All That Lives Must Die

SECTION VIII. GRADUATION

Light streamed through the wall of windows and lit the black-and-white checkerboard floor of Miss Westin’s waiting room. It was ordinary sunlight, but Fiona winced at it. She wasn’t used to real light yet.

Eliot sat on the padded lounge next to her. He squirmed in his school uniform, but then smoothed out the wrinkles and look halfway comfortable.

Fiona shifted uneasily in her uniform, too. Even one of Madame Cobweb’s custom-fit creations felt wrong on her today.

Then again, everything felt wrong this morning.

She scooted away from Eliot and got out her phone. She checked the time: five minutes before their appointment. They were early for once.

Although this one time, she wouldn’t have minded being late. Very late.

She checked the time again, though, just to be sure, because she didn’t trust any clock since they’d been in the Poppy Lands. Fiona thought they had been there a day-two days, tops-while they got the railroad tracks fixed and then rode that creepy Night Train back to the Market Street BART Station.

But the time on Earth?

They’d been gone fifty-eight days. More than eight weeks.

Mr. Welmann told her before they left that time worked differently for the dead, and it worked very differently for the damned dead.

Great for them.

For the living, though-namely her, Eliot, and Robert-they’d missed most of spring semester, the last two matches in gym class, and finals. . which was why Miss Westin had called them up to her clock-tower office.

Fiona had no doubt the Headmistress was going to fail them. She could see her chewing them out and then having Mr. Dells march them off campus and slam the gates shut on them.

She checked the time, scared that it’d somehow slip away from her again.

Four minutes to go.

She looked at her text messages. Nothing new. . just that last message from Mitch-how he told her he had some family business to take care of (technically, not a lie).

She felt a twinge and something hollow where her stomach used to be as she remembered how he had taken her on magical walks. . how she’d loved his company then. . and that last moment together in Hell. . and everything that could’ve been between them.

Before her ex-boyfriend had planted a sword in his back.

She pushed that thought aside. She had to focus on the disaster that was about to happen.

What was Audrey going to say when they got kicked out? And the League of Immortals? Their two new star members were going to flunk their first year.

Of course, Audrey hadn’t even been home when they’d come back. Cee had been all over them, tried to feed them, coddle them, and then she’d told them that Audrey had heard what had happened. She’d gone to the League Council to decide what they were going to do.

Decide what they were going to do, that is, without her or Eliot’s input. As usual.

She cast a sidelong glance at her brother. Time, however, hadn’t been the only thing that had gotten away from her in Hell.

She’d lost a part of Eliot down there.

Okay-first off, she acknowledged that them missing school wasn’t entirely his fault. There was no way he could have known about that time-in-Hell thing.

And it wasn’t his fault that Amanda had exploded. No one could have seen that coming, either.

She swallowed, feeling as if she were still drowning in guilt about that, though.

But Eliot had made the choice to take a piece of the Infernals’ lands and become the lord of that domain. No matter how small his land was. . that still made him an Infernal Lord.

He’d gotten exactly what he set out to get: his evil, backstabbing, sort-of girlfriend was now free of Sealiah. Eliot would be able to handle her as well as he could control a runaway nuclear chain reaction with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver.

He was in way over his head.

And what was he going to tell Audrey? Hi, Mom. Guess what happened while we ditched school? I joined your enemies, the fallen angels.

And there he sat, looking as smug as if he’d just won seven rounds of vocabulary insult. His hair, uncut all year, was all curls and cowlicks, but he was finally able to pull back. Despite the astonishing and astronomical odds against it, Eliot almost looked cool.

Crazy. This entire situation.

Maybe Uncle Henry could help her slip Eliot some quick electroshock therapy to bring him back to his senses.

But really, what did it mean to own land in Hell and be called an Infernal Lord? It was just a title, right? He couldn’t really be one of them.

The door to Miss Westin’s office opened and the pale boy who had ushered them before emerged. He bowed. “Good Lady and Master,” he said. “Please, the Headmistress will see you now.”

Fiona’s heart pounded in her throat. She was like a little kid again about to be punished for leaving her clothes on the floor. How did the adults in her life always do that to her?

Eliot got to his feet.

There was no way she was going to let him be the brave one, so she stood, got ahead of him, and led the way.

Fiona remembered Miss Westin’s office as being long-but today it seemed like it had stretched to the length of a football field as they walked past dozens of Tiffany lamps, acres of walnut paneling, a hundred different doors (which Fiona was sorely tempted to bolt through). There were all those oil painting and class photographs, too.

She spotted one picture that made her stop in her tracks. Eliot did the same, and they stared at a group of freshmen.

Among the hundred or so students were Tamara Pritchard, David Kaleb, and even, much to Fiona’s chagrin, Jeremy and Sarah Covington.

It was their freshman class portrait. . one they weren’t in because they’d obviously missed picture day at school.

Her hands twisted together, and for a moment she wanted to cut that thing in half-right through Jeremy Covington’s face.

“Nice,” she muttered, and kept walking.

Miss Westin’s desk was a few paces ahead. Last time there had been no place to sit. Today, four high-backed chairs sat opposite the Headmistress. Not a good sign. Miss Westin obviously wanted them off their feet when she delivered the bad news.

Miss Westin sat there, nodded, and murmured something, but didn’t spare either of them a glance. Her attention was focused solely on those chairs.

There was another person. A pair of skinny legs and the edge of a skirt dangled over the seat, but the chair’s high back obscured the rest.

Miss Westin finally finished and then gestured for that person to leave. Only then did the Headmistress glance at Fiona and Eliot, and all traces of civility left her face.

The other person got out of their chair.

Fiona stared, not believing what she saw.

“You’re. . dead,” Eliot whispered.

Amanda Lane looked them over. Her lips pressed into a frown, and her gaze narrowed.

For someone whom Fiona had seen blown to smithereens, Amanda looked great. Her school uniform was neatly pressed. A tiny daisy was pinned to her lapel. Her hair had been cut and feathered back from her face-hair that now had a lot more auburn in it that Fiona recalled.

She wanted to run over and give her a hug, but Fiona still couldn’t believe she was real.

Amanda stood tall and proud, though. Her skin flushed and Fiona felt the unnatural heat from where she stood.

“I’m not dead,” she told them. “Obviously. But no thanks to either of you.”

“The bridge. .,” Eliot started.

“And that volcano. .,” Fiona added.

“I did those things,” Amanda said, her voice rising. “And what’d I get for my trouble? For risking my life? No one came back to even look for me. Do you know how hard it is to climb out of a river of lava? While it’s solidifying?”

Fiona blinked and tried to process this. Shy, helpless Amanda was telling them she had caused all that massive geological-scale upheaval-and then had survived it, apparently immune to the tremendous heat.

“Do you know how long I had to look until I found those stupid train tracks?” Amanda set her hands on her hips. “And how long I walked until I found the tunnel back to the Market Street station?”

“I’m so sorry,” Fiona said. “We just assumed. .”

“I was ready to die for you guys,” Amanda told her. Despite the heat coming from her, her voice was icy. “And you just marched off looking for Jezebel. What kind of friends are you?”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. She wanted to tell her they got a little occupied trying to outrun a tidal wave of magma-worried about the millions of damned souls that might’ve chased after them-oh, and not to mention their complete astonishment at seeing her turn into a miniature sun and then going supernova on them.

Eliot, however, spoke first. “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “We shouldn’t have left you there. No matter what. I’m sorry.”

Amanda’s lip trembled, and Fiona thought she might cry.

She stuck out her chin, though, and recovered. “At least I know where I stand with my so-called friends now.” She moved past them, adding in a whisper, “At least the people I thought were my friends.”

Amanda crossed Miss Westin’s office and slammed the door shut.

Fiona was thrilled to see her alive, but she wasn’t sure what was more shocking: seeing her alive, or seeing her so strong. . and so angry. Fiona felt like Amanda had just kicked her in the stomach.

Miss Westin tapped a pen on her desk to get their attention.

Fiona and Eliot hurriedly took their seats.

The high-backed chair was hard, squeaky, and uncomfortable. Eliot sat two spots away from her.

Miss Westin examined them and steepled her hands on her desk. “Miss Lane has embraced the Fire of Humanity. It is a great responsibility. A great burden as well. She needs good friends at a time like this.”

That’s all Fiona needed was another “friend” who hated her (although that wasn’t completely accurate, because right now, she didn’t have any friends).

“And where is Mr. Farmington?” the Headmistress inquired.

Eliot and Fiona looked at each other.

“Was he supposed to be with us?” Fiona asked.

Miss Westin made a note in her little black book and didn’t answer.

Funny how she asked after Robert, but not Mitch. How much did she know?

“Down to business, then,” Miss Westin said. She tapped the large computer touch screen that doubled as the surface of her desk, and their official Paxington school records popped open. “I have here a list of regulations you have broken, and a few new rules that have been created to cover your uniquely reckless behavior.”

With her long bony index finger, she traced down this list. “Unauthorized departure from campus during school hours. . missing weeks of class and gym practice without prior written approval. . destruction of school property-”

“We didn’t break anything,” Eliot said, annoyed.

“Your uniforms,” Miss Westin told him. “You have paid for them, but technically that is only a lease. All things bearing the Paxington insignia are school property in perpetuity.”

She glared at him. Eliot met her eyes without flinching.

“And,” she continued, “there is still a matter of you missing your final exams in Mythology 101, Force of Arms, and the Power of Music class-not to mention the final match in gym.”

She looked at Fiona as if expecting her to say something in her defense.

What could she say? They had missed everything.

Fiona had heard about the final in gym: all the teams at once on the obstacle course-and for once, no time limit. Mr. Ma had only eliminated the slowest two people from the roster. There’d been a broken finger and one dislocated arm.

Some final. What a joke.

Meanwhile she, Eliot, and Robert had been in a real war.

She wanted to tell Miss Westin what she could do with her list of infractions, but she kept her mouth shut. Nothing was going to save them now. And being rude to an adult who is technically correct? Fiona had been brought up better than that.

Miss Westin continued to stare at her. . the silence stretching on and on.

Eliot cleared his throat. “Was there something else, ma’am?”

“There most certainly is,” Miss Westin replied.

The Headmistress opened a drawer and pulled out two legal-sized parchments.

Fiona held her breath. This was it. They were going to officially flunk out-Miss Westin was going to sign some papers and they’d be told to leave.

Fiona stared at the documents. They smelled of brimstone and there were wax seals and gilt inscriptions and blood spatters. Fiona tried to read the upside-down lettering, but it was mostly little triangles and arcs and dots.

“I have here,” Miss Westin explained, “signed and notarized affidavits from Sealiah, Infernal Queen of the Poppy Lands, and Lucifer, Prince of Darkness and Lord of the Mirrored City. They describe how you two were instrumental to their victory in the recent civil war in the Lower Realms against Mephistopheles.”

Miss Westin paused and arched an eyebrow. “Quite impressive.”

Fiona blinked, not entirely understanding.

“They have petitioned the School Board,” Miss Westin continued, “that in lieu of your classes and final examinations that your actions be considered. . ‘off-campus work experience.’ ” She brushed the pages aside. “After consultation, the Board has ruled in your favor.”

Fiona couldn’t believe it. Was she hearing, right?

“So. .,” Fiona whispered softly (because she thought if she said this too loud, it might pop her fragile hope). “We’re still in school?”

“Provisionally,” Miss Westin said, and gave that single word the weight of a falling executioner’s ax. “Mr. Ma has accepted your participation in battle as proof that you would have passed his final examination in gym and Force of Arms class. Ms. DuPreé has likewise waived Eliot’s participation in her final concert.”

Fiona sighed.

“But,” Miss Westin said, “I do not accept you missing my classes or final.”

She produced two more papers and slid one each toward Fiona and Eliot.

In the fine print was a list of books-Bulfinch’s Mythology, everything ever written by Cicero, Languorous Lullabies, Golden’s Guide to Extraordinary Books, and on and on, dozens of texts, endless volumes, and ancient scrolls.

“Read these over the next few months,” Miss Westin explained, “and you may then take my makeup final examination at the end of summer.”

This was as much reading as they’d been assigned for the entire year. So much for getting a break.

Fiona had read some of these already, however, digging up background on Zeus and the rest of her Immortal family. Still, even for her it’d be a spend-every-free-moment-of-vacation-with-nose-in-book deal.

“Thank you,” Eliot said, and tucked the paper into his pocket. “You didn’t have to do this.”

If Fiona had been sitting in the seat next to him, she would’ve elbowed him in the ribs. Why did he say that? Did he want her to change her mind?

Miss Westin’s features softened a bit, and she set her hands flat on her desk. “You’re quite welcome, Eliot. I recognize both your unique talents and your unusual circumstances.” Her face hardened once more. “But let me make this perfectly clear: You get only this one chance.”

Fiona swallowed. “Got it,” she said. “We’ll pass the final, no problem.”

Miss Westin took out her pocket watch and glanced at it. “Now, if you children don’t mind, I have another appointment.” She nodded to the door at the far end of her office.

Fiona and Eliot got up. Fiona tried to walk with as much dignity as possible toward the exit. Once she was outside-then she could collapse. How was it that she was able to march into Hell, charge an army of the damned, but almost flunking a few classes turned her to jelly?

She stood straighter. She was a goddess in the League of Immortals, after all. She didn’t have to feel this way.

Besides, there were lots of other more important things to consider than school. She still had to figure out her place in the world. How she fit in among the Immortals. . and how to stop the Infernals from messing everything up again.

She nodded at the pale boy by the door and he opened it.

Fiona and Eliot walked into the waiting room. She blinked in the sudden sunlight. As her eyes adjusted, she saw two other students waiting for Miss Westin.

Sarah and Jeremy Covington.

Their uniforms were immaculate. Sarah had her hair up and coiffed. Jeremy’s long hair was back and tied with a black ribbon so he looked like a Colonial revolutionary.

“Why, Fiona!” Jeremy beamed and opened his arms wide as if to embrace her.

Sarah stood there, mortified. She looked at the floor.

“ ’Tis a delight to see you back,” Jeremy continued as if nothing were wrong-as if he hadn’t slammed the Gates of Perdition on them.

Fiona finally found her voice, at least a low growl of a voice, and said, “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t cut you in half-right here and now.”

Eliot, who had been calm and collected all morning, didn’t try to stop her; instead, he merely crossed his arms and glared at Jeremy.

