by Eric Nylund
His skin itched just thinking about her. She was so obstinate.
He was getting nowhere with these human relationship problems. Like music, they had patterns: attraction, coming together, fighting, breaking up-wash, rinse, and repeat.
Eliot pulled his violin case closer. Maybe he could make some progress on Ms. DuPreé’s assignment. He got Lady Dawn and admired her fiery wood grain that looked like molten gold and amber.
He played slow and strived to define his confused feelings. It swelled from him, roiled and swirled about him in the room, making homework pages flutter and books tremble on the shelves.
But it felt dangerous, too, like he was tapping into emotional waters deep and dark.
As he started thinking about how to express himself, his fingers fell into old habits, and they repeated a phrase, and built upon it.
He stopped.
That was right. That was how the music should be played, but it wasn’t the assignment.
He hissed his frustration.
Why was it that the others in music class never had these problems? They just played. They just did it. Their passion flowed from them effortlessly.
David Kaleb had a silver horn that flashed the reflected spotlights like his own light show. When Sarah Covington sang, she seemed warm and friendly (everything she actually wasn’t). And the older boy who had auditioned, his guitar had been bold and strong and big. Masculine.
Eliot glanced at Lady Dawn. Was he outgrowing her?
When he practiced in front of the others, he’d been embarrassed. Lady Dawn was the instrument a “good little boy” would play.
There was something else. When he had summoned the dead that first time at Groom Lake, she’d snapped a string. He curled his hand, still feeling the pain. It was as if she had done that on purpose because she disapproved. . like she was alive.
Eliot had to be just imagining that.
He set aside the violin and stared past the gleaming surfaces, trying to feel more.
She was quiet. There wasn’t even that subsonic hum he usually sensed about her. She was sulking.
“It’s time I tried something else. .,” Eliot told her. “I mean-”
He couldn’t continue. What if she were really alive? Hadn’t he seen crazier things? It didn’t matter, though-real or imagined, the problem between him and her would still be there.
“It’s not like we’re breaking up or anything,” he continued, fidgeting his hands. “Look, I just need to try out a few other instruments. Something a little more. .”
Eliot searched for a rational excuse (flimsy or not) to tell her.
“I’m tired of living in my dad’s shadow,” he said. “The violin is his instrument. I need something that belongs entirely to me.”
Lady Dawn just sat there.
Eliot couldn’t stand it. He picked her up, set her in her case, and slammed it shut.
Okay, so he was losing his mind. Maybe. But tomorrow he was going to find a new instrument to play.
He opened the giant tome he’d checked out from the Hall Of Wisdom. It was Volume Twelve of the Copper-Prince edition of The Mahābhārata, tonight’s assigned reading. Miss Westin had jumped ahead in their syllabus and had them working on Eastern Indian mythologies all of a sudden.
He read about battles, and betrayals, and family politics, stuff that usually interested Eliot, but he felt guilty about setting aside his trusted violin.
Eliot pressed his forehead to the page and groaned.
He just needed to clear his head, rest his eyes for a moment, and then he’d read. . and make a few notes. .
________
This was the most moronic dream Eliot had ever had. He dreamed that he slept in his bed. No dragons to slay, no being late for some midterm he’d never studied for. . just drooling on his pillowcase, snoring gently, books pushed aside.
Did he really look like such a dork when he slept?
The lamp was off to his room, but light streamed in from under his door. Half shadows gave his room a weird underwater feel.
There was a sigh nearby, and Eliot knew he wasn’t alone in his dream.
A person stood by his bed. . a girl.
Eliot was wide awake now (at least in his dream) as he sat up and saw this girl wore nothing-just a silhouette of skin and long hair that was half pinned up, half escaped in loose curls.
She was too small to be Jezebel or Sarah. Maybe Amanda?
The girl stepped closer.
“Look into mirrors,” she whispered, “and thou beholdest not what is before your eyes, Son of Darkness.”
Definitely not Amanda, either. This girl’s voice was silk smooth and sounded so familiar.
The girl leaned against his bed, planted one knee, and eased onto his legs.
“For thou would I do anything, be anything,” she said. “Thou art the one I have waited for.”
Eliot wanted to say something-but his tongue wouldn’t work.
She slid onto his body. Her flesh was warm and she didn’t stop until her face was directly over his.
Eliot finally saw her. Beautiful didn’t describe her features. She had something beyond human, Immortal, or Infernal beauty. Her eyes were amber flecked with gold and blazed wild with passion.
“Not since before time was, doth I so offer myself,” she said, her breath tickling his neck. “Thou art the one I was created for, and thou created for me.”
Eliot could no longer breathe.
Her lips were directly over his. Every curve of her body pressed into his.
“No other hath ever made me feel like thou dost. Not even thine father.”
She kissed him.
Eliot tensed and pulled her closer, smothered in sensation. Every nerve flamed. Color flashed across his closed eyes.
He’d never been kissed like this-not Julie’s urgent passion-not Jezebel’s narcotic sting. This was high art and animal instinct blended. This was beauty and lust and heartbreakingly perfect. It was what every kiss should have been. . but never could be.
