All That Lives Must Die (26 page)

“Observe,” he said, nodding toward the regrouped Immortals. “They work collectively against a superior foe. Alone, the Infernal—even though it has more power—cannot penetrate the formation. This is the one of the key philosophical difference between them.”

The battle slowed.

The Infernals retreated back to their hellhole.

Heroes gathered wounded comrades and limped toward the hills.

Fiona felt the dream begin to fade, the ancient memories submerging into shadow and silence.

“I lost Zeus and Satan,” Eliot said, looking around. “Mr. Ma, you said they died? Where are their bodies? Satan should have left a big smoking crater.”

Mr. Ma cast his gaze about. “Indeed. Not this time . . .” His voice trailed off as he pondered. “Come.” He indicated they follow him deeper into the fog.

Fiona would have given anything to see Zeus one more time. She’d look up everything there was on him in her books tonight. How had one Immortal ever led the League when the modern Council of Seven Elders could barely decide anything?

Things were different back then—that’s why. Even Dallas had been a real warrior.

Mr. Ma found Zeus’s broken chariot: coils and copper-wound armatures still arcing and smoldering. There were great gashes in the earth, and blood—splashes of crimson and tar-black ooze everywhere.

But no trace of either Satan or Zeus.

“History tells us they
did
die,” Mr. Ma whispered. “At this very spot.” He knelt and touched the earth and blood. “And yet so much is different—more real—in this version of the dream.” He looked at Fiona and Eliot. “I wonder . . .”

He stood.

“The demonstration is over.” Mr. Ma strode back toward the hill and the circle of stones.

The fog cleared, and overhead it was a sunny California afternoon again.

“You will each write a three-thousand-word paper,” Mr. Ma told them, “comparing and contrasting the fighting and philosophical styles of the two sides. Due Wednesday.”

They’d just relived one of the most important battles ever . . . and he was assigning homework? Fiona wanted to do something
significant
: wage a battle, lead an army, change the world, be a real goddess.

Fiona kicked the dirt in a futile act of rebellion.

Mitch trotted alongside her. “I sketched their formations,” he said. “You want to hang out after school? Have some coffee and compare notes?”

Fiona’s thoughts completely derailed. She almost tripped. “Coffee?”

“Sure.” Mitch smiled his reassuring smile that made Fiona feel like she’d known him forever. A smile that could even make her forget she was mad.

She glanced at the hilltop where Robert was, and that ruined her mood again.
He
wasn’t going to ask her out for coffee any time soon. Things were so different now between them.

Her analysis of how she was so
not
like the ancient gods would have to wait. So would obsessing about how she and Robert could fit together with the League always between them.

The real world had to take priority, and right now that meant homework . . . and maybe being friends with Mitch.

“I’d love coffee,” she said.

               27               

A WRONG TURN

Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab got on the bus and got driven back to Plato’s Hall.

There Miss Westin lectured on the ramifications of the Battle of Ultima Thule . . . how the then leaderless Immortals and Infernals signed a neutrality treaty (the
Pactum Pax Immortalis
) in 326
C.E
. . . . which provided stability for the mortal magical families to surface and thrive . . . and prompted a fragile cooperation between mortals, fallen angels, and Immortals to preserve the ancient knowledge in Emperor Constantine’s Court of God’s Peace . . . which made the Paxington Institute possible . . . and was the indirect cause of the modern political balance between mortals and Immortals everywhere . . . and the reason they were all here today.

The
Pactum Pax Immortalis
was the treaty that Louis had mentioned, the one he said Eliot and Fiona might unravel.

If they undid that, what happened to the world?

On top of all that, Eliot couldn’t stop thinking about Jezebel. Compared to everything else, his personal problems
shouldn’t
matter.

And yet, Jezebel sat just a few seats away . . . and it very much
did
matter.

The scent from the battlefield was still with Eliot—all the smoke and blood and dust, but Jezebel’s perfume—vanilla with hints of cinnamon—overwhelmed him.

All he could focus on was how she had lied about wishing she’d never met him.

Miss Westin dismissed class. Everyone filed out; even Robert and Fiona left without him.

Eliot lagged behind.

Miss Westin gave him a long look, nodded behind her glasses as if she understood everything . . . and then left the room as well.

He was alone.

That suited Eliot fine. He’d slink home and get that paper done for Mr. Ma—maybe even dig out his old
Mythica Improbiba
and see what it said about old Satan and Zeus. It would feel good to do almost normal homework for once.

