by Eric Nylund
Eliot leaned forward.
He half hoped Louis would invite him to see for himself. He’d never take him up on such an offer, not after they’d seen what lay beyond the gate in the Borderlands. . but still, it’d be wonderful to learn a little bit more about his father’s side of the family.
And just for a moment, Eliot considered the possibility of life beyond his mother’s influence. He and Louis could be adventurers, pirates on the high seas, travelers and explorers.
Fiona, however, looked unconvinced.
“None of that matters to us,” she told Louis. “We’re in the League now.” She kicked Eliot under the table. “Both of us. I’m in the Order of the Celestial Rose. And Eliot is an Immortal hero.”
“Congratulations,” Louis said without enthusiasm.
Breakfast arrived: plates with a stack of crêpes drenched with brandied sauce, a side of sizzling bacon, and steaming fresh croissants. The waiter set the bill next to Louis’s plate. . which Louis ignored.
Eliot tasted the bacon. It was crisp and salty and wonderful. But something stopped him from enjoying it: Fiona’s assertion that they were in the League. Around a mouthful, he said to her, “Okay-so we’re part of the League of Immortals. . but why does that mean we’re not part of the other family? That makes no sense from a biological point of view.”
Fiona glared at him, but for the moment, she had no answer.
It occurred to Eliot that he was breaking a rule by talking of the League in public. Then again, no one here seemed to be listening. Nor could this alley outside Paxington truly be considered a public place.
Or was it just easier for Eliot to break rules when his father was near? Louis had once told him: Everything was made to be broken, especially rules.
Right now, Eliot didn’t care; he just wanted answers.
“You are both,” Louis told them. “Immortal and Infernal.”
“That’s not what the League’s decided,” Fiona said.
“I’m afraid the facts speak louder. You, my darling daughter-” Louis stopped, remembering that Fiona didn’t like him calling her that. “You killed Beelzebub.”
Fiona paled.
Eliot lost his appetite as well when he remembered how she had severed Beelzebub’s head.
“There’s a neutrality treaty between the League and us,” Louis said, “which prevents any such physical interventions.”
“But it was self-defense,” Eliot said.
“Of course it was,” Louis replied. “The reason is irrelevant. My point is that you must be an Infernal to kill another Infernal. And you must be an Immortal to be legally accepted into the League of Immortals. These are immutable facts with a single conclusion. . ”
“That we’re both?” Eliot tentatively offered.
A faint smile spread across Louis’s face.
“So what?” Fiona said. “We decided to stick with the League. It’s our choice.”
“And an admirable choice it is,” Louis replied. “But I’m afraid there are those who will not care what you have chosen. Some think you are the means to unravel our neutrality treaty. Some believe that one day you will lead one side to war against the other.”
War? Louis had to be joking.
But for once, he looked absolutely serious.
“We would never do such a thing,” Eliot whispered.
“Never? Really?” Louis asked. “Not even in self-defense? Could you envision some unscrupulous character manipulating you into a situation where conflict might be inevitable?”
Fiona was quiet, probably reliving that moment in the alley when she had decapitated the Lord of All That Flies.
Eliot wanted to say that he’d never kill anything or anybody. . but then he remembered that to save Fiona, he had summoned a fog filled with the wandering dead. It was a mistake the first time, but he’d known what he was doing the second time, and he’d still done it. He had killed. And it’d been his choice.
Eliot knew he would do it again if Fiona’s life were at stake.
He pushed his plate away, no longer hungry.
“So what do we do?” Eliot asked.
“What you think is right,” Louis told him, leaning closer. “You two are smarter and stronger than anyone in the families knows. You would do best not to listen to deceitful characters who would try to influence you. Besides, of course, your father.”
When Louis turned to Fiona, his expression sobered, and he searched for the right words, finally saying, “Within you burns the fury of all the Hells, unquenchable and unstoppable. . and yet you somehow manage to rein in that power. Truly impressive, my daughter.”
