MORTAL COILS (97 page)

On
the ground, the design remained as well, even though chunks of asphalt had been
torn away.

Louis
was alive, still in his corner. His hand touched the wall, seeming to give it
power and stability. He still had something up his sleeve . . . something Eliot
was sure he wouldn’t like.

A
hissing emanated from within Ringo’s, and Eliot smelled the sulfurous additive
in natural gas.

The
ball of compressed stone continued to pop and shudder—but now as if something
inside pushed against it . . . something inside that wanted out.

Eliot
turned and scrambled through gaps in the dead-end wall. He turned back and
called to Louis. “This way. Hurry!”

Louis
had tried to sell him off. He didn’t deserve to be saved, but he was the key to
Eliot’s unanswered questions. If Louis died, Eliot would never learn anything
more.

Louis
smiled and shook his head.

Eliot
glared at him. There was nothing Eliot could do if Louis wanted to die.

Eliot
wriggled through the break in the wall and emerged on Midway Avenue.

A
crowd of people stood outside the Pink Rabbit, pointing and staring at the
alley.

“Hey!”
a man in the crowd called. It was the bartender who had let Eliot play his
guitar the other day. “Kid, you okay?”

“The
gas main!” Eliot yelled back. “It’s broken. It’s—”

An
explosion flattened Eliot. He sprawled face-first onto the street. The wind was
knocked out of him. Bits of brick whizzed over his head.

He
shook off the disorientation and clutched at Lady Dawn, who had been tossed
aside.

Gouts
of flame spiraled skyward and lit the night, making long shadows flicker
everywhere as if they danced in celebration. The alley had been blown
wide-open—Ringo’s had been mostly flattened, and the parts standing were
engulfed in fire.

Beelzebub,
Infernal Lord of All That Flies, towered among the ruins, swathed in the flame.
His body was scaled, feet and hands taloned with razor claws. Wings stretched
up two stories tall—a skeletal framework covered by a black membrane and a
rainbow patchwork of feathers like some Jurassic-era archaeopteryx. His eyes
burned with blue fire the same color as the sapphire that dangled about his
throat.

The
people from the Pink Rabbit screamed and scattered. Even the bartender who had
been coming to help Eliot left him in the middle of the street.

A
few days ago, Eliot would have run, too. But now he understood this was a
family matter that only he could take care of. He stood and gently plucked up
Lady Dawn.

“Enough
games,” thundered Beelzebub. He lifted one hand skyward. “Your flesh shall be
mine, even if it be consumed by a thousand other mouths.”

Eliot
followed the direction of that upraised hand. All he could see, though, were
the clouds as they reflected the fires below, and the first stars twinkling,
which then vanished . . . blotted out.

He
felt a shift in the air—not a breeze per se, but movement, nonetheless, all
around him.

Eliot
instinctively slapped his arm as a mosquito tried to bite.

Only
there were no mosquitoes in Del Sombra so late in the summer. There was no
water. Eliot suddenly had a very bad feeling about that one little mosquito.

He
looked up again, squinting.

Clouds
of gnats swarmed about the orange streetlamps. Wasps darted past his face, a
flock of sparrows, too. A kite on fire pinwheeled by. Eliot ducked as a
radio-controlled toy airplane almost took off his head.

The
air changed, thick with insects, alive with the fluttering of feathered wings,
floating trash, and smoldering cinders.

Eliot
heard the whine of a billion hungry bloodsucking bugs . . . as they all
spiraled toward him.

He
knew what to do. He set his bow on Lady Dawn—quickly advancing along a scale to
her highest note.

He
held it and made it waver.

The
high pitch made the swarm overhead buzz with agitation and lose cohesion,
drifting apart as insects attacked one another.

Using
what he had learned from the Symphony of Existence, Eliot bridged past the
highest note possible. His fingertips touched only the blur of string, and he
slipped the pitch up—a screech that pierced the night, higher still, and the
sound faded into the ultrasonic and past his ability to hear—and he kept
pushing higher—until he felt the highest impossible note shrieking through his
bones.

Car
windows shattered along with every storefront on Midway Avenue not already
blasted out by the explosion.

Beetles
and wasps and bees popped and their bits rained from the sky. Flocks of
vultures and finch flew into buildings.

Eliot
held the note until it felt as if his skull were cracking. The concrete
sidewalk fractured. Paint peeled off walls and the nearby cars. His vision
blurred.

He
stopped.

Eliot’s
body tingled. Blood trickled from his nose and his eyes, which he wiped away.

Beelzebub
held his ears and screamed. He recovered and glared at Eliot with his
flame-filled eyes. “Very well, young cousin,” he hissed. “You prove yourself a
worthy opponent. We shall treat you as such.”

He
strode from the alley, swatting aside the cars in his path.

