Fallen 2. Torment(46)

definitely be opposed to this. But Luce needed answers, and she needed help. Shelby's

help.

"I need to glimpse some of my past lives," Luce said. "Or I need to at least try.

Things have been happening recently that I'm supposed to just accept because I don't

know any better--only I could know better, a lot better, if I could just see where I come

from. Where I've been. Does that make any sense?"

Shelby nodded.

"I need to know what I had in the past with Daniel so I can feel surer of what I

have with him now." Luce took a breath. "That guy, the one in the alley ... did you see

what he did to the Announcer?"

Shelby scrunched her shoulders. "He just sort of guided it into shape. I didn't even

know what it was at the time, and I don't know how he tracked it down. That's why

Francesca and Steven's demonstration freaked me out so much. I saw what happened that

one night, and I've been trying to forget about it ever since. I had no idea that what I was

seeing was an Announcer."

"If I could track down an Announcer, do you think you could guide it?"

"No promises," Shelby said, "but I'll give it a shot. You know how to track them

down?"

"Not really, but how hard can it be? They've been haunting me all my life."

Shelby cupped her hand over Luce's on the rock. "I want to help you, Luce, but

it's weird. I'm scared. What if you see something you, you know, shouldn't?"

"When you broke up with SAEB--"

"I thought I told you not to--"

"Just listen: Aren't you glad you figured out whatever it was that made you break

up with him, sooner rather than later? I mean, what if you got engaged or something and

only then--"

"Blech!" Shelby put up a hand to stop Luce. "Point taken. Now, come on, find us

a shadow."

Luce led Shelby back across the beach and up the steep stone stairs, where dashes

of battered red and yellow verbenas had pushed up through the wet, sandy soil. They

crossed the neat green terrace, trying not to interrupt a group of non-Nephilim students in

a game of ultimate Frisbee. They passed their third-story dorm room window and wound

around the back of the building. At the edge of the forest of redwoods, Luce pointed to a

space between the trees. "That's where I found one the last time."

Shelby marched into the forest ahead of Luce, shoving through the long, clawlike

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leaves of the vine maple trees among the redwoods and stopping under a giant fern.

It was dark under the redwoods, and Luce was glad of Shelby's company. She

thought back to the other day, how quickly time had passed while she was harassing that

shadow, getting nowhere. Suddenly she felt overwhelmed.

" If we can find and catch an Announcer, and if we can even get a glimpsing to

work," she said, "what do you think the chances are that the Announcer will have

anything to show about me and Daniel? What if we just get another awful Bible scene

like we saw in class?"

Shelby shook her head. "Daniel I don't know about. But if we can summon and

then glimpse an Announcer, then it will have to do with you. They're supposed to be

summoner-specific--though you won't always be interested in what they have to say. Like

how you get junk mail mixed with your important mail, but it's still addressed to you."

"How can they be ... summoner-specific? That would mean Francesca and Steven

were at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah."

"Well, yeah. They have been around forever. Rumor has it their resumes are

pretty impressive." Shelby stared oddly at Luce. "Put your bug eyes back in your head.

How else do you think they scored jobs at Shoreline? This is a really good school."

Something dark and slippery moved over them: a heavy cloak of an Announcer

stretching sleepily in the lengthening shadows from the limb of a redwood tree.

"There." Luce pointed, not wasting any time. She swung herself up onto a low

branch that stretched behind Shelby. Luce had to balance on one foot and lean out all the

way to the left just to graze the Announcer with her fingertips. "I can't reach it."

Shelby picked up a pinecone and pitched it at the center of the shadow where it

draped down from the branch.

"Don't!" Luce whispered. "You'll piss it off."

"It's pissing me off, being so coy. Just hold out your hand."

Grimacing, Luce did as she was told.

She watched the pinecone ricochet off the shadow's exposed side, then heard the

soft swishing sound that used to fill her ears with dread. One side of the shadow was

sliding, very slowly, away from the branch. It slipped off and landed across Luce's

shaking extended arm. She pinched its edges with her fingers.