by Lauren Kate
“En garde!” Lilith practically shouted. Her long legs were bent, and her right arm was holding the foil straight at Luce.
Luce retreated, two quick galloping steps; then, when she felt at a safe enough distance, lunged forward with her sword extended.
Lilith dipped deftly to the left of Luce’s sword, spun around, then came back from below with her own, clashing against Luce’s. The two blades slid against each other until they reached a midpoint, then held. Luce had to put all her strength into stopping Lilith’s foil with the pressure of her own. Her arms were shaking, but she was surprised to find she could hold Lilith back in this position. At last Lilith broke away and backed off. Luce watched her dip and spin a few times, and began to figure her out.
Lilith was a grunter, making tons of effort-filled noise. It was a bit of misdirection. She would make a huge noise and feint in one direction, then whip the point of her foil around in a high, tight arc to try to get past Luce’s defenses.
So Luce tried the same move. When she swung the tip of her sword back around to get her first point, just south of Lilith’s heart, the girl let out a deafening roar.
Luce winced and backed away. She didn’t think she’d even touched Lilith very hard. “Are you okay?” she called out, about to lift her mask.
“She’s not hurt,” Francesca answered for Lilith. A smile parted her lips. “She’s angry that you’re beating her.”
Luce didn’t have time to wonder what it meant that Francesca seemed suddenly to be enjoying herself, because Lilith was barreling toward her once again, sword poised. Luce raised her sword to meet Lilith’s, turning her wrist to clash three times before they disengaged.
Luce’s pulse was racing and she felt good. She sensed an energy coursing through her that she hadn’t felt in a long time. She was actually good at this, almost as good as Lilith, who looked like she’d been bred to skewer people with sharp things. Luce, who had never even picked up a sword, realized she actually had a chance to win. Just one more point.
She could hear the other students cheering, some even calling out her name. She could hear Miles, and she thought she could hear Shelby, which really egged her on. But the sound of their voices was woven through with something else. Something staticky and too loud. Lilith fought as fiercely as ever, but suddenly Luce was having a hard time concentrating. She backed up and blinked, looking into the sky. The sun was obscured by the overhanging trees—but that wasn’t all. A growing fleet of shadows was stretching forth from the branches, like ink stains extending right above Luce’s head.
No—not now, not in public with everyone watching, and not when it might cost her this match. Yet no one else even noticed them, which seemed impossible. They were making so much noise it was impossible for Luce to do anything but cover her ears and try to block them out. She raised her hands to her ears, which made her sword tip skyward, confusing Lilith.
“Don’t let her freak you out, Luce. She’s toxic!” Dawn chirped from the bench.
“Use the prise de fer!” Shelby called. “Lilith sucks at the prise de fer. Correction: Lilith sucks at everything, but especially the prise de fer.”
So many voices—more, it seemed, than there were people on the deck. Luce winced, trying to block it all out. But one voice separated from the crowd, as though it were whispering into her ear from just behind her head. Steven:
“Screen out the noise, Luce. Find the message.”
She whipped her head around, but he was on the other side of the deck, looking toward the trees. Was he talking about the other Nephilim? All the noise and chatter they were making? She glanced at their faces, but they weren’t even talking. So who was? For the briefest moment, she caught Steven’s eyes, and he lifted his chin toward the sky. As if he were gesturing at the shadows.
In the trees above her head. The announcers were speaking.
And she could hear them. Had they been speaking all along?
Latin, Russian, Japanese. English with a southern accent. Broken French. Whispers, singing, bad directions, lines of rhyming verse. And one long bloodcurdling scream for help. She shook her head, still holding Lilith’s sword at bay, and the voices overhead stayed with her. She looked at Steven, then Francesca. They showed no signs, but she knew they heard it. And she knew they knew she was listening too.
For the message behind the noise.
All her life she’d heard the same noise when the shadows came—whooshing, ugly, wet noise. But now it was different. …
Clash.
