All That Lives Must Die (63 page)

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LAST MOMENTS TOGETHER

Eliot felt broken inside and that broken part didn’t care about anything anymore. But part of him wanted to scream and toss caution to the winds and play the heck out of Lady Dawn and smash Mephistopheles’ armies to atoms.

. . . And maybe then Jezebel would be by his side.

Or was it being in Hell that made him feel that way? Maybe after this was over, he and Fiona and Robert should just go back to Paxington, hit the books, and figure out how to get through the rest of the school year without being killed, maimed, or flunking.

Eliot shook his head clear of those thoughts. He stood on a stage that had been set up near the edge of the mesa.

To the left, the land sheared away where he’d collapsed the tunnels. That now provided a way to the top of the plateau, a treacherously steep slope, but one soldiers and shadow creatures could rush up. He flushed with embarrassment that he’d caused this, but better that than letting the enemy crawl up through the middle of their defenses.

This was where Mephistopheles’ armies would try to overwhelm Sealiah’s forces—and it was where the Queen had concentrated her armies and artillery.

Archers and cannon had been positioned along the walls on either side of the slope. Industrial cranes dangled platforms piled with rubble—ready to release those loads and start an avalanche. Five hundred soldiers with rifle lances and tower shields formed a phalanx in the center of a breach. To either side, two thousand foot soldiers waited with ax and crossbow, net and pike. Mr. Welmann was there, too, with saber in hand and flintlock pistols tucked into his camo sweatpants. Behind them were the Poppy Queen’s Calvary—three hundred mounted knights who could rush through the line and knock the enemy back . . . although Eliot thought this a measure of last defense, because once they charged down that steep hill, getting back up wouldn’t be an easy option.

Eliot had read about every important battle, thanks to Audrey and Cee’s homeschooling: Thermopylae, Waterloo, and Gettysburg. He remembered how high the casualties had been even for so-called victories.

Sealiah’s defensive line looked solid, though.

But enough to win?

At the base of the Twelve Towers Mesa, shadows flitted, crisscrossed, and grew longer and darker until they reached the river in the valley. Beyond those riverbanks was a solid mass of black. Clouds the color of coal covered the sky and plunged this world into night.

Eliot put on his glasses, squinted, and caught glimpses of what moved in that darkness: large forms with haunches and pointed insect legs and blinking eyes that crawled over one another like it was all part of the same thing. The dark stretched to the horizon, endless and impenetrable.

Mephistopheles stood at the head of his ranks. The Infernal Lord rumm-bled within a swirling thunderhead that rose a hundred feet into the air. He was a giant flickering in and out of sight: an armored leg, a muscular arm, a barbed pitchfork the size of a telephone pole.

A pair of eyes, red and unblinking, stared back at Eliot from those clouds, two concentrated points of fury that meant to destroy them all.

Yeah . . . whatever.

As if Eliot hadn’t seen
that
look a million times before from almost every relative he’d met since his fifteen birthday.

But this bravado was another lie. The truth was, he
was
scared.

It wasn’t like when he had Fiona had fought Beelzebub. The Lord of All That Flies had been holding back because he’d wanted to take them alive. And he’d trounced them . . . up until Fiona had decapitated him with his own necklace.

This was entirely different: an Infernal Lord ready to battle, not holding anything back, with the full strength of an army at his back and drawing upon all the power of his lands in Hell.

Something inside Eliot wanted to curl up and hide.

He glanced at Fiona and Robert. They stood nearby onstage. Maybe they all wanted to be close before the battle started. Of maybe it was because the stage had the best view. Or maybe it was because Fiona wanted to be far from the Queen. (He had a feeling that if his sister wasn’t about to fight Mephistopheles, she’d be going at it with Sealiah.)

Fiona talked strategy with Robert—well, actually, they argued about the hows and whys of the upcoming war like it was another gym match.

Eliot stroked Lady Dawn, his fingers magnetically drawn to her strings . . . feather touches that make the lightest of notes. That steadied his nerves, and he got a weird feeling it calmed Lady Dawn as well.

He took off his glasses and carefully put them away.

“Hey, man . . .”