“Ah. .” Jeremy’s smile faded a bit. “Well, you’d miss my good looks and charm, wouldn’t ye?”

Fiona’s hands twitched and she fingered the rubber band on her wrist. It took all her will to keep her blood from boiling, and from doing something she wasn’t quite sure she’d regret.

The pale boy behind them said, “Pardon me, Masters and Ladies, but Miss Westin would like to see the Covingtons.”

Jeremy tilted his head. “And I suppose because you’d be murdering me in front of the Headmistress?” His impish smile returned.

Fiona hissed out a sigh.

Jeremy’s expression sobered. “Look dearie, what happened at the gate-’twasn’t what I had planned. But you and Eliot are all right. Perhaps we should let bygones be bygones?” He extended a hand.

Eliot snorted.

Fiona glared at his proffered gesture like it was a rattlesnake. “Once we are out of the picture, did you and Sarah get on a winning team like you wanted?”

Jeremy tilted his head, but said nothing.

“If I ever catch you off campus,” Fiona said, “there won’t be any rules or Headmistress to save you.”

“Oh, Fiona.” Jeremy retracted his hand. “I so love your hotheadedness. Completely endearing. You’ll come around.”

He squeezed past her and entered Miss Westin’s office.

Sarah remained where she was. “I am so, so sorry,” she squeaked. “He’s always doing things like this. There’s this archaic seniority system in the Clan Covington. . and he’s technically the eldest member. I have to go along.”

“You don’t have to go along with murder,” Fiona said.

Sarah flinched. She looked deeply conflicted, and then finally said, “Aye. You’re right. There’s no excuse for what we did. I promise, I will make amends.”

She nodded to Eliot and then Fiona, and hurried into Miss Westin’s office.

“Maybe she wasn’t to blame,” Eliot said. “Jeremy did throw her back at the last moment before he locked the gate. She couldn’t have been responsible.”

“Whatever,” Fiona muttered. “I’ve got better things to do than worry about the Covingtons right now.”

She glanced at her book list, picking out the ones she’d already read trying to track down what had happened to Zeus.

Zeus, the once-leader of the Immortals, the one who had united them against the Titans, and had led them against all odds in battle with the Infernals.

A leader. That’s precisely what the world and the Immortals needed-now more than ever.

Fiona stood there. . as a plan took shape in her mind.

Sealiah, undisputed Queen of the Poppy Lands and the Hysterical Kingdoms, shivered with pleasure. No more armor. While the metal plates, layers of chain mail, and padding had been a necessity to survive, she required a new kind of protection for today’s dangers.

She spun, and the layers of gold chiffon drifted about her and then settled against the coppery curves of her body. Much better.

She was alone in her map room. No guards. No Jezebel. The Post twins long departed-and the sounds of all their whining and pleading for their lost loves finally silenced.

She lingered a moment, thinking of Robert Farmington.

Him she would miss. She did so appreciate a hero of few words.

Overcast light filtered through the open windows and mingled with the shadows.

Sealiah slipped into a pair of gold sandals and checked the fit of her summer dress, making sure just enough was hidden and just enough showed through its sheer layers. It was infinitely impractical, and yet the most effective tack for those she was about to face: her cousins on the Board. Those malefactors would never dream of a simple frontal attack. . when they had such expertise in the art of betrayal.

Her best defense was distraction.

She moved to the map table and examined the dire state of the battle when it had last been updated: her twelve towers surrounded and Mephistopheles marching upon her.

Tiny figurines lay on their sides, souls that had fought for her cause. She touched one, a Napoleonic dragoon, and righted it with her fingertip.

Tragic was their suffering. . but why else had these souls come to her domain? That was their fate. It was what they deserved. It was what they wanted.

What would they do if she released them? Would the souls of the damned be lost without their torment? Would they even know where to go after all this time? Or would they crawl to her and beg her to take them back?

Well, she would never know. They were forever hers.

These philosophical musing aside, the important thing was that she had prevailed in the war by her superior cunning-or, at least, she had not been so distracted by noble sentiments as poor Mephistopheles had.

She touched the shattered obsidian figurine that represented her Infernal cousin.

And where was his soul now? Dust and ashes? Somewhere rich and strange and far beyond her? Or some place dark and deep-torment that not even she could imagine? That was always the question, was it not? The rhyme and reason for all that happened since they had left their brother and sister angels in the light.

She sighed. What silly sentimentality and dreams of things no longer possible.

She swept the obsidian shards off the table.

Mephistopheles has been a fool. He could have won; he should have won, had he but tempted Fiona to his side. . the thing that almost happened at that last precarious moment.

Almost.

Pity. Love. Honor. Weaknesses all that had caused his downfall.

And yet, she wished, just for once, one of her kind would act thusly toward her. Even her departed Uri’s ambition had tainted his loyalty. Where was her unrequited, self-sacrificing hero?

Sealiah laughed halfheartedly and drew a cover over the map table, desperately trying to ignore the lump in her throat. . the longing for just one taste of love again.

She inhaled and banished these thoughts. They were dangerous at any time for their kind-doubly so before a Board meeting.

She turned her attention to the smaller table that held the circular mat and stones of her Towers game.

Sealiah touched the cubes and retraced her moves-the maneuvering of her Jezebel to Paxington-capturing Eliot in her orbit and with him drawing in his sister and Robert-all vital pieces used in her final ploy.

She shuddered with satisfaction. It had been a good opening round.

But far from over.

She moved the basalt cube that represented Jezebel to the opposite side, stacking it upon the two stones that were now Eliot’s, nestled them together in the square that was his domain, The Burning Orchards. Precisely where she wanted them.

Wheels turning within wheels, as Louis was fond of saying.

She then stroked the stack of three white stones that now displayed hairline cracks. That was Fiona Post. Indeed, she had plans for her as well.

Sealiah dragged her fingernail along the curve of the game board until she rested upon another white cube, whose edges had been smudged with soot.

Would this be her hero? A minor piece, to be sure, but often it was useful to let some pawns believe they were knights. . at least for a time.

A knock on the door distracted her. Sealiah’s temper flared, and then cooled as she recalled the circumstances of today.

“Come,” she commanded.

The door opened, and one of her personal maids entered and immediately fell to her knees.

“Are they ready?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the maid said, groveling upon the floor. “They have assembled and await your glory.”

With a flourish, Sealiah floated past the supplicant maid and up the spiral staircase. She emerged atop the tower called the Oaken Keeper of Secrets. Overhead the sky was luminous silver, the sun properly buried behind puffy layers of steaming altostratus clouds.

She strolled into the hedge maze of her tea garden, past the legion of gardeners who made sure the topiary was in tip-top shape, clip-clip-clipping the thorns and twisted branches of the agonized souls within, which had been meticulously shaped into rows of flamingos and prancing horses and elephants balanced upon turtles.⁶⁹

Heirloom roses bloomed at her approach, and their colors popped along the perfumed pathway. She stepped in the center yard, where fountains sprayed champagne and a long table had been set with a hundred different teakettles, trays overflowing with pastries and sandwiches, and serving sets arranged with raw sugar and opium honey and lemons and cream and three dozen types of serving spoons and red current jam and orange marmalade and royal queen bee jelly.

All these preparations and delicacies, of course, were lost on her assembled cousins. . save, perhaps, Ashmed, the Chairman of the Infernal Board and Master Architect of Evil.

He stood at her approach, brushed his lips with a napkin, and pulled out a chair next to his at the head of the table. Ashmed was as professional and handsome as ever, in a light gray suit and silver tie, tastefully accessorized with mirror-polished gold cuff links. His hair was groomed into a dark wave, and he smiled, genuinely pleased to see her.

And why not? Sealiah and delivered for him and the others the means of their salvation.

And Sealiah-now with lands and armies to rival Ashmed’s-was his near equal in power.

It was a powerful aphrodisiac.

She bowed graciously and took her seat (first, however, looking about the table for any potential threats. . of which there were many).

Abby, The Destroyer, Handmaiden of Armageddon, and Mistress of the Palace of Abomination sat on her immediate left-a little too close for comfort. Abby had wrapped herself with black velvet ribbon, skintight over her slender curves. She played with a mouse, letting it scurry across the table-then trapping it with an upturned bone china cup-letting it go-capturing it again. . and laughing all the while at the creature squeaking its sufferings.

A giant wasp sat on Abby’s shoulder, cleaning its antennae.

Across the table sat Leviathan, the Beast, Horror of the Abyssal Depths. About him was a disaster of broken plates and cups and saucers and spilled teas-which he dabbed up with a fistful of sponge cake. With his other hand, he brushed crumbs from the ripples of his tent-sized Nike jumpsuit and smiled a mouthful of food at her.

Sitting by himself at the other end of the table was Louis.

Sealiah hide her surprise as well, but she feared she let slip a double take.

Louis looked. . delectable.

His hair had been trimmed short and neat on the sides, and the rest drawn back into a ponytail of silver and black and secured with a bloodred ribbon. His sideburns pointed to a stylish soul patch and pencil-thin mustache. He wore a black Armani tuxedo and a white shirt with diamond studs for buttons.

He smiled at her-all promises and remembrances of the passion that they had shared in the past.

This version of Louis had been copied by men throughout history: Don Juan, Clark Gable, Brad, and Johnny-all who were adored and made women’s hearts pitter-pat. None, however, did it as well as Louis. . the original seducer of them all.

Flowing off his shoulders was a cloak so rich and black, the material seemed to absorb the light. It had been stolen by Mephistopheles long ago, and recovered by Louis on the battlefield. It looked better on Louis. Truly, Lucifer was back among them, the real Prince of Darkness, now fully restored to his proper power and prowess and pride.

Gooseflesh crawled up Sealiah’s arms and over her chest and caressed her neck. She shivered and regained her composure. “Lies and salutations, Cousins.”

“That was some nice work,” Lev muttered to Sealiah, spilling half-chewed contents from his mouth. “Never thought you’d get Meph to turn his back on you!” He made a fist and shoved it into the air for emphasis (jiggling his layers of fat as he did so). “Bang-O. A classic move.”

Abby lost her concentration at Lev’s motions and accidentally slammed her cup down too hard on her rodent plaything-smashing china and fur and splintering the table. She frowned at her broken toy, then shot the Beast a cross look.

She turned to Sealiah and raised both her eyebrows. “I suppose congratulations are in order,” she grudgingly offered.

That was the first. Sealiah had never heard Abby utter a kind word before.

Indeed, things were changing.

Sealiah inclined her head, and with tremendous difficulty, she replied, “Thank you very much, Cousins.”

Ashmed cleared his throat, uncomfortable with all these pleasantries. “Perhaps before we all lose our collective heads with Sealiah’s success, we should take care of one procedural item first.”

All of them glanced at Louis as he straightened in his chair, intensified his smile, and remained uncharacteristically silent.

“We have numerous petitions and pleas to be considered for the vacancy on the Board.” Ashmed gestured to a stack of paperwork on the table, considered it, and brushed it onto the ground. He lit one of his Sancho Panza Belicoso cigars and flicked the still-flaming match onto the heap of papers. They burned and the flames reflected in his dark eyes. “I move that we instead vote for Louis. His expertise with his son and daughter has proved invaluable. . and will continue to do so.” Ashmed puffed and blew smoke rings. “Besides,” he added with mock sincerity, “we have so missed him.”

There was silence in the garden as the Board considered. Even the bees stopped their incessant buzzing, leaving only the sound of the foaming champagne fountain.

Sealiah had never recalled silence at any Board meeting. Perhaps after a scuffle when their personal retainers lay about bloody and dead, but this was something else.

Abby finally shrugged. “Fine,” she said. “Whatever.”

Lev nodded. “Yeah, sure, why not?”

Sealiah held her tongue as she considered all the possibilities swirling about her: war and peace, victory and obliteration, all deliciously tempting. But most curious to her was that her cousins seem to be agreeing and moving forward because of Eliot and Fiona. Those two were the catalysts.

Yes, it was the end of all they knew, and the beginning of something wonderfully horrid.

As Sealiah had predicted and wisely positioned herself to be in the center of. . and benefit the most from all who would suffer.

The one thing she had not predicted, however, was Louis.

He looked proud of his new potential position on the Board, yet wary, his gaze flitting from person to person. . and then lingering upon her.

Would he be her greatest adversary? An ally? Both?

Whichever outcome, she could ill afford not to keep him near, where he could be watched.

“Of course,” she said without taking her eyes off Louis. “He would be a most welcome addition.”

Louis smiled, part shield, part gloat-which faltered but for an instant.

But in that instant, Sealiah detected something else in the Great Deceiver’s eyes: a flicker of indecision. And yes. . vulnerability.

She had seen such a look on him when he had been at his son’s side, proud and worried and so piteously feigning his indifference. She had also seen him protect Fiona on the battlefield (placing himself in danger for her sake). What else could it be but a father’s protectiveness? Even love?

Such foolishness. She envied him this love, but she also knew it would destroy him.

Sealiah settled into her chair, knowing everything was going to be all right now, her plans would remain on track, and soon she would command all.

There was, of course, one minor detail left to arrange: Fiona. But she would see to that soon enough. She smiled, thinking how pleasurable it might be.

“Very well,” Ashmed said, and stood. “By acclamation we welcome Louis Piper to the Infernal Board of Directors.”

Louis stood as if to make a speech, but Ashmed cut him off. “Alas, all ceremony and pomp must be postponed. The League of Immortals will move quickly to block our progress.”

Louis sank back into his seat, looking sullen.

Lev smashed his huge fist on the table-destroying that end of the table. “Let’s crush them before they can see it coming.”

“Precisely what I was thinking, Cousin,” Ashmed said. “Let us then discuss how to best use Eliot Post to destroy them, and how he will lead us in a glorious war.”

Sealiah’s smile intensified, knowing that war was inevitable. As was their victory.

69. Father Francis Limehouse, an associate of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) reported in his diary having related his “daft and endless” dreams to Mr. Dodgson of visiting a garden party with a less-than-mentally-stable hostess and company. In 1886, Limehouse was defrocked for alleged sexual liaisons with various socialites of the era, and soon thereafter died from a morphine overdose. Mythohistorians speculate that Lime house’s dreams may have been an opiate-induced, near-death experience-and the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Dodgson’s subsequent “Alice” books might have been a secondhand account of the Poppy Queen’s nightmarish realm in the nineteenth century. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 13, Infernal Forces. Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.

