“Don’t look at me,” he pleaded. “When a mortal sees an angel’s true essence, then—you can see what happened to the others. I can’t let you leave me again so soon. Always so soon—”
“I’m still here,” Luce insisted.
“You’re still—” He was crying. “Can you see me? The true me?”
“I can see you.”
And for just a fraction of a second, she could. Her vision cleared. His glow was still radiant but not so blinding. She could see his soul. It was white-hot and immaculate, and it looked—there was no other way to say it—like Daniel. And it felt like coming home. A rush of unparalleled joy spread through Luce. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a bell of recognition chimed. She’d seen him like this before.
Hadn’t she?
As her mind strained to draw upon the past she couldn’t quite touch, the light of him began to overwhelm her.
“No!” she cried, feeling the fire sear her heart and her body shake free of something.
“Well?” Bill’s scratchy voice grated on her eardrums.
She lay against a cold stone slab. Back in one of the Announcer caves, trapped in a frigid in-between place where it was hard to hold on to anything outside. Desperately, she tried to picture what Daniel had looked like out there—the glory of his undisguised soul—but she couldn’t. It was already slipping away from her. Had it really even happened?
Luce closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly what he’d looked like. There were no words for it. It was just an incredible, joyous connection.
“I saw him.”
“Who, Daniel? Yeah, I saw him, too. He was the guy who dropped the ax when it was his turn to do the chopping. Big mistake. Huge.”
“No, I really saw him. As he truly is.” Her voice shook. “He was so beautiful.”
“Oh, that.” Bill tossed his head, annoyed.
“I recognized him. I think I’ve seen him before.”
“Doubt it.” Bill coughed. “That was the first and last time you’ll be able to see him like that. You saw him, and then you died. That’s what happens when mortal flesh looks upon an angel’s unbridled glory. Instant death. Burned away by the angel’s beauty.”
“No, it wasn’t like that.”
“You saw what happened to everyone else. Poof. Gone.” Bill plopped down beside her and patted her knee. “Why do you think the Mayans started doing sacrifices by fire after that? A neighboring tribe discovered the charred remains and had to explain it somehow.”
“Yes, they burst into flames right away. But I lasted longer—”
“A couple of extra seconds? When you were turned away? Congratulations.”
“You’re wrong. And I know I’ve seen that before.”
“You’ve seen his wings before, maybe. But Daniel shedding his human guise and showing you his true form as an angel? Kills you every time.”
“No.” Luce shook her head. “You’re saying he can never show me who he really is?”
Bill shrugged. “Not without vaporizing you and everyone around you. Why do you think Daniel’s so cautious about kissing you all the time? His glory shines pretty damn bright when you two get hot and heavy.”
Luce felt like she could barely hold herself up. “That’s why I sometimes die when we kiss?”
“How ’bout a round of applause for the girl, folks?” Bill said snarkily.
“But what about all those other times, when I die before we kiss, before—”
“Before you even have a chance to see how toxic your relationship might become?”
“Shut up.”
“Honestly, how many times do you have to see the same story line before you realize nothing is ever going to change?”
“Something has changed,” Luce said. “That’s why I’m on this journey, that’s why I’m still alive. If I could just see him again—all of him—I know I could handle it.”
“You don’t get it.” Bill’s voice was rising. “You’re talking about this whole thing in very mortal terms.” As he grew more agitated, spit flew from his lips. “This is the big time, and you clearly cannot handle it.”
“Why are you so angry all of a sudden?”
“Because! Because.” He paced the ledge, gnashing his teeth. “Listen to me: Daniel slipped up this once, he showed himself, but he never does that again. Never. He learned his lesson. Now you’ve learned one, too: Mortal flesh cannot gaze upon an angel’s true form without dying.”
Luce turned away from him, growing angrier herself. Maybe Daniel changed after this lifetime in Chichén Itzá, maybe he’d become more cautious in the future. But what about the past?
She approached the limit of the ledge inside the Announcer, looking up into the vast, gaping blackness that tunneled above into her dark unknown.
Bill hovered over her, circling her head as if he were trying to get inside it. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re only going to end up disappointed.” He drew close to her ear and whispered. “Or worse.”
There was nothing he could say to stop her. If there was an earlier Daniel who still dropped his guard, then Luce was going to find him.
SIXTEEN
BEST MAN
Daniel was not entirely himself.
He was still cloven to the body he had joined with on the dark fjords of Greenland. He tried to slow down as he left the Announcer, but his momentum was too great. Heavily off-balance, he spun out of the darkness and rolled across rocky earth until his head slammed into something hard. Then he was still.
Cleaving with his past self had been a vast mistake.
The simplest way to split apart two entwined incarnations of a soul was to kill the body. Freed from the cage of the flesh, the soul sorted itself out. But killing himself wasn’t really an option for Daniel. Unless …
The starshot.
In Greenland, he had snatched it from where it lay nestled in the snow at the edge of the angels’ fire. Gabbe had brought it along as symbolic protection, but she would never have expected Daniel to cleave and steal it.
Had he really thought he could just drag the dull silver tip across his chest and split apart his soul, casting his past self back into time?
Stupid.
No. He was too likely to slip up, to fail, and then instead of splitting his soul, he might accidentally kill it. Soulless, Daniel’s earthly guise, this dull body, would wander the earth in perpetuity, searching for its soul but settling for the next best thing: Luce. It would haunt her until the day she died, and maybe after that.
What Daniel needed was a partner. What he needed was impossible.
He grunted and rolled over onto his back, squinting into the bright sun directly overhead.
“See?” a voice above him said. “I told you we were in the right place.”
“I don’t see why this”—another voice, a boy’s this time—“is proof of us doing anything right.”
“Oh, come on, Miles. Don’t let your beef with Daniel keep us from finding Luce. He obviously knows where she is.”
The voices drew closer. Daniel opened his eyes in a squint and saw an arm slice the light of the sun, extending toward him.
“Hey there. Need a hand?”
Shelby. Luce’s Nephilim friend from Shoreline.
And Miles. The one she’d kissed.
“What are you two doing here?” Daniel sat up sharply, rejecting Shelby’s offered hand. He rubbed his forehead and glanced behind him—the thing he’d collided with was the gray trunk of an olive tree.
“What do you think we’re doing here? We’re looking for Luce.” Shelby gaped down at Daniel and wrinkled her nose. “What’s wrong with you?”