The girl pulled away, panting.
“We shall together make music the likes of which even God has not yet dreamed,” she whispered. “Music to end the world if thou desire.”
She pressed her lips back to his. They embraced and burned.
________
Eliot bolted upright.
He was drenched in sweat, and sheets tangled about him. His face hurt as if someone had punched him, bruised, and his lips felt sunburned raw.
Eliot got up and noticed, much to his mortification, something amiss with his groin. He grabbed a pillow to hide the state of his physiology there.
Pulse still pounding, he remembered the dream-especially the girl. How could he forget? And yet, the details were fading fast.
He fumbled for the light on his nightstand, found it, and snapped it on.
Homework papers and books lay scattered on the floor. It was as if someone had come in, tossed it all, and then danced in the mess for good measure.
His violin case wasn’t there.
Eliot dug through the debris. Panic shot through his heart as he found the violin case-just the case neck, busted off and smashed flat.
He held his breath. Was it possible he’d done this? Subconsciously repressed all the anxiety about his music and taken it out on poor Lady Dawn? Crushed her in his sleep?
He tore through the mess, searching, and found more bits of cardboard and leather from the case, but no trace of his beloved violin.
Eliot breathed again.
Okay, it had to be somewhere. He riffled through the papers, piling them on his desk. He looked under the bed, too. The violin wasn’t there, either.
He’d never forgive himself if he’d damaged Lady Dawn. His father had given him the instrument.
His father.
Eliot remembered something the dream girl had said. It was hard to recall much more than her kiss or the way she’d pressed into his body, but hadn’t she said that he made her feel like no other had. . no
t even his father?
Eliot would have to review his Freud to figure that one out.
He paused, suddenly wary. Anything involving Louis, dream or not, had some trick to it.
Eliot froze as he realized there was something in his room that hadn’t been there when he’d fallen asleep. It stood, propped against the corner bookcases.
A guitar.
It wasn’t just any guitar, either, but an electric guitar. Its wood gleamed amber and gold and brass fittings glistened like crystallized sunlight. The fingerboards were ebony with mother-of-pearl inlays in the shapes of stars and swords and crows. There was a bar to adjust string tension on the fly, and six knobs and a few switches along the bottom that he had no clue what they did.
Eliot did know, however, he wanted nothing more than to pick it up, and play it.
But he halted as he recognized the wood grain pattern. . so mirror-smooth that he saw his face reflected in its flaming colors. He’d seen it countless times before.
Lady Dawn.
“No way,” he whispered.
But why not? What if, in dreaming, he had done this? Played some song of transformation. The Covington conjurers could change one thing into another. . so it was, in theory, possible.
Eliot didn’t think his magic had ever worked like that. And it’d never worked with such precision.
If he hadn’t done this, though. . that left only one logical conclusion.
Her.
The dream girl had said: “For thou would I do anything, be anything.”
Could she be real? Alive?
Was that dream even a dream? The thought of an instrument who was also a young girl-who’d been in his father’s hands for so many years-it sent a shiver of revulsion down Eliot’s spine.
Still. . he reached out and held his fingers a hairsbreadth over the guitar, feeling a subsonic thrum of her power, of anticipation for his touch.
Eliot took her and slung the guitar over his shoulder.
She was a perfect fit.
His fingers slid along the six steel strings. Different from his violin. Familiar, though, too. Definitely weird.
“We shall together make music the likes of which even God has not yet dreamed. Music to end the world if thou desire.”
Not yet.
Eliot was going to track down his father first. Louis had questions to answer.
55 UNDERESTIMATION OF HIS CUNNING
Louis puffed on a cigar he had borrowed from the Night Train’s humidor. He opened a window. These cars were stuffy with the sweat and fear of its usual passengers.
The engine’s screams echoed through the tunnel.
Amberflaxus licked its black fur in the seat next to him. It flicked its ears forward, thinking that noise was prey.
Louis felt better away from San Francisco, no longer obsessing over Eliot and Fiona, and his beloved lost Audrey. How wonderful to be away from the world of light and love!
He was annoyed that he was even thinking of the memory of their memories. . and yet, he found it nearly impossible to stop.
Louis exhaled smoke and watched it mingle with the steaming screams outside.
But stop he must and concentrate on his deceptions, namely how to play with Sealiah and Mephistopheles.
Manipulating mortals was one thing, even Immortals, but his Infernal family? That was ten times the danger. He had to proceed with great care.
Should he betray Sealiah? Or side with her against Mephistopheles?
He chuckled. As if the Queen of Poppies would want him on her side, as if he would stick his neck out and actually stoop to physically fighting anyone in her war.
No, the best option was to play both sides against the middle, and then pick over what was left. To accomplish this, however, Louis would need leverage, some fact about the tactics and plans of one to ingratiate himself with the other-just long enough to get into the proper position to backstab and double-cross.
Sometimes the most clichéd schemes were best. . because they worked.
He marveled at his willingness to embrace the simple truth of it.
The huge Ticket Master entered the car and bowed. He then adjusted the slightly out-of-place tassels of his uniform’s brocade and brushed a bit of ash from the black fabric.