Cornelius-once called Cronos, and later Chronos; the sole surviving Titan in the Middle Realms; Ph.D. from MIT with degrees in computer science, political engineering, and theoretical physics; and Professor Emeritus of Stanford University-sat in the lotus position staring into the depths of the program running on his tablet computer. . traces of red and blue chaos that looked much like a butterfly in flight. He had missed the last Council meeting in order to implement the last lines of code. It had been worth the time and effort, though; it would give him a glimpse of their future.

Audrey would have called it “unscrambling a tangle in the weave of Fate.”

He called it meticulous programming and multivariate transcendental calculus.

He looked up, resting his old eyes, and taking in where he was (for sometimes he became so absorbed in the mathematics of the thing. . that he forgot what precisely that “thing” was).

Had he a map he could have pointed to the Aegean Sea, between modern-day Greece and Turkey. A place once called Ieiunium Aequora or “Hungry Water” by Byzantine sailors for all the ships that entered the region vanished.

Today no such thing occurred. It was just another stretch of water among a million other stretches of similar waters. . with a tiny rock of an island.

Millennia ago, however, that rock had been the high point of an archipelago upon which sat the grand city-state of Altium, grandest city of Atlantis. It had perched upon its hills like a bejeweled crown.

Under dark water, and accessible only through a submerged cavern guarded by beasts of mechanical construct, the city lay buried and sleeping.

In grottoes and forever in shadows were palaces, streets, gold-paved plazas, statues of heroes and gods and Titans and the mighty things that came before them; libraries with mountains of moldering scrolls; paintings that showed earthly paradises, battles among races that no longer lived, and portraits of the most beautiful men and women who ever existed-now all so faded, one could barely see a glimmer of their glory. It made him sad to think of how all was lost to Time.

Among this decaying splendor was the temple where Cornelius now sat, whose central domed chamber was held aloft by ivory mammoth tusks and columns of cracked crystal, and whose floors was paved with turquoise and lapis and jade.

This was the Chamber of Whispers, where Zeus had hatched his plan to overthrow the Titans.

Cornelius shifted on the uncomfortable stone bench, and rearranged the Dodger Stadium seat cushion he’d brought along with him.

Much better.

Within this chamber, holding the Council’s most precious secrets, was the Vault Eternal. The mad genius and master mechanic, Daedalus, had fashioned it to be impenetrable, with locks so intricate that even after a thousand years of study, Cornelius had only a hint of how it worked. To open it required three keys and three combinations simultaneously applied.

Proof against any thief.

One of the three keys was held by him.

Another key was held by Lucia, who had perched on the bench to his left.

She had toweled off from her recent swim through the entrance and had slipped into a set of ordinary sweats. Even in the gray cotton she looked elegant. Women had talents that eluded his scientific senses. . and he appreciated that.

Lucia was wise, but always competing with the beauty of her younger sister, the ferocity of her older sister, and with herself (never quite perfect enough to live up to her impossible standards).

“Narro, Audio, Perceptum,” Lucia said, and rang her tiny silver bell. The tinkling echoed off the dome and was swallowed by the silence of this place. “I call this meeting of the Council of Elders for the League of Immortals to order.”

Gilbert sat opposite them. He glanced at his watch as if expecting someone to show (and indeed this was a possibility), but the deep worry on his face was something Cornelius had never seen on the Once King.

Kino sat on Cornelius’s right and wore black slacks and white shirt. He and Cornelius had come here together in Gilbert’s submersible. It had been a quiet, unpleasant journey.

Aaron stood apart from them, still dripping in his EVERLAST trunks, his chest hair plastered to his muscular chest.

Henry was missing.

In absentia also was Dallas-called before the Council by special summons. Her tardiness would no doubt be an excuse for Lucia to try to punish the girl.

No surprise, really, that neither had showed. It was not in their natures to respond to authority.

Audrey, however, had also failed to arrive. . and she was never late or shirked her responsibilities once she accepted them. It was a dark omen.

“I suppose we have a quorum,” Gilbert admitted, and glanced again at his watch.

“Have we all seen Fiona’s e-mail?” Lucia asked.

They nodded. Cornelius opened the document on his computer.

Fiona’s e-mail was a pledge to help the Immortals defend themselves from “the looming threat of Infernal machinations and incursions into our world” as well as a plea to help her find new leadership to stop this threat.

“I’m enormously pleased with this development,” Lucia said. “Fiona has matured far beyond my expectations. We need to bring her onto the Council; perhaps some sort of internship?”

“She is a child still,” Gilbert protested.

“Hardly,” Aaron muttered. “She has fought and won a war in Hell! What more proof do you need for abilities?”

“Of her abilities?” Kino said. “None.” He made a sideways slash with his hand. “But she is barely a woman and in desperate need of our guidance.”

“Yes, guidance,” Lucia said. “Which brings me to the other matter, one our spies in the Lower Realms have brought to our attention. Eliot.”

Kino stood. “The boy is now a landed Infernal Lord who is also half Immortal. This is a disaster! His powers will grow beyond our measure, and his mind will warp until it is evil.”

Aaron shook his head. “I don’t believe that. Not Eliot.”

Gilbert looked uncomfortable between the two men, and he stood as well. “I do not wish to discuss Audrey’s children if she is not here.”

“There is no discussion necessary,” Lucia told them. She got to her feet, and her cheeks flushed. “This has already been decided, last year-for just such a contingency. You all put your mark to the document, even you, Gilbert! Do not evade responsibility when it becomes difficult.”

They stood in silence (save Cornelius, who remained seated in silence). They knew exactly what she was talking about.

Last year when they had proclaimed Fiona a young goddess and Eliot a hero within the League, the Council had feared this very thing: one or both of the children’s Infernal sides would call to them, and they would succumb to its temptations.

Each Council member had signed a Warrant of Death so action could be taken without delay. All that remained was for Lucia to fill in the date and the document became binding. . and every one of the League’s members would be compelled to find and destroy Eliot.

Cornelius rubbed his hands to ease the arthritic ache within his bones.

In truth, his loyalties were conflicted, for he liked Eliot and Fiona. There were grandchildren to him. . at least, that was how he had begun to think of them.

His own children were lost. Zeus had met his fate. No one had seen him since Ultima Thule, and Cornelius knew in his heart he was dead. Poseidon had taken his own life in a flash of light, and his ashes were now scattered across the seas he so loved. And Kino? The Lord of Death was so far from the child Cornelius had reared, he might as well be dead to him.

He sighed.

Violence was no stranger to this family. Cornelius’s children had plotted the genocide of Cornelius’s own primordial brothers and sisters. Oceans of blood had flowed that day. It had to be done, and Cornelius had chosen then to save the young members of his family by murdering the elder Titans.

Had not the same thing happened to him? Had he not killed his own father at the urging of his mother?⁷⁰

This time, however, something was different: it was not just his family-but the Infernals as well.

The fallen angels were insane and wielded far more power than the League. They were also alien and more evil than the primordial deities had ever been.

And where was the League’s leader this time to stop the gods’ petty disputes and rally them?

Cornelius’s gaze fell upon his computer and Fiona’s passionate e-mail.

Her, perhaps, if her great threat were removed.

Violence-why was that their solution to everything? Were not there other ways?

Yes. . but none better to permanently solve problems. He had seen so much: He knew this was the unpleasant truth. Or was it because he had seen so much that he was blind to any alternatives?

“Open the vault,” Cornelius whispered. “Retrieve the Death Warrant for Eliot.”

The others looked at him.

“Why do you say this?” Gilbert demanded. “More coldhearted mathematics?”

“This is not based on calculation,” Cornelius replied, “but rather that Fiona’s brother among all the Immortals and Infernals has been her greatest ally. . and is now her greatest vulnerability.”

Aaron looked as if he wanted to challenge this assertion, but he instead cupped his hand over his chin, thinking.

“What if she follows him as she ever has?” Cornelius continued. “But this time to the other side? Or worse, what if Eliot becomes so twisted that he. .”

Cornelius didn’t need to finish that thought. They had all seen brothers and sisters among their ranks murder one another.

“Very well,” Lucia said. “Kino? Cornelius?” She strode to the vault door, slender key already in her hand.

Kino joined her, and Cornelius fumbled out a key ring from his pocket.

Amid the keys to his VW bug, the trailer he lived in, post office box, and pool room, was the one required: the worn metal cylinder with vein-like ridges (more circuitry than mechanical lock).

He walked to the hinge portion of the vault door and found a proper keyhole.

Lucia and Kino held their keys. “On three,” Lucia said. “One, two-three.”

They inserted their keys.

Cornelius then dialed in the combination, sliding tiles encrusted with ancient symbols into the proper alignment.

As he did this a series of clanks and clacks and mechanical ratchetings vibrated within the vault door. . but there was also a grinding noise that he’d never before heard.

Lucia’s brows scrunched together at the noise as well.

Kino pulled on the door, his muscles tensing as tons of metal swung on a perfectly balanced hinge. He entered the vault chamber.

Cornelius peered through. Within were rows of sealed, spirit-filled Ming vases; jars of blue fluid containing floating brains, a lockbox kept for The King’s Men whose extra-dimensional spaces were best left forever sealed, Leonardo da Vinci’s one true notebook. . and similar, dangerous and fascinating objects.

Kino grabbed two alabaster scroll tubes and marched out.

Lucia hovered near Kino’s side, looking childlike next to his great height. Kino unstoppered the containers and shook out their contents-one for him and one for Lucia.

As they unrolled them Kino’s dark features turned pale, and Lucia’s face flushed deeper and twisted in outrage.

She held up the document for all of them to see: it was not the vellum Warrant of Death they had put in there for safekeeping, but rather a rolled-up New York Times crossword section.

“Where are they?” she demanded.

“The vault is impervious to force,” Kino said. “Proof against any thief.”

Cornelius approached. He took the newspaper crossword and held at arm’s length, squinting.

“Thirty seven across reads: fastest bird,” he said. “That would be a peregrine falcon.” Cornelius noted and recited the penned-in answer: “P-E-A-R-A-G-R-I-N.”

Only one among them had the talent to enter the vault without the keys. And only one spelled so poorly. . even when he was sober.

“Proof against any thief,” Lucia screeched, “but not foolproof. I want Henry found. I want him dragged in front of this Council!”

Cornelius slowly shook his head and took his seat. One might as well try to bottle the four winds.

He saw that his computer simulation was almost done. Good. Objective analysis would be most welcome at this point.

“We must draw new warrants,” Kino suggested.

“No,” Aaron told him. “I will not debate this without Audrey present.”

“You will do as this Council tells you,” Lucia said.

This was a mistake. Push Aaron, and he pushed back. Push him a second time-and he was likely to push hard enough to end the matter.

Aaron’s hands curled into fists, but then he relaxed and gazed at them all. He smiled-turned, and strode from the temple.

“If you leave in the middle of a session,” Lucia told him, “I will remove you from this Council.”

“Remove this.” Without turning to face her, Aaron held up his hand and made a gesture most ancient.

“So be it,” she murmured. “We shall vote in a new member to replace him.”

“Maybe,” Gilbert told her. “But we’re done for today. We no longer have a quorum.”

Lucia sighed with frustration.

A ping sounded from Cornelius’s computer tablet. His simulation to predict which side would prevail in a conflict with the Infernals ended.

The result flashed at the bottom of the screen: zero divided by zero. That was an unbounded result, one in which there is never enough information to define a true value as it bobbled between all values between zero and infinite.

There had been no programmatic error.

So what did it mean?

Dread congealed within Cornelius as he feared this meant that neither side would prevail. That only ashes and the primordial chaos would remain when they were done.

70. Cronos was offspring to the primordial entity and then self-proclaimed “ruler of the universe,” Ouranos. At the urging of his mother, Gaia, Cronos and all his brothers gathered to ambush their father. Only Cronos had the courage to do so. Even as he wept over his father’s body, the young Titan Cronos was proclaimed leader over the first generation of his kind. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 4, Core Myths (Part 1). Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.

There was tension in the air. It made the hair on the back of Eliot’s neck stand. Something was about to happen-why else had Miss Westin canceled their last class and marched every freshman into the Grand Spring Ballroom? They all stood facing a podium. . waiting.

From the grim silence that solidified around even the chattiest girls (Tamara Pritchard and her elite social circle)-Eliot knew this couldn’t be good.

Fiona stood next to him, arms crossed over her chest, looking annoyed and nervous and bored all the same time.

Where was Jezebel? Sealiah had said she would be back for the last day at Paxington. She had to know about the weird time effects in Hell.

The floor-to-ceiling curtains in the ballroom had been opened, and sunlight streamed through, warming Eliot’s face.

Why couldn’t he relax?

Everything had turned out okay. They had even made it through the school year (provided they passed the exam at the end of the summer).

And okay, sure, Mitch was gone, but he had been an Infernal who was out to draw Fiona into his world. That didn’t mean he deserved to die, though.

Amanda wasn’t dead, at least. He turned and spotted her at the back of the room.

She saw him looking, and glared back.

Miss Westin entered the room. She wore a white linen summer dress-which shocked Eliot after seeing her in nothing but those high-necked things all year. Her skin was the palest he’d ever seen. A spiderweb of blue veins traced her bare shoulders and neck. She smiled at the assembled students. Another first.

Mr. Dells, Ms. DuPreé, Mr. Ma, and a dozen other teachers Eliot had never seen before trailed in behind her.

Miss Westin went to the podium and faced them. “Salutations and congratulations,” she said. “I wish to extend my regards to those of you continuing at the Paxington Institute.” She took a deep breath. “And to those who will not, you did your best, and know that even surviving a single year at Paxington is an achievement to be proud of.”

She opened her little black book and gazed at it. “Will the following students come to the front of the room: Donald van Wyck, Lilly Orrins, Benito Harris. .” She read off twenty-six names.

These were the students who had failed, been expelled, or were so injured they couldn’t continue on at school. Add to that the six dead on Team Soaring Eagle and the total came to thirty-two.

The students so called then walked or limped to the front of the auditorium. (Lilly had to be pushed up in a wheelchair.)

How humiliating. It wasn’t bad enough they weren’t graduating, but Miss Westin had to parade them up in front of everyone?

It had to be especially hard for Donald van Wyck, who had been expelled earlier in the year. They must have brought him back just for this ceremony.

Mr. Dells moved to them. He looked apologetic. . but that didn’t stop the Gatekeeper from marching the more than two dozen ex-students to the door, ushering them through, and then escorting then across campus one last time.

