Rapture

slipped up her arms as she genuflected, exposing wrists adorned with stacks and stacks of pearl bracelets.

Miss Sophia.

Luce pushed off Daniel to climb one step higher, desperate for a better view. The wide columns ob-structed the majority of the chapel, but when Daniel helped her just a little farther up the stairs, she could see more. There were not one but three altars in the room, not one but three scarlet-robed women ritually lighting candles all around them. Luce didn’t recognize two of them.

Sophia looked older, more tired than she had behind her librarian’s desk. Luce wondered briefly if it was because she had gone from surrounding herself with teenagers to running with beings who hadn’t been teenagers in several hundred years. That night, Sophia’s face was painted, lips like blood. The robe she wore was dusty and dark with rings of sweat. Hers had been the chanting voice. When she started up again in a language that sounded like Latin but wasn’t, Luce’s whole body clenched. She remembered it.

This was the ritual that Miss Sophia had performed on Luce the last night she’d been at Sword & Cross.

Miss Sophia had been just about to murder her when Daniel came crashing through the ceiling.

“Pass me the rope, Vivina,” Miss Sophia said. They were so consumed by their dark ritual that they did not sense the angels crouched along the stairs outside the chapel. “Gabrielle looks a little too comfy. I’d like to bind her throat.”

Gabbe.

“There is no more,” Vivina said. “I had to double bind Cambriel here. He was squirming. Ooh, he still is.”

“Oh my God,” Luce whispered. Cam and Gabbe were there. She assumed the presence of a third robed lady meant Molly was there, too.

“God has nothing to do with this,” Dee said under her breath. “And Sophia is too crazy to know it.”

“Why are the fallen being so quiet?” Luce whispered.

“Why don’t they resist?”

“They must not realize that this place is not a sanctuary of God,” Daniel said. “They must be in shock—

I know I would be—and Sophia must be using it to her advantage. She knows they’re worried that anything they do or say might make the church erupt into flames.”

“I know how they feel,” Luce whispered. “We have to stop her.” She started for the door, emboldened by the fresh memory of Elders they’d destroyed outside, by the power of the angels behind her, by Daniel’s love, by the knowledge of the two relics they had already discovered. But a hand clamped her shoulder, drawing her back into the corridor.

“All of you stay here,” Dee whispered, making eye contact with each of the angels to ensure they understood. “If they see you, they will know Luce is with you.

Wait here.” She pointed to the columns, thick enough for three angels to hide behind. “I know how to handle my sister.”

Without another word, Dee strode into the chapel, her heels slapping the black-and-white tile floor.

“I’d say you’ve been given quite enough rope, Sophia,” Dee said.

“Who’s there?” Vivina yelped, startled in mid-genuflection.

Dee crossed her arms over her chest as she walked around the altars, clucking in mock disapproval of the Elders’ work. “Very shoddy dressing. Leave it to Sophia to bring her B game to a sacrifice with cosmic and eternal implications.”

Luce was desperate to study the reaction on Miss Sophia’s face, but Daniel held her back. There were a scraping sound, a melodramatic gasp, and a cruel soft cackle.

“Ah yes,” Miss Sophia said. “My tramp sister returns, just in time to witness my finest hour. This will trump your overrated piano recital!”

“You’re really very dumb.”

“Because I don’t have the recommended brand of rope?” Sophia snorted.

“Forget the rope, dope,” Dee said. “You’re dumb in many dozens of ways, not the least of which is thinking you might get away with this.”

“Do not condescend to her!” hissed the third Elder.

“There’s really no other way to approach her,” Dee instantly replied.

“Thank you, Lyrica, but I can handle Paulina,” Sophia said without looking away from Dee. “Or what do you have people call you now? Pee?”

“You know very well it is Dee. You only wish you knew why.”

“Ah yes, Dee. Biiiiiig difference. Well, let us enjoy our brief reunion as best we can.”

“Let them go, Sophia.”

“Let them go?” Sophia cackled. “But I want them dead.” Her voice rose and Luce pictured her hand sweeping over the angels bound upon the altars. “I want her dead most of all!”

Luce couldn’t even gasp. She knew whom the librarian meant.

“It won’t stop Lucifer from erasing your existence.” Dee’s voice sounded almost sad.

“Well, you know what Daddy always used to say:

‘We’re all Hell-bound, anyway.’ Might as well try to get what we want while we’re on this Earth. Where is she, Dee?” Sophia spat. “Where is the mewling child Lucinda?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Dee’s voice was smooth. “But I have come to keep you from finding out.” Now Daniel let Luce press a little closer to the first chapel’s entrance.

“I hate you!” Sophia shouted, pouncing on Dee. Roland turned to look at Daniel, asking with his eyes if they should interfere. Daniel seemed confident in the desiderata’s abilities. He shook his head once.

Sophia’s assistant Elders watched from their altars as the two sisters rolled across the floor, moving out of, then back into Luce’s view. Dee on top, then Sophia, then Dee on top again.

Dee’s hands found Sophia’s neck and squeezed. The old Sword & Cross librarian’s face glowed red as her hands strained against Dee’s chest and she struggled to survive.

Slowly, Sophia worked her knee up until it pressed deeply into her sister’s stomach to push her back. Dee’s arms were fully extended, reaching to keep their hold on Sophia’s neck. She gazed down on her sister’s rage- distorted face, her eyes on fire with hatred.

“Your heart turned black, Sophia,” Dee said, her voice soft with something like nostalgia. “It was like a light went off. No one could turn the light back on. We could only try to stop you from running over us in the dark.” Then she released Sophia, allowed her to draw a huge and panicked breath into her lungs.

“You betrayed me,” Sophia gasped as Dee took her sister’s collar in her hands, closed her eyes, and moved to slam Sophia’s skull against the tiles of the mosaic floor.

But instead there came a long shriek as Dee was launched into the air. Sophia had kicked her with a force Luce had forgotten the old woman possessed. She leaped to her feet. She was sweating and red in the face, her hair white and wild, as she ran to where Dee had come to rest several feet away. Luce rose on her toes and winced when she saw Dee’s eyes were closed.

“Ha!” Sophia returned to the altars and reached beneath the one binding Cam. She pulled out a sheath of starshots.

Back in the alcove Roland glanced at Daniel again.

This time Daniel nodded.

In an instant, Arriane, Annabelle, and Roland flew from their hiding places into the room. Roland drove toward Miss Sophia, but at the last instant, she ducked and deftly avoided him. His wing slapped her across the face, but she had eluded his grasp.

In the face of angel wings, the two other Elders cow-ered, shrinking in panicked fear. Annabelle held them back while Arriane flicked open a Swiss Army knife from her pocket—the pink one, the same one Luce had used to cut the girl’s hair months earlier—and sawed at the ropes binding Gabbe to the altar.

“Stop or I’ll kill him!” Sophia shouted at the angels as she tore out a fistful of arrows and leaped on Cam.

Straddling him, she raised the silver shafts above his head.

His dark hair was matted and greasy. His hands were pale and trembling. Miss Sophia studied these details