by Eric Nylund
Eliot was totally confused now.
He followed her. “Jezebel!” he called out.
Her stride faltered, only a single step, but it was enough to know she’d heard him.
She continued walking, increasing her pace.
Eliot trotted behind her. “Thanks for the other day. You know. . gym class. You saved my neck.”
“Begone, wormfood.” Her voice was full of icy indifference. “I’ve nothing to say to you.”
He’d expected this. He’d be defensive, too, if everyone treated him the way the other students had treated her-all the whispering, the leering, and the innuendo-just because of her family.
Eliot had, however, seen Hell for himself. Maybe there was a good reason to treat her differently.
But wasn’t he like her, too? At least part Infernal?
Maybe it was time to trust someone. . introduce himself. There were no stupid League rules that prevented him from telling anyone about his Infernal side. He and Jezebel might even be distant cousins, for all he knew.
“I’m Eliot Post,” he said, this time quietly. “I’m half Infernal. On my father’s side.”
Jezebel slowed. She still didn’t look his way, but she pursed her lips as if deciding something.
“Lucifer’s son,” he said.
They entered the corridor that led to the quartz-paved quad. Columns of veined marble cast crisscrossing shadows along their path.
“You are a fool, Eliot Post.” She quickened her stride.
Eliot’s strength left him. How much rejection was a guy supposed to take before he finally got the hint?
“Okay, no problem,” he said. Then so softly that even he barely heard: “You just reminded me of someone I cared about. A lot. Someone I miss.”
Jezebel halted half in and half out of the shadows.
She trembled. One hand made a fist. One hand reached out, fingers splayed.
Eliot felt a tug in his center: a connection.
Something inside him was drawn to something within her. .
“Julie?” He took a tentative step toward her. “It is you, somehow, isn’t it?”
A shuddering breath escaped her, and she turned to him. Her fist clenched tighter, knuckles popping. But her open hand reached for him. Her face quavered with rage and longing; one eye was green-the other blue, and from it, a single tear marked her cheek.
“Maybe,” she said.
The effort of that one word seemed to quench her anger. “Once I might have been Julie, but you don’t know what I’ve done since then-or plan to do,” she said, her words intensifying. “Or what I really am now.”
Eliot met her hand with his, and took it. Her flesh was warm and soft and yielding.
Her face was a mix of Infernal and mortal, Jezebel and the Julie Marks he knew.
He wanted to tell her how much he had missed her. How wonderful that she was here now with him.
The thing in his center, pulling him closer to her, however, cooled and curled inward-repulsed.
“You lied to me.” He dropped her hand. “I mean, you are Infernal. There’s no way you could have lied about that in front of Miss Westin and got away with it. So that means in Del Sombra you weren’t really Julie Marks?”
Her blue eye dissolved into translucent green once more. The tear upon her human flesh evaporated.
“There is no Julie Marks,” she told him, her voice hoarse.
“You pretended to be the manager at Ringo’s,” he said, “and said we’d run away together to Hollywood.” Eliot’s tone hardened. “Was everything a lie, then? Did you ever even like me?”
Jezebel’s open hand closed, and trembled, as if barely restraining it from violence. Her gaze dropped to the floor.
“Tell me the truth,” Eliot demanded.
The shadows in the corridor deepened and angled-became bands of absolute dark slashed by golden sunlight. Eliot stood half in and half out of the shade. Jezebel, however, was now fully immersed in the darkness.
“You want the truth?” she whispered sweetly, but there was cruelty in her voice as well.
Eliot had a feeling this was much more than a simple question. It was something Infernal. A ritual he didn’t understand, like signing a contract in blood. It was dangerous.
He couldn’t stop himself, though. He had to know.
“I do,” he said.
She glared at him for a heartbeat. Her hands dropped to her side. The air chilled. “How can you be so smart and so stupid at the same time?”
Eliot had often wondered this very thing, but wasn’t about to admit it.