Eliot wondered if Donald and the others were the lucky ones to be leaving. They could do whatever they wanted now-no more gym classes that could get you killed or maimed, and no more insane competition.

And yet, as Eliot looked back on this year he realized he’d learned so much about his music, his magic, his and the other magical families. Even Mr. Ma’s sadistic class had helped. If Eliot hadn’t been in shape, hadn’t been exposed to the cruelties of mock battle in gym-would he have survived the real war in Hell?

“Class catalogs and other information will be sent within the week,” Miss Westin continued. “Feel free to browse and prepare for next year’s courses. Registration materials will also be sent for those of you joining us for the summer session.” She removed her octagonal classes, and almost as an afterthought said, “And for the rest of you, enjoy your vacation.”

The surviving freshman class let out a collective sigh, and there were whoops of joy-and then they all broke into smaller groups, excitedly chattering to one another.

“We made it,” Fiona said with as much enthusiasm as if she’d just commented on the weather.

“Until next year,” Eliot replied.

Parents entered the ballroom, hugging their sons and daughters, clasping hands, and enjoying the moment. Apparently the Paxington rule about only students and instructors allowed on campus had been lifted today. The Scalagaris were easy to spot in their tailored suits and chiseled Italian features. There were some of the Dreaming Families here as well-Pritchards and Rhodes and De Marcos, all sporting Rolexes and looking literally like a million bucks.

Eliot wished Audrey or Louis were here to share this. Okay, his mother and father would probably kill each other on sight-that was beside the point.

But even the Covington clan had a gathering here today-old men in kilts, and all of them laughing uproariously at Jeremy as he told a joke.

Fiona’s jaw clenched as she saw him; her hands curled into fists. . but she said nothing.

She’d been so withdrawn since they’d come back from Hell. In fact, since Sealiah had declared Eliot an Infernal Lord, Fiona had said the absolute minimum to him, like: get out of the bathroom, and move and we’re going to be late, and other various grunts that had meant yes or no.

Dante Scalagari broke from his family and moved to them. He straightened his sports jacket. “Congratulations,” he said, “both of you. I’m here for my cousin, Gina, but I couldn’t help but intrude when I saw you. That first day of school, I thought you wouldn’t make it. Now you’re the talk of the entire school!” He smiled and actually looked impressed.

Eliot was about to explain that technically they hadn’t graduated yet. They still had to pass Miss Westin’s makeup final. Instead, he just said, “Thanks,” wondering what would impress a Scalagari upperclassman.

“Going to Hell and back to rescue a team member?” Dante continued. “You two are legends now.”

Eliot and Fiona shared a look of shock. That was all supposed to be secret.

Then Eliot spotted Jeremy laughing across the room.

Of course. Jeremy would’ve told everyone and probably claimed that he led them heroically to Hell himself-defending them at the Gates of Perdition at great risk to his life.

A group of girls came up to Fiona, surrounded her and gushed congratulations. They wanted to hear absolutely everything that happened in the Lands of the Dead.

Eliot silently stepped back and felt as if he’d melted into the shadows.

Dante and the girls maneuvered around Fiona as she protested, but then she relented, saying it was no big deal and then telling them all about Elysium Fields.

Eliot let her. It might cheer her up.

It didn’t matter that Eliot was socially invisible once more. Apparently even though he was a school “legend” he had somehow nothing to do with their adventures.

Good. This time he was grateful for it. He would watch Fiona in the limelight and not have to answer a bunch of awkward questions.

It was as if nothing had changed.

He looked at his hands, and realized that nothing had changed. There were no claws. No scales. And he wasn’t going to be growing bat wings anytime soon, either, or suddenly becoming a superstrong six-story tall monster. The title of Infernal Lord was just that, a title.

So there was no big deal about winning a piece of land in Hell. . besides being able to free Jezebel.

He looked around. Where was Jezebel?

He saw Sarah Covington staring at him-the only person in the room who noticed he was there. She looked at her loudmouth cousin and then back to Eliot, and rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Eliot then realized that one other person was missing. Robert.

Robert was probably the only one who even had a clue how he felt. Fiona hadn’t said a word to him after the battle. Robert hadn’t said much to her, either. When they’d all returned, Robert had told Eliot he needed “to take a ride.” He’d walked straight away from the BART station and they hadn’t seen him since.

Eliot called him from home, but just got a recorded message saying that number was out of service.

The ballroom doors opened, spilling light into the room.

A girl entered.

The way the light hit her, and from where Eliot stood, he could just see her silhouette.

Heads turned. . a few at first. . and the people who saw her trailed off in their congratulations. More people looked. . until everyone stared at her and the ballroom was silent.

She sashayed in and the crowds parted for her.

Miss Westin and the other teachers looked astonished, and then their expressions soured into serious disapproval.

Then Eliot got a good look.

Jezebel. It was her, but not like he’d ever seen her before.

She was in her Paxington uniform. . sort of. Instead of loafers, though, she wore thigh-high, high-heel boots of coffee-colored leather. Bronze studs curved from her ankle and spiraled about her leg. Fishnet stockings highlighted the hint of flesh that showed between those boots and the hem of her pleated skirt. A wide belt cinched her waist and covered half her bare midriff. The gleam of an emerald swayed in her pierced navel. She did have on the standard Paxington jacket with its distinctive school crest on the lapel, but instead of the white dress shirt, she had on a black T-shirt with a poison green radiation symbol stenciled with the words ATOMIC PUNK.

Her hair was straight and platinum blond, but streaked with black. She wore heavy eyeliner that made her blue-green eyes seem large and luminous.

Her features were no longer that perfect porcelain, either; they were human. Not the Julie Marks he had known, but part Julie, part Jezebel, and something entirely new. A hairline scar traced down from her temple to the corner of her mouth.

Her lips slipped into an easy smile as she saw him. It was the same dazzling hundred-watt smile he had fallen in love with, full of joy in life and the promise of what Eliot hoped might be a happy ending to their drama.

Jezebel walked toward him-a crooked stride that was hypnotic. She then stopped before him, beaming.

“I. . I don’t know what to say,” Eliot murmured to her.

“Then don’t say anything,” she told him, the faintest hint of her old Southern accent back in her voice. She drew close, wrapped her arms about him, and kissed him.

He held her and kissed her back, slow at first, but tasting her-feeling her poison spreading through him-not numbing like that last time on the Night Train; it tingled and burned and was a honeyed drug he couldn’t get enough of.

But he pulled away, coming up for air. . and she set a hand on his chest and pushed gently back.

“There is good news and bad news, my liege,” she whispered. “Which would you like to hear first?”

Eliot hesitated, trying to wrap him mind around her calling him my liege after an entire year of her calling him a fool.

He supposed, technically, there was some sort of feudal relationship if he owned the land she lived on. It felt weird already, though, that she had kissed him and been so friendly, considering their new-what? Business relationship?

But that had been his plan, hadn’t it? Claim the land that Jezebel had been tied to and then set her free?

He took a step back and collected himself. “Uh, good news, I guess,” he said.

She licked her lips. “Miss Westin is giving me a chance to graduate. Even after missing the last semester.”

Eliot then noticed that almost everyone stared at them-especially Miss Westin, whose gaze was heavy with displeasure.

“The bad news,” Jezebel continued, and frowned, “is that to do so, I have to make up all my classes at summer school. All summer long.”

“Then you’re staying here?”

She nodded. “Sealiah has paid for everything: tuition, room and board, books, but. .” Her gaze dropped to the floor. “It is now for you to decide if I stay at Paxington and continue on next year, or if I am to return with you now.”

Eliot lifted her chin. Her eyes were the color of aquamarines, and there wasn’t a trace of humor or falsehood in their depths. She wasn’t joking.

How was it his decision what she did? And return with him where?

“I’d never tell you what to do,” he said. “It’s your life. What do you want to do?”

Jezebel twisted from his hand. “As I said, it is for you to tell me. You are now the Lord of the Burning Orchards. I’m a part of those lands.” She added in a sad whisper so soft that he barely heard: “I belong to you.”

Eliot shook his head. “Nobody ‘belongs’ to anyone. Okay-forget that. It’s probably some weird Infernal custom. I’ll just set you free.”

She looked at him with a mixture of frustration and adoration on her face. “Oh, Eliot, it doesn’t work that way. No one can be set free in Hell. Ever.”

This was too much. There was no way Eliot was going to own another person. He was about to argue further, but sensed someone behind him.

“I hate to interrupt,” Fiona said, sounding very much like that was precisely what she wanted.

He turned and saw Fiona locked in a hate-filled stare with Jezebel.

Jezebel met Fiona stare for stare, and flashed her a smile.

“If you’re done embarrassing yourselves with that tacky liplock,” Fiona told her, “I need my brother back.”

Jezebel’s hand snaked around Eliot’s neck. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll be done for a long time. Why don’t you occupy yourself in the meantime with your own boyfriend?” She feigned a concern expression. “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. You chased one of your boyfriends off. . and the other one’s dead.”

Fiona turned white. She growled through clenched teeth, “Shut-your-mouth.”

Eliot extracted himself from Jezebel and stepped between them. To Jezebel, he said, “Don’t. We’ll talk later.” He turned Fiona. “You have my full attention. What’s up?”

Fiona grabbed Eliot’s hand and dragged him across the room. “We forgot someone-or rather, something.”

“What are you talking about?” Eliot pulled away from her and halted.

Fiona glanced back at Jezebel. “One day your girlfriend is going to go too far.” She then strode off without Eliot. “Come on. We have an appointment to keep.”

“Hey, wait up. I still don’t-”

Fiona marched straight to the Covingtons.

Eliot hurried after her.

“Ah, my dearest Miss Post,” Jeremy said, bowing with a flourish and shaking his hair into a golden mane. He held a flask in one hand, and the smell of whiskey hung in the air. The others in the group (Eliot assumed they were Covingtons, too, from their similarly freckled sardonic features) backed up a pace at the sight of Fiona.

Sarah, however, moved to Jeremy’s side. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and her uniform was freshly pressed. She looked wary and apologetic at the same time.

Fiona asked Sarah, “You said before you wanted to make amends?”

Jeremy looked at his cousin, and his stupid drunken grin faded.

“Aye, I did,” Sarah whispered.

“You have a car?” Fiona asked. “We need you to drive us someplace.”

“Of course,” Sarah said. “Where?”

“Del Sombra.”

Fiona kicked through the sand and watched tumbleweeds roll by. She wasn’t sure she could find the place again among this suburb that had never been. There were cinder block walls, ribbons of faded asphalt, and the fragments of house foundations.

“What are we looking for again?” Sarah asked. She put on sunglasses and a baseball cap to protect her freckled skin from the raw sun.

“Manhole cover,” Fiona told her.

“Do I want to know why?” Sarah wrinkled her nose.

“Not really.” Eliot grunted as he carried all their equipment: a backpack picked up at their Pacific Heights house on the way out here-filled with flashlights, Fiona’s old shotgun, shells, and rubber waders. He also had his guitar slung on his back.

Fiona heard the resentment in her brother’s voice.

Yeah-she knew he wanted to be with Jezebel (she practically gagged thinking of them kissing)-but he had been just as curious about this. . once he remembered.

Fiona glanced up. To the east was the Del Oro Recycling Plant, shuttered and closed. To the west was Del Sombra, at least what was left of it.

She felt a pang of grief as she saw dust devils spinning down what had been Midway Avenue, where their apartment building had been. . and Ringo’s All-American Pizza Parlor. . and the Pink Rabbit. A few skeletal building supports stood erect, but everything else had been burned down.

And while some agro-entrepreneur had planted fields of grapevine between here and there, the city had been left alone.

She asked Eliot, “A little help?”

Eliot sighed like she’d asked for six pints of blood, but relented and dropped the backpack and pulled his guitar around. He plunked the strings and the notes sounded like drops of water.

The sands shifted.

He plucked out more three chords that reminded her of running trickles and currents and something alive snaking through that water.

A line in the sand traced from Eliot, curved thirty paces straight ahead, until it spiraled to a stop.

Fiona strode toward the spot. She knelt, brushed aside the sand, and found the steel underneath. There was a tiny hole in the manhole cover, and she stuck her finger in it and tugged. No way. It weighed too much-and the thought of being stopped by such a trivial thing made her anger flare.

She ripped the thing out and tossed the solid metal disk like it was a Frisbee.

Eliot handed her a flashlight and a pair of rubber boots.

“What’s down there?” Sarah asked.

“Sewer,” Fiona replied, pulling on the too-tight boots.

“I can see that. But why are we going down there?”

“There’s no ‘we.’ You’re staying up here.” Fiona regretted the commanding tone she used. Sarah was trying to do right by them. “Look,” she added, “it’s going to be dangerous. There’s something. . well, not evil, more. .”

“Hungry,” Eliot finished for her.

Sarah arched an eyebrow. “I can take care of myself.”

She meant it. But why would anyone want to crawl into a sewer with them?

Then Fiona understood: Sarah wanted to prove she was their friend and would have followed them into danger. . even into Hell, if she’d been given the chance.

But that was stupid. This could really be dangerous.

On the other hand, Fiona wanted her to come and prove her sincerity. She knew that was wrong: Friends didn’t do that to each other.

But had Sarah truly ever been her friend?

“Suit yourself,” Fiona told her. “But if you chicken out halfway there-you’re finding your own way back. Eliot and I have business to take care of.”

“Hey,” Eliot said. “That’s not right.”

“It’s okay,” Sarah said, casting an uncertain glance down the hole. “I’ll be fine.”

Fiona clambered into the sewer hole and down the ladder. Last time she’d plunked into the water. This time, she found the ledge by the channel and stepped onto it.

She played her flashlight beam over the cinder blocks of the intersection. Mats of slick algae covered everything, hanging down from the ceiling like boogery stalactites. She imagined herself slipping on the stuff and going headfirst into the slimy water.

Sarah came down next and then Eliot.

Eliot plucked a note and it echoed down a single passage only. “That way.”

Sarah tested her foot on the ledge. “Hang on.” She knelt and touched the concrete ledge. The cinder blocks shifted; a ripple in the stone spread outward and raised into a waffle pattern. “A bit of traction, courtesy of Covington conjuration.”

“Thanks,” Fiona murmured, and plodded ahead.

No rats this time. . although Fiona almost wished there were. She spotted a pile of algae-covered rodent bones. Ick.

