Fallen 2. Torment(72)

& Cross, before Trevor ... before a life full of secrets and lies and so many unanswerable

questions. Before she'd ever seen an angel. It was too innocent a laugh, too carefree to

belong to her anymore.

A breath of wind swirled in the branches overhead, and a scattering of brown

redwood needles broke off and showered to the ground. They pattered like raindrops as

they joined a thousand predecessors on the mulchy forest floor. Among them was one

large frond.

Thick and feathery, fully intact, it drifted slowly down somehow outside the

power of gravity. It was black instead of brown. And instead of falling to the ground, it

drifted lightly onto Luce's outstretched palm.

Not a frond, but an Announcer. As she leaned down to examine it more closely,

she heard the laughter again. Somewhere inside, another Luce was laughing.

Gently, Luce gave the Announcer's prickly edges a pull. It was more pliant than

she expected, but cold as ice and tacky against her fingers. It grew larger at the lightest

touch. When it had grown to about a square foot, Luce released it from her grip and was

pleased to watch it hover at eye level in front of her. She made a special effort to focus-on hearing, on tuning out the world around her.

Nothing at first, and then-One more rising laugh sang out from within the shadow. Then the veil of

blackness shredded and an image inside became clear.

This time, Daniel was the first one to come into view.

Even through the Announcer's screen, it was heaven to see him. His hair was a

couple of inches longer than he wore it now. And he was tan--his shoulders and the

bridge of his nose were both a deep, golden brown. He wore trim navy swim trunks, snug

around his hips, the kind she'd seen in family pictures from the seventies. He made them

look so good.

Behind Daniel was the verdant edge of a thick, dense rain forest, lush green but

bright with berries and white flowers that Luce had never seen before. He stood at the lip

of a short but dramatic cliff, which looked down at a sparkling pool of water. But Daniel

kept glancing up, toward the sky.

That laugh again. And then Luce's own voice, broken apart by giggles. "Hurry up

and get down here!"

120

Luce leaned forward, closer to the window of the Announcer, and saw her former

self treading water in a yellow halter-top bikini. Her long hair danced around her, floating

on the water's surface like a deep black halo. Daniel kept an eye on her but was also still

glancing overhead. The muscles on his chest were tensing up. Luce had a bad feeling she

already knew why.

The sky was filling with Announcers, like a flock of enormous black crows, a

cloud so thick they blocked the sun. The long-ago Luce in the water noticed nothing, saw

nothing. But watching all those Announcers flit and gather in the humid air of that rain

forest, in an image made by an Announcer, had the Luce in the forest feeling suddenly

dizzy.

"You make me wait forever," long-ago Luce called up to Daniel. "Pretty soon I'm

going to freeze."

Daniel tore his eyes away from the sky, looking down at her with a broken

expression. His lip was trembling and his face was ghostly white. "You won't freeze," he

told her. Were those tears Daniel was wiping away? He closed his eyes and shivered.

Then, arcing his hands over his head, he pushed off the rock and dove.

Daniel surfaced a moment later, and long-ago Luce swam toward him. She

wrapped her arms around his neck, her face bright and happy. Luce watched it all play

out with a mixture of sickness and satisfaction. She wanted her former self to have as

much of Daniel as she could get, to feel that innocent, ecstatic closeness of being with the

person she loved.

But she knew, just as Daniel knew, as the swarm of Announcers knew, exactly

what was going to happen as soon as this Luce pressed her lips to his. Daniel was right:

She wasn't going to freeze. She was going to combust in a horrifying burst of flames.

And Daniel would be left to mourn her.

But he wasn't the only one. This girl had had a life, friends, and a family who

loved her, who would be devastated when they lost her.

Suddenly, Luce was enraged. Furious with the curse that had been hanging over

her and Daniel. She had been innocent, powerless; she didn't understand a thing about

what was going to happen. She still didn't understand why it happened, why she always

had to die so quickly after finding Daniel.

Why it hadn't happened to her yet in this life.

The Luce in the water was still alive. Luce wouldn't--couldn't let her die.

She grabbed at the Announcer, curling its edges in her fists. It twisted and bent,

contorting the swimmers' images like a fun-house mirror might. Inside its screen, the

other shadows were descending. The swimmers were running out of time.