Rapture

“No,” Roland said. “Enough priceless damage has been done. We should spend our energy finding the second relic.”

“At least let us make sure they stay down while we do that,” Annabelle said.

Roland looked at Daniel, who nodded.

With a smile, Annabelle flitted to a table against the back wall of the warehouse. She turned on a faucet, humming to herself. She poured what Luce assumed must be plaster of Paris or some other casting agent into a bucket and started adding water.

“Arriane,” she said with bravado. “A hand, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Arriane took the first bucket from Annabelle and flew over the semiconscious Scale, smiling sweetly. Slowly, she began to pour the wet slurry over their heads. It slopped down their sides and gathered in a pool between their bodies. A few of them struggled against the thickening mixture, which was hardening quickly into a kind of artificial quicksand. Luce recognized the genius of the plan. In a few moments, when it dried, they would be stuck in their sprawled positions in rocklike plaster.

“This is not wise!” one of the Scale burbled through the wet plaster.

“We’re making you monuments to Justice!” Annabelle shouted.

“You know, I think I prefer the Scale when they’re plastered.” Arriane laughed, betraying more than a tinge of vengeful glee.

The girls kept pouring, bucket after bucket, a full bucket over the threatening angels’ heads, until their voices did not carry anymore, until the Outcasts had no need to stand over the Scale with their starshots.

Daniel and Roland stood apart from the group, arguing in hushed voices. Luce stared at Arriane’s purple bruise, at the blood on Roland’s wings, at the gash in Annabelle’s shoulder.

Then she had an idea.

She reached inside the satchel and pulled out three small bottles of diet soda and a handful of starshots in their silver sheath. She twisted off the caps.

Quickly, she dipped a starshot into each one, holding the bottles as they boiled and steamed, letting the brown liquid inside turn to silver. Finally, she rose from the corner where she’d been crouched, and was pleased to find a Chinese porcelain tray that had somehow survived the battle.

“Here, everyone,” she said.

Daniel and Roland stopped talking.

Arriane stopped dousing the Scale with wet plaster.

Annabelle alighted on the lion statue’s mane again.

None of them said anything, but all of them looked impressed as they claimed their bottles, clinked each other’s in celebration, and drank.

Unlike the Outcast Daedalus, the angels didn’t have to close their eyes and go to sleep after they’d downed the transformed soda. Maybe because they weren’t as badly beaten, or maybe because this higher form of angel had a higher tolerance. Nonetheless, the drink calmed them.

As a final gesture, Roland clapped his hands, igniting a powerful flame between them. He threw waves of heat toward the plastered Scale, glazing their plaster coating, making it harder to escape than their cloaks.

When he was finished, Roland, Arriane, Annabelle, and Luce sat down on one of the tall tables facing Daniel.

Daniel reached for the satchel and unzipped it to show the others the halo.

Arriane gasped in awe and reached out to touch it.

“You found it.” Annabelle winked at Luce. “Proper!”

“What about the second relic?” Daniel asked. “Did you get it? Did the Scale take it from you?” Annabelle shook her head. “We never found it.”

“We sure fooled them,” Arriane said, narrowing her eyes in the direction of the Scale. “They thought they could beat it out of us.”

“Your book is too vague, Daniel,” Roland said. “We came to Vienna looking for a list.”

“The desideratum,” Daniel said. “I know.”

“But that was all we knew. In the hours between our arrival and our capture by the Scale, we went to seven different city archives and found nothing. It was foolish.

We attracted too much attention.”

“It’s my fault,” Daniel muttered. “I should have uncovered more when I wrote that book centuries ago. I was too impulsive and impatient in that era. Now I can’t recall what led me to the desideratum, or precisely what it says.”

Roland shrugged. “It might not have mattered anyway. The city was a minefield by the time we arrived. If we’d had the desideratum, they would have only taken it away. They would have destroyed it, the way they’ve caused the destruction of this art.”

“Most of these pieces were forgeries anyway,” Daniel said, making Luce feel a little less guilty about what they’d done to the museum. “And for now the Outcasts can handle the Scale. The rest of us must hurry to find the desideratum. You say you went inside the Hofburg Library?”

Roland nodded.

“What about the university library?”

“Um, yeah,” Annabelle said, “and we probably shouldn’t show our faces there anytime soon. Arriane destroyed several very valuable parchment scrolls in their Special Collections—”

“Hey,” Arriane snapped, indignant. “I glued them back together!”

A thunder of footfalls sounded in the hallway and all heads shot toward the open archway. At least twenty more Scale were attempting to fly into the room, but the Outcasts held them at the doorway with their starshots.

One of them spotted the halo in Daniel’s hand and gasped. “They have stolen the first relic.”

“And they are working together! Angels and demons and”—narrowed eyes fell on Luce—“those who do not know their place, all working together for an impure cause. The Throne does not endorse this. You will never find the desiderata!”

“Desiderata,” Luce said, faintly recalling a long boring lesson in her Latin class at Dover. “That’s . . . singular.” She spun around to face Daniel. “You said desideratum a moment ago. That’s plural.”

“Desired thing,” Daniel whispered. His violet eyes began to pulse, and soon his entire being seemed to be glowing—a smile of recognition spread across his face.

“It’s just one thing. That’s right.”

Then the deep gong of a church tower clock sounded somewhere in the distance.

It was midnight.

Lucifer was another day closer. Six days to go.

“Daniel Grigori,” Phil shouted over the bells, “we cannot hold them forever. You and your angels must go.”

“We’re leaving,” Daniel called back. “Thank you.” He faced the angels. “We will visit every library, every archive in this city until—”

Roland looked doubtful. “There must be hundreds of libraries in Vienna.”

“And maybe let’s try not to be so destructive in them?” Annabelle suggested, tilting her head at Arriane.

“Mortals care about their pasts, too.” Yes, Luce thought, mortals cared very much about their pasts. Memories of her past lives were coming to her more frequently. She couldn’t stop or slow them. As the angels readied their wings to fly, Luce stood still, de-bilitated by the most intense flashback.

Crimson hair ribbons. Daniel and the Christmas market. A slushy rainstorm and she hadn’t had a coat. The last time she’d been in Vienna . . . there had been more to that story . . . something else . . . a doorbell—

“Daniel.” Luce gripped his shoulder. “What about the library you took me to? Remember?” She closed her eyes. She wasn’t thinking so much as feeling through a memory buried shallowly in her brain. “We came to Vienna for the weekend . . . I don’t remember when, but we went to see Mozart conduct The Magic Flute . . . at the Theater an der Wien? You wanted to see this friend of yours who worked at some old library, his name was—”

She broke off, because when she opened her eyes, the others were staring at her, incredulous. No one, least