“I was Julie Marks long ago,” she told him. “I lived in Atlanta, ran away, made many foolish choices, and died of a heroin overdose. I wasted my life.”
To hear her speak of her death so casually horrified Eliot.
A boy and girl from their Mythology 101 class passed by, shot curious glances their way, and hurried along.
“I died,” she continued, “and I went to Hell, the Poppy Lands of Queen Sealiah. I won’t bore you with the torment heaped upon my unworthy mortal soul there, but just know that I was picked by my Queen and given a chance to live again.”
The chill from the shadows made Eliot shiver.
This was the truth, though-he sensed that much-and it tasted addictively sweet to him.
More students passed them, and gave Jezebel a wide berth, wanting to avoid those preternaturally cold shadows.
“That is when I came to you, Eliot, darling.” She inched closer, the shadows dragged along with her, and her voice rose over the murmurs in the corridor. “I was sent to seduce you, to trick you to come back to the lightless realms. I was bait, which you so eagerly tasted.”
Eliot took a step back.
“But you left. . without me.”
She paused; confusion crossed her features, then it cleared. “Yes, another in a long string of mistakes I’ve made. Instead of seducing, I was seduced by your music. . into believing there was something more, something better.”
“It’s not too late,” Eliot told her. “There’s still hope. There’s always hope.”
“Like there was hope when I ran away to protect you? When they caught me and dragged me back to Hell? Like there was hope when they did so many unpleasant, unspeakable things to me to repay my hope-filled kindness?”
Jezebel laughed. It was the sound of breaking glass and ancient glacier ice crackling. It was a thousand prancing, dancing booted feet that crushed dreams.
“There is no hope in Hell, Eliot Post. And there is no longer hope in my heart. I am a creature of the Lower Realms, reborn into the Clan Sealiah. The venomous blood of the Queen of Poppies forever flows through my veins. Dare not tempt me with your vile hope ever again, if you desire to draw another breath.”
Every student in the hall had stopped to listen to this.
Eliot retreated another step and backed into a column.
Jezebel leaned closer. “You are a complete, utter moron. A fool of such sterling caliber, you could be the Prince of Incompetence. I wish I’d never met you.”
Eliot felt as if he’d been struck-not because of her stinging words, but because of her declaration. Her words had been like Cee’s were that one time: backward sounding, turned inside out, made of smoke, and reflected in the mirrors in his thoughts.
A lie.
“That’s not right,” he said. “I mean, probably not that other stuff you just said, but that last bit. .”
“What are you babbling about?”
Jezebel appeared outwardly confident; however, the shadows about her had lost some of their chilled solidity.
“You said you wished you never met me,” Eliot whispered, ignoring the gathering students. “That was a lie.”
Jezebel flushed and locked gazes with him.
The crowd about them fell silent, and stepped back.
“You dare accuse me of. . of. . lying?” she breathed.
Her skin reddened, both hands arched into claws, the air about her shimm
ered like a mirage.
Eliot held his ground, though.
He was tired of being lied to. Everyone had lied to him his entire life. And now he had this gift to hear pathetic, lousy mistruths. He wasn’t about to let it pass.
“It was obvious,” he said louder, crossing his arms over his chest.
Jezebel shook with rage.
The people around them backed away, some tripping over one another.
Jezebel screamed, drew back her fist, and punched the marble column over Eliot’s head. A spiderweb of cracks shattered its polished surface and blasted chunks out the other side.
Eliot flinched.
She turned and, without another word, stomped off.
The students around him spoke to one another. Eliot ignored them all, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Should it even matter? Eliot should just stay far away from Jezebel-Julie Marks-or whatever she was. He couldn’t believe he’d really cared for her. She was trouble. Sent first to trick him to Hell. And now what was she doing at Paxington?
Eliot hated the fact that he’d been so easily manipulated. Whatever was going on. . he swore he’d get to the bottom of it.
