Page 28 (1/2)
"But e succeed, couldn’t you"
"Choose Heaven?" Daniel said "No I "
"But I thought--"
"I chose you, Lucinda"
Luce swept her hand over Daniel’s as the tar-dark sea beneath them washed up onto a swath of desert
The landscape was far below, but it reminded her of the terrain around Sinai: rocky cliffs interrupted by the green scrub of an occasional tree She didn’t understand why Daniel had to choose between Heaven and love
All she’d ever wanted was his love--but at what price? Was their love worth the erasure of the world and all its stories? Could Daniel have prevented this threat if he’d chosen Heaven long before?
And would he have returned there, where he belonged, had his love for Luce not led hi her mind, Daniel said, "We put our faith in love"
Roland caught up to theled and his body pivoted to face Daniel and Luce In his arestured for the two of theraceful beat, and they shot through a cloud to hover at Roland and Dee’s side Roland whistled and Arriane and Annabelle also doubled back, closing an iridescent circle in the dark sky
"It’s nearly four o’clock in thein Jerusalem," Dee said "That means we can expect the majority of mortals to be asleep or otherwise out of the way for perhaps another hour If Sophia has your friends, she’s probably planningwell, we should hurry, dears"
"You knohere they’ll be?" Daniel asked
Dee thought for a moment "Before I defected from the Elders, the plan was always to reconvene at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre It was built on the slope of Golgotha, in the Christian Quarter of the Old City"
The group glided toward the hallowed ground They were a colus The clear sky was navy, sprinkled with stars, and the white stones of distant buildings below shone an eerie acid blue
Though the land seemed naturally dry, dusty, the earth was studded with thick palroves of olives
They swooped over the radual slope facing the Old City of Jerusalem
The city itself was dark and sleepy, tucked in ht and surrounded by a tall stone partition The forolden do even in darkness It was at a distance frohts of stone stairs and tall gates at every entrance
Beyond the old walls, a few s cut out a distant skyline, but within the Old City, the structures werea ated by foot
They alighted on the ra the entrance to the city
"This is the New Gate," Dee explained "It’s the closest entrance to the Christian Quarter, where the church is"
By the tiate, the angels had retracted their wings into their shoulders The cobbled street narrowed as Dee brandished a sht and led them onward toward the church Most of the stone storefronts had been fitted with metal doors that slid up and down like the door on Luce’s parents’ garage The doors were all closed now, padlocked to the street through which Luce walked next to Daniel, holding his hand and hoping for the best
The deeper into the city they went, the s seemed to press in on either side of thes of e stone arches and dim corridors The air smelled like roasted lamb, then incense, then laundry soap Azalea vines clihborhood was silent but for the angels’ steps and a coyote yowling in the hills They passed a shut-tered Laundron posted in Arabic, then a flower shop with Hebrew stickers plastered across its s
Everywhere Luce looked, narroays forked off froate here, up a short flight of stairs there Dee seeer as they walked At one point she snapped, ducked under a weathered wooden arch, turned a corner, and disappeared Luce and the angels glanced at each other quickly, then followed her: down several steps, around a damp and darkened corner, up a few more steps, and suddenly, they were on the roof of another building, looking down at another crari nearby It was built of pale, smooth stones and stood easily five stories, taller at its pair of slender steeples At its center, an enorht sky wrapped around a stone Giant bricks for places for lass s higher up A ladder leaned on a brick ledge outside a third-story , reaching up for nothing
Portions of the church’s façade were crue, while others looked recently restored
On either side, two long stone ar a border around a flat cobbled plaza Just behind the church, a tall white minaret stabbed the sky
"Wow," Luce heard herself say as she and the angels descended another surprising flight of stairs to enter the plaza
The angels approached the heavy double doors that towered over thereen and flanked by three plain stone pillars on either side Luce’s eye was drawn to the ornate frieze between the doors and the arches above the the sky The building was quiet, soo, then," Dee said