Cam welcomed them as they swarmed around him. Soon they had formed a massive army of embodied night behind Cam.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smacking his forehead with his palm. “Did you tell me not to do that?”
“Daniel,” Luce whispered. “What’s happening?”
“Why did you call an end to the truce?” he called to Cam.
“Oh. Well. You know what they say about desperate times.” Cam sneered. “And watching you plaster her body with those perfectly angelic kisses of yours … it made me feel so desperate.”
“Shut up, Cam!” Luce shouted, hating that she’d ever let him touch her.
“In good time.” Cam’s eyes rolled over to her. “Oh yes, we’re going to brawl, baby. Over you. Again.” He stroked his chin and narrowed his green eyes. “Bigger this time, I think. A few more casualties. Deal with it.”
Daniel gathered Luce in his arms. “Tell me why, Cam. You owe me that much.”
“You know why,” Cam boomed, pointing at Luce. “She’s still here. Won’t be for long, though.”
He put his hands on his hips, and a series of dense black shadows, now shaped like endless fat serpents, slithered up along his body, encircling his arms like bracelets. He petted the largest one’s head dotingly.
“And this time, when your love blows into that tragic little puff of ash, it’s going to be for good. See, everything’s different this time.” Cam beamed, and Luce thought she felt Daniel quake for just a second.
“Oh, except one thing is the same—and I do have a soft spot for your predictability, Grigori.” Cam took a step forward. His shadow-legions inched up accordingly, making Luce and Daniel, and Penn and Miss Sophia, inch back. “You’re afraid,” he said, pointing dramatically at Daniel. “And I’m not.”
“That’s because you have nothing to lose,” Daniel spat. “I would never trade places with you.”
“Hmmm,” Cam said, tapping his chin. “We’ll see about that.” He looked around, grinning. “Must I spell it out for you? Yes. I hear you may have something bigger to lose this time. Something that’s going to make annihilating her so much more enjoyable.”
“What are you talking about?” Daniel asked.
To Luce’s left, Miss Sophia opened her mouth and let out a howling string of feral noises. She waved her hands wildly over her head in a jerking dancelike motion, her eyes almost transparent, as if she were in some sort of trance. Her lips twitched, and Luce realized with a shock that she was speaking in tongues.
Daniel took Miss Sophia’s arm and shook her. “No, you are absolutely right: It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered, and Luce realized he could understand Miss Sophia’s strange language.
“You know what she’s saying?” Luce asked.
“Allow us to translate,” a familiar voice shouted from the roof of the mausoleum. Arriane. Next to her was Gabbe. Both seemed to be lit from behind and were enshrouded in a strange silver glow. They hopped down from the crypt, landing next to Luce without a sound.
“Cam’s right, Daniel,” Gabbe said quickly. “Something’s different this time … something about Luce. The cycle could be broken—and not the way we want it to. I mean … it could end.”
“Someone tell me what you’re talking about,” Luce said, butting in. “What’s different? Broken how? What’s at stake with this whole battle, anyway?”
Daniel, Arriane, and Gabbe all stared at her for a moment as if trying to place her, as if they knew her from somewhere but she’d changed so completely in an instant that they no longer recognized her face.
Finally Arriane spoke up. “At stake?” She rubbed at the scar on her neck. “If they win—it’s Hell on earth. The end of the world as anyone knows it.”
The black shapes screeched around Cam, wrestling with and chewing on each other, in some sort of sick, devilish warm-up.
“And if we win?” Luce struggled to get out the words.
Gabbe swallowed, then said gravely, “We don’t know yet.”
Suddenly Daniel stumbled back, away from Luce, and pointed at her. “Sh-she hasn’t been …,” he stammered, covering his mouth. “The kiss,” he said finally, stepping forward to grip Luce’s arm. “The book. That’s why you can—”
“Get to part B, Daniel,” Arriane prompted. “Think fast. Patience is a virtue, and you know how Cam feels about those.”
Daniel squeezed Luce’s hand. “You have to go. You have to get out of here.”
“What? Why?”
She looked at Arriane and Gabbe for help, then shrank away from them as a host of silver twinkles began to flow over the roof of the mausoleum. Like an endless stream of fireflies released from an enormous mason jar. They rained down on Arriane and Gabbe, making their eyes shine. It reminded Luce of fireworks—and of one Fourth of July, when the light had been just right and she’d looked into her mother’s irises and seen the fireworks’ reflection, a booming silvery flash of light, as if her mother’s eyes were a mirror.
Only, these twinkles didn’t peter into smoke like fireworks. When they hit the cemetery grass, they bloomed into graceful, shimmery iridescent beings. They weren’t exactly human shapes, but they were vaguely recognizable. Gorgeous, glowing rays of light. Creatures so ravishing that Luce knew instantly they were an army of angelic power, equal in size and number to the great black force behind Cam. This was what true beauty and goodness looked like—a spectral, luminescent gathering of beings so pure it hurt to look directly at them, like the most glorious eclipse, or maybe Heaven itself. She should have felt comforted, standing on the side that had to prevail in this fight. But she was starting to feel sick.
Daniel pressed the back of his hand to her cheek. “She’s feverish.”
Gabbe patted Luce on the arm and beamed. “It’s okay, sugar,” she said, guiding Daniel’s hand away. Her drawl was somehow reassuring. “We’ll take it from here. But you have to go.” She glanced over her shoulder at the horde of blackness behind Cam. “Now.”
Daniel pulled Luce to him for one last embrace.
“I’ll take her,” Miss Sophia called loudly. The book was still tucked under her arm. “I know a safe place.”
“Go,” Daniel said. “I’ll find you as soon as I can. Just promise me you’ll run from here, and that you won’t look back.”
Luce had so many questions. “I don’t want to leave you.”
Arriane stepped between them and gave Luce a final, rough shove toward the gates. “Sorry, Luce,” she said. “Time to leave this fight to us. We’re kind of professionals.”
Luce felt Penn’s hand slide into hers, and soon they were running. Pounding up toward the gates of the cemetery as quickly as she’d bounded down on her way to find Daniel. Back up the slippery mulch slide. Back through the jagged live oak branches and the ramshackle stacks of broken headstones. They hurdled the stones and jogged up the slope, making for the distant ironwork arch of the gates. Hot wind blew her hair, and the swampy air still lay thick in her lungs. She couldn’t find the moon to guide them, and the light in the cemetery’s center was gone now. She didn’t understand what was happening. At all. And she didn’t like it at all that everyone else did.