Lilith’s sword collided with Luce’s. The girl was snorting like an angry bull. Luce could hear her own breath inside the mask, panting as she tried to hold Lilith’s sword. Then she could hear so much more among all the voices. Suddenly she could focus on them. Finding the balance just meant separating the static from the significant stuff. But how?
Il faut faire le coup double. Après ca, c’est facile a gagner, one of the Announcers whispered in French.
Luce had just two years of high school French to go on, but the words touched her somewhere deeper than her brain. It wasn’t just her head understanding the message. Somehow her body knew it too. It seeped into her, right down to the bone, and she remembered: She’d been in a place like this before, in a sword fight like this, a standoff like this.
The Announcer was recommending the double cross, a complicated fencing move in which two separate attacks came one right after the other.
Her sword slid down her opponent’s and the two of them broke away. A moment sooner than Lilith, Luce lunged forward in one clean intuitive motion, thrusting her sword point right, then left, then flush against the side of Lilith’s rib cage. The Nephilim cheered, but Luce didn’t stop. She disengaged, then came straight back a second time, plunging the tip of her foil into the padding near Lilith’s gut.
That was three.
Lilith dashed her sword to the deck, tore off her mask, and gave Luce a terrifying scowl before making quickly for the locker room. The rest of the class was on their feet, and Luce could feel her classmates surrounding her. Dawn and Jasmine hugged her from both sides, giving dainty little squeezes. Shelby came forward next for a high five, and Luce could see Miles waiting patiently behind her. When it was his turn, he surprised her, swooping her off the deck and into a long, tight hug.
She hugged him back, remembering how awkward she’d felt earlier when she’d gone to him after his match, only to find that Dawn had gotten to him first. Now she was just glad to have him, glad of his easy and honest support.
“I want fencing lessons from you,” he said, laughing.
In his arms, Luce looked up at the sky, at the shadows lengthening from the long branches. Their voices were softer now, less distinct, but still clearer than they’d ever been before, like a static-filled radio she’d been listening to for years that had finally been tuned in. She couldn’t tell whether she was supposed to be grateful or afraid.
ELEVEN
EIGHT DAYS
“Hold on.” Callie’s voice boomed across the line. “Let me pinch myself to make sure I’m not—”
“You’re not dreaming,” Luce said into her borrowed cell phone. Reception was spotty from her position at the edge of the woods, but Callie’s sarcasm came through loud and clear. “It’s really me. I’m sorry I’ve been such a crap friend.”
It was Thursday after dinner, and Luce was leaning up against the stout trunk of a redwood tree behind her dorm. To her left was a rolling hill and then the cliff, and beyond that, the ocean. There was still a little amber light in the sky over the water. Her new friends would all be in the lodge making s’mores, telling demon stories around the hearth. It was a Dawn-and-Jasmine social event, part of the Nephilim Nights Luce was supposed to have helped organize, but all she’d really done was request a few bags of marshmallows and some dark chocolate from the mess hall.
And then she’d escaped out to the shadowy fringe of the woods to avoid everyone at Shoreline and reconnect with a few other important things:
>
Her parents. Callie. And the Announcers.
She’d waited until tonight to call home. Thursdays chez Price meant her mom would be out playing mahjongg at the neighbors’ and her dad would have gone to the local movie theater to watch the Atlanta opera on simulcast. She could handle their voices on the ten-plus-year-old answering machine message, could manage to leave a thirty-second voice mail saying she was petitioning hard for Mr. Cole to let her off campus for Thanksgiving—and that she loved them very much.
Callie wasn’t going to let her off so easy.
“I thought you could only call on Wednesdays,” Callie was saying now. Luce had forgotten the strict telephone policy at Sword & Cross. “At first I stopped making plans on Wednesdays, waiting for your call,” Callie went on. “But after a while, I kinda gave up. How did you get a cell phone, anyway?”
“That’s it?” Luce asked. “How did I get a cell phone? You’re not mad at me?”