He wandered out of the classroom and across campus, not looking where he was going until he was near the front gate.

Jezebel was there, walking along the same trajectory . . . but not alone.

Dante Scalagari and that tall Van Wyck boy Jeremy had trounced the first day (who still had his broken nose taped), walked with her. They showed great interest in everything she said.

Well, of course, every boy at Paxington would be interested in her.

Something sleeping stirred inside Eliot, however: a heat that sparked and kindled. His hands curled into fists.

He took a deep breath.

There was no way he was going to march over there and try to insert himself in their conversation . . . and yet, he found himself doing precisely that.

“Hey . . . ,” he said.

The boys’ smiles faded, and Jezebel’s face turned to stony disdain.

“It’s our young Master Post,” Dante said with a polite tilt of his head.

“I was wondering if we could talk,” he said to Jezebel. Eliot’s ears burned, but somehow he pressed on, getting the rest of the awkward words out as quickly as he could. “About gym class. Strategies for our next match, I mean.”

“The way I heard it,” Van Wyck said, flicking his angle-cut hair from his face, “a good strategy might be for you to sit out the next match.”

“Donald, there’s no need for that,” Dante said to his friend, and gave an apologetic shrug to Eliot.

Jezebel’s gaze fell upon Eliot. “I must speak with the boy,” she said. “If you two wouldn’t mind.” She flashed them her patented hundred-watt smile.

“As you wish, lady,” Dante said. He and Donald van Wyck bowed, and they left (although not before Van Wyck gave Eliot a withering look).

Jezebel’s smile vanished. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “For being the son of the Great Deceiver,” she whispered, “you, Eliot Post, are a rotten lair.”

His head snapped up, and he returned her hateful stare. He wasn’t lying—well, he was . . . about wanting to talk about gym class. But hearing how pathetic a liar he was coming from
her
—that just fanned the flames inside him.

Eliot flushed, but it wasn’t from embarrassment. This was some animal instinct to move and take her in his arms and . . . what? It was so much darker than his normal high-adventured daydreams, it startled him back to normal.

Louis had said how Infernals could easily tell lies from the truth. He must have just insulted Jezebel with that little white lie.

He exhaled. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Sorry about that. The truth between us would be best.”

Jezebel’s eyebrows flicked up. Her glare eased a notch and she was silent a moment.

“No,” she said, turned, and headed for the gate. “I believe that it would be best if there were
nothing
between us.” She didn’t say this cruelly, but as if it broke her heart.

Eliot watched her leave.

He should drop this and let her go. How much clearer could she be on what she wanted?

But that wasn’t the issue. It wasn’t what she wanted that he needed to know; he had to know how she
felt
about him.

Eliot followed after her to the gate.

Jezebel walked faster . . . but then they both had to stop.

Harlan Dells, as ever, stood at the gate. He looked them both over with that microscopically penetrating gaze that made Eliot feel naked and helpless.

“Hey, Mr. Dells,” Eliot said.

Jezebel curtsied, lowered her eyes, and said, “Hail, Keeper of the Gates.”

Mr. Dells smoothed his tasseled beard, then turned and gazed into the alley.

“Something wrong?” Jezebel asked.

“The shadows a moment ago,” Mr. Dells replied. “Just a flicker. Half a wavelength. A trick of the fog and light . . . perhaps.” He turned back to them, his face clouded. “Take care to walk the straight and narrow on the way home today, children.”

Eliot wasn’t sure what that was all about, but he replied, “Yes, sir.”

Harlan Dells opened the gate and watched them pass.

“Look . . . ,” Eliot said, trying to keep up with Jezebel.

She ignored him and trotted ahead.

He knew it was rude, and he knew she could probably knock his head off if she wanted to, but he had to talk to her. Eliot reached out and touched her hand.

The effect was immediate.

She whirled on him, the hand he had touched curled into a clawed strike.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “For everything. And I mean
everything
. How you got involved with the Infernals. How I should have figured it all out in Del Sombra and done something more to help. And how you gave up your freedom for me, and had to go back . . . to Hell.”

Jezebel’s mouth dropped open. “How can you be such a fool?” she breathed.

“Fiona asks the same thing,” he said. “Maybe I am a fool to want to help you. I know you’re part of some plot involving me. But that doesn’t matter. We had something real in Del Sombra. My song for you didn’t come from nowhere. I could never have composed that on the spot for you if there hadn’t been a connection between us.”

“There was no connection,” she whispered.

Eliot sensed that lie.