Eliot
raised his bow to play once more.

Beelzebub’s
wings slashed forward—ripping Lady Dawn from Eliot’s grasp and knocking him
onto his back.

His
violin bounced into the gutter. There was no way to retrieve it in time before
Beelzebub could finish him.

Yet
Eliot still refused to give up, still refused to give Beelzebub the
satisfaction of seeing any fear.

Beelzebub
laughed and raised his claws. “Come.”

Eliot
saw himself for an instant doing as Beelzebub commanded. It was a nightmare
daydream of fire and Eliot leading hundreds of Infernals to war . . . and
millions dying because of him.

He
had killed before to save Fiona. But he’d never willingly help Beelzebub kill.
Not in a million years.

“I
don’t think so.”

Beelzebub
glared down upon him. “So be it.” He reared back one taloned hand to strike.

Eliot
looked him straight in the eye and braced . . . his final act of defiance.

He
barely saw it: a shape moving out of the corner of his vision, midnight black
and chrome silver gleaming, and so fast it rushed before him, a blur—

—as
Uncle Henry’s Maybach Exelero-4X limousine ran over Beelzebub.

74

MAKING
THE FINAL CUT

The
Maybach hit something the size of a bull elephant. At the speed Robert had been
driving, though, all Fiona saw was a dark shape and a pair of wings that were
too big for anything that existed in this world.

The
impact flung her forward, and a split second later the seat-belt harness
caught.

The
car tumbled end over end—airborne—there was a curious feeling of motion and
weightlessness.

They
crash-landed nose first.

Metal
wrenched and squealed and sparked. Air bags exploded open around Fiona.

It
was dark. Her ears rang. She couldn’t move.

Sensation
then returned and she found herself upside down.

Robert
pulled her free and helped her stand. He looked into her eyes and spoke to her
. . . but Fiona was unsure if it was English. Robert wiped the blood from his
split lip and repeated, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,”
she answered slowly. “I think.”

Next
to her, Uncle Henry’s race-car limousine was a wreck. The grille had crumpled
up to the cabin. Engine and transmission parts were strewn all the way down the
street. The rest of Midway Avenue was a war zone. Glass was everywhere.
Buildings were on fire.

Fiona
spied her brother lying in the gutter, struggling to get to his knees.

“Eliot!”
She took an unsteady step toward him, but halted.

From
the middle of the road, a pool of shadows rose. She blinked. No, it was a man
in black. He managed get up on one knee, and that was enough

for
her to see that he was taller than the roof of the Pink Rabbit . . . and he had
wings.

This
giant turned and looked at her with eyes of blue fire. It spread its wings and
bellowed at them, the sound of a hundred people screaming for mercy.

She
felt the blood run out of her body. Fiona believed that she would never be
afraid again—not after what she had been through the last few days.

But
she was wrong. This thing scared her as nothing ever had.

“Stay
here,” Robert told her. “I have to finish him off before gets up.” He made a
fist and the brass knuckles on his hand thrummed with power.

He
charged the half-standing beast. Robert’s uppercut thudded into its gut. He hit
with so much power that the blow lifted it off the ground. It fell over
backward.

Robert
closed and pulled back his brass knuckles for a crushing blow to its head.

The
beast caught Robert’s arm, however, and with a judo throw it whipped him into
the air as if he weighed no more than a rag doll.

Robert
wheeled past the Pink Rabbit and struck the steel pole of a streetlamp. He fell
to the sidewalk in a heap and didn’t move.

Fiona
started for him. That blow could’ve snapped his spine.

The
beast wheeled on her. “Even the Valley could not hold you? How delightful. This
shall be a true test then.”

She
froze as she recognized a familiarity in those eyes of blue fire. This was no
mere beast. It was family.

None
of that mattered at the moment, though. She had only one thought left: to save
Robert and her brother. To fight this thing.

All
traces of fear evaporated as her blood heated to a boil.

“No
more tests.” She stretched her rubber band to a single taut line. “This is the
real thing.”

Fiona’s
heart hammered in her chest so hard, she thought it would explode. She didn’t
wait for the beast to attack. She moved first, sprinting toward it, cutting
edge held before her.

The
beast looked shocked, then amused. It rushed her, closing the distance in two
steps.

A
wing shot forward—much faster than Fiona had anticipated. She saw it had spurs
for tearing flesh.

She
moved her cutting edge perpendicular to the wing and let momentum do the rest.

Her
line passed through. A wing tip landed wetly on asphalt, feathers fluttered in
the air, and the scent of coppery blood was overwhelming.

Her
adrenaline surged. Rather than being terrified or repulsed by the blood, seeing
and smelling it made her crave more.

She
turned, arms in a fighting stance and her cutting edge ready.

But
the beast had more than wings. That had only been the first part of his attack.