Callie let out a long sigh. “You know, I thought about being mad. I even practiced this whole fight in my mind. But then we both lose.” She paused. “And the thing is, I just miss you, Luce. So I figured, why waste time?”
“Thank you,” Luce whispered, close to tears—happy ones. “So, what’s been going on with you?”
“Unh-unh. I’m in charge of this conversation. That’s your punishment for dropping off my radar. And what I want to know is: What’s going on with that guy? I think his name started with a C?”
“Cam.” Luce groaned. Cam was the last guy she’d told Callie about? “He didn’t turn out to be … the kind of guy I thought he was.” She paused for a moment. “I’m seeing someone else now, and things are really …” She thought of Daniel’s glowing face, the way it had darkened so quickly during their last meeting outside her window.
Then she thought of Miles. Warm, dependable, charmingly no-drama Miles, who’d invited her home to his family’s house for Thanksgiving. Who ordered pickles on his hamburgers at the mess hall now even though he didn’t like them—just so he could pick them off and give them to Luce. Who tilted his head up when he laughed so that she could see the sparkle in his Dodgers-cap-shaded eyes.
“Things are good,” she finally said. “We’ve been hanging out a lot.”
“Ooh, bouncing around from one reform school boy to the next. Living the dream, aren’t you? But this one sounds serious, I can hear it in your voice. Are you going to do Thanksgiving together? Bring him home to face the wrath of Harry? Hah!”
“Um … yeah, probably,” Luce mumbled. She wasn’t totally sure whether she’d been talking about Daniel or Miles.
“My parents are insisting on some big family reunion in Detroit that weekend,” Callie said, “which I am boycotting. I wanted to come visit, but I figured you’d be locked up in reformville.” She paused, and Luce could picture her curled up on her bed in her dorm room at Dover. It seemed like a lifetime ago since Luce had been at school there herself. So very much had changed. “If you’ll be home, though, and bringing reform school boy, try and stop me.”
“Okay, but Callie—”
Luce was interrupted by a squeal. “So it’s settled? Imagine: In one week we’ll be curled up on your couch, catching up! I’ll make my famous kettle corn to help us through the boring slide shows your dad will show. And your crazy poodle will be going berserk. …”
Luce had never actually been to Callie’s brownstone in Philadelphia, and Callie had never actually been to Luce’s house in Georgia. They’d both only seen pictures. A visit from Callie sounded so perfect, so exactly what Luce needed right now. It also sounded utterly impossible.
“I’ll look up flights right now.”
“Callie—”
“I’ll email you, okay?” Callie hung up before Luce could even respond.
This was not good. Luce flipped the phone shut. She shouldn’t have felt like Callie was intruding by inviting herself to Thanksgiving. She should have felt great that her friend still wanted to see her. But all she felt was helpless, homesick, and guilty for perpetuating this stupid cycle of lies.
Was it even possible to just be normal and happy anymore? What on earth—or beyond it—would it take for Luce to be as content with her life as someone like Miles seemed to be? Her mind kept circling around Daniel. And she had her answer: The only way she could be carefree again would be to have never met Daniel. To have never known true love.
Something rustled in the treetops. A frigid wind assailed her skin. She hadn’t been concentrating on an Announcer specifically, but she realized—just as Steven had told her—that her wish for answers must have summoned one.
No, not one.
She shivered, looking up into the tangle of branches. Hundreds of stealthy, murky, foul-smelling shadows.
They flowed together in the high redwood branches over her head. Like someone in the clouds had tipped over a giant pot of black ink that had spread across the sky and dripped down into the canopy of the trees, bleeding one branch into another until the forest was a solid wash of blackness. At first it was almost impossible to tell where one shadow stopped and the next one began, which shadow was real and which an Announcer.
But soon they began to morph and make themselves obvious—slyly at first, as if they were moving innocently in the fading light of the day—but then more boldly. They pinched themselves free from the branches they’d been occupying, wrenching their tendrils of blackness down, down, close to Luce’s head. Beckoning or threatening her? She steeled herself but couldn’t catch her breath. There were too many. It was too much. She gasped for air, trying not to panic, knowing it was already too late.
