Passion

them over the water, still singing softly under her breath. Then she turned to walk north along the bank, toward a huge old carob tree with branches that drooped into the river.

A boy sat beneath it, staring into the current. His long legs were propped up close to his chest, with one arm draped over them. The other arm was skipping stones into the water. His green eyes sparkled against his tan skin. His jet-black hair was a little shaggy, and damp from a recent swim.

“Oh my god, that’s—” Shelby’s cry was cut off by Daniel’s hand clamping over her mouth.

This was the moment he’d been afraid of. “Yes, it’s Cam, but it’s not the Cam you know. This is an earlier Cam. We are thousands of years in the past.”

Miles narrowed his eyes. “But he’s still evil.”

“No,” Daniel said. “He’s not.”

“Huh?” Shelby asked.

“There was a time when we were all part of one family. Cam was my brother. He was not evil, not yet. Maybe not even now.”

Physically, the only difference between this Cam and the one Shelby and Miles knew was that his neck was bare of the sunburst tattoo he’d gotten from Satan when he’d thrown in his lot with Hell. Otherwise, Cam looked exactly as he did now.

Except that this long-ago Cam’s face was stiff with worry. It was an expression Daniel hadn’t seen on Cam in millennia. Probably not since this very moment.

Lilith stopped behind Cam and wrapped her arms around his neck so that her hands rested just over his heart. Without turning or saying a word, Cam reached up and cupped her hands in his. Both of them closed their eyes, content.

“This seems really private,” Shelby said. “Should we be—I mean, I feel weird.”

“Then leave,” Daniel said slowly. “Don’t make a scene on your way out—”

Daniel broke off. Someone was walking toward Cam and Lilith.

The young man was tall and tanned, dressed in a long white robe, and carrying a thick scroll of parchment. His blond head was down, but it was obviously Daniel.

“I’m not leaving.” Miles’s eyes locked on Daniel’s past self.

“Wait, I thought we just sent that guy back into the Announcers,” Shelby said, confused.

“That was a later early version of myself,” Daniel said.

“A later early version of myself, he says!” Shelby snorted. “Exactly how many Daniels are there?”

“He came from two thousand years in the future beyond the moment where we are right now, which is still one thousand years in the true past. That Daniel shouldn’t have been here.”

“We’re three thousand years in the past right now?” Miles asked.

“Yes, and you really shouldn’t be.” Daniel stared Miles down. “But that past version of me”—he pointed at the boy who had stopped next to Cam and Lilith—“belongs here.”

Across the river, Lilith smiled. “How are you, Dani?”

They watched as Dani knelt down next to the couple and unrolled the scroll of parchment. Daniel remembered: It was their marriage license. He’d inscribed the whole thing himself in Aramaic. He was supposed to perform the ceremony. Cam had asked him months before.

Lilith and Cam read over the document. They were good together, Daniel remembered. She wrote songs for him and spent hours picking wildflowers, weaving them into his clothes. He gave all of himself to her. He listened to her dreams and made her laugh when she was sad. Both of them had their volatile sides, and when they argued, the whole tribe heard about it—but neither one of them was yet the dark thing they would become after they split up.

“This part right here,” Lilith said, pointing to a line in the text. “It says we will be married by the river. But you know I want to be married in the temple, Cam.”

Cam and Daniel shared a look. Cam reached for Lilith’s hand. “My love. I’ve already told you I cannot.”

Something hot rose in Lilith’s voice. “You refuse to marry me under the eyes of God? In the only place where my family will approve of our union! Why?”

“Whoa,” Shelby whispered on the other side of the stream. “I see what’s happening. Cam can’t get married in the temple … he can’t even set foot in the temple, because—”

Miles began to whisper, too: “If a fallen angel enters the sanctuary of God—”

“The whole thing bursts into flames,” Shelby finished.

The Nephilim were right, of course, but Daniel was surprised by his own frustration. Cam loved Lilith, and Lilith loved Cam. They had a chance to make their love work, and as far as Daniel was concerned, to Hell with everything else. Why was Lilith so insistent on being married in the temple? Why couldn’t Cam give her a good explanation for his refusal?

“I won’t set foot in there.” Cam pointed at the temple.

Lilith was close to tears. “Then you don’t love me.”

“I love you more than I ever thought possible, but it doesn’t change a thing.”

Lilith’s thin body seemed to swell with rage. Could she sense that there was more to Cam’s refusal than merely some wish to deny her? Daniel didn’t think so. She clenched her fists and let out a long, shrill scream.

It seemed to shake the earth. Lilith grabbed Cam’s wrists and pinned him against the tree. He didn’t even struggle.

“My grandmother never liked you.” Her arms trembled as she held him down. “She always said the most terrible things, and I always defended you. Now I see it. In your eyes and your soul.” Her eyes bored into him. “Say it.”

“Say what?” Cam asked, horrified.

“You’re a bad man. You’re a—I know what you are.”

It was clear that Lilith didn’t know. She was grasping at the rumors that flew around the community—that he was evil, a wizard, a member of the occult. All she wanted was to hear the truth from Cam.

Daniel knew that Cam could tell Lilith, but he wouldn’t. He was afraid to.

“I am none of the bad things anyone says I am, Lilith,” Cam said.

It was the truth and Daniel knew it, but it sounded so much like a lie. Cam was on the brink of the worst decision he would ever make. This was it: the moment that broke Cam’s heart so that it rotted into something black.

“Lilith,” Dani pleaded with her, pulling her hands away from Cam’s throat. “He is not—”

“Dani,” Cam warned. “Nothing you can say will fix this.”

“That’s right. It’s broken.” Lilith let go, and Cam fell backward into the dirt. She picked up their marriage contract and flung it into the river. It spun slowly in the current and sank. “I hope I live a thousand years and have a thousand daughters so there will always be a woman who can curse your name.” She spat in his face, then turned and ran back to the temple, her white dress flowing behind her like a sail.

Cam’s face turned as white as Lilith’s wedding robe. He reached for Dani’s hand to help himself up. “Do you have a starshot, Dani?”

“No.” Dani’s voice shook. “Don’t talk like that. You’ll get her back, or else—”

“I was naïve to think I could have gotten away with loving a mortal woman.”

“If you’d only told her,” Dani said.

“Told her? What happened to me—to all of us? The Fall and everything since?” Cam leaned closer to Dani. “Maybe she’s right about me. You heard her: The whole village thinks I am a demon. Even if they won’t use the word.”

“They know nothing.”

Cam turned away. “All this time I’ve been trying to deny it, but love is impossible, Dani.”

“It is not.”

“It is. For souls like ours. You’ll see. You may hold out longer than I could, but you’ll see. Both of us will eventually have to choose.”

“No.”

“So quick to protest, brother.” Cam squeezed Dani’s shoulder. “It makes me wonder about you. Don’t you ever think about it … crossing over?”