by Eric Nylund
Poseidon was dead? Fiona filed that fact next to the possibly dead Zeus, and kept moving.
“You believe in luck, then?”
“Not really, but the Stephenson family can’t afford to take chances.”
They started to walk again side by side.
“The Stephensons-Miss Westin hasn’t covered them in lecture yet.”
Mitch chuckled. “She probably won’t. We’re not that important. Never been politically connected or financial powerhouses like the other clans.”
“Your family’s name sure managed to impress Jeremy and Sarah Covington, though, at team selection. That’s no small trick.”
“Oh, that. I guess that’s the one thing we Stephensons have going for us: a reputation. It’s no big deal. My many-times great-grandfather was Dr. Faust.”[28]
Fiona nodded, like she got this “Faust” reference. Thankfully, Mitch continued, so she didn’t have to ask a slew of embarrassing questions.
“Everyone thinks Faust really did make the best deal ever with the devil-if that’s not an oxymoron-and became the most powerful sorcerer of the age. Of course, he then squandered that power showing off.”
“So,” Fiona said, growing concerned, “what kind of reputation does your family have?”
“That’s a fair question.” Mitch sobered as if Fiona had touched a nerve. “After Faust died, some of his power passed to his children. They had a hard time, persecuted as witches, and then hunted by the Vatican. That changed when the Inquisition recruited them and trained them to use their power to fight evil. Since then, they’ve become the greatest practitioners of white magic in the world.”
This fascinated Fiona. Not just his story, although it was interesting, but also that Mitch knew so much about his family. It must have given him a sense of stability to know where he came from. It was something she envied.
“Is that why you were so interested in the Infernals at Ultima Thule?” she asked. “Taking notes on how to fight them?”
“Not exactly,” Mitch said, mounting the steps before the front gate. “It was more like being a marine biologist swimming in a tank with a megalodon. I never imagined that I’d get close to a real Infernal like Jezebel.”
Fiona tried to puzzle this out, but couldn’t. “Shouldn’t you two be mortal enemies?”
“No, thank goodness. All that devil-fighting stuff stopped centuries ago. Probably extended the longevity of my family. We still have a talent for white magic, exorcisms and stuff like that, but as far as the Infernal Lords are concerned-and certainly Jezebel, a real Duchess of the Poppy Lands-we’re small fry.”
Fiona studied Mitch. There were nobility and kindness in his face: high cheekbones, straight nose, hair the color of mahogany, and smoky eyes she could drown in.
They halted at the front gate.
Harlan Dells had his back to them, staring into the alley.
Mitch cleared his throat.
“I know you are there,” Mr. Dells grumbled. “Be quiet.” He took in a deep breath and held it, waited, and then finally said: “I can no longer hear them.”
“Who?” Fiona asked
Mr. Dells turned, his face more serious than usual. “Your brother, Miss Post. He and the Jezebel girl entered the alley. . and they have taken a wrong turn beyond my senses.”
“Wait a second,” Fiona said. “I thought you said you could ‘hear grass grow on the other side of the world’?”
Mr. Dells stiffened. “I can, young lady.” His eyes narrowed. “In this world.” He flicked the switch that operated the iron gate, and it rolled aside. “I suggest you find him.”
Fiona and Mitch shared a glance wrought with concern.
The wrongness she had felt a second ago crystallized into fear. First, Eliot was with Jezebel. She couldn’t begin to count all the things that could go wrong with that situation. And second, there was no place to make a “turn” in the alley. It led straight out into the street.
This was just the kind of trouble only her stupid brother could get into.
“Please come with us,” Fiona asked Mr. Dells.
“My duties do not permit me to leave the campus.” Mr. Dells looked into the sun without blinking. “You need to hurry. . before their light goes out altogether.”
Fiona wasn’t sure what he meant, because the sun was nowhere near setting, but it chilled her blood.
She and Mitch ran out into the alley where Mr. Dell had stared.
