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Where was Daniel?
She was zipping up her second boot when she heard a voice through the cracked French doors opposite the bed.
“You will not regret this, Daniel. ”
Before he could respond, Luce’s hand was on the doorknob—and on the other side she found him, seated on a zebra-print love seat in the living room, facing Phil the Outcast.
At the sight of her in the doorway, Daniel rose to his feet. Phil rose, too, standing stiffly beside his chair. Daniel’s hands swept across Luce’s face, brushing her forehead, which Luce realized was tender and bruised.
“How are you feeling?”
“The halo—”
“We have the halo. ” Daniel gestured at the enormous gold-edged glass disk resting on the large wooden dining table in the adjacent room. There was an Outcast seated at the table spooning yogurt into his mouth, another leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. Both of them were facing Luce, but it was impossible to tell whether they knew they were doing it. She felt on edge around them, felt a chill in the air, but trusted Daniel’s calm demeanor.
“What happened to the Outcast you were fighting?” Luce asked, looking for the pale creature in the robe.
“Don’t worry about him. It’s you I’m worried about. ” He spoke to her as tenderly as if they’d been alone.
She remembered the church spire tilting toward her as the cathedral collapsed underwater. She remembered Daniel’s wings casting a shadow over everything as they dipped toward her.
“You took a bad knock on the head. The Outcasts helped me get you out of the water and brought us here so you could rest. ”
“How long was I asleep?” Luce asked. It was night-fall. “How much time do we have left—”
“Seven days, Luce,” Daniel said quietly. She could hear how keenly he, too, felt the time slipping away from them.
“Well, we shouldn’t waste any more time here. ” She glanced at Phil, who was topping off his and Daniel’s glasses from a bottle of something red called Campari.
“You do not like my apartment, Lucinda Price?” Phil said, pretending to look around the postmodernist living room for the first time. The walls were dotted with Jackson Pollock –esque paintings, but it was Phil Luce couldn’t stop staring at. His skin was pastier than she remembered, with heavy purple circles around his vacant eyes. She grew cold every time she remembered his tattered wings holding her likeness in the air above her parents’ backyard, ready to fly her someplace dark and far away.
“I can’t see any of it very well, of course, but I was told it would be decorated in a way that young ladies would find appealing. Who knew I would develop such a taste for mortal flesh after my time with your Nephilim friend Shelby? Did you meet my friend, in the bedroom?
She’s a sweet girl; they’re all so sweet. ”
“We should go. ” Luce tugged on Daniel’s shirt bossily.
The other Outcasts in the room rose to attention.
“Are you sure you cannot stay for a drink?” Phil asked, moving to fill a third glass with the cherry-red liquid, which he couldn’t help spilling. Daniel put his hand over the rim, pouring instead from a bottle of sparkling grapefruit soda.
“Sit down, Luce,” Daniel said, handing her the glass.
“We’re not quite ready to leave. ”
When the two of them sat, the other two Outcasts followed their example. “Your boyfriend is very reason-able,” Phil said, kicking his muddy combat boots onto the marble coffee table. “We have agreed that the Outcasts will join you in your efforts to stop the Morning Star. ”
Luce leaned into Daniel. “Can we talk alone?”
“Yes, of course,” Phil answered for him, rising stiffly again and nodding to the other Outcasts. “Let us all take a moment. ” Forming a line behind Phil, the others disappeared behind a swinging wooden door into the apartment’s kitchen.
As soon as they were alone, Daniel rested his hands on her knees. “Look, I know they’re not your favorite—”
“Daniel, they tried to kidnap me. ”
“Yes, I know, but that was when they thought”—
Daniel paused and stroked her hair, working out a tangle with his fingers—“they thought that presenting you to the Throne would atone for their earlier betrayal. But now the game has changed utterly, partly because of what Lucifer did—and partly because you’ve come further in breaking the curse than the Outcasts anticipated. ”
“What?” Luce started. “You think I’m close to breaking the curse?”
“Let’s just say you’ve never been this close before,” Daniel said, and something soared inside Luce that she didn’t understand. “With the Outcasts’ help fighting off our enemies, you can focus on what you need to do. ”
“The Outcasts’ help? But they just ambushed us. ”
“Phil and I have talked things over. We have an understanding. Listen, Luce”—Daniel took her arm and whispered, though they were the only ones in the room—“the Outcasts are less of a threat with us than against us. They’re unpleasant but they’re also incapable of lying. We will always know where we stand with them. ”
“Why do we have to stand with them at all?” Luce leaned back hard against the zebra-print pillow behind her.
“They are armed, Luce. Better-equipped and with more warriors than any other faction we will face. The time may come when we need their starshots and their manpower. You don’t have to be best friends, but they are excellent bodyguards and ruthless when it comes to their enemies. ” He leaned back, his gaze settling out the window, as if something unpleasant had just flown by.