21. UNEXPECTED RENDEZVOUS
The gaslights brightened, and class was over. Fiona gathered her things and left.
She blinked once in the strong sunlight, but welcomed the warmth after sitting in that chilled room for the last two hours. Miss Westin kept the place like a tomb.
Fiona walked away quickly. The Headmistress gave her the creeps-more even than Uncle Kino. Something inside that woman was a lot colder than her classroom.
Despite the gloom of the place, Fiona had wanted to linger, though. She had yet to talk to Robert and find out how he was coping now that he wasn’t in the League. He could be so stoically stubborn sometimes. Where was he living? How did he eat?
But maybe it was better to stay apart a little longer. . as painful as it might be. If Robert attracted any League attention, she had a feeling that even Uncle Henry wouldn’t be able to get him off the hook this time.
Beside, she had to catch Eliot. He bolted before he’d written down tonight’s reading assignment-something he never forgot. He was so distracted lately.
As she tromped down the corridors, one archway caught her eye. It wasn’t a real passage, but rather a mural that gave the illusion of depth. The mural was a Picasso: cubist students with too many arms and legs, their faceted heads listening with disjointed ears to a lecturing stick figure Plato.[23]
The real reason she had to find her brother, though, was that he-without fail-got into trouble without her watching out for him.
Like in gym class. She should have known better than to leave him behind.
“Fiona?” a voice squeaked behind her.
She turned. Amanda Lane trotted up to her. Ever since Fiona had stopped Sarah from tormenting her in the locker room, Amanda had decided they were best friends and stuck close.
Like Fiona needed another person to look after.
Amanda’s school uniform was a mass of wrinkles. She carried a pile of books, and her backpack was filled to the bursting point. Fiona felt bad for her. Amanda’s eyes rarely left the ground, she wasn’t able to talk to anyone, and her hair has half tangle, half cowlick.
“Hey,” Fiona said. “What’s up?”
Amanda tried to brush the hair from her face, but couldn’t with her arms full. “Headed to the library?” she asked. “Maybe we could compare notes? I’m in the middle of Lovecraft’s unpublished Languorous Lullabies. His histories of the Dreaming Families are so poetical. Did you know that parts can be read backwards for an entirely different meaning? It’s called reflective/reflective style.”[24]
For someone never exposed to magic before, Amanda seem to have a knack, if not for its practice, then at least its study.
“I read those,” Fiona told her. “Eliot and I still needed to tackle the Canticles of the Clan.”
Fiona had to study the canticles, not only for Miss Westin’s class, but also because it was practical knowledge. They told (in excruciating minutia and with endless commentary) the political intrigues among from the nineteenth-and twentieth-century mortal magical families.
Covingtons, Scalagaris, Pritchards, Kalebs-these families taught their children fencing, etiquette, the art of small talk, poisons, and assassination from the time they were toilet trained. Politics that translated into duels and alliances and vendettas here at Paxington.
She had a lot of catching up to do.
Fiona snapped her fingers. “There’s one thing, though, we have to do before we hit the homework: find the others on our team and talk strategy.”
“Oh. .” Amanda drew her books closer and dropped her head.
“Slip too far in the rankings,” Fiona explained, “and all the studying in the world won’t matter.”
Amanda curled even farther behind her books and said, “I’m really sorry about what happened.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Fiona said. “We’ll all do better next time.”
Amanda brightened.
She was a real liability. If only Fiona could boost the girl’s confidence, she might actually get her onto the obstacle course next time. Funny how Amanda seemed to have no trouble relating to Eliot. Maybe they had an equivalent nerd quotient.
Amanda glanced past Fiona. “There’s your brother and that Jezebel. Let’s go say hi.”
“Jezebel?” Fiona whirled about. She squinted through archways and spotted them in the adjacent corridor.
Just as she had feared: Eliot in trouble again.
This was 100 percent weirdness. Why was he pushing his luck and talking to that thing? And why was Jezebel even listening to him?