They spiraled down, and the water gurgled faster in the channel next to them. Cinder block was replaced by ancient brick and rusted supports, and the air was thick with humidity and the scent of blood.

Ahead was the chamber they were looking for. It was bigger than Fiona recalled, half a block wide with three holes in the roof where sunlight filtered through from the surface. The room was flooded; in the center of this lake was an island of bones-all chewed and broken.

Sitting upon the island was Sobek, oracle crocodile, the once-Egyptian god of the passages to the Underworld.

It had been their first heroic trial to “vanquish” the forty-foot-long reptilian beast that lived in the Del Sombra sewers. It was all part of some weird urban legend about alligators flushed down toilets that Fiona had never understood.

A year ago, Sobek could have easily killed them. It had even pinned Fiona to the ground and opened its maw as if to devour her. . and she’d gotten a look into the black oblivion inside the creature. It had been injured, however-a spike driven through its shoulder, and they had made friends with it by pulling the thing out.

She and Eliot had been weak and naïve then, and survived only because the crocodile had been convinced by his prophetic powers that they were going to kill it.

Maybe it hadn’t been wrong. She and Eliot were young gods now, tested in battle.

Everything had changed.

But so had Sobek.

Its body was as big as an eighteen-wheel semitruck, and its thick tail sinewed about the island of bones. Its armored scales were glossy ebon black flecked with green and gold.

A pair of slitted eyes opened and stared.

Fiona’s stomach sank. It was like something she might’ve seen in a science book on the Permian period, something that lived before even the dinosaurs. . something primeval, instinctively cunning, and utterly savage.

There was a pull from the creature, and she felt her feet involuntarily shuffle forward through the water.

Eliot set his hand on Lady Dawn strings and the light vibration snapped her out of the reptile’s hypnotic sway.

Sarah, who had put on a brave face all the way down here, now stood locked with terror.

“Stay here,” Fiona whispered to her.

Sarah gave a nod, and remained frozen in place.⁷¹

Fiona and Eliot waded through the water to Sobek.

Its tail uncurled, slid into the murky pool, and swished with irritation. “You have returned too early,” he told them with a voice so resonant that it shook Fiona’s bones and made ripples dance on the water.

“Only-” Fiona’s voice broke.

Sobek had told them to return in a year. . when he’d answer questions for them. A year in which the crocodile had said it needed to eat and replenish his strength. Fiona had thought that exaggeration at the time, but looking at the jumble of bones and its increased mass. . she wondered.

She cleared her throat and tried again. “Only twenty-six days until the year is up,” she managed.

“We need to know what’s going to happen,” Eliot added.

A snort exploded through the reptile’s snout. “I have foreseen your early return. So I’m here. And ready. Come closer.”

Fiona swallowed and moved toward the island of bones, careful not to slip on the slimy remains and impale herself. She touched her rubber band always on her wrist in case she needed it.

She and Eliot halted thirty paces from Sobek, close enough to speak, but, she hoped, out of the crocodile’s lunging strike range. How easily could such a monster just snap them up? They might not even get a chance to fight back.

It smelled of blood and rotten meat, and a musky scent that her primitive brain defined as “reptilian.”

“So much has happened,” she whispered.

“I have watched the water and read your futures,” it said. “Come and see with thine own eyes.”

Was this a trick to lure them closer?

Fiona didn’t think so. How could this thing still be hungry? And yet she hesitated because the animal part of her brain was rightfully afraid and suspected the creature had a supernatural hunger that was never sated.

Eliot, however, stupidly brave as always, walked forward.

So Fiona followed.

One foot in front of the other she moved until they felt Sobek’s stinking, moist breath on their faces.

There was a rivulet between them and the crocodile-a stream through which water burbled along with strings of algae and floating bits of paper.

“Look,” it commanded.

Fiona squinted into the water (one hand still on her rubber band). Her eyes defocused, and she saw the waves and currents blur into lines of light and shadow that crossed and fluttered and stretched from here and now. . farther downstream and off in the future.

As Aunt Dallas had showed her how to do so long ago.

Her lifeline stretched on and on as far as she could see. It pulsed like quicksilver. There were many others in the surrounding weave: golden threads and silver lines and coarse flax fiber and taut leather cords. Some wound about her thread. Some snapped and fell away. Some new strands joined with hers farther on-ones that glimmered like emerald and ruby and sapphire and threw off sparks of light.

It seemed normal, she guessed. Was it possible everything was going to be okay?

Farther along, however, she saw new threads: concertina barbed wire and battered chains. Her line cut through those, leaving snapped and severed lives in the wake of her destiny.

She smelled brimstone and fire and blood.

There were smaller fibers, too: thousands of fine ordinary cotton threads that were broken or burned away by the larger lines pushing forward and distorting the pattern.

War. There was going to be a war, and Fiona would lead the charge.

How many would die because of her?

Or was the right question, How many would she save?

It was so obvious now-Immortal versus Infernal. Good versus evil.

And where was Eliot’s thread? There was nothing there that felt like him.

Far off, though, waves and melodies rebounded through the fabric, ripples and blurs that had to be his music. . but it was not bound to her thread.

She blinked and looked up.

Sobek had crept so close that Fiona could have reached up and touched its snout.

Eliot shook his head. “I don’t see anything. It’s all tangled ahead.”

But Sobek’s slitted eyes locked with Fiona’s. “You saw.”

“Yes,” she breathed. “A war.”

“Not just a war,” Sobek rumbled. “The war. Among the gods and the angels. . war among everyone. . everywhere. Armageddon.” The reptile looked at Eliot and then back to her. “And you will choose sides.”

Deep down, Fiona had known this was coming. She had once hoped that both sides of her family could get along-that there’d even be some sort of corny reunion between her mother and father and all their relatives.

But now that they’d gone to Hell and come back?

It was clear how evil the Infernals were. . that given a chance, they wouldn’t stop at fighting for just their lands. . they’d come to mortal realms. And the only thing that had been stopping them was the League of Immortals and the Pactum Pax Immortalus. . until she and Eliot had come along.

“It’ll be like Ultima Thule all over again,” Fiona murmured. “We’ll need someone to lead us in battle. Is he still alive?”

“He?” Sobek held her gaze a long time, and then said, “Ah, Zeus? Odin, Ra, Titan Slayer, and Dux Bellorum of all Battles? I cannot see him. Not since long ago.”

“But is he alive?” Fiona whispered.

“I cannot say.”

That wasn’t an answer-but it didn’t matter. There were answers enough here for Fiona. She knew what she had to do.

“I’m going to find him,” she said, stood tall, and took in a deep breath, despite the stench. “And if I can’t find Zeus, or if he’s really dead, then I’ll find another to lead the Immortals.”

And if she couldn’t find a leader among them? She wasn’t sure. She’d cross that bridge if she came to it.

“Don’t,” Eliot said. “Hasn’t there been enough fighting? There’s got to be another way. Let me try to talk to Dad and Sealiah.”

Fiona laughed. “Talk? That’s not what they do! All they do is lie and backstab and take whatever they are strong enough to take.”

She heard the truth in her statement ring like a silver bell in the air.

“There will be war,” Sobek declared. “That much is clear. Many will die. . though you should not grieve. All that lives must die-the gods-the angels-all must move on.”

Fiona felt a stab of sorrow as she thought about Mitch and all the other people she might know who could be killed. But how many more would die if she did nothing and let the Infernals have their way?

Eliot, however, went on as if he hadn’t heard Sobek’s prophecy. “Just give me a chance to fix things,” he said. “I can do it.”

“You can’t fix Mom and Dad,” she spat. “You can’t fix any of them. They all want this. And they want you, too.” She stared into his eyes, pleading. “Don’t go over to their side. Come with me to the Council. They can help us. And give up Jezebel-she’s nothing but poison.”

“I know what she is,” Eliot whispered. “But there’s more to it now than just her.” He stared at some distant point and his forehead crinkled in frustration. “I have to find out what being part of that family means. We’re both half Infernal.”

“No,” Fiona said with absolute certainty. “It’s my choice what I want to be.”

“Then it’s my choice, too,” he told her.

“Don’t be stupid,” Fiona whispered. “Things can’t end like this: us on different sides.”

Eliot shook his head. “You just don’t understand.” He turned and walked away.

Sarah started after him, but stopped when she saw the look of contempt on Fiona’s face. She hesitated, took a step toward Eliot, but then halted and stayed with Fiona.

Fiona could have gone after her brother-maybe even have stopped him, or at least, made him listen to her.

But she didn’t.

He had gone too far. He was lost to her.

“And so,” Sobek murmured, “as I have foreseen: the Heralds of the End of Days are split asunder.”

71. “I have stared into the eyes of Ancient Death. Was this our future? Our doom?” Thus begins Sarah Covington’s first entry in what would later be known as her notorious Secret Red Diaries. Sarah Covington had kept journals before and concurrent with her “red” diaries, but those contained details of her pre-Paxington personal life, ongoing Covington political dramas, and her familial teachings. The Secret Red Diaries, on the other hand, detail her long and tortuous relationships with the Post twins. Given where those relationships ended, her writings provide a unique mortal’s perceptive to their fantastic journeys, the wars to come, and the eventual fate of the Middle Realms. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 11, The Post Family Mythology. Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.

This was a bad idea. Audrey felt it chill her to the bone, despite the cashmere wrap about her shoulders. She set her hands over the votive candle on the table and let the light and shadows play over her fingers.

When she had heard what happened to Eliot and Fiona-after worrying for weeks and weeks when they’d disappeared-that they’d fought in a war in Hell. . she had almost died.

She had sworn to kill Louis for his recklessness.

Then she calmed and understood that it had been a logical move for the Infernals. . that her children were more powerful than ever. . and that certain opportunities now might present themselves before the end of the world.

It was a childish dream that she could love again or that her family could ever be whole.

She sighed.

A pity she had not the courage to cut Louis from her heart. Had that been selfishness or foolishness?

She looked across the walkway and saw moonlight flicker like a thousand fish upon the waters of the Canal Grande of Venice. Lovers strolled arm in arm by the sidewalk café. A breeze ruffled the jasmine in their planter boxes and filled the air with their cloying scent.

She was surrounded by people in love in the most romantic city on Earth. . ironic, because she was alone.

This was the spot where she and the then-masked Louis Piper had talked all night, waxed poetic about life and longings and how only simpletons fell in love. As the dawn had broken upon the canal and tinged the silver waters red, they had lifted one another’s masks-and she had felt the piercing of her heart, and known that she was a simpleton, too.

Love.

Cornelius had told her even the Primordial Ones had loved after a fashion, although it had been a savage thing compared with the refined emotions of their Age.

The waiter came and refreshed her cup of minted Turkish coffee. “Still waiting, madam?”

She nodded.

Indeed, what a simpleton she was then and now. She rose from her seat and straightened her silver silk gown. She had dressed for the opera with matching arm-length gloves, pearls, and heels-all courtesy of Madame Cobweb. Her effort wasted.

She was about to turn and walk away, when she spotted him.

Louis, the Grand Deceiver, and the only man who could so irritate her, hurried through the crowds. When he saw her, his face lit with all the passion and intensity she remembered from their first morning together. He wore a tuxedo with tails and diamond studs-and turned every woman’s head.

“Audrey, beloved,” he said, and reached for her hands (which she pulled away). “I would have rather died than be late, but there was something of the utmost importance that required my personal attention.”

He implored her to sit, and she reluctantly did so.

“Really?” She mustered as much icy sarcasm as she could, and yet Atropos, Cutter of all Things, and Death incarnate, felt her heart flutter and her pulse race with warmth she thought she would never feel again.

A black cat leaped onto the linen-covered table between them-its tail fluffing into Louis’s face.

Louis stiffened and grabbed the animal by the scruff of the neck. In response, the cat’s claws extended and dimpled into the tablecloth, dragging it with him.

“Don’t, Louis.” She gently took the animal and set in the seat next to her.

The waiter stared at the cat, frowning-but Audrey stopped any protest from him with a single glance.

She stroked Amberflaxus and the cat turned and turned and nuzzled her hand for more. “I’m surprised more people haven’t noticed this poor creature by now, and drowned it in a well.”

Louis shrugged. “That might be for the best.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He thought about it a moment. “No.” He narrowed his eyes at the cat, then his gaze roamed over her gown, and his mood brightened. “You look absolutely radiant tonight, my dear.”

Audrey stopped petting Amberflaxus and held up her hand. “Let me make it clear that I came only because you said you wanted to talk about the children.”

His smile flickered to life. “Do you think you can lie to me? About this? Your coquettishness flatters me.”

Audrey closed her eyes. How could she forget? Louis, the Father of Lies, of course, would hear the false words spilling from her lips.

She exhaled. “Yes,” she admitted, “I came for the children and to deal with you once and for all-but mainly for the children.”

His smile turned mischievous, and he reached into his tuxedo and pulled out a folded manila envelope. He pushed it across the table.

Audrey opened the flap. Inside were two sheets of curling vellum that felt rough and cold even through her gloves. She unrolled them and read along the top:

WARRANT OF DEATH

Her breath caught as she scanned the bottom of the page, seeing the filled-in name: ELIOT POST.

She flipped to the other page and saw: FIONA POST.

Only Louis ever had the ability to render her speechless-but this, even for him, was going too far. Audrey, however, found her voice. “How did you get these? You shouldn’t have even been able to enter Altium-”

Louis waved her concerns away. Yes, yes. Technicalities and details. That pesky Pactum Pax Immortalis. I shouldn’t be able to touch anything that belongs to the League.” He slapped his hand across the page in utter defiance of the centuries-old treaty.

“Unless one of us gave it to you,” Audrey whispered. “Unless you had help.”

“Before you ask how and who,” Louis replied, “allow me my little secrets for a while yet. Without an air of mystery, I fear I would as bland as all those other dull Immortals in your life.”

Audrey knew prying information out of Louis when he was being difficult would be harder than wrestling the ocean. But what Immortal in their right mind would have helped Louis? And the more important question: Why?

She returned her attention to the documents and pulled off her opera gloves. She had an opportunity. She slid her finger down the center of the pages-then across-and then made two diagonal marks with her fingernail.

The pages shuddered, sparked with magic, and flowered into a thousand shreds of confetti.

Audrey brushed the trash off the table.

“Well,” Louis said, raising an eyebrow, “that should keep Fiona and Eliot safe from the League-at least until the Council can come to consensus again. Which should that take what? A month? All summer?”