“May I approach, O most noble of deceivers?”
“No,” Louis muttered. “I need nothing.”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, smoothed a hand over his bald head, and then added, “your stop is next, the Poppy Lands.”
Louis cocked one brow. “Oh? I don’t recall saying that was my destination.”
“No, my lord. It’s just your most illustrious offspring was here. . ”
“Yes, yes,” Louis said with careless wave.
Eliot had been to the Poppy Lands?
“Had been” being the operative verb tense, because Amberflaxus spotted the boy just last night entering that Pacific Heights hovel of his-no doubt to dutifully practice his violin or do his Paxington homework.
But he obviously was not the good little boy everyone believed. He had not consulted Louis as he had promised, and any visit to the Poppy Lands had to have broken dozens of Audrey’s rules. How delightful.
Louis smiled at this new development.
Sealiah’s plans involving Eliot had to be further along than he had dreamed.
But when had he crossed? And more curiously, how had he returned?
All this Louis considered in a heartbeat.
“My business today takes me past the Mirrored Realms,” he told the Ticket Master.
The Ticket Master looked disappointed, for he hadn’t tricked any salable information from him.
The Night Train’s last stop was the Mirrored Realms-and anything past that in the Hysterical Kingdom was only the business of the fool who attempted such a journey.
Louis had spoken the truth: He did have business past the Mirrored Realms with Mephistopheles. . just not at this time.
The Ticket Master bowed again, left, and the train slowed.
Louis glanced outside at impenetrable jungle. The only path was the train tracks that cut through. Every flower was in full bloom. Every fungus clouded the air with spore. How deadly. How lovely.
The Night Train pulled into the station house, paused only a moment as required by the Infernal Transportation Pact, and then the brakes released, and the engine chugged ahead.
No one either had departed or gotten on.
Louis looked into the car ahead. No sign of that gossip-mongering Ticket Master.
He turned to Amberflaxus and held one a finger. “Stay,” he ordered.
The animal continued to lick itself, pretending (as always its habit) not to notice him.
Louis borrowed a small bottle of whiskey from the wet bar, and then from the poker table scooped a handful of diamond-studded chips along with a set of dice-the minimal supplies one might need in the wilderness.
He slipped out the back and off the train. . and infiltrated the Poppy Lands.
The hothouse train station had been shelled, and most of the frosted panes were shattered. A billion bits of glass glistened on the ground.
Of course, the station would be an obvious target. It was only a matter of time before Mephistopheles cut the train tracks as well.
Louis had to act with haste, gather information, and then be on the next train out.
He wrapped his cloak about him and walked in the ditch alongside the road toward Sealiah’s Twelve Towers, her so-called Doze Torres. She would no doubt make her stand in her castles, where she felt safest.
The poppy fields were on fire: violet, lemon, pink, and crimson blossoms withered in the flames. Green smoke drifted over the lands and flashed with hypnotic phosphorescence.
Louis held his breath.
Droogan-dors fought on the distant hills and valleys, flitting wraiths among the gloaming.
A mere league to his left, hundreds of shadow creatures swarmed and circled a legion of Sealiah’s noble knights, the Order of the Thor
n. The dark tore at the warriors. . then their fires burned out. . and the shades moved in. Frost crackled over the ground there, killing all traces of vegetation.
Mephistopheles was no fool. He carefully whittled away parcels of her land, gathering strength while Sealiah lost hers.
But Sealiah was no fool, either. . and Louis wondered what trick she had yet to play.
Motion ahead on the road caught his attention: a fat shadow writhed between a dozen poorly defined shapes-rat-crow-worm-camouflaged in the blackness.
Louis slowed, creeping artfully so that nothing should be able to detect him.
A black eye materialized in the mass of the Droogan-dor, however, tracking him, the body underneath coiling to pounce.
He smiled at the creature. “Nice doggie,” Louis whispered. “Just a neighborly visit from a neutral observer. Nothing to raise one’s hackles over.”
It sprang.
Louis sidestepped its charge and dug his nails deep into the shadow flesh, clenched his fists-ripped hide free from flesh and bone.
The thing screamed as it dissipated into an oily mist.
Louis grinned and his pulse pounded. Such wonderful violence. He had not felt the thrill of destroying a lesser opponent in a long time.
Such trivial pleasures would slow him. . still, Louis paused to admire the black velvet sheen of the Droogan-dor’s skin.
He started again-then halted as he saw how seriously he had miscalculated.
About him, growling and crouching, were a dozen Droogan-dors-each the size of a house, each growing rows and rows of dagger teeth.
“Now boys.” He held up both hands. “Can’t we all be friends?”
The monstrosities all took a step back, simultaneously shaking their heads to clear the confusion from the hell-blaspheme oath. Friends was not a word uttered without some effort in the depths.
Which is when Louis attacked them.
He didn’t transform. . not entirely. That would’ve garnered him too much attention. But just a partial shift, claw and fang and wing of bat-to rip and rend and slash.
How could he pass up such fun?
He paused, panting, and realized there was nothing left to fight. . only shreds and quivering pieces that lay about him.