunged backward and fell out of the bed, sinking into a plush white rug The rooray wallpaper and a king-sized sleigh bed on a huge area rug in the center

She had no idea where she was, how she’d gotten there, whose bathrobe she earing, who this girl was, or what party the girl thought Luce had been at the night before Had she somehow fallen into an Announcer? There was a zebra-print footstool by the bed The clothes she’d left in the gondola were folded neatly on it--the white sweater she’d put on two days earlier at her parents’ house, her worn-in jeans, her riding boots leaning against each other to the side The silver locket with the carved-rose face--she’d tucked it inside her boot just before she and Daniel dove into the water--was resting in a spun glass tray on the night table

She slipped it back over her head and fuirl in the bed had fallen back asleep, a black silk pillow stuffed over her face, her tangled blond hair spilling out fro two e fireplace on the far wall, and a flat-screen TV mounted over it