“Thank you,” Fiona said. “I think.”
He turned to Eliot. “And you, my son, have a talent the likes of which the world has never before seen. Not even my humble abilities come close. When you play, the universe holds its breath. . and listens.”
Eliot wanted to say so much more, ask Louis so many things, but it felt as if he’d just swallowed too much information, and it stuck in his windpipe.
Louis stood. “You two are going to be late if we sit all day chitchatting like sparrows over crumbs.” He dug into his pockets. “Before I depart, I wanted to give you some trinkets I had lying about.”
He tossed one of the playing cards to Eliot.
It fluttered, and to Eliot’s utter astonishment, he snatched it out of the air with nimble fingers.
The card was the Queen of Spades, but not a normal one. This queen held a sword like a suicide king-stuck through the side of her head. Most intriguing, though, there were tiny lines and dots scribbled upon it.
Notes. Musical notes.
“ ‘The March of the Suicide Queen,’ ” Louis told him. “It’s an old song that you may find useful.”
Eliot touched the notes, and heard them whisper their tune to him.
He tucked the card into his pocket for a closer look later. He wanted to thank Louis, but then remembered that the other songs he’d gotten from his father had led to death and destruction.
He kept his mouth shut and simply nodded.
“And for you, Fiona. .” Louis smoothed a silver bracelet over the tablecloth. Its slender twisted links reminded Eliot of a snake. “This was made from the last bit of metal that fell from the sky millennia ago. Archon iron.”[20]
Fiona picked up the bracelet and examined it. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you!” She frowned. “Is it supposed to be rusty?”
“The price of antiquity, I am afraid,” Louis assured her.
Their father bowed, clasped Eliot’s shoulder once more, and gently patted Fiona’s hand. “We will meet again soon, I hope. Now you must pardon your poor misremembering father, but he has other business to attend to.”
And with that, Louis plucked up his jacket, strode out of the café, turned onto the main street, and was gone.
Fiona gazed at the chain. “We need to think about what he said. . everything.”
“So maybe Louis isn’t all bad?” Eliot asked her.
She looped the bracelet around her wrist and did the clasp. “Maybe,” Fiona said.
Was it possible this was the beginning of a real relationship with their father? So what if he was an Infernal? Maybe even a man who was supposed to be living, breathing evil could still care for his son.
Eliot and Fiona got up to leave. They miraculously still had plenty of time to get to class.
As they started to go, however, the waiter followed them, clearing his throat. In his hand was the bill that had been left untouched on the table.
Fiona’s face darkened, and Eliot took back all the nice things he had thought about Louis.
He’d stiffed them for breakfast.
17. FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
Fiona was mortified. Nothing like this ever happened in homeschooling. She’d never had to undress in front of other people.
She was grateful she hadn’t worn her gym shorts and T-shirt under her school uniform. That’s how she thought it might work. She’d tried i
t at home, but the extra layers only added to the wrinkled appearance of her jacket and skirt.
The Paxington girls’ locker room had only the illusion of privacy. There were rows of benches and lockers so you couldn’t see everyone at the same time. But still, within the range of a casual glance, dozens of girls laughed and chatted as they stripped out of their uniforms like this was the most ordinary thing in the world.
Fiona didn’t think she could blush any harder as she struggled with the buttons on her shirt.
Maybe it was a lifetime of eating Cee’s home cooking, maybe it was her severed appetite, but she felt so skinny, so. . unendowed, compared with the other girls.
Plus all these other girls had perfect manes of hair. Fiona’s hair (thanks to the foggy morning) was all frizz.
Not to mention they all wore makeup. They had purses bulging with lipstick and powders, liners and every brush imaginable.
Fiona had used Cee’s homemade soap, which efficiently removed dirt (and your first layer of skin), but didn’t really enhance anyone’s beauty.
Fortunately no one noticed her.
She looked at her feet and focused on slipping out of her skirt and into her gym shorts as fast as she could.