Eliot turned. The guitarist Sealiah had called Kurt nodded through his long hair at Lady Dawn. “That was cool, but you better plug in.” He hitched his thumb at the wall of amplifiers behind him.

Eliot shook his head.

Kurt looked confused; then he glanced at Lady Dawn and this gaze wandered over her polished wood and brass fittings. “Got it,” he whispered. “You’re the man. We’ll jump in as soon as you go.”

“Thanks,” Eliot replied.

Kurt went back to the guy on bass, Sid, and the one with the bagpipe, Bon. They murmured to one another, Sid looked at Eliot and then Lady Dawn, and his upper lip curled in a half snarl and he nodded appreciatively.

Meanwhile, the singers, James and Janis, sauntered up to the microphones on either side of Eliot. James took off his shirt, tapped the mic, and said, “Do your thing with the Lizard King.” Janis smiled at Eliot and mouthed,
It’s cool, baby
.

He smiled back at him, but inside his stomach churned.

How was he supposed to play
with
these people when he had a hard enough time just controlling his own music?

Fiona came to him, sparing a few uncertain glances at Eliot’s band.

“Here’s the plan,” she whispered, all business. “Robert and I are going to try a blitz to get to the rear of their lines after the initial clash. There should be enough confusion for us to move quickly.”

Eliot imagined his sister and Robert strolling casually past the thousands that would be trying to hack one another to bits.

“That’s crazy,” he told her.

“Sure it is,” she replied, and frowned. “But I’m betting this is like any other gym match.”

Eliot gave her that special
you’ve hit your head
look that he saved for occasions like this. (Okay, there had never been an occasion like this before . . . but he gave her that look anyway.)

“I mean, there’s a goal,” Fiona said, exasperated that she had to spell it out for him. She nodded at the towering clouds that shrouded Mephistopheles.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Eliot said.

“We take him out and we’re betting his army falls apart. It’s simple.”

“Okay, that makes a microscopic amount of sense,” he told his sister. “If you
don’t
consider that Mephistopheles is probably a bazillion times as powerful as Beelzebub was, has an army . . . and that we almost
lost
to Beelzebub back in Del Sombra.”

Fiona crossed her arms and frowned. “Got a better plan? I’m listening.”

Eliot thought about it. Yeah, sure, if Robert or Fiona could stop Mephistopheles, his army would scatter, scared by anything that could kill their Lord and Master. So it was a fine plan . . . provided they had a small tactical nuclear weapon with which to take out the Infernal.

But Eliot finally said, “I guess we go with your plan.”

He resisted the urge to say
stupid plan
.

“I’ll need your help,” Fiona said. She bit her lip and glanced at his guitar. She always got weird when she talked about his music, as if it was something she didn’t like or understand but nonetheless had to tolerate it. Like Cee’s cooking.

Eliot guessed he felt the same way about her cutting. He suppressed a shiver.

“You’re going to have to do something to help us get close to Mephistopheles,” she said. “And when we get there, you’ll have to weaken him . . . but in a way that doesn’t blow us up or anything.”

Eliot wasn’t sure how it was to accomplish any of that; he was making this up as he went along. He just hoped he didn’t get her or Robert killed.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

They stood there. There was a long moment, awkward silence.

Eliot then looked Fiona square in the eyes. “I’m really sorry.”

How to explain it? He wasn’t sorry he’d come to save Jezebel. But he was sorry he had risked their lives. And he was sorry he’d gotten them into a jam with no way out except a bloody fight that might end get them tortured for all eternity if they lost.

She punched him in the shoulder. “What else was I going to do on Wednesday night except study for finals?”

Eliot tried to smile, failed, and shrugged.
“Trogium pulsatorium?”
he muttered.

That was the soft-bodied, wingless insect commonly called a “bookworm” (although technically it was a louse). This was a poor attempt at vocabulary insult, but it was all he had at the moment.

It was nice to have a moment of something normal between them. Maybe the last time that’d happen.

“Good one,” she replied, and uncharacteristically offered no counter-insult. Instead she looked around and sobered. “Have you seen Louis?”

“Just a second ago. He was at the back of the lines.”

Louis was no longer there, though, and Eliot wondered if his father would be fighting . . . or hiding?