There was Xybek’s Jewelry and an Apple computer store for Paxington students-but no place where Eliot could have turned.
“How can you turn on a straight line?” she whispered.
Mitch cocked his head as if listening. “You add another line-another dimension.” He moved to the brick wall and touched it.
Fiona followed, hearing something, too: a violin, distant dull explosions, thundering horse hooves, the crash of metal, and screams.
Fiona swallowed. She understood now.
Eliot had taken a “wrong turn” as they had that first day when they found this alley. Normally, you weren’t supposed to be able to see the entrance, because it was hidden “sideways” from the perspective of normal three dimensions.
But there was no reason strange extradimensional passages couldn’t be hidden anywhere. . everywhere, right in plain sight.
Maybe even ones you could’ve stumbled upon without wanting to.
She ran her fingers over the wall, searching.
She brushed over Mitch’s fingers and felt an electric thrill. Embarrassed, she almost jerked her hand away, but the sensation had been real. . and not just because she’d touched Mitch. There was something there, underneath.
Fiona pressed harder, feeling a bump in the fabric of existence.
She let her vision drift out of focus; she felt a loose thread and pulled it out.
Fiona’s ears popped. She fumbled for Mitch’s hand and grabbed it.
She felt as if she were descending fast in an elevator.
Behind her, a long brick-lined passage stretched back toward the alley-and stretched farther as she watched, curving out of sight. Overhead buildings leaned closer.
Shadows were everywhere.
Fiona couldn’t see a thing. She felt like she was suffocating.
Mitch held his free hand up. A ball of light appeared in his palm-as brilliant as an arc welder. He gritted his teeth in pain.
The shadows retreated about them. . screaming.
Mitch’s light revealed hundreds of creatures climbing over one another to retreat from the brilliance.
There were more of them, pushing and oozing to a point a quarter block ahead.
That’s where Fiona spied Jezebel and her brother.
The darkness crowded about them and obscured her view. She heard Eliot, though, playing Lady Dawn. . something muffled by the smothering layers of shadow.
She and Mitch shuffled carefully forward.
The shadow creatures looked like man-sized bats (specifically the pug-nosed Desmodus rotundus, vampire bat). They dragged themselves on too-long skeletal limbs that ended in three curved talons. Their claws trailed an oily darkness like squid ink in water. When they smacked open their mouths, more teeth than should have been possible to fit inside their heads flexed outward.
One rushed Fiona, despite Mitch’s light, claws reaching.
Fiona lashed forward-finding her father’s gift, the bracelet about her wrist, once more transformed into a full length of real chain.
She cut the creature in half.
It hit the pavement with a wet splat. . apparently more than mere shadow, reeking of hot gasoline and ozone.
Fiona gazed at the partially rusted chain and vowed to thank Louis if she ever saw him again.
She turned to Eliot. They had to get out before they got lost in the encroaching darkness.
Next to her, Mitch stared openmouthed at the severed monstrosity that oozed black blood at her feet. . then to the chain she held. The color drained from his face.
Sh
e nodded to his upheld hand and the ball of intense light. “Can you make it brighter?”
“I can try,” he whispered. He licked his lips and concentrated.
The light blazed like a tiny sun. He grunted in pain and his hand blistered.
The shadows about them backed away, their edges sizzling in the intense illumination. . clearing a path to Jezebel and Eliot.
Fiona now clearly heard Eliot’s music. It was the song he’d played at their first gym match. Only then, he had cautiously plunked out the song. Now he bowed with vibrato, and Fiona felt the music resonate in her bones; it made her want to march forward.
She resisted, though, because she didn’t understand what she saw.
Eliot and Jezebel stood in the center of a hundred shadow creatures that wheeled about them, circling closer.