Fiona would have done it with her eyes closed if she wasn’t afraid she might have done something dorky like put them on backwards.
She’d never look like these girls. They’d had fifteen years to perfect their looks. They had every modern product and advantage.
She’d just have to be happy with who she was and how she looked. . though that was easier said than done. Who was she, really? Immortal? A goddess-in-training with the League of Immortals? Or an Infernal? The daughter of the Prince of Darkness?
Both?
But then why did she still look like Fiona Post, shut-in, social and beauty moron?
Louis showing up this morning had thrown her off. She hadn’t expected to feel anything for him. . or if she had, she expected it would have been contempt. He still sounded half crazy, but there was something else there: a spark of wit and intelligence.
He was her father, and she wanted to feel a bond with him. She wanted to have something approaching a normal relationship. . at least with one of her parents. Was that too much to ask?
Jezebel sauntered into the locker room. The girls fell silent.
The Infernal stepped up to the locker next to Fiona’s, opened it, and removed her jacket.
Fiona started to say hi, but Jezebel (although she had to see her; she was standing right there) acted like she was completely alone in the locker room.
Jezebel shrugged out of her top and bra.
Fiona quickly turned away.
But not before she caught a glimpse of Jezebel’s snow-white porcelain skin, ample curves, and taut stomach. Like pictures Fiona had seen recently in her mythology books-that’s how goddesses were supposed to look. Or demons.
A girl approached Jezebel and cleared her throat.
Jezebel ignored her.
The girl was tall, tan, blond, and athletic. Fiona remembered her from team selection. She was on White Knight.
“Hey.” The girl confidently leaned on a nearby locker. “I’m Tamara. A bunch of us were going to grab coffee after class today. You want to hang out?”
“I don’t care who you are,” Jezebel told her. “What makes you think that I have need for coffee. . or the company of mortals?”
Tamara’s features bunched together in outrage. “Why, you little bit-!”
Jezebel turned.
The air was charged with tension. The hair on the back of Fiona’s neck prickled.
Jezebel’s shadow crossed Tamara, darkening her face.
But that was wrong. Fiona checked her own shadow-yes, the overhead lights cast several weak shadows in various directions. Jezebel’s shadow somehow defied the optics of the situation, and had collected into a single slice of dark.
Whatever Tamara was going to say, she didn’t. The breath seemed to have evaporated from her lungs.
“You will find that I have no tolerance for trifling,” Jezebel said. “Decide now if you wish to live.”
Tamara took two steps back. “Never mind,” she whispered.
Jezebel’s shadow returned to normal.
Fiona exhaled.
Tamara managed to regain a bit of her composure, although her healthy tan seemed to have drained away. “Whatever. .” She walked off-banging her shin on a bench.
Jezebel gave a stifled laugh, then opened her locker and primped the curls of her hair (although it didn’t need it), and then continued ignoring the rest of the world.
Fiona made a mental note: Do not make small talk with an Infernal.
She smelled mint and turned. Sarah Covington stood next to her. Sarah’s red hair had been pulled back and tucked up under a white baseball cap. “Don’t worry about that,” Sarah said conspiratorially. “Tamara’s just sussing out the pecking order.”
Sarah offered Fiona a stick of gum, which she accepted to be polite, but didn’t unwrap.
“I’m dying to know about the girl who saved my cousin,” Sarah said. “No one is supposed to come back from the Valley of the New Year. You said your family name was. .”
“Post,” Fiona said, nervous, as if this were the answer to a pop quiz.
“As in ‘as dumb as’?” Sarah smiled and laughed. “I’m just jesting, my dear. You must take care not to take any of that nonsense from the other girls, or they’ll walk all over you for the next four years.”
Fiona didn’t like being called dumb-even as a joke. Especially as a joke.
Despite Sarah Covington’s outward kindness, Fiona didn’t think that’s what her teammate had in mind by coming over here and chatting. Her instincts told her this was another test. Not an official Paxington-sanctioned pencil-and-paper test. One more important.
