Fallen 2. Torment(79)

clammy darkness--and pulled the three of them through.

They walked only a couple of feet forward, about far enough to reach the real

door of Luce and Shelby's dorm room. But as soon as the cloudy gray Announcer door

sealed shut behind them with a deeply unnerving pfffffft, their Shoreline room was gone.

What had been a deep, glowing velvety red in the distance suddenly became bright white.

The white light shot forward, enveloping them, filling their ears with sound. All three of

them had to shield their eyes. Miles pressed ahead, drawing Luce and Shelby behind him.

Otherwise, Luce might have been paralyzed. Both her palms were sweating inside her

friends' hands. She was listening to a single chord of music, loud and perfectly sonorous.

Luce rubbed her eyes, but it was the foggy curtain of Announcer that was

obscuring the view. Miles reached forward and gently rubbed at it with a circular motion,

until it started to peel away, like old paint chips flaking off a ceiling. And from each

falling flake, blasts of arid desert air shot through the murky coolness, warming Luce's

skin. As the Announcer fell to pieces at their feet, the view before them suddenly made

sense: They were looking down at the Las Vegas Strip. Luce had only seen it in pictures,

but now she had the tip of the Paris Las Vegas Hotel's Eiffel Tower at eye level in the

distance.

Which meant they were very, very high. She dared a glance down: They were

standing outside, on a roof somewhere, with the edge only a foot or two beyond their

toes. And beyond that--the rush of Vegas traffic, the heads of a line of palm trees, an

elaborately lit swimming pool. All at least thirty stories down.

Shelby let go of Luce's hand and began pacing the boundaries of the brown

cement roof. Three identical long, rectangular wings extended from a center point. Luce

spun around, taking in three hundred and sixty degrees of bright neon lights, and beyond

the Strip, a range of far-off barren mountains, lit up eerily by the city's light pollution.

"Damn, Miles," Shelby said, hopping over skylights to explore more of the roof.

"That step-through was amazing. I am almost attracted to you right now. Almost."

131

Miles dug his hands in his pockets. "Um ... thanks?"

"Where exactly are we?" Luce asked. The difference between her solo tumble

through the Announcer and this experience was like night and day. This was so much

more civilized. It hadn't made anyone want to throw up. Plus, it had actually worked. At

least, she thought it had. "What happened to the view we had before?"

"I had to zoom out," Miles said. "I figured it would look weird if the three of us

stepped out of a cloud in the middle of the casino floor."

"Just a tad," Shelby said, tugging on a locked door. "Any brilliant ideas about how

to get down from here?"

Luce grimaced. The Announcer was trembling in tatters at their feet. She couldn't

imagine it had the strength to help them now. No way off this roof and no way back to

Shoreline.

"Never mind! I'm a genius," Shelby called from across the roof. She was hunched

over one of the skylights, wrestling with a lock. With a grunt, she pried it open, then

lifted a hinged pane of glass. She stuck her head through, motioning for Luce and Miles

to join her.

Cautiously, Luce peered down through the open skylight into a large, opulent

bathroom. There were four generous-sized stalls on one side, a line of raised marble sinks

facing a gilded mirror on the other. A mauve plush settee was set up in front of a vanity,

and a single woman sat there, looking into the mirror. Luce could only see the top of her

black bouffant hair, but her reflection showed a heavily made-up face, thick bangs, and a

French-manicured hand reapplying an unnecessary coat of red lipstick.

"As soon as Cleopatra's gone through that tube of lipstick, we'll just shimmy on

down," Shelby whispered.

Below them, Cleopatra stood up from the vanity. She smacked her lips together

and wiped a stray red stain off her teeth. Then she marched toward the door.

"Let me get this straight," Miles said. "You want me to 'shimmy' into a women's

bathroom?"

Luce took one more look around the desolate roof. There was really only one way

in. "If anyone sees you, just pretend you went in the wrong door."

"Or that you two were making out in one of the stalls," Shelby added. "What? It's

Vegas."

"Let's just go." Miles was blushing as he lowered himself feet-first through the

window. He extended his arms slowly, until his feet hovered just over the high marble

top of the vanity.

"Help Luce down," Shelby called.

Miles moved to lock the bathroom door, then raised his arms to catch Luce. She