She ran.
She started south, back toward the dorm. But the swirling black abyss in the treetops just moved with her, hissing along the lower branches of the redwoods, drawing closer. She felt the icy pinpricks of their touch on her shoulders. She yelped as they groped for her, swatting them away with her bare hands.
She changed course, swung herself around in the opposite direction, toward the Nephilim lodge to the north. She would find Miles or Shelby or even Francesca. But the Announcers wouldn’t let her go. Immediately, they slithered ahead, swelling out in front of her, swallowing the light and blocking the path to the lodge. Their hissing drowned out the distant murmurs of the Nephilim campfire, making Luce’s friends seem impossibly far away.
Luce forced herself to stop and take a deep breath. She knew more about the Announcers than she ever had before. She should be less afraid of them. What was her problem? Maybe she knew she was getting closer to something, some memory or information that could alter the course of her life. And her relationship with Daniel. The truth was, she wasn’t just terrified of the Announcers. She was terrified of what she might see within them.
Or hear.
Yesterday, Steven’s mention of tuning out the Announcers’ noise had finally clicked—she could listen in on her past lives. She could cut through the static and focus on what she wanted to know. What she needed to know. Steven must have meant to give her this clue, must have known she would listen and take her new knowledge straight to the Announcers.
She turned and stepped back into the dark solitude of the trees. The whooshing sounds from the Announcers quieted and settled.
The darkness under the branches engulfed her in cold and the peaty smell of decomposing leaves. In the twilight, the Announcers crept forward, settling into the dimness all around her, camouflaging themselves again among the natural shadows. Some of them moved swiftly and stiffly, like soldiers; others had a nimble grace. Luce wondered whether their appearances reflected anything about the messages they contained.
So much about the Announcers still felt impenetrable. Tuning them in wasn’t intuitive, like fiddling with an old radio dial. What she’d heard yesterday—that one voice among the riot of voices—had come to her by accident.
The past might have been unfathomable to her before, but she could feel it pressing up against the dark surfaces, waiting to break into the light.
She closed her eyes and cupped her hands together. There, in the darkness, her heart pounding, she willed them to come out. She called on those coldest, darkest things, asking them to deliver her past, to illuminate her and Daniel’s story. She called on them to solve the mystery of who he was and why he had chosen her.
Even if the truth broke her heart.
A rich, feminine laugh rang out in the forest. A laugh so clear and full, it felt as if it were surrounding Luce, bouncing off the branches in the trees. She tried to trace its origin, but there were so many shadows gathered—Luce didn’t know how to pinpoint the source. And then she felt her blood go cold.
The laughter was hers.
Or had once been hers, back when she was a child. Before Daniel, before Sword & Cross, before Trevor … before a life full of secrets and lies and so many unanswerable questions. Before she’d ever seen an angel. It was too innocent a laugh, too carefree to belong to her anymore.
A breath of wind swirled in the branches overhead, and a scattering of brown redwood needles broke off and showered to the ground. They pattered like raindrops as they joined a thousand predecessors on the mulchy forest floor. Among them was one large frond.
Thick and feathery, fully intact, it drifted slowly down somehow outside the power of gravity. It was black instead of brown. And instead of falling to the ground, it drifted lightly onto Luce’s outstretched palm.
Not a frond, but an Announcer. As she leaned down to examine it more closely, she heard the laughter again. Somewhere inside, another Luce was laughing.
Gently, Luce gave the Announcer’s prickly edges a pull. It was more pliant than she expected, but cold as ice and tacky against her fingers. It grew larger at the lightest touch. When it had grown to about a square foot, Luce released it from her grip and was pleased to watch it hover at eye level in front of her. She made a special effort to focus—on hearing, on tuning out the world around her.
Nothing at first, and then—
One more rising laugh sang out from within the shadow. Then the veil of blackness shredded and an image inside became clear.