Jezebel’s hands had finger-length needle claws that dripped venom. Where it spattered on the ground, the asphalt dissolved. Her arms were still slender and porcelain white, but her veins stood out, vinelike and pulsing. Her face was drawn, mouth filled with serrated teeth. But her eyes-they were wild and solid green, glimmered as if faceted emeralds. . and reminded Fiona of the emotionless gaze of a praying mantis.
A shadow rushed Jezebel, its mouth extended in a gruesome smile.
Jezebel struck-so fast, Fiona barely saw the motion.
The creature fell screaming, withering, clutching at the holes that once contained its eyes, and then it died.
Only then did Fiona see dozens of liquefying corpses about the Infernal Jezebel, dribbling away to the drain in the center of the alley.
An overpowering scent of vanilla reached Fiona’s nostrils. She almost gagged.
Fiona had seen Infernals more disgusting at the Ultima Thule battle, even faced horrific Beelzebub in combat, but she hadn’t seen one part transformed, half human and half nightmare. . and definitely not someone who sat next to her in class.
Maybe as Louis had said “the fires of Hell” burned in Fiona’s blood as well-but if being Infernal meant unleashing the monster within, then Fiona never wanted to let that side of her take control.
But more than Jezebel. . it was Eliot that really threw her.
Eliot’s hands were blurs as he played. His eyes were unblinking, staring off into space. About him fog swirled, and Fiona glimpsed a battlefield beyond and hundreds of red-coated soldiers stepping into the alley, bayonets fixed upon rifles, firing in time with the music, and marching forward to battle the shadows. The soldiers fought blade to claw. They died, dozens of them-and still they materialized from the music, never broke ranks, never cried out or showed any emotion. . like windup toys.
And they sang:
We live to fight until we die
Queen and country and flags to fly.
Brothers and sons a’glory sought
Our silent graves what we wrought.
Eliot bowed faster, his head bobbing. Horses rode from the fog into the alley. Their headless riders were armored, holding shield and lance. They charged into the fray, scattered the shadow monsters, impaling some, then slowed as they faced overwhelming numbers, switching to sword, horse rearing. . but all falling in the darkness.
Eliot tapped his bow upon the strings.
Black iron cannon mounted on wagon-wheel bases maneuvered to the front-and fired!
Six flashes of thunder and smoke filled the alley. Blasts that blew shadow and flesh and claw to bits, battered brick walls down. . and revealed more darkness beyond. . a thousand shark-tooth grins. . and an endless starless night.
Fiona had never seen her brother like this before. He’d been stupidly brave, sure. But not the center of a battle and conducting troops like some general. It was like one of his daydream fantasies come to life.
But it was strategically stupid to fight here.
It wasn’t just the shadow monsters-although their numbers seemed endless, and certainly any one of them looked like they could tear them to pieces.
It was this alley. It was a sideways passage through nothing. A void in space that, if they weren’t careful, they’d get lost in and never find the way out.
Already Fiona felt her sense of direction swimming.
“Eliot!” she shouted.
Eliot jerked away from the reloading cannon crews, squinted as he finally noticed Mitch’s light, nodded, but kept playing.
“This way,” Fiona called.
The shadows about them pushed in.
Fiona wouldn’t let them stop her-not when she was so close.
She turned to Mitch and told him: “Duck.”
Confusion washed over his face-but only for a moment-then he understood. He crouched and held the ball of light before his body.
Fiona spun her chain overhead and let out the full length.
Where whirling metal touched shadow and flesh, there was smoke and blood and shrills of pain. . and the enemy moved back.
Fiona and Mitch crept forward past outstretched talons and hissing maws.
Jezebel moved to the other side of Eliot, her pale arms reddening as if severely sunburned by Mitch’s white-magic light.
“You can’t keep fighting,” Fiona told Eliot. “We’ve got to get out-while we still can.”
Rather than be delighted at his rescue, Eliot looked annoyed.
“She is right,” Jezebel said, blinking in the strong light. “The Shadow Legions are endless in their realms. . which are near. I can feel them, and I can feel us getting pulled deeper into the darkness.”