“And since they’re going to have a horse in this race re-gardless, it might as well be us. ”
“What if they still think I’m the price or whatever?” Daniel gave her a soft, unexpected smile. “I’m certain they still think that. Many do. But only you get to decide how you will fulfill your role in this old story. What we started when we first kissed at Sword & Cross? That awakening in you was only the first step.
All those lessons you learned during your time in the Announcers have armed you. The Outcasts can’t take that away from you. No one can. And besides”—he grinned—“no one can touch you when I am at your side. ”
“Daniel?” She took a sip of the grapefruit soda, felt it fizz down her throat. “How will I fulfill my role in this old story?”
“I have no idea,” he said, “but I can’t wait to find out. ”
“Neither can I. ”
The kitchen door swung open and a pale, almost pretty girl’s face appeared in the doorway, her blond hair swept back in a severe ponytail. “The Outcasts grow tired of waiting,” she sang robotically.
Daniel looked at Luce, who forced a nod.
“You can send them in. ” Daniel gestured at the girl.
They filed in swiftly, mechanically, assuming their former positions except for Phil, who drew nearer to Luce. The yogurt eater’s spoon knocked clumsily against the side of his empty plastic container.
“So he has convinced you, too?” Phil asked, perching on the arm of the love seat.
“If Daniel trusts you, I—”
“As I thought,” he said. “When the Outcasts stake their allegiance these days, we are fiercely loyal. We understand what is at stake when we make these kinds of . . . choices. ” He emphasized the last word, nodding unnervingly at Luce. “The choice to ally yourself with a side is very important, don’t you think, Lucinda Price?”
“What is he talking about, Daniel?” Luce asked, though she suspected she knew.
“Everyone’s fascination these days,” Daniel said tiredly. “The near balance between Heaven and Hell. ”
“After all these millennia, it is nearly complete!” Phil sank back into the love seat opposite Luce and Daniel. He was more animated than Luce had ever seen him before. “With almost every angel allied with one side, dark or light, there is just one who has not chosen”?
??
One angel who had not chosen.
A flash of memory: stepping through an Announcer to Las Vegas with Shelby and Miles. They’d gone to meet her past-life sister, Vera, and ended up at an IHOP with Arriane, who said that there was going to be a reckoning.
Soon. And in the end, when all the other angels’ souls had been accounted for, everything would come down to one essential angel’s choosing a side.
Luce was certain that the undecided angel was Daniel.
He looked annoyed, waiting for Phil to finish talking.
“And, of course, there are still the Outcasts. ”
“What do you mean?” Luce said. “The Outcasts haven’t chosen a side? I always assumed you were on Lucifer’s. ”
“That is only because you do not like us,” Phil said, completely deadpan. “No, the Outcasts do not get to choose. ” He turned his head as if to look out the window and sighed. “Can you imagine how that feels—”
“You’re preaching to the wrong crowd, Phil,” Daniel interrupted.
“We should count, ” Phil said, suddenly pleading with Daniel. “All we ask is that we matter in the cosmic balance. ”
“You don’t get to choose,” Luce repeated, understanding. “Is that your punishment for indecision?” The Outcast nodded stiffly. “And the result is that our existences mean nothing in the cosmic balance. Our deaths, too, mean nothing. ” Phil lowered his head.
“You know this isn’t up to me,” Daniel said. “And it certainly isn’t up to Luce. We’re wasting time—”
“Do not be so dismissive, Daniel Grigori,” Phil said.
“We all have our goals. Whether or not you admit it, you need us to accomplish yours. We could have joined with the Elders of Zhsmaelim. The one called Miss Sophia Bliss still has her sights trained on you. She is misguided, of course, but who knows—she might succeed where you will fail?”
“Then why didn’t you join them?” Luce asked sharply, coming to Daniel’s defense. “You had no problem working with Sophia last time when you kidnapped my friend Dawn. ”
“That was a mistake. At that time we did not know the Elders had murdered the other girl. ”
“Penn. ” Luce’s voice cracked.
Phil’s pale face pinched. “Unforgivable. The Outcasts would never harm an innocent. Much less one with so fine a character, so refined a mind. ”
Luce looked at Daniel, wanting to convey that perhaps she’d been too quick to judge the Outcasts, but Daniel was scowling at Phil.
“And yet, you met with Miss Sophia yesterday,” he said.
The Outcast shook his head.
“Cam showed me the golden invitation,” Daniel pressed. “You met with her at the mortal racing track called Churchill Downs to discuss going after Luce. ”
“Wrong. ” Phil rose to his feet. He was as tall as Daniel, but sickly and frail. “We met with Lucifer yesterday.