“Perhaps,” Audrey murmured.

Would Lucia wait that long? Had the League ever taken action without its bureaucratic processes?

“Does that then satisfy your need to tend to our children first?” he asked.

“No. It delays the danger; it does not eliminate it.”

Louis sighed. “The world in which our children live will always be filled with danger. We cannot eliminate it, and it would be foolish to try.”

Audrey considered this. . but said nothing.

“There is one more thing we might do, however,” Louis whispered and looked about. “We can gather support, in secret, for the coming war. Not for one side or the other, but for them.”

Louis would not mention such a thing unless he had already taken action. “You will not be able to keep that secret for long.”

“No,” he admitted. “The best secrets are the ones least kept.”

“When they find out-both families-we will have to take bold, bloody action. Will you be ready for that?”

“It gives me chills of pleasure when you speak thusly,” Louis purred.

He reached for her hand again, but she moved away before he could distract her.

Audrey opened her clutch. “I have a gift for you as well,” she said.

“Oh?” Louis said and looked surprised for once in his life.

She wasn’t sure she should do this. It would be as dangerous as slipping Cerberus from his leash. . or arming a nuclear device. But all her second-guessing couldn’t stop her now; this already been decided-not with her head, but with her newly awakened emotions.

Audrey took out a battered enveloped, so worn the paper was fuzzy and it almost fell apart at her touch.

“Eliot left this with a note explaining how you gave it to him before the final battle in the Poppy Lands. I. . I was moved.”

She gingerly removed the contents: bits of bank statements and torn dollar bills and old restaurant receipts and post-it notes and tissues-all of it had been meticulously taped back together into a proper heart shape.

Audrey set the thing on the table between them, took Louis’s hand, and set it upon the battered token.

His smile went slack with astonishment as he beheld it. “What have you done?” he whispered.

She patted his hand. “I give you your heart back, Louis, healed and whole.”

He gazed at the paper heart, tracing its rough edges, speechless for the first time.

“I’m sorry,” she said, uncomfortable with his silence. “I am so good at cutting things. . not so good, though, at patching them together. It was the best I could do.”

Louis met her eyes. “You realize, of course, you may have just sealed the both our dooms? I forgive you-and more. Much more.”

Louis picked up the token in both hands, brought it to his chest, inhaled, and savored it for a moment. . and then presented it back to Audrey.

“For you,” he told her. “It was always yours to do with as you wished: to treasure and keep safe-or to tear into a million pieces again. I have no defenses against you.”

She hesitated, actually reached out and touched it-then halted. “No,” she whispered. “I am not ready. Perhaps one day, Louis, but not now.”

Louis frowned and it made his nose and jaw seem more crooked. “Of course, my dear. What else do we have, if not all the time in the world?”

Amberflaxus batting at her hand, interested in the heart.

“No,” she told the cat. “This is not a toy.”

Louis snorted. “Watch that wretched animal,” he warned her. “Of all the creatures in all the worlds, that one would most love to get a piece of me to devour.”

He retrieved his paper heart and tucked it into his tuxedo.

Audrey stroked that cat’s back to mollify it (and grateful for the distraction). “No one has noticed your pet, and your lack of. .?”

“I have been lucky,” Louis told her.

Audrey scrutinized Louis and the space about him that flickered in candlelight. The deviation from normality was subtle at night, and yet, when one knew what to look for. . it was glaringly obvious.

Louis cast no shadow.^{72, 73}

That was Audrey’s fault. When she had first learned that Louis was Infernal, she had flown into a blind rage-stabbed at him, meaning to sever his power from his physical form, and then cut his heart out so he could love no other.

All of which she managed, but her first strike had astonishingly missed, and instead cut off his shadow.

And like all parts of the Grand Deceiver, it was wily and evasive, and had run from her, finally taking the form of a cat.

A shadow cat that had grown to enjoy its freedom.

She scratched under Amberflaxus’s chin. The cat purred. It was still a part of him, yet somehow, a creature all its own: an annoyance, his spy, a mischievous imp that was Louis incarnate.

Louis scattered a handful of euros on the table to pay for her coffee. “Come,” he said, “and leave that creature or he will tear your gown.”

“Are you taking me to the opera? I’ve heard Ferruccio Busoni’s Doktor Faust is playing tonight.”

Louis’s face curled with disgust. “Surely you jest.”

Her lips formed a rare half smile. “I do. No, I thought we would walk and talk. It has been so long, Louis. And there is so much to consider.”

He smiled back. “Just talk?”

“Yes, for now. But it is a start between us.”

Louis considered for a long time, his expression uncharacteristically solemn, and then finally nodded. “A start then.” He offered her his hand.

Audrey didn’t trust Louis, the Prince of All Lies; she never would, either. But they had a common interest: the welfare of their children. And, counter to all her common sense, part of her still adored Louis. Or was this merely the memory of a younger love that she still felt?

The old passion was gone; they could not go back to it. . but she was willing to moving forward with Louis, as what? Friends, enemies, allies, or lovers once more?

She wasn’t sure. But she was sure that she wanted to find out.

Audrey took Louis’s hand, and together they strolled into the darkness.

“Tell me, then,” she whispered to him, “everything.”

72. On the Nature of Shadows in Identification: Unattended shadows are thought by some cultures to be ghosts unable to end their existence in the Middle Realms. The Zulu tribe holds that a dead body cannot cast a shadow. An alternative view is that shadows are a representation of God’s presence around an object (cf. a halo). Early European beliefs claim that a man without a shadow was a witch or had sold his soul to the Devil. These legends remain hypothetical; however, it is a fact that vampires cast no shadow as do all similar limbic undead species. A Modern Hunters Guide to the Unliving, Valor Mitchellson amp; Nikola Telsa, Double Fork Lightning Press, 1890, London.

73. Wendy sews on Peter Pan’s shadow after he has lost it in J. M. Barrie’s The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. -Editor.

Dallas looked from her penthouse suite across the winking lights of nighttime Manhattan.

It was dazzling. Like herself.

She had dressed to the nines for the occasion in a slip of a black thing, sequined stockings, and five-inch stiletto heels. But she had had a lifetime of this glamour-several lifetimes, in fact. . and was ready to leave it behind.

Grow up? Not a chance. She had grown up before, and it wasn’t her.

But the time to change to something else had come.

She turned the card over and over in her hand. . as if she flipped it enough times she would see the secret message on it, explaining it was just a bad joke.

It had arrived by special messenger this morning-a goshawk that had perched on her balcony, screeched once at her, left the card fluttering to the floor, and then had flown off to slaughter pigeons.

The card was engraved with curlicue calligraphy that was nearly impossible to read.

Lucia sent it-to annoy her-to worry her-to make her cry.

She understood why her older sister, Audrey, was so cruel. She had strategic reasons.

Lucia was cruel, not out of necessity, but because it made her feel powerful and others around her weak. Dallas supposed that was a strategy as well.

She sighed, wondering if all sisters tortured one another so, and then read the message again:

You are summoned before the Council of Elders, the Temple of Whispers, immediately and forthwith to receive instructions. We meet at dawn. This is NOT a request.

Dallas had already heard what had happened to Eliot and Fiona. She knew Lucia wasn’t going to “instruct” her on anything. First she’d grill her on how she’d escorted the twins through the Lands of the Dead. (Kino would absolutely die.) They’d talk about her “lack of responsibility,” assign some punishment, but ultimately, they’d do what they always did and dismiss her as inconsequential. . and then move on to what they really wanted to talk about: how Eliot had gone over to the other “side.”

It had all spun completely out of control.

And while Dallas could take care of herself and any League meddling, Eliot and Fiona could not.

She had gotten a glimpse into the psyches of the twins. They were young and yet they understood more about the truth of things than most Immortals.

Fiona would take responsibility for the entire world if they let her. It could crush her. But Fiona knew the League needed a real leader-not a bureaucracy. If they didn’t kill her first, she might one day be that leader.

Eliot, on the other hand, just wanted enough freedom to figure out who he was. Poor kid. He believed that there was neither clear-cut good nor evil when it came to Immortals and Infernals. . just individuals with their own agendas.

There might be some truth to that, too.

Certainly their father had helped-perhaps for his own selfish reasons, but nonetheless he had helped them. . while many in the League would love to see both twins dead in the name of political stability.

Dallas wasn’t sure of anyone or anything anymore.

She crossed the room, her high heels clipping over the marble.

She considered many in the League her family. . but that didn’t excuse their bad behavior and paranoia. . the preservation of their power at any cost. . or that their next move might be to murder her youngest nephew.

She tossed the Council summons into her fireplace and pressed a button on the wall.

Flames whooshed to life and consumed Lucia’s note.

There would be complications and consequences for that little rebellion. No one simply defied the League. . and no one quit the League of Immortals once a member.

Across her vast living room, clapping echoed off high walls covered with Picasso paintings.

“Bravo!” Henry cried.

Dallas didn’t turn. It was no surprise that he had entered her sanctum without knocking (she had, after all, extended him an open invitation), but for some reason this time, the violation of her privacy made her irrationally angry.

“How long have you watched?”

“Not long.” She heard his footstep approaching. “Just enough to see you finally come to your senses.”

“Sense! What do you know of sense?”

She spun, ready to confront him-but stopped. . and had to laugh.

Henry looked ridiculous. He was dressed as an eighteenth-century French nobleman in a silver-and-black waistcoat with embroidered peacocks chasing peahens up and down the sleeves, with silver buttons, black velvet pants that tied at his calves, silver stockings and buckled shoes. Topping it all off was a ridiculous powdered wig.

Henry the Fool. He would live as a fool-continue as a fool-and one day die playing the fool.

And she loved him for it.

“I’m off to the Governor’s Ball,” he told her, with a luxuriant wave over his outfit. “It’s a costumed affair. Would you care to join me? You’re a bit underdressed, but I doubt anyone will be looking at your clothes. . ”

“No,” she told him. “I need to think about everything you’ve told me of the twins and the Infernals and the League. . and your plans.”

He nodded. “Thinking is overrated, darling Dallas. That’s the League’s modus operandi, not mine. I require the Dallas who acts.”

That Dallas.

He was talking about part of her she had long buried. There is no need for that creature in this world. And yet. . if the world was ending-why not summon the demons of her past?

“Do you know what you’re doing, Henry? Really?”

“The costume ball? Oh. . no, I see you mean that other thing. No. I don’t ‘know’ anything.” Henry sobered. “But it is my best guess.”

“It all comes down to a guess?”

Henry shrugged.

Dallas sighed, knowing her heart of hearts that she’d trust one of the Old Wolf’s guesses over any of Cornelius’s laser-precise calculations or a Council consensus engineered by Lucia.

She marched over to the wet bar.

Henry followed, helping himself to her sixty-year-old scotch.

Dallas set her hand on a black marble square. It warmed under her touch.

There was a hum and the wall parted, revealing racks of gleaming knives and swords, and the polished wooden and the blue steel of pistols and rifles.

These did not belong to the carefree hippie girl façade she had enjoyed as much as Henry had enjoyed his multitude of masks. These instruments of destruction belonged to her alter ego.

Her finger lit on of her twin gold swords-last wielded at Ultima Thule and still as sharp as the day when Audrey had given them their edges.

There were two matchlock pistols with barrels the size of her fist. Hand cannon, Aaron had called them.

It was a small collection, nothing like Aaron’s armory, but there were all dear to her, and almost every weapon here had a matching mate. Lucia was always telling her that she didn’t know her right from her left most of the time.

True enough. She was perfectly ambidextrous.

As Dallas gazed at these instruments, she grew afraid-not for herself, but for all those that she loved.

She turned back to Henry. “Are you sure? Once I start, I won’t be able to take it back. Aaron and Gilbert-they will be devastated.”

“I know they will be,” Henry whispered. He swirled scotch and peered into its depths. “I also know your aim is unerring. I’m counting on both.”

She stared at her beloved cousin, taking in every silly detail of his face. It would be the last time “Dallas” would look upon him.

She closer her eyes and turned.

When she opened them again she beheld one of the two weapons that had no mate: a bow of fused ram horns with a row of golden arrows next to it. It was deadly. . but a relic from another Age.

She moved to its modern counterpart, forged in 1915, when she had believed the Great War might’ve been the last war on Earth. It had been centuries ahead of any other weapon constructed on this world, and even today, none was its equal. It was a matte gray bolt-action rifle with a thirty-inch barrel, a stock of fine-grained ebony (tiny snipes on the wing engraved upon it), retractable bipod, a mounted telescopic sight that could see through walls and in the dark and heat sources and aetherics and was self-focusing and had built-in microsecond “wink” flash suppression.

Arranged under the sniper rifle were rows of modified.338 Lapua Magnum ammunition, each round the length of her index finger, and each individually tailored to her exact specifications of powder load, overall weight, and metallurgical tip composition. Each was engraved with identifying mnemonic phrases like: “Double Down,” “Flush,” “Inside Straight,” “Wildcard,” “Stand Pat,” and the ultimate, “Last Call.”

She could obliterate a dime-sized target on a moonlit night in high winds from two kilometers.

She could kill any living creature from a considerably longer distance.

As she ran her fingers over the cold metal, she remembered the pleasure of its recoil.

Dallas submerged into memory and was no more. She was a child’s toy that had to be lovingly packed away, perhaps to be taken out and played with another time. . but not in this Age.

All believed that Audrey was the most dangerous of the Sisters of Fate-the Cutter of All Things, the Pale Rider, Kali, and Death incarnate; she was indeed terrible and impressive.

Some said that Lucia was the most powerful-the Weaver of the Threads of Fate, the Balance, Blind Justice, Lady Liberty, and She Who Topples Nations. She was certainly the most articulate and cunning of them.

But Dallas had also worn many names throughout history as well-happy-go-lucky avant-garde Dallas, Mother Nature, or simply Little Red. . but before all these she had been dark and full of wrath, and cataclysms and destructions had followed in her wake.

And they had all forgotten.

She was the Waning Moon, Hecate, and the Storm Which None Survived.

She was once more Artemis the Huntress.

Robert kept his eyes closed and wished the world would go away. Behind his lids the sun beat on him-a nice, natural sunshine. The surf churned thirty paces from where he lay in the sand. He smelled the open cerveza and limes wedges in a nearby ice bucket.

He should’ve been 100 percent chill.

But all he saw when he closed his eyes with that swollen red sun in Hell. . the flash of swords and shadows. . and Fiona’s tear-streaked face as she cradled Mitch, watching him burn and die.

