Passion

EIGHTEEN BAD DIRECTIONS

“So, you’re not actually that bad of a guy?” Shelby said to Daniel.

They were sitting on the lush bank of the old Jerusalem riverbed, watching the horizon where the two fallen angels had just parted ways. The lightest breath of gold-hued light hung in the sky where Cam had been, and the air was beginning to smell a bit like rotten eggs.

“Of course I’m not.” Daniel dipped his hand in the cool water. His wings and his soul still felt hot from watching Cam make his choice. How simple it had seemed for him. How easy and how swift.

And all because of a broken heart.

“It’s just that when Luce found out you and Cam struck up that truce, she was devastated. None of us could understand it.” Shelby looked to Miles for affirmation. “Could we?”

“We thought you were hiding something from her.” Miles took off his baseball cap and rubbed his head. “All we knew of Cam was that he was supposed to be pure evil.”

Shelby made claws with her fingers. “All hiss! and rawr! and like that.”

“Few souls are pure anything,” Daniel said, “in Heaven, in Hell, or on Earth.” He turned away, looking high in the eastern sky for a hint of the silver dust Dani would have left when he unfurled his wings and flew away. There was nothing.

“Sorry,” Shelby said, “but it’s so weird to think of you as brothers.”

“We were all a family at one point.”

“Yeah, but, like, forever ago.”

“You think just because something’s been one way for a few thousand years, that it’s fixed across eternity.” Daniel shook his head. “Everything is in flux. I was with Cam at the Dawn of Time, and I’ll see him through the End Times.”

Shelby’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “You think Cam’s going to come back around? Like, see the light side again?”

Daniel started to stand. “Nothing stays the same forever.”

“What about your love with Luce?” Miles asked.

That stopped Daniel cold. “That’s changing, too. She’ll be different, after this experience. I just hope …” He looked down at Miles, who was still seated on the bank, and Daniel realized he didn’t hate Miles. In their recklessly idiotic way, the Nephilim had been trying to help.

For the first time, Daniel could say truthfully that he didn’t need help anymore; he’d gotten all the help he needed along the way from each of his past selves. Now, finally, he was ready to catch up with Luce.

Why was he still standing here?

“It’s time for you two to go home,” he said, helping Shelby, then Miles to their feet.

“No,” Shelby said, reaching for Miles, who gave her hand a squeeze. “We made a pact. We’re not going back until we know she’s—”

“It won’t be long,” Daniel said. “I think I know where to find her, and it’s no place you two can go.”

“Come on, Shel.” Miles was already peeling away the shadow cast by the olive tree near the riverbank. It pooled and swirled in his hands and looked unwieldy for a moment, like potter’s clay about to spin off the wheel. But then Miles reined it in, spinning it into an impressively large black portal. He pressed open the Announcer lightly, gesturing for Shelby to step through first.

“You’re getting good at that.” Daniel had drawn up his own Announcer, summoning it from the shadow of his own body. It trembled before him.

Because the Nephilim were not here through their own past experiences, they would have to leapfrog from Announcer to Announcer to get back to their own time. It would be difficult, and Daniel did not envy them their journey, but he did envy them because they were going home.

“Daniel.” Shelby’s head popped out of the Announcer. Her body looked warped and dim through the shadows. “Good luck.”

She waved, and Miles waved, and the two of them stepped through. The shadow closed in on itself, collapsing into a dot just before it vanished.

Daniel didn’t see that happen. He was already gone.

Cold wind gnawed into him.

He sped through, faster than he’d ever traveled before, back to a place, and a time, to which he’d never thought he would return.

“Hey,” a voice called out. It was raspy and blunt and seemed to come from right beside Daniel. “Slow down, will ya?”

Daniel jerked away from the sound. “Who are you?” he shouted into the invisible darkness. “Make yourself known.”

When nothing appeared before him, Daniel unfurled his rippling white wings—as much to challenge the intruder inside his Announcer as to help slow him down. They lit up the Announcer with their glow, and Daniel felt the tension inside him ease a little.

Fully extended, his wings spanned the width of the tunnel. Their narrow tips were the most sensitive to touch; when they brushed against the dank walls of the Announcer, it gave Daniel a queasy, claustrophobic feeling.

In the darkness before him, a figure slowly filtered into view.

First, the wings: undersized and gossamer-thin. Then the body deepened in color just enough for Daniel to see a small, pale angel sharing his Announcer. Daniel did not know him. The angel’s features were soft and innocent-looking, like a baby’s. In the cramped tunnel, his fine blond hair blew across his silver eyes in the wind that Daniel’s wings sent back each time they pulsed. He looked so young, but of course, he was just as old as any of them.

“Who are you?” Daniel asked again. “How did you get in here? Are you Scale?”

“Yes.” Despite his innocent, infantile appearance, the angel’s voice was gravel-deep. He reached behind his back for a moment, and Daniel thought perhaps he was hiding something there—perhaps one of his kind’s trapping devices—but the angel simply turned around to reveal the scar on the back of his neck. The seven-pointed gold insignia of the Scale. “I’m Scale.” His deep voice was rough and clotted. “I’d like to speak with you.”

Daniel gnashed his teeth. The Scale must have known he had no respect for them or their meddlesome duties. But it didn’t matter how much he loathed their high-flown manners, always seeking to nudge the fallen to one side: He still had to honor their requests. Something seemed odd about this one, but who other than a member of the Scale could have found a way into his Announcer?

“I’m in a hurry.”

The angel nodded, as if he already knew this. “You search for Lucinda?”

“Yes,” Daniel blurted out. “I—I don’t need help.”

“You do.” The angel nodded. “You missed your exit”—he pointed down, toward the place in the vertical tunnel where Daniel had just come from. “Right back there.”

“No—”

“Yes.” The angel smiled, showing a row of tiny, jagged teeth. “We wait and watch. We see who travels by Announcer and where they go.”

“I didn’t know that policing the Announcers fell under the Scale’s jurisdiction.”

“There is much you don’t know. Our monitor caught a trace of her passing through. She’ll be well on her way by now. You must go after her.”

Daniel stiffened. The Scale were the only angels granted vision between Announcers. It was possible a Scale member would have seen Luce’s travels.

“Why would you want to help me find her?”

“Oh, Daniel.” The angel frowned. “Lucinda is a part of your destiny. We want you to find her. We want you to be true to your nature—”

“And then to side with Heaven,” Daniel snarled.

“One step at a time.” The angel tucked his wings to his sides and plummeted through the tunnel. “If you want to catch her,” his deep voice rumbled, “I’m here to show you the way. I know where the connection points are. I can open up a portal between the tissue of past times.” Then, faintly: “No strings attached.”

Daniel was lost. The Scale had been a nuisance to him ever since the War in Heaven, but at least their motives were transparent. They wanted him to side with Heaven. That was it. He guessed it would behoove them to lead him to Luce if they could.

Maybe the angel was right. One step at a time. All he cared about was Luce.

He tucked his wings in at his sides as the angel had done and felt his body moving through the darkness. When he caught up to the angel, he stopped.

The angel pointed. “Lucinda stepped through there.”

The shadow-way was narrow and perpendicular to the path Daniel had been on. It didn’t look any more right or wrong than where Daniel had been headed before.

“If this works,” he said, “I’ll owe you. If not, I’ll hunt you down.”

The angel said nothing.

So Daniel leaped before he looked, feeling a wind lick wetly at his wings, a current picking up again and speeding him along, and hearing—somewhere far behind him—the faintest peal of laughter.