Sealiah mounted the stairs to his stage and joined them. Tiny star-shaped orchids sprouted from the links in her armor and drizzled pollen, a cloak of wisteria-laden vines flowed behind her, and clouds of wasps circled high over her head.

Her perfume was intoxicating. Eliot felt dizzy and drowning, but he didn’t mind.

She looked more beautiful than before, like a carving by Michelangelo, as if the impending battle and bloodshed brought out the best in the Infernal queen.

Eliot’s band fell to their knees, and even Eliot felt obliged to give her a short bow.

Fiona stood with her hands on her hips.

“Soon it starts,” Sealiah said to them. “There is a final detail to attend to. Mr. Farmington?”

Robert shucked on his Paxington jacket, came over, and gave her a short bow as well.

“While Eliot and Fiona have more formidable weapons than I could ever provide,” Sealiah said as her gaze slid over the length of Robert. “You, my young hero, have only that toy.” She nodded at the brass knuckles on his hands (the ones that could punch through solid stone).

Robert cupped his fist. “Yes ma’am.” He flushed, but then recovered. “But I know how to use them.”

“No doubt.” She drew her broken sword and held it at an angle so Robert could see its jagged tip, the length of its patterned Damascus steel, and the poison that flowed and dripped onto the stage. “But would you accept the sword Saliceran and wield it in my name?”

Robert’s eyes drank in the weapon, and his hand drifted toward the handle.

It was terrible. And powerful. Eliot didn’t meet any special sense of magic to understand that. It was also something old. Something never meant to be touched by human hands.

“Don’t,” Fiona whispered.

Robert pursed his lips, and purposely
didn’t
look at Fiona. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll take you up on that.”

“Then kneel, hero,” Sealiah commanded. Robert did. The Queen passed the sword down his left side, over his head (without touching the poisoned blade to his shoulders as was traditional) and then down his right side. “I declare you my champion on this battlefield. Rise, Sir Robert Farmington, Captain of the Legion of Lotus, and wielder of Saliceran, the God-Broken.”

She gingerly turned the sword and Robert took it. He stared into the pattern of light and dark metal, fascinated.

Sealiah unbuckled the sword’s sheath and handed it over. She then stood on her tiptoes and kissed Robert on both cheeks . . . and as she did so, looked at Fiona.

Fiona glowered and her hands clenched.

Sealiah then stiffened and looked across the Valley. “Ready yourselves,” she told them. “Destroy everything you touch.”

And with that, she strode back to her army.

“Why’d you take that thing?” Fiona rasped at Robert.

Robert turned from her. “Why not?”

Fiona’s mouth opened and she stared at him. “Why? Let try:
it’s evil?
A gift from an Infernal? Come on, Robert! It’s a trick.”

“Is it a trick,” Robert said, “that the Queen gave me something that might save my life out there?” He turned back and met Fiona’s eyes. “Maybe it bugs you because it levels the playing field between you and me, huh?”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ve enjoyed bossing everyone around all year. That now that I have some power of my own”—he shook the sword—“you don’t like it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said through clenched teeth.

Eliot wanted to step between them, say something, and fix this. He knew better, though. They’d just focus all their unresolved issues on him—and that wouldn’t do
anyone
any good.

It was
so
obvious they cared for each other. Equally obvious that they didn’t understand each other.

Fiona had all this power, but more than that, she had all the responsibility that went with that power and being Team Captain and a goddess in the League of Immortals. She felt like she had to protect everyone and win every fight. She’d forgotten that she wasn’t alone.

And Robert? He just wanted to be near Fiona. Surrounded by Immortals and magical families, Eliot could only guess how inadequate he must feel—especially after he’d been fired by the League.

Eliot felt sorry for them.

Robert loved his sister. Fiona probably loved Robert, too, despite her recent dates with Mitch Stephenson. Mitch was nice, had magic, prestige, and was the most well-mannered guy Eliot had ever met . . . but he wasn’t Robert. He’d never be the first person Fiona had fallen for.

Robert ducked his head as if he was about to apologize—but the poison dripping off Saliceran smoldered and bust into crackling blue flames.
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