He felt his gut twist because the one girl he’d been hooked on now hated him.

He wasn’t in Hell anymore, though; he was in his hidden fishing cove near Puedevas, Mexico-a six-pack and lobster enchiladas from the cantina, and him lounging in the sand.

So why feel lousy?

Maybe living people weren’t supposed to come back from Hell. How had Dante Alighieri done it? (Inferno was one of the books Robert had read and actually enjoyed in Miss Westin’s class.) Dante Alighieri had walked through Hell, into Purgatory, and then into Heaven. He’d been able to do that because he got a hand from the poet Virgil, and his one true love, Beatrice.

Robert’s spirit guide, Marcus, hadn’t led him anywhere-except smack into a war. And he sure wasn’t no poet or Beatrice.

Robert also felt bad about Amanda. He should’ve gone back to look for her body. But how to get past all those angry dead in the Blasted Lands? The thought of her soul suffering in the fires of Hell made him shudder, despite the warm sun.

And what about Eliot? Now that he had Jezebel and was an Infernal Lord, was he staying in Hell?

Robert grabbed a chunk of ice from the bucket and pressed it to his forehead.

Trouble hadn’t miraculously stopped when Robert got back to San Francisco, either. There’d been a note on his apartment door: a summons to the Headmistress’s office.

Like any of that mattered anymore. Robert wasn’t going back to school.

There were also three voice mail messages from Henry. Robert had responded to these by ripping the answering machine out of the wall.

Sure, Henry could find him. He knew Robert’s hiding spots. But Robert thought he might be strong enough now to refuse Henry’s subtle suggestions and his not-so-subtle threats.

Robert curled his fist until bones cracked and sinews popped with tension. His new strength was from Henry’s Soma. How long would that last? And he wasn’t just physically stronger. Robert felt something hard in his mind now, too.

He grabbed a bottle of beer, but just held it, the cold glass sweating in his hand.

So now what? Robert was unemployed, maybe with no living friends on Earth, and certainly with no girl to worry about.

He laughed. This emo-feeling-sorry-for-himself thing just wasn’t him.

Okay. . he did feel a little sorry, but Robert knew he was going to be fine. He’d get over Fiona. Heck, he could stay right here and do a little fishing. With the cash that Henry had given him for school he might carve out a nice life on the Sea of Cortez. Maybe learn how to surf.

His fishing line tugged and the bell tied to it tinkled. His pole bent toward the water.

Robert got up. All this deep thinking stuff was fine-but not when it interfered with the barbecued sea bass he was counting on for dinner.

He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. . and saw something was wrong.

No, not a something-a bunch of somethings.

There were fish in the water, hundreds of them: perch and damselfish, and even a bluefin tuna or two thrashing in the surf. Behind them were sharks-white-tipped reef and nurse and even a flashing set of great white jaws-all frothing and fighting along the beach.

Tuna and great whites never got that close to shore.

There had to be a freak storm or a tsunami to get them all here at once.

A girl stepped from the blood-tinged surf as nonchalant as if she were stepping out of a chlorinated swimming pool.

She had all the right curves, and the sun glistened off her tanned skin. Her hair was red and gold and snaked down her neck, curling about her breasts. . which was when Robert realized that she only wore a few strategically placed bits of clinging seaweed.

He took a step closer-but halted, realizing that besides the weird fish something was very wrong with this male fantasy come to life.

First: whenever he’d been attracted to any girl recently there’d been trouble. So that immediately set off alarm bells.

Second: the color of her skin wasn’t anything he’d see before-bronze mixed with gold that glimmered like molten metal.

Third: she was wearing something, an obsidian knife strapped her shapely calf. A knife coated with blood.

And fourth: he got it, finally. He knew her. It’d just taken a moment because she wasn’t in armor, and she wasn’t supposed to be here-on Earth, that is.

This was Sealiah, Queen of the Poppy Lands.

She moved across the sand toward him, her steps crooked, and her body swaying and switching back and forth. Far shorter than Robert’s six feet, she somehow managed to make it feel like she towered over him-naked and slight, but radiating enough regal confidence that he felt like dropping to his knees and kissing her feet.

He wasn’t so stupefied, though, that he’d forgotten his manners.

He hitched his thumb at the bucket of beers. “Thirsty?” he asked. “Help yourself.”

She smiled. Robert noted her blood-rimmed lips.

Sealiah took one of the beers and chugged, rivulets of foam dribbling down her chest and stomach. She finished and grabbed the lime and wiped her lips with it. “Ahhh. .,” she purred. “Your hospitality is appreciated.”

Robert stared unabashedly at this performance (what else was a guy supposed to do?) and he struggled to remember that this wasn’t a woman standing before him. She wasn’t even human. Not even close.

He could smell her now, though, and it was like every flower that had ever bloomed. Her perfume teased and pulled at him.

“So. .,” he said, drawing on some supernatural cool from the center of his soul. “You just swimming by, or was there something you wanted?”

“Oh, there is very much something I wanted.” She inched closer and her lips parted. “But I thought we would discuss business first, and then we could see to the pleasure part of the transaction.”

Robert backed up an inch, although it took a great deal of effort.

He tried to see the monstrous creature with tendrils and horns and bat wings inside her, but instead, all he could see was a woman that would make every supermodel on the planet weep with jealousy, and he found himself staring at her-all the way to the tiny down blond hairs that covered her red-gold flesh.

“I’ve come to offer you a job,” she said.

That snapped him out of it.

Yeah, she was gorgeous.

Yeah, she was close enough to grab.

And yeah, she smelled great.

But she just wanted what every other otherworldly creature had ever wanted from Robert: to stick him in a bind where he’d risk his life and limb and soul for some twisted scheme.

Something clicked inside Robert. His pulse slowed and he felt cold, and strong in a way that he’d never felt before: impervious on the inside.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’ve had jobs before. None of ’em ever seemed to work out for me. Guess I’m what you’d call a lousy employee.”

Sealiah’s smile faltered.

Now Robert could see the monster inside-smoldering in her eyes.

He pushed his luck and added, “If that’s all you wanted to say, no offense, I’d just like to be left alone. . and left to forget, ma’am.”

Robert went back to his towel and lay down, crossed his arms behind his head and gazed up at the infinite blue sky (but also watching the Infernal out of the corner of his eye).

Sealiah stayed where she was, staring at him, still smelling insanely good to Robert. Her lips pressed together, and the air around her heated and shimmered-but then she chuffed with amusement.

“You are stronger than I realized.” She came over and sat on the blanket next to him.

This close, Robert felt her pulse thrum in the air between them. His blood wanted to race and catch up and run with hers. He took a deep breath, though, and kept his cool.

She scooched closer. A few drops of seawater dripped onto him. “You want to be left alone, Robert? Really? Are you hiding? Licking your wounds?” She looked him over as if he were a prime rib.

He shrugged.

“You can, you know,” she said. “But in a few months, perhaps a year or two there will be no neutral parties left. There will be nowhere to hide. All will be involved in this. Or they will be dead.”

Robert was suddenly thirsty. More than anything he wanted to grab one of those beers just within his reach and drink the whole thing. But to do that he’d have to reach past her, touch her, and that would be like falling. . and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself once that happened.

She leaned closer. “You will eventually have to choose a side.” Her breath whispered over his chest, and gooseflesh pebbled there.

It felt great, and Robert became dizzy for a moment, but then found his mental footing again.

“Then,” he told her, “I choose my side.”

Sealiah threw back her head and laughed. It sounded like funeral bells. Birds in the nearby trees took wing, screeching in fear.

“I was correct to choose you as my champion against Mephistopheles,” she said. “In a sense you possess the strength to do for me more than any other ever has. . ” Her voice trailed off as if she’d just realized something and it had halted her super seductress act dead in its tracks.

She blinked and shook her head. “I can help you as well. I could make you stronger than you ever dreamed. All you need do is remain my champion, Robert Farmington of Arkansas.”

Her fingertips brushed against his forearm, and shivers of pleasure arced from her to him.

“And all you need do is swear one tiny oath of loyalty.”

“No way.” Robert pulled away. “No oaths. No contracts. No blood ties. Like I told you: I’m done working for anyone else.”

She looked him a long time. The ocean pounding sounded like a typhoon.

“No,” she finally said, “I can see that now. You are too strong, perhaps.”

Again, for a moment, she didn’t look like any Infernal he’d ever seen before as the skin between her perfectly smooth brows crinkled with frustration.

Her gaze then dropped to the sand and she murmured, “Is it because. . I am what I am? You think me evil? Twisted? And you believe that is all that I am?”

Robert heard the hurt in her voice. Infernals were really good liars, though, so he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a game. Robert was always rushing to save damsels in distress. This time, though, something told him this was real vulnerability, something maybe none other had ever seen in the Queen of Poppies.

“Isn’t that all you are?” he asked. “Maneuvering Eliot to your side, and getting me and Fiona to kill Mephistopheles? All those tortured damned souls you keep in Hell?” He licked his lips, afraid he’d said too much, but nonetheless he pressed on. “You tell me if there’s more to being Infernal.”

“You wound me with the truth.” She looked up, the pain shining in her eyes. “We were once all so much more.”

She pulled her legs into a kneeling position and stretched out her arms. “And perhaps for you, Robert Farmington, I can summon one brief glimpse of our past.”

Sealiah arched her back and looked as if something red-hot had been shoved into her center-and then light burst forth and blazed pure white: she was a creature of divine beauty that shone through Robert’s mind with wide white wings and angelic glory.

And then it was gone, and Robert was left blinking at splotchy purple afterimages.

Sealiah lay huddled before him, panting. “That is what we once were.”

She sat up, her face pale and lined with exhaustion. “And I fear you are correct: we are no longer those creatures. My last chance to touch that part of me dies with your refusal, hero.”

She slowly stood and stumbled back toward the ocean.

Robert got to his feet. “Wait.”

She stopped but kept her back turned.

Sealiah was the ultimate damsel in distress. She wasn’t human-Robert had to remind himself of that, but did she have to be human to need saving?

What if he could save her? Change her? That might change everything.

He’d never been able to say no to any woman who needed help. It wasn’t in his DNA.

And what needed saving in all the worlds more than a fallen angel?

Still with her back to him, Sealiah whispered, “You also said you wanted to forget, Robert. I could. . could help you with that as well. I would look forward to it.”

Forget? Could he?

Fiona? Everyone at school? And the League?

Robert didn’t think so, as much as he wanted that. But maybe-just maybe, he could grow out of his mistakes and regrets and become something more than just Robert the messenger boy, Robert the spy, and Robert the pawn.

He took her hand, whirled her around-pulled her into his embrace.

Sealiah curled against his chest, and tilted her head up.

They kissed and wrapped around each other.

The ocean surged about their feet and splashed up their legs.

Robert felt as if he were drowning.

He let the tide of her passion take him.

Eliot couldn’t figure it out. This was just too much stuff.

He stepped back and looked over the items spread on his bed: jeans and sweaters and T-shirts, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, first-aid kit, flashlights, a white-gas stove, tent, sleeping bag, rain jacket, sun hat, parka, waders, a box of extra guitar strings, and books-stacks and piles of ancient tomes and scrolls and moldering texts that were his required reading for the summer. The books by themselves weighed fifty pounds.

He had to take it all though, because where he was going he wasn’t sure what to expect.

Could he really do this?

Yes. He’d already made up his mind. The rest was just details.

How he’d come to this particular life-altering decision was a combination of logic, guesswork. . and a feeling that he was 100 percent absolutely correct. It was instinct: like a plant heliotropes toward the sun, or stone falls because of gravity.

He was going.

His gaze landed on his guitar case. Lady Dawn-he couldn’t forget her.

He’d need a wheelbarrow for all this stuff.

Eliot went to the window, opened it, and let the rare unfogged San Francisco sunset stream into his room. He took a deep breath. It smelled clean.

He was doing this, he told himself again. And yet, if he was so sure, why was he terrified?

There was a tiny tap at his door-followed by several raps, too loud, like the person on the other side was overcompensating for their initial timidity.

“Come in?”

Fiona opened his door. She wore one of those outfits Aunt Dallas had got her in Paris, a blue-silver jacket, silk blouse, and matching skirt. It made her seem ten years older. She also had that silver rose pin the League had given her. Fiona looked annoyed at Eliot-then her face went slack as she saw the stuff on his bed.

Had she come here to chew him out again for claiming the Infernal land and saving Jezebel? Was she going to play the “older” sister and give him advice and order him around?

Or was it something else?

There was a look on her face: one you might give some mentally ill person walking repeatedly into a corner, or the piteous glance you might give a homeless person huddled in a cardboard box.

Which, in Eliot’s near future, might not be too far from the truth.

She asked, “What do you think you’re doing, Rheinardia ocellata?”⁷⁴

Eliot ran fingers through his unruly hair. He hadn’t had time to get it cut all year and it was one long mess.

He had more important things, though, to occupy his thoughts than his hair or devising a return shot in for vocabulary insult like fescennine absquatulative physagogue.

“I’m packing,” he told her.

“I can see that.” Fiona set her hands on her hips. “Look, forget whatever you’re doing. We need to talk about what Sobek said: that parting of the ways thing. It has to be a metaphor.”

“No,” Eliot replied. “It means that you and I are going in different directions.”

“I know that,” she said. “Like your music and my combat training.” She shook her head, dismissing any other notion. “You need to get dressed, because we’re scheduled to see the League Council this evening. They’re going to help us figure it out.”

The skin at the base of Eliot’s spine crawled. The thought of him standing in front of all the Elder Immortals, explaining that he was an Infernal, was the last place in the world he wanted to be.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve already got my part figured out.”

It hurt him to say those words because he knew he couldn’t take them back, that what he was doing now would be irrevocable.

Fiona scrutinized him, and then moved over to his bed, cataloging all the equipment. “You’re going back, aren’t you?” Her voice dripped with contempt. “To Hell-and those Burning Orchards?”

Eliot kept his voice level. “I have to.”

“I bet you do,” Fiona said with a sneer. “You and Jezebel together all summer long? I’m going to get sick just thinking about it.”

“You’ve got it wrong. I’m going, but Jezebel is staying at the Paxington dormitory. She has to make up the classes she missed or she won’t be coming back next year.”

Fiona stared at him, her mouth open, not understanding.

Eliot wasn’t sure he could explain it-but he tried. “She and I talked about it. She wants to learn more. . and I’m not going to hold her back.”

