Rapture

FOURTEEN AIR APPARENT

Boom.

It sounded like thunder, the brewing of a dark tornado. Luce jumped awake inside the cave, where she’d fallen asleep on Daniel’s shoulder. She hadn’t meant to doze off, but Dee had insisted on resting before explain-ing the purpose of the Qayom Malak. Stirred from sleep now, Luce had the feeling that many precious hours had passed. She was sweating in her flannel sleeping bag. The silver locket felt hot against her chest.

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.

“A word?”

Daniel nodded for Luce to go on alone, so she did, wondering what Dee didn’t want to say in front of her.

She slipped the lantern’s handle over her forearm, its light swinging as she walked toward the mouth of the cave.

She eased open the stiff lid of the chest and reached inside. A long brown robe was the only thing in it. She picked it up. It was made of heavy wool, thick as a peacoat and musty, like tobacco. When Luce held it up against her body, it looked about three feet too long.

Now she was even more curious about why Dee had sent her away. She set the lantern on the ground and clumsily pulled the robe over her head.

“Need some help?”

Cam had entered the cave as quietly as a cloud.

Standing behind her, he gathered a fold of the cloak’s material and cinched it under the garment’s woven belt.

He knotted it in place so that the hem ended at Luce’s ankles perfectly, as if the cloak had been made for her.

She turned around to face him. Lantern light flickered on his face. He stood very still, in the way that only Cam could.

Luce slid her thumb along the belt he’d knotted.

“Thanks,” she said, moving back toward the entrance of the cave.

“Luce, wait—”

She stopped. Cam looked down at the toe of his boot, kicking the edge of the chest. Luce stared at it, too. She was wondering how she hadn’t heard him come into the cave, how they’d ended up alone.

“You still don’t believe I’m on your side.”

“It doesn’t matter now, Cam.” Her throat felt impossibly tight.

“Listen.” Cam took a step toward her so that there were only inches between them. She thought he was going to grab her, but he didn’t. He didn’t even try to touch her; he just stayed very still and close. “Things used to be different. Look at me.” She did, nervously. “I may wear Lucifer’s gold on my wings now, but it wasn’t always like that. You knew me before I went that way, Lucinda, and you and I were friends.”

“Well, like you said, things change.”

Cam let out a frustrated groan. “It is impossible to apologize to a girl with such a conveniently selective memory. Allow me to venture a guess: As you awaken to your true self, you’re unpacking all sorts of sumptuous memories in which you and Daniel fell in love, and Daniel said this beautiful phrase, and Daniel turned and brooded toward silken silhouettes caressing the tender tips of stars on the horizon—”

“Why shouldn’t I? We belong to each other. Daniel is my everything. And you’re—”

“What does he say about me?” Cam’s eyes narrowed.

Luce cracked her knuckles and thought about the way, early on at Sword & Cross, Daniel’s hand had swept over hers to stop the mindless habit. His touch had been familiar from the beginning.

“He says he trusts you.”

A pause followed that Luce refused to fill. She wanted to leave. What if Daniel looked over and saw her in this dim cave with Cam? They were arguing, but Daniel wouldn’t be able to tell that from a distance. What did they look like, she and Cam? When she looked up, his eyes were clear, green, and profoundly sad.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

“Why does this matter right now—”

His eyes shot open, wild and excited. “Everything matters right now. This is the showtime for which all other shows have been a warm-up. And in order for you to do what you need to do, you can’t see me as the enemy. You have no idea what you’ve gotten into.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Luce.” It was Dee’s voice. She and Daniel were standing at the mouth of the cave. Dee was the only one smiling. “We’re ready for you!”

“Me?”

“You.”

Luce was suddenly frightened. “What do I have to do?”

“Why don’t you come and see?”

Dee’s hand was extended but Luce found it difficult to move. She glanced at Cam but he was looking at Daniel. Daniel was still looking at her, his eyes burning the hungry way they did when he was about to sweep her into his arms and kiss her deeply. But he didn’t move and that turned the ten feet of space between them into two thousand miles.

“Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

“You’re about to do something wonderful,” Dee said, still holding out her hand. “Let us not waste time we do not have.”

Luce took her hand and it felt so cold that it scared her. She studied Dee, who looked paler, more fragile, older than she had at the library in Vienna. But somehow, underneath her withered skin and prominent bones, something still shone bright and effervescent from within her.

“Do I look all right, dear? You’re staring.”

“Of course,” Luce said. “It’s just—”

“My soul? It’s glowing, isn’t it?”

Luce nodded.

“Good.”

Cam and Daniel did not speak as they brushed past each other: Cam striding into the suddenly windy wilderness outside, Daniel circling behind Luce to carry the lantern.

“Dee?” Luce turned to the woman, whose freezing hand she was trying to warm with her own. “I don’t want to go out there. I’m afraid and I don’t know why.”

“That is as it should be. But this cup cannot pass you.”

“Can someone please tell me what is going on?”

“Yes,” Dee said, giving Luce’s hand a firm but supportive forward tug. “Just as soon as we’re outside.” As they rounded the arrowhead-shaped boulder that partly shielded the entrance to the small cave, the cold wind bore into them unforgivingly. Luce staggered back, shielding her face from the sudden spray of sand with her free hand. Dee and Daniel made her press on past the head of the trail they’d climbed the night before, where they were most exposed to the wind.

Luce found that the peaks around the rest of the mesa formed barriers to the swirling, gritty gusts, allowing her to hear and see again. Though she could hear the daily dust storm howl beyond the plateau, everything within its curved rock walls seemed suddenly too quiet and too clear.

Two lanterns glowed on the marble Slab—one before the Qayom Malak, one behind the Silver Pennon. Both lights attracted swirls of gnats that bounced off the small glass panes, strangely calming Luce. At least she was still in a world where light attracted bugs. She was still in a world she knew.

