Fallen 2. Torment(64)

tingling.

"I have to go," he said at last, getting to his feet. "I shouldn't even be here, but I

cannot keep myself away from you. I worry about you in every waking moment. I love

you, Luce. So much it hurts."

She closed her eyes against the beat of his wings and the sting of the sand he

raised in his wake.

107





TEN

NINE DAYS

An echoing series of whooshes and clangs cut through the song of ospreys. A

long, singing note of metal scraping metal, then the clash of the thin silver blade glancing

off its opponent's guard.

Francesca and Steven were fighting.

Well, no--they were fencing. A demonstration for the students who were about to

stage matches of their own.

"Knowing how to wield a sword--whether it's the light foils we're using today, or

something as dangerous as a cutlass--is an invaluable skill," Steven said, slicing the point

of his sword through the air in short, whiplike movements. "The armies of Heaven and

Hell rarely engage in battle, but when they do"--without looking, he snapped his blade

sideways toward Francesca, and without looking, she brought her sword up and parried

the blow--"they remain untouched by modern warfare. Daggers, bows and bolts, giant

flaming swords, these are our eternal tools."

The duel that followed was for show, merely a lesson; Francesca and Steven

weren't even wearing masks.

It was late in the morning on Wednesday, and Luce was seated on the deck's wide

bench between Jasmine and Miles. The entire class, including their two teachers, had

changed out of their regular clothes into the white outfits fencers always wore. Half the

class held black mesh face masks in their hands. Luce had arrived at the supply closet just

after the last face mask had been snagged, which hadn't bothered her at all. She was

hoping to avoid the embarrassment of having the entire class witness her cluelessness: It

was obvious from the way the others were making lunges at the sides of the deck that

they had been through these practices before.

"The idea is to present as small a target for your opponent as possible," Francesca

explained to the circle of students surrounding her. "So you set your weight on one foot

and lead with your sword foot, and then rock back and forth--into striking range and then

away."

She and Steven were suddenly engaged in a rush of jabs and parries, making a

dense clatter as they expertly fought off each other's blows. When her blade glanced wide

to the left, he lunged forward, but she rocked back, sweeping her sword up and around

and onto his wrist. " Touche, " she said, laughing.

Steven turned to the class. " Touche, of course, is French for 'touched.' In fencing,

we count points by touches."

"Were we fighting for real," Francesca said, "I'm afraid that Steven's hand would

be lying bloody on the deck. Sorry, darling."

"Quite all right," he said. "Quite. All. Right." He threw himself sideways at her,

108

almost seeming to rise off the ground. In the frenzy that followed, Luce lost track of

Steven's sword as it crisscrossed through the air again and again, nearly slicing into

Francesca, who ducked sideways just in time and resurfaced behind him.

But he was ready for her and knocked her blade away before dropping the point

of his and striking out at her instep.

"I'm afraid you, my dear, have gotten off on the wrong foot."

"We'll see." Francesca raised a hand and smoothed her hair, the two of them

staring at each other with murderous intensity.

Each new round of violent play caused Luce to tense up in alarm. She was used to

being jittery, but the rest of the class was also surprisingly jittery today. Jittery with

excitement. Watching Francesca and Steven, not one of them could keep still.

Until today, she'd wondered why none of the other Nephilim played on any of

Shoreline's varsity sports teams. Jasmine had scrunched up her nose when Luce asked

whether she and Dawn were interested in swim team tryouts in the gym. In fact, until

she'd overheard Lilith in the locker room this morning yawning that every sport except

fencing was "exquisitely boring," Luce had figured the Nephilim just weren't athletic. But

that wasn't it at all. They just chose carefully what to play.

Luce winced as she imagined Lilith, who knew the French translation for all the

fencing terms Luce didn't even know in English, throwing her svelte, spiteful self into an

attack. If the rest of the class were one-tenth as skilled as Francesca and Steven, Luce was

going to end up a pile of body parts by the end of the session.

Her teachers were obvious experts, stepping lithely in and out of lunges. Sunlight

glinted off their swords, off their white padded vests. Francesca's thick blond waves