Eliot tactfully skipped the part of the phone conversation he’d just had with Jezebel twenty minutes ago where she had spelled it out for him: she was basically his slave-bonded to land he now owned, and that Eliot could’ve ordered her to come back with him. . and be with him.

That had kind of soured the entire heroic fantasy he had had about him and her. After all he’d been through to save her-he didn’t even know if she really liked him. . for him.

Someone like Jeremy would have been okay with that, but Eliot needed someone by this side (raw animal sexual attraction, notwithstanding) because they wanted to be there-not because they were forced there by some magical bond.

Eliot would figure what to do with his sort-of girlfriend, but later, after he solved a much bigger problem.

“So, why are you going back?” Fiona asked. “Are you going to give that land to Dad?”

“You don’t understand,” Eliot told her, exasperation creeping into his voice. “I can’t give it up.” He forced what he’d been feeling since he’d taken possession of his domain in Hell into words: “That land is bound to me. It’s part of me. If someone takes it, they take me. . my soul, too.”

Fiona’s blinked, absorbing what he said, and then her hands clenched into fists. “Then we have to do something. There has to be a way to sever that tie.”

Eliot held up both hands. “Don’t!” He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as he imagined Fiona cutting out a part of him. “I want this,” he said. “I can feel the land calling to me, making me stronger, something more than just ordinary Eliot Post.”

“Ordinary? You’re a hero in the League of Immortals, for crying out loud! Think about it. If you go back there, they’ll kill you. You saw how Sealiah and Mitch-Mephistopheles fought for their lands. What makes you think a bunch of Infernals won’t gather their armies and just take your land?”

“I don’t know,” Eliot whispered. “There’s no reason they wouldn’t. Maybe Dad can help.” This sounded unconvincing, even to himself. “But I have to be there, Fiona. I can’t help it.”

“Well, I can’t-I won’t accept that,” she told him, standing taller. “I’m not going to stand by while you fight for your life. There has to be something we can do.”

They locked stares. Eliot so wanted to communicate everything he felt-the pull of the land, and the need to prove himself. Why didn’t she get that? They used to be able to explain encyclopedic volumes of information and feelings with a single glance, but Fiona wasn’t listening to him anymore. She was trying to communicate something entirely different: her disappointment, her displeasure, her disapproval-that she knew what was right for him.

“Eliot? Fiona? My doves?” Cecilia poked her head through the open door, glancing over them both, and her eyes hardening as she took in the equipment on Eliot’s bed. “Your mother would like to see you in the dining room.” She smiled with trembling lips, but Eliot heard the iron authority of Audrey behind the polite request.

“Great,” Fiona muttered, and strode past Eliot. “We’re not done talking about this.”

She had no idea how made up his mind was. . although, what was he going to tell Audrey? And how could he stop her from stopping him?

Cee stood waiting for him, her smile brightening. She wore pants, nineteenth-century things with flared thighs and a white canvas belt-like she was going elephant hunting with Ernest Hemingway. (For all Eliot knew, that’s precisely what she might’ve done last time she wore them.) She had on a khaki blazer and wore desert camouflage army boots.

“We better see what you mother wants,” Cee told him.

“Yeah.” Eliot had a feeling that someone in this family (other than him) was about to pull a fast one.

He marched into the dining room.

Audrey and Fiona stood side by side. It struck Eliot how much they looked alike: tall, thin, and serious, but Fiona was in gray and his mother in a neat black dress. He’d never seen his mother in black, though, and it made him stop and stare. She looked like she was going to a funeral. . and somehow it looked good on her.

On the dining table sat three cloth sacks. They were full of bottled waters, beef jerky, boxes of cereal, vitamins, and protein bars.

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what Eliot is doing?”

Eliot pressed his lips into a single white line, astonished that she would break their confidential trust. Technically, though, she hadn’t really snitched on him. . but it was darned close.

How could he be mad, though? Fiona was just worried. And he was going to have to tell Audrey something.

“I know everything,” Audrey told them.

Eliot’s and Fiona’s eyes went wide.

“You do?” they asked at the same time.

“I know that Eliot has arranged for his vassal to stay at Paxington over the summer.” One of her eyebrows arched. “Very wise to attend to business first, I might add. I also know that you intend to spend the summer in the Lower Realms. You have packed, but Cee and I have taken the liberty of buying a few snacks to tide you over on your journey.”

Eliot stared at his mother, unable to read her face. How had she known all that? And more important, why wasn’t she stopping him?

“You’re just letting him go?” Fiona asked, her voice breaking.

“I must,” Audrey told her. “As a member of the League, I am forbidden to interfere in Infernal affairs.”

Fiona turned pale as this sank in.

So Eliot was free. Finally free.

But the elation of his new freedom faded because it also meant he was alone now, too.

“Besides,” Audrey said to Fiona, and set one hand on her shoulder. “One must not separate an Infernal from his lands for too long. They do not fare well.”

“But Eliot’s really not an. .,” Fiona’s voice trailed off. She looked at Eliot like he had a terminal disease-or like he was already dead. She regained her composure and said, “Well, he can’t go. How is he going to carry all this?” She gestured at the table. “That’s not even taking into account all the books he’s going to need to pass Miss Westin’s final exam.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

Cee then entered the dining room carrying a large bag in each hand, and with Lady Dawn’s case bouncing along on top of one. The bags were made of a heavy tapestry-like tan-and-purple paisley material.

Eliot didn’t know what she was doing, but he immediately went to his great-grandmother to help. “Let me get those.” Eliot tried to lift one of her carpetbags. He couldn’t budge one with both hands. It must have weighed two hundred pounds.

Cee handed him his guitar case.

“Cecilia has packed your things,” Audrey explained. “She’s going with you, Eliot.”

Eliot blinked and looked between Audrey and Cee. They weren’t kidding.

Relief coursed through him. He wouldn’t be alone. . even though he’d have to deal with Cee’s cooking-it was a small price to have someone he knew, someone he could trust, by his side.

Cee patted his arm, seeming to understand everything.

Audrey beckoned to Eliot. He set his guitar aside and embraced his mother-clutching on to her because it might the last time he ever hugged her.

Audrey went through the motions, but there was no warmth. Her embrace was rigid and dry and without feeling.

He started to pull away, but she held him, turned, and whispered so softly into his ear that he barely heard: “Your father told me of your tie to land. You and Cecilia must hurry. There is good reason to do so, which she will explain on the way. Now go, and be safe, my Eliot.”

Audrey squeezed him once, and then released him.

She’d been talking to his father? Since when were they on speaking terms?

He stared into Audrey’s eyes. There was no love in them, but something new, a steely concern. Was that all she had to give him?

No. Something else glimmered in her gaze: something. . strategic.

He nodded, not entirely understanding, but at least acknowledging that he had heard.

There was an awkward moment when Eliot couldn’t move. He felt a crushing impulse to stay where he was, to stay home and stick with what he knew.

But he had to leave because it would be his first step on his own, as an adult, and if he didn’t move now, he never would.

So, without a sigh, he picked up Lady Dawn and marched down the stairs.

Cee, Audrey, and Fiona followed.

He stood in front of the door, pausing to trace over the patterns of color and light on its four stained glass panes. He must have passed those every day and until this moment he hadn’t realized how much he was going to miss something as simple and stupid as the geometric lines that made the mosaic of a field of grapevines and harvesters.

He opened the door, stepped onto the threshold, and turned back to them.

Audrey nodded and held up one hand, then curled it and dropped it to her side-a motion that seemed to communicate both good-bye and stay.

Fiona stood by their mother, her arms folded in front of her. “Please don’t do this, Eliot,” she whispered.

Eliot wanted to move to his sister, but there was a barrier between them now that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He looked into her eyes. They glistened with tears, but Fiona quickly blinked them away.

And for the first time in his life, he couldn’t read her. There was no connection.

He turned his back to them. “Come on, Cee.”

He marched down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. He heard Cecilia mutter her good-byes to Audrey and fuss over Fiona to take care of herself and to study hard-and then she trotted to catch up to Eliot.

“Your mother told you?” Cee whispered. “We must make all due haste?”

“Yeah.”

But once again, Eliot found his legs immobile. What he wanted to do was turn around and try to explain everything to Fiona, make her see his point of view, to somehow get her back on his side.

They were supposed to be stronger together.

But he couldn’t turn-if he did, he knew he’d chicken out and never have the strength to move forward.

He turned anyway and looked back.

Audrey was on the threshold, gazing longingly after him. . seeming both sad and proud.

Fiona, however, had already gone back inside.

Audrey gave them both a tiny wave, and then hung her head and shut the door.

He somehow found the strength to turn and walk down the sidewalk.

After a block, he asked Cee, “So what’s the big rush?”

Cee kept pace with him, even though she carried those too heavy carpetbags. She wasn’t even panting. In fact, she looked a lot healthier than any 105-year-old woman had a right to look.

“The League of Immortals will soon know of the Night Train Station under Market Street,” she said.

“Because of Fiona,” Eliot finished for her.

Of course, Eliot’s departure was going to come up at the Council meeting tonight, and they’d want to know all the details of how he was getting back to Hell. If Fiona didn’t tell them outright. . they’d find a way to get the information out of her.

“How long do you think the Immortals will tolerate an open path to Hell in the Middle Realms?” Cee asked.

“But the Pactum Pax Immortalis-,” Eliot started, and then stopped in the middle of that thought.

He was about to say they couldn’t do anything, because it was Infernal property.

But sure they could. They could fill the secret stairway to the Night Train Station with concrete-technically not touching any of the Infernal property, but nonetheless making it inaccessible. Or, if Eliot knew the thoroughness of the League, they might cause an earthquake and shift an entire tectonic plate over the site.

“I get it,” he said to Cee. “So once there, how are we going to get back?”

Streetlamps flickered on Pacific Avenue as the sunset faded and the eastern horizon darkened. Two crows landed on top of lampposts and stared at him.

Cee took Eliot by the crook of his elbow, sped up, and surprisingly pulled him along with her.

“You are an Infernal Lord now, Eliot. It is time you started thinking like one. You will find a way back if desire it. You will make your own way if necessary!”

Eliot didn’t know about that. Crossing dimensions was something only. . only what? Only something fallen angels could do? Only the mighty Titans and gods had ever managed?

In his blood pulsed all those mingled lineages.

He was strong. He would find a way.

“And here’s something that will help.” Cee stopped, reached into one of the carpetbags, and pulled out an object wrapped in brown paper. She handed it to Eliot.

As he took it, Eliot felt that the thing possessed a gravity all its own. He felt a thrum of power within the paper and he heard a distant music, echoing and calling to him.

He unwrapped it.

A fist-sized gleaming sapphire nestled within the paper, and hundreds of water blue facets reflected his amazed face back at him. A tiny silver loop clutched the top of the stone, and a cord of leather snaked through it.

Eliot knew this thing. The last time he’d seen it, Fiona had pulled it through Beelzebub’s neck-decapitating that monster and saving them both.

“Every Infernal lord has a talisman,” Cee told him, as if that explained everything. “But hide it well. Even your mother does not know I took it. It is dangerous. But I believe it is absolutely necessary if you are to claim your rightful place.”

Eliot touched the stone. It felt cold, but warmed quickly under his fingertips. The dazzling blue tinged to midnight dark and then a coal black.

He made a fist about the stone.

It was now his-the power within, along with responsibilities he had yet to fathom.

He was Eliot Post, Master of the Burning Orchards, and Infernal Lord and Prince of the Lower Realms.

He undid the leather cord, pulled it through, and tossed it. There is no way he’d ever wear this thing around his neck.

“Let’s catch that train,” Eliot said, “or it’s going to be a long walk. We have a lot to do before school starts next year.”

The Mortal Coils series continues soon with

Book III: What Fools These Mortals.

74. Rheinardia ocellata, also the crested argus pheasant, is best known for its wild tuft of feathers spiking up from its head and its long (up to six feet) tail feathers. -Editor.

READER’S GUIDE

In the second book of the Mortal Coils series, Eliot and Fiona enroll in the Paxington Institute, a most unusual high school for the children of the gods, Infernals, and the mortal magical families. Here more of the legendary world is revealed-filled with high-stakes politics, intrigue, and magic as well as the normal high school social dynamics that any teenager must survive.

[Warning: if you haven’t read the book yet, there are definite spoilers in this section!]

1. One of the concepts drilled in at the Paxington Institute is to win at any cost. Is winning at any cost justified under any circumstances? Is there a difference between winning in gym class and winning on a real battlefield?

2. At Paxington there are definite social layers based on which family the students come from. Why do you think Jezebel, an Infernal, is set so high in the social order? Why do you think that when Fiona’s origins are revealed Eliot’s social standing doesn’t change?

3. Name as many things as you can that seem unfair to you about the Paxington Institute. Is/was your high school in any way similar? Given the chance, would you want to go to such a school?

4. While some Paxington instructors have been explicitly identified, two have not: the Headmistress, Miss Lucille Westin, and the music instructor, Ms. Erin DuPreé. Who do you think their mythical counterparts are?

5. When Fiona wounds Mr. Ma, Robert tells her that everyone is afraid that this is an omen of Armageddon. Is there any evidence that this might be true?

6. In Mortal Coils, Sealiah’s Twelve Towers is a large but otherwise ordinary villa. In All That Lives Must Die, the villa has transformed into a formidable castle. How is this possible? What does it imply about the Infernal rulers and their domains in hell?

7. At the end of the war, Eliot is offered a reward for his assistance, while Fiona is not. Why? If she was offered a reward, would she have taken it?

8. Why does Fiona consider Mitch’s offer to join him at the end. . even after he had deceived her? What would you have done?

9. There seem to be three “sides” in the upcoming conflict: the League of Immortals, the Infernal clans. . and a different third group of individuals. Who’s on this side? What are their goals? How does the “win at any cost” lesson learned at Paxington apply here?

10. What would you have done about Jeremy and Sarah Covington after they betrayed you? Would you have believed Sarah?

11. Do you think Amanda’s reaction to the twins at the end of the book is justified?

12. Who is more powerful, the League of Immortals or the Infernal clans? On a modern battlefield who do you think would win?

13. Eliot and Fiona end up on very different paths at the end of this book. Would you have made the same choices?

For more information on Eric Nylund and the Mortal Coils series, visit www.ericnylund.net, which includes a biography on the author and additional information about his novels.