Eliot looked around them. “Okay. But which way is out?”
Fiona turned and couldn’t see the exit.
She had, however, left a trail of fallen monsters. Connect any two points, and you had a straight line. In theory, anyway. . in normal space. She wasn’t sure if the geometry she knew applied here.
“Back this way.”
Fiona led them-Mitch next to her, his light brighter than ever; Eliot next, who continued to play (although his music changed, sounding like a retreat now); and Jezebel last, walking backward so she faced the tide of creatures that followed.
Eliot left his cannon crews behind.
They fired together once more-a storm of smoke and screams and shouts-then shadows covered them, coinciding with the end of Eliot’s song.
Fiona saw a sliver of light overhead, and the buildings tilted back to their proper standing positions. Then the passage straightened and she spied the Paxington alley.
She broke into a trot and they followed, emerging in the warm afternoon.
Jezebel looked as she had in class: no claws, her praying mantis eyes back to normal.
Fiona, though, would never forget the monster inside the girl.
Mitch closed his hand and his light winked out. “Apologies,” he said to Jezebel.
“No need. Your white magic was necessary to keep the Droogan-dors at bay,” Jezebel replied, unperturbed. “I am in your debt, Stephenson.”
“Those creatures were from the Shadow Legions,” Mitch told her. “Beelzebub’s operatives, right?”
“Your intelligence on Infernal affairs is outdated,” Jezebel replied. “Urakabarameel and Beelzebub are dead”-she paused to make eye contact with Fiona-“and with these forces leaderless, any Infernal Lord could now command them.”
“But why attack you and Eliot at all?” Fiona asked.
“I was their target,” Jezebel said. “I tried to explain to Eliot that my Queen is at war with Mephistopheles. It is not wise to be near me-save on the Paxington campus, where the school’s magics keep all but students and instructors out.”
Eliot set Lady Dawn back in her case and shut it. His eyes were ringed with dark circles. “None of that matters,” he said. “We’re all safe.” He turned to the side passage-or rather where the side passage had been-and touched the solid brick wall.
“Thanks,” he said to Fiona. “Another few minutes. . I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
He looked like Eliot again, her little brother, normal and nerdy.
“I must take my leave,” Jezebel said. “Again, my thanks.” She nodded to Fiona and Mitch. To Eliot she said, “This incident should prove how much of a fool you are. Stay away from me.”
With that, she turned and marched out of the alley.
“What’s her problem?” Fiona asked.
Eliot shook his head. “A lot’s happened,” he whispered. “A lot I need to tell you.”
“Sounds like you two need to talk,” Mitch said, and his easy smile returned, like nothing had ever happened. “How about a rain check on our date?”
Date?
That caught Fiona off guard. They were going to have a date? It was not an unwelcome surprise. . it just complicated everything.
“S-sure, that would be nice,” Fiona managed.
“Let me walk you to the street,” Mitch said, glancing over at the still-solid brick wall. “Just in case.”
“Thanks,” Fiona said, feeling a blush color her face. Then she turned and whispered so only Eliot could hear: “Whatever is going on-whatever you need to talk about-it’d better be good!”
29. DECEPTION BY MOONLIGHT
Eliot explained everything to Fiona as they walked home: how Jezebel had been Julie Marks in Del Sombra; how the Infernal Queen, Sealiah, had used her to try to get to him-but instead Julie had saved Eliot. . got dragged back to Hell and punished for it, too.
He went on telling how Sealiah was probably trying again to use Jezebel to get to him. Eliot owed it to Jezebel this time to help her, save her somehow.
It felt good to share this with someone. Fiona would, of course, believe him. And she had to sympathize with Jezebel; see that she was as much victim as they were in the Infernals’ schemes.
Fiona listened, looking shocked, angry, and incredulous by turns.
As they rounded the corner to their street, Fiona said, “I think Jezebel. . Julie-whatever you’re calling her-was right.”