And yet there they were.
This was typical Eliot: making well-intentioned but stupid friendly overtures. Probably still thought she was related to Julie Marks. He’d be lucky if the Infernal didn’t kill him. But what could Jezebel do to him here out in the open? Challenge him to a duel? Even her brother wasn’t foolish enough to accept an invitation to fight an Infernal.
The worst that might happen is a wounding of her brother’s ego.
But they were still just talking. It felt like a private moment between them, though. . almost intimate.
Fiona’s face heated. “I guess it’s him,” she told Amanda. “Whatever.”
She turned away and marched toward the gate.
“I thought you wanted to talk about gym. .,” Amanda said, running after her.
“Sure-with Robert or Mitch, even Sarah or Jeremy. But I can talk to Eliot anytime. And I’m not going to waste time with Jezebel. Not with a million things to read.”
They crossed the quad, and the sparkling quartz flagstones dazzled her. Fiona veered by the fountain of Poseidon and let the spray cool her face.
“You never said why you’re here,” Amanda said. “You and Eliot, your Uncle Henry. . you’re not part of any of the magical families we’re studying.” She continued with difficulty, forcing the words out: “But you’re not normal, either, are you?”
Fiona glanced at the fountain and the marble face of the dead god who had the same high forehead as her mother and her. “Not exactly,” she told Amanda. “It’s complicated.”
“So what isn’t?” Amanda said, and retreated behind her disheveled hair.
Maybe it was time to open up-not break any League rules, of course, but just share stories about families. It’d be a breath of fresh air to talk to someone other than her brother.
“Let’s grab something to drink at the café,” Fiona said. “We can talk.”
Amanda tilted her head up. “Really?”
“Sure. Iced Thai coffees. My treat.”
Eliot could waste his time with the Infernal all day if he wanted to-and he could figure out the reading assignment on his own, too.
Fiona turned. She felt a cold sensation at her back, like the shadows behind them had somehow darkened. She resisted the urge to look
, however, and mounted the steps, making her away along the path to the front gate.
Mr. Harlan Dells stood there. The large man wore a suit that matched his blond beard and hair. He smiled at her and Amanda.
“Miss Post. . Miss Lane, I hope you girls are doing well with your studies. Not letting too many boys distract you?”
Amanda convulsed with what might have been a silent giggle.
Fiona felt like he’d stabbed her in the heart, and her lifeblood pumped out there in front of the iron gates, spattering over the cobblestones. She thought about Robert. Deep inside, she wanted to be with him. . but not if it got him into trouble. . or killed.
“No,” she told him, “no boys. Just books.”
He looked into her eyes and said, “That is for the best. Trust me.”
“Yes, sir.”
She took a little step toward the gate, but Mr. Dells didn’t open it.
“One more thing, Miss Post.” His voice deepened. Fiona sensed a weight settle about his person like he could’ve halted her and Amanda and an entire army with one upraised hand. “Please tell your family not to block my driveway again. There is a fire code, and I will have them towed.”
Fiona glanced around his massive bulk.
A sleek black ultra-modern Mercedes limousine sat in the alleyway. It looked like one of Uncle Henry’s.
“Pass along my deepest and warmest regards to your relation,” Mr. Dells told her.
“Sure,” Fiona said.
He flicked a switch and the gate rolled back.
Fiona ran to the limo.
The driver’s door opened and a man in a black jacket and cap climbed out. It was the same uniform Robert had worn when he’d been Uncle Henry’s Driver. But this man wasn’t Robert. He was old and wrinkled. He bowed to Fiona and opened the back door for her.
“Thank you,” she said. She leaned into the back section. “Uncle Hen-”
Inside, Fiona saw slender toes slipped from a high-heel sandal, attached to a shapely tanned calf, and a leg and a black skirt. A smile and dimples flashed from the shadows, and a tousle of honey blond hair shook free. A woman grinned at her.