Daniel was lying very still, his eyes fixed on the mouth of the cave. The rumbling stopped.

Luce propped herself up on her elbows, noticed Dee across from her, asleep in the fetal position, stirring slightly, her red hair loose and messy. To Dee’s left lay the Outcasts’ empty sleeping bags; the strange creatures stood alert, huddled at the back of the small space, their drab wings overlapping. To her right, Annabelle and Arriane were asleep, or at least resting, their silver wings entwined uninhibitedly, like sisters.

The cave was calm. Luce must have dreamed the rumbling. She was still tired.

When she rolled over, nestling her back into Daniel’s chest so that he was cradling her with his right wing, her eyelids fluttered shut. Then they flew open.

She was face to face with Cam.

He was inches away, on his side, head propped on his hand, green eyes holding hers as if they were both in a trance. He opened his mouth as if to say something—

BOOM.

The room trembled like a leaf. For an instant, the air seemed to take on a strange transparency. Cam’s body shimmered, both there and somehow not there, his very existence seeming to flicker.

“Timequake,” Daniel said.

“A big mother,” Cam agreed.

Luce sprang upright, gaping at her own body in the sleeping bag, at Daniel’s hand on her knee, at Arriane, whose muffled voice called out, “I’wuzznt me,” until Annabelle’s wing slapped her awake. All of them were flickering before each other’s eyes. Solidly present one moment, as insubstantial as ghosts the next.

The timequake had jarred loose a dimension in which they weren’t even there.

The cave around them shuddered. Sand sifted down from the walls. But unlike those of Luce and her friends, the physical properties of the red rock remained fixed, as if to prove that only people—souls—were at risk of being erased.

“The Qayom Malak!” Phil said. “A rockslide would bury it again.”

Luce watched, queasy, as the Outcast’s pale wings flickered when he scrambled wildly toward the mouth of the cave.

“This is a seismic shift in reality, Phillip, not an earthquake,” Dee called, stopping Phil. Her voice sounded like someone was turning her volume up and down. “I appreciate your concern, but we’ll just have to ride this one out.”

And then there was one last great boom, a long, terrible rumbling during which Luce couldn’t see any of them, and then they were back, solid, real again. There was a sudden hush around everything, so absolute that Luce heard her heart pounding in her chest.

“There, now,” Dee said. “The worst of it is over.”

“Is everyone okay?” Daniel asked.

“Yes, dear, we’re fine,” Dee said. “Though that was most unpleasant.” She rose and walked, her voice trailing behind her. “At least it was one of the last seismic shifts anyone ever has to experience.” Sharing glances, the others followed her outside.

“What do you mean?” Luce asked. “Is Lucifer that close already?” Her brain scrambled to count sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset. They blurred together, one long stream of frenzy and panic and wings across the sky.

It had been morning when Luce fell asleep. . . .

They stopped in front of the Qayom Malak. Luce stood on the Arrowhead Slab, facing the two angels in the sculpture. Roland and Cam soared into the sky and hovered about fifty feet in the air. They gazed across the horizon, dipped close together to speak quietly. Their enormous wings blocked the sun—which Luce noticed sat troublingly low on the horizon.

“It is now the evening of the sixth day since Lucifer began his solitary Fall,” Dee said softly.

“We slept all day?” Luce asked, horrified. “We wasted so much time—”

“Nothing was wasted,” Dee said. “I have a very big night tonight. Come to think of it, you do, too. You’ll soon be glad you had your rest.”

“Let’s get it on before another shift hits, before we have to fight off any Scale,” Cam said as he and Roland touched down on the ground again. Their wings jostled lightly from the force of their landings.

“Cam is right. We don’t have any time to waste.” Daniel produced the black satchel, which contained the halo Luce had stolen from the sunken church in Venice.

Then he slung over the duffel bag, which bulged at the center, where he’d zipped the round cup of the Silver Pennon. He placed both bags, unzipped, before Dee, so that all three artifacts sat in a row.

Dee didn’t move.

“Dee?” Daniel asked. “What do we have to do?” Dee didn’t answer.

Roland stepped forward, touching her back. “Cam and I saw signs of more Scale on the horizon. They don’t know our location yet, but they aren’t far away. It would be best if we hurried.”

Dee frowned. “I’m afraid that is impossible.”

“But you said—” Luce broke off as Dee stared at her placidly. “The tattoo. The symbol on the ground—”

“I would be happy to explain, ” Dee said, “but there will be no hurrying the deed itself.”

She glanced around the circle of angels, Outcasts, and Luce. When she was sure she had all their attention, she began. “As we know, the early history of the fallen was never written down. Although you may not remember very clearly”—her gaze swept over the angels—“you recorded your first days on Earth in things. To this day, the essential elements of your prehistoric lore are encoded in the fabric of different artifacts. Artifacts that are, to the naked eye, something else altogether.” Dee reached for the halo and held it up to the sunlight. “You see”—she ran her finger along a series of cracks in the glass that Luce hadn’t noticed before—“this glass halo is also a lens.” She held it up for them to look through. Behind it, her face was slightly distorted by the convex curve of the glass, making her golden eyes look huge.