And she knew that he knew, too.

“I
can
help you.” Eliot held out his hand.

She looked at him and then at his proffered hand.

Jezebel slowly turned away and continued down the alley. “You understand nothing.”

Although the alley had been full of students just a second ago, it was empty now . . . which was fine, because Eliot wanted to be alone with Jezebel.

Still, it was strange. Where’d everyone go?

He walked alongside her, and this time she let him.

Jezebel kept her head lowered, not looking at him, and edged closer until their shoulders almost touched.

“This is not a game with the Infernal clans,” she said. “My Queen is at war with Mephistopheles. Only one side will survive. Help me and you become
his
enemy. He will destroy you.” In the tiniest whisper, she added: “I cannot let that happen.”

“None of that matters,” he told her.

That fire that had been inside him before rekindled through his body, burning away his fear and doubt.

He spoke in a deeper voice: “It matters not if all the demons in Hell, every angel in Heaven, or the gods themselves stand between you and me. Nothing will keep us apart.” The heat inside Eliot cooled—but it
had
been there. It was real. His Immortal side . . . or his Infernal blood surfacing?

He felt the old connection between him and Julie—like the day he had played her her song, when she had poured her soul into his.

Overhead, however, electrical lines hummed, and Eliot felt vertigo . . . like he was in a falling elevator . . . a sensation not unlike the first time he and Fiona had found the sideways passage into this alley.

He looked about.

They were still in the alley—but it was wrong.

He and Jezebel stood in a deserted side passage off the main thoroughfare. Eliot hadn’t seen this before.

And he sure didn’t recall turning down it.

Jezebel whirled around. “A trap!”

She glared at Eliot, angry, then took her eyes off him and searched the passage . . . whose entrance now turned away at a right angle . . . an angle that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

The shadows in the alley grew longer.

The buildings leaned toward one another, limiting how much light filtered down. It was as if the space around them was as pliable as molding clay.

“See?” Jezebel said. “I told you! They’ve come for me. Run—while you can.”

He reached into his pack, flipped open his violin case, and grabbed Lady Dawn. Eliot set bow to strings, and the air stilled.

“I’m sticking with you,” he told her.

“I cannot believe how stubborn . . . ,” she muttered under her breath, gritting her teeth until they ground out the rest of her words.

They were no longer alone. Eliot could feel the presence in the shadows surrounding them.

A dozen black eyes stared from the dark—pulling themselves from the flat dimensionless shadow planes.

These things had long limbs that terminated into chitinous points. Where they touched brick and asphalt, they left gouges and sounded like a herd of cats running over blackboards. Their heads were smooth and tapered and split open to reveal a grin of countless shark teeth.

Jezebel faced them. Her hands up in a fighting stance, she stepped next to Eliot so they stood back to back.

“Droogan-dors,” she whispered. “Do not let them pierce you. Their poison turns flesh into smoke.”

For a heartbeat, Eliot froze, wanted to do nothing but run—but there was no way he was leaving Jezebel to fight alone.

He played the first thing that sprang into his mind, the “The March of the Suicide Queen.” He jumped to a part about a third of the way into the piece—allegro—bowing until his fingers blurred—the battle charge: it spoke of horses racing toward the enemy line, knights with lances leveled—impacting upon the enemy and breaking bodies, splintering wood, shattering bone, trampling deeper into the fray.

In his mind he heard those soldiers sing:

We shall never show mercy
We shall ask no quarter.
We spill rivers of blood
Gallop through blade and mortar.

Hoofbeats echoed off the alley walls. The dust stirred and white ghost horses appeared with headless riders charging at a full gallop—passed
through
Eliot and Jezebel—but solidly tramped over the nearest creatures.

The Droogan-dors went down, stabbing the phantom horses and knights.

The horses screamed as gaping holes of darkness appeared, consuming them . . . but not before they trampled the creatures, with shell-splitting crunches and wet grinding splats.

Two of the creatures jumped at Jezebel. She slashed out—her fingernails now long claws.

The Droogan-dors reared back, the cuts along their bodies swelled and blistered from poison. They writhed on the ground, screaming, and turned to smoke.

The remaining Droogan-dors backed off, whispering among themselves.

“They’re leaving,” Eliot said. “We can get out.”

“No,” Jezebel said, “there are never so few. That was merely a test. There is no way to survive this.”

The shadows multiplied with blinking eyes, scraping, rasping points, and leering smiles . . . and Eliot saw a hundred more of them . . . all smiling from the dark.