Fiona straightened. “The last person who tried to ‘walk all over’ me and Eliot. . didn’t do any walking afterwards.”
Fiona had to soothe the anger coiled within her like a sleeping dragon, knowing how easily it could be aroused. . knowing, too, that despite her dorky appearance, she was special. . powerful. . and if she had to be, dangerous, too.
The smile on Sarah’s freckled face faded. “Yes, I can indeed see a bit of the spark that got you and my cousin out of Purgatory.” She looked as if she had more to say to Fiona, but her gaze then caught something intriguing across the locker room. “Excuse me. There’s a bit of unfinished business to take care of.”
Fiona watched Sarah flounce off.
Jezebel glanced at Fiona-with neither approval nor disdain-which Fiona guessed was what passed for a friendly gesture in Infernal circles.
Sarah moved to where Amanda Lane was awkwardly trying to tuck her T-shirt (which was three sizes too big) into her baggy shorts.
Fiona hadn’t seen Amanda when she came in. She had mastered social invisibility, and Fiona understood why. If no one ever saw you, you didn’t have to struggle to find the right words, and then stumble and stutter them out in the unlikely case someone actually spoke to you.
She knew all this because that’s just the silent subspecies of nerd she had been only a few months ago.
In many ways, she still was, and everything she was trying to be-poised, confident, and likable-was just an act.
“I don’t recall inviting you to Team Scarab,” Sarah told Amanda so sweetly that she could have been talking about the weather.
“I didn’t. .,” Amanda started. She swiped her straggly hair out of her face, but it fell immediately back. She looked at the ground. “I mean, my name was on the roster posted outside.”
“Then that’s a mistake,” Sarah said, jabbing at her for emphasis. “You need to find another team. And quickly, so we can find a suitable replacement.”
“But, I thought. .” Amanda’s voice faded to nothing.
“You said you were sponsored to Paxington by the League?” Sarah asked. “Of Immortals? Truly? Not the League of Losers? Or is
this one of the gods’ practical jokes?” Sarah grabbed a handful of Amanda’s T-shirt, yanked it out of her shorts-then shoved her. “Or are you just a liar?”
Amanda banged into her locker and winced.
Fiona took an involuntary step closer. Her first instinct was to rush over there and stop this.
But she halted. Part of her wanted to know why Amanda was here, too. She knew Amanda wouldn’t lie about the League sponsorship. Why had they sent her here?
Sarah pressed on, however, before Fiona could act. She grasped Amanda by her arm and shoved her into the showers.
The other girls watched, some laughed, but most just kept doing what they were doing.
“No,” Amanda whimpered. She didn’t even look up, her eyes firmly glued to her feet, unwilling-or maybe unable-to stand up for herself.
Amanda stumbled onto the tiled stalls. “Please don’t,” she whispered to Sarah.
“ ‘Please’?” Sarah said, mocking her. “Please help you get clean? Help you wash that rat’s nest hair? Why, certainly.”
Sarah twisted on a cold water spigot. A shower nozzle sputtered and shot forth streams of water.
It hit Amanda, and she yelped, then jumped out of the way.
Sarah tapped the pipe. All the cold water spigots turned by themselves. Icy water rained and filled the entire shower section of the locker room.
Amanda backed into the corner, but still got drenched.
“St-st-stop it,” Amanda sobbed. “Please.”
Fiona had watched enough. Someone had to stand up for Amanda. And someone had to take that horrid Sarah Covington down a few notches.
She marched over to them. “Turn it off,” Fiona told Sarah.
Sarah looked around the gym, pursed her lips, and appeared for a split second as uneasy with this cruel prank as Fiona. . but then she shook her head.
Fiona reached for the water faucet-Sarah stepped in front of her.
Fiona wanted to punch Sarah right in her petite button nose, freckles and all.
But she checked the impulse as she remembered how she had fought Beelzebub. She’d hit and been hit with enough force to smash concrete. If she hit Sarah that hard, the girl might not survive.