She put the halo down, moved to the duffel bag, and removed the Silver Pennon. It shone in the day’s last rays of sunlight as she ran her hand softly across its interior.

“And this goblet”—she pointed to the illustration hammered into the silver, the wings Luce had noticed in —

Jerusalem—“bears a record of the exodus from the Fall site, the first diaspora of angels. To return to your first home on Earth, you first must fill this goblet.” She paused, staring deeply inside the Silver Pennon. “When it is filled, we will empty it on the Slab’s intricate tiled floor, which contains imagery of how the world once was.”

“When the goblet is filled?” Luce repeated. “Filled with what?”

“First things first.” Dee walked to the edge of the stone platform and brushed away a bit of grit. Then she bowed to place the goblet directly on top of the yellow symbol in the stone. “I believe this goes here.” Luce stood rapt beside Daniel as they watched Dee pace slowly up and down the platform. Finally, she picked up the halo again and carried it to the Qayom Malak. At some point, she had changed out of her hiking boots, back into her stilettos, and her heels clicked on the marble. Her unkempt hair swished down to her waist. She took a deep, luxurious breath and let it out.

With both hands, she raised the halo over her head, whispered a few words of prayer, and then, very carefully, lowered the halo directly into the circle of air carved out by the sculpture of the praying angels’ wing tips. It fit like a ring on a finger.

“I did not see that coming,” Arriane muttered to Luce.

Neither had Luce—although she was certain that the woman was engaged in something powerfully sacred.

When she spun around to face Luce and the angels, Dee looked as if she were going to say something. Instead, she sank to her knees and lay down on her back at the foot of the Qayom Malak. Daniel lurched toward her, ready to help, but she waved him away. The toes of her shoes rested on the chest of the Qayom Malak; her slender arms stretched over her head so that her fingertips grazed the Silver Pennon. Her body spanned the distance precisely.

She closed her eyes and lay still for several minutes.

Just when Luce was beginning to wonder whether Dee had fallen asleep, Dee said, “It’s a good thing I stopped growing two thousand years ago.” She stood up then, taking a hand from Roland, and dusted herself off.

“Everything is in order. When the moon hits right about there.” She pointed toward the eastern sky, just above where the rocks tapered off.

“The moon?” Cam gave Daniel a glance.

“Yes, the moon. It needs to shine through precisely here.” Dee tapped the center of the halo’s glass, where a jagged crack became more visible than it had been minutes earlier. “If I know the moon, which I do—after all these years, one does develop an intimate relationship with one’s companions—it should fall precisely where we need it to at the stroke of midnight tonight. Fitting, really, since midnight is my favorite time of day. The witching hour—”

“What happens then?” Luce asked. “At midnight, when the moon is where it needs to be?” Dee slowed her pace and cupped her hand to Luce’s cheek. “Everything, dear.”

“And what do we do in the meantime?” Daniel asked.

Dee reached into her cardigan pocket and revealed a large gold pocket watch. “A few things remain to be done.”

They followed Dee’s instructions down to the small-est detail. Each of the artifacts was swept, polished, dusted by several pairs of hands. It was well into the night before Luce was able to visualize what Dee had in mind for the ceremony.

“Two more lanterns, please,” Dee instructed. “That will make three, one for each of the relics.” It was strange the way Dee referred to the relics as if she were not one of them. Even stranger was the way she buzzed around the enclosed plateau, like a hostess preparing for a dinner party, making sure everything was just right.

The quartet of Outcasts lit the lanterns ritualistically, their shaven heads orbiting the expanse of rock like planets. The first light illuminated the Qayom Malak.

The second lantern shone on the Silver Pennon, which still sat where Dee had placed it, atop the golden arrow on the Slab, at a distance of Dee’s height exactly—a scant five feet—from the Qayom Malak. Earlier, the angels had arranged a half-moon arc of flat-topped boulders like benches on the left and right sides of the Slab so that it resembled a stage. This made the space look even more like an amphitheater as Annabelle dusted the boulders like an usher preparing seats for an imminent audience.

“What will Dee do with all this?” Luce whispered to Daniel.

Daniel’s violet eyes were heavy with something he couldn’t voice, and before Luce could beg him to try, Dee’s hands found their way to Luce’s shoulders.

“Please don these robes. I find that ceremonial costumes help to maintain focus on the task at hand. Daniel, I think this should fit you.” She pressed a heavy brown cloak into his arms. “And here’s one for graceful Arriane.” She passed it to the angel. “That leaves you, Luce.

There are smaller robes at the bottom of my chest over there. Take my lantern and help yourself.” Luce took the lantern and started to lead Daniel toward the cave where they had slept the night before, but Dee gripped Daniel’s arm.

*** Copyright: Novel12.Com