Fallen 2. Torment(71)

Was it even possible to just be normal and happy anymore? What on earth--or

beyond it--would it take for Luce to be as content with her life as someone like Miles

seemed to be? Her mind kept circling around Daniel. And she had her answer: The only

way she could be carefree again would be to have never met Daniel. To have never

known true love.

Something rustled in the treetops. A frigid wind assailed her skin. She hadn't been

concentrating on an Announcer specifically, but she realized--just as Steven had told

her--that her wish for answers must have summoned one.

No, not one.

She shivered, looking up into the tangle of branches. Hundreds of stealthy, murky,

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foul-smelling shadows.

They flowed together in the high redwood branches over her head. Like someone

in the clouds had tipped over a giant pot of black ink that had spread across the sky and

dripped down into the canopy of the trees, bleeding one branch into another until the

forest was a solid wash of blackness. At first it was almost impossible to tell where one

shadow stopped and the next one began, which shadow was real and which an

Announcer.

But soon they began to morph and make themselves obvious--slyly at first, as if

they were moving innocently in the fading light of the day--but then more boldly. They

pinched themselves free from the branches they'd been occupying, wrenching their

tendrils of blackness down, down, close to Luce's head. Beckoning or threatening her?

She steeled herself but couldn't catch her breath. There were too many. It was too much.

She gasped for air, trying not to panic, knowing it was already too late.

She ran.

She started south, back toward the dorm. But the swirling black abyss in the

treetops just moved with her, hissing along the lower branches of the redwoods, drawing

closer. She felt the icy pinpricks of their touch on her shoulders. She yelped as they

groped for her, swatting them away with her bare hands.

She changed course, swung herself around in the opposite direction, toward the

Nephilim lodge to the north. She would find Miles or Shelby or even Francesca. But the

Announcers wouldn't let her go. Immediately, they slithered ahead, swelling out in front

of her, swallowing the light and blocking the path to the lodge. Their hissing drowned out

the distant murmurs of the Nephilim campfire, making Luce's friends seem impossibly

far away.

Luce forced herself to stop and take a deep breath. She knew more about the

Announcers than she ever had before. She should be less afraid of them. What was her

problem? Maybe she knew she was getting closer to something, some memory or

information that could alter the course of her life. And her relationship with Daniel. The

truth was, she wasn't just terrified of the Announcers. She was terrified of what she might

see within them.

Or hear.

Yesterday, Steven's mention of tuning out the Announcers' noise had finally

clicked--she could listen in on her past lives. She could cut through the static and focus

on what she wanted to know. What she needed to know. Steven must have meant to give

her this clue, must have known she would listen and take her new knowledge straight to

the Announcers.

She turned and stepped back into the dark solitude of the trees. The whooshing

sounds from the Announcers quieted and settled.

The darkness under the branches engulfed her in cold and the peaty smell of

decomposing leaves. In the twilight, the Announcers crept forward, settling into the

dimness all around her, camouflaging themselves again among the natural shadows.

Some of them moved swiftly and stiffly, like soldiers; others had a nimble grace. Luce

wondered whether their appearances reflected anything about the messages they

contained.

So much about the Announcers still felt impenetrable. Tuning them in wasn't

intuitive, like fiddling with an old radio dial. What she'd heard yesterday--that one voice

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among the riot of voices--had come to her by accident.

The past might have been unfathomable to her before, but she could feel it

pressing up against the dark surfaces, waiting to break into the light. She closed her eyes

and cupped her hands together. There, in the darkness, her heart pounding, she willed

them to come out. She called on those coldest, darkest things, asking them to deliver her

past, to illuminate her and Daniel's story. She called on them to solve the mystery of who

he was and why he had chosen her.

Even if the truth broke her heart.

A rich, feminine laugh rang out in the forest. A laugh so clear and full, it felt as if

it were surrounding Luce, bouncing off the branches in the trees. She tried to trace its

origin, but there were so many shadows gathered--Luce didn't know how to pinpoint the

source. And then she felt her blood go cold.

The laughter was hers.

Or had once been hers, back when she was a child. Before Daniel, before Sword