by Eric Nylund
“Yes.” Mephistopheles examined his bare hand. “But in truth, very much more of one. . and very little of the other.”
Her stomach twisted. She had kissed him! The thing that had fangs and claws and had been a hundred-foot tall monster. She struggled to push down her rising bile.
Months ago Mitch had used white magic in that alley by Paxington to repel shadows creatures. He’d looked pained, and she’d thought then it had been the strain of producing such a powerful magic. But that hadn’t been it at all. The white magic had burned him because he was part, or mostly, Infernal.
Fiona wasn’t strong enough to stand. . so she scooched back from him. “Was everything you said to me this past year a lie?”
She bet normal girls didn’t have to go through this when they broke up with their boyfriends. A little shouting, some hurt feelings, and it was over. Not a full-scale war; fighting with your about-to-be-ex until he almost kills you; and having thousands of broken, damned souls lament along with you.
Lucky her.
Mephistopheles looked as if she’d struck him. “I have never lied to you, Fiona.”
Fiona looked into his smoky brown eyes. She didn’t believe that. .
He took a step closer. “Everything changed once I knew you. I could not use you and I would never endanger you.” He glanced away. “So I left school to finish this war without your