The lantern illuminated the two golden angels bowing toward each other in prayer. Its light touched the edges of the heavy cracked glass halo, which Dee had returned to its rightful place, cradled by the angels’ wings.

On the cliffs towering over the plateau, four Outcasts perched on ledges, each pale warrior watching a different cardinal direction. The Outcasts’ wings, tucked to their sides, were barely visible, but the edges of Daniel’s lantern light revealed the starshots in each of their silver bows, as if they expected the Scale’s arrival at any moment.

The four fallen angels Luce knew best occupied the stone seats around the ceremonially placed relics. Arriane and Annabelle sat on one side, backs straight, their wings concealed. On the other side sat Cam and Roland—with one empty seat between them.

Was it for Luce or Daniel?

“Good, everyone’s here except the moon.” Dee looked up at the eastern sky. “Five more minutes. Daniel, will you take a seat?”

Daniel handed Dee the lantern and walked across the marble slab. He stood before the Qayom Malak. Luce wanted to go to him, but before she could even lean in his direction, Dee’s grip tightened around her hand.

“Stay with me, honey.”

Daniel sat down between Roland and Cam and turned his expressionless gaze to Luce.

“Allow me to explain.” Dee’s calm, clear voice echoed off the red-rock walls, and all the angels straightened in attention. “As I told you earlier, we require the moon to make an appearance, and now, in a moment, she will visit us above this peak. She will grin down through the lens of the Halo. We are fortunate the sky is clear tonight, with nothing to obscure the shadows of her lovely craters as they join with the cracks in the Halo’s glass.

“Together, these elements will project the outlines of continents and lines of countries, which, in concert with the carvings on the Slab, will comprise the Map of the Simulacra Terra Prima. Right here.” She pointed to an empty space on the marble step, where she’d lain the night before, measuring the distance between the Qayom Malak and the Silver Pennon. “You will see a representation of the way the world was when you angels fell to Earth. Yes”—she inhaled—“just another moment.

There.”

The crown of the moon rose above the rocky crag that jutted out behind the Qayom Malak. And even though the moon was pale white and waning, at the moment, it shone as brilliantly as dawn. The angels, the Outcasts, Luce, and Dee stood quietly for several minutes, watching the moon climb, watching it cast a little light and then a little more through the translucent surface of the halo. The marble slab beyond it was blank, then clouded; then, all at once, the projection was clear and focused and real. It projected lines, intersections—continents—borders, lands, and seas.

It looked half complete. Some lines trailed off into nothing; some boundaries never closed. But it was clearly a map of the Earth, Luce thought, as it would have looked when Daniel fell for her. It stirred something in the deepest recesses of her memory. It looked familiar.

“Do you see the yellow stone at the center there?” Dee asked.

Luce squinted to see a tile of the same slightly darker yellow stone as the one where the goblet had been placed.

“That is us, right here in the middle of everything.”

“Like an arrow saying, ‘You Are Here,’” Luce said.

“That’s right, dear.” Dee turned to Luce. “And now, my Lucinda, have you figured out your role in this ceremony yet?”

Luce squirmed. What did they want from her? This was their story, not hers. After all this commotion, she was just another girl, swept up in the promise of love.

Daniel had found her on Earth after his fall from grace; someone should ask him what was going on. “I’m sorry.

I don’t know.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Dee said. “Do you see the spot where angels fell marked on this map?” Luce sighed, eager to get to the point. “No.”

“It was ordained many millennia ago that this location on this map could only be revealed in blood. The blood that courses through our veins knows far more than we do. Look closely. See the grooves along the marble? They are the lines to close the boundaries of the angelico-prelapsarian Earth. They shall become clear once the blood is shed and poured. The blood will pool in one vitally important place. The knowledge, my dear, is in the blood.”

“The site of the Fall,” one of the angels said reverently, Arriane or Annabelle; Luce couldn’t tell.

“Somewhat like a treasure map in an adventure story, the impact point—that’s the site of the Fall—will be marked with a five-pointed star of blood. Now . . .” Dee was talking but Luce could no longer hear what she was saying. So this was what it was going to take to stop Lucifer. This was what Cam meant she had to do.

This was why Daniel wouldn’t look at her. Her throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. When she opened her mouth, her voice sounded like she was speaking underwater. “You need”—she swallowed in pain—“my blood.” Dee choked on her laugh and pressed a cold hand to Luce’s hot cheek. “Good heavens, no, child! You keep yours. I’m going to give you mine.”

“What?”

“That’s right. As I am passing out of this world, you will fill the Silver Pennon with my blood. You will pour it into this depression just east of the golden arrow marker”—she indicated a dent at the left of the goblet, then fanned her hands out dramatically toward the map—“and watch it follow the grooves here and there and here and there until you find the star. Then you will know where to meet Lucifer and thwart his plan.” Luce cracked her knuckles. How could Dee speak about her own death so casually? “Why would you do this?”

“Why, it’s what I was created for. Angels were made to adore and I have a purpose, too.” Then, from the deep pocket of her brown cloak, Dee withdrew a long silver dagger.

“But that’s—”

The dagger Miss Sophia had used to kill Penn. The one she’d had in Jerusalem when she bound up the fallen angels.

“Yes. I picked this up in Golgotha,” Dee said, admiring the craftsmanship of the blade. It shone as if freshly sharpened. “Dark history, this knife. It’s time it was put to some good use, dear.” She held out the knife, its blade flat on her open palm, its hilt pointing toward Luce. “It would mean a lot to me if you would be the one to spill my blood, dear. Not only because you are dear to me, but also because it must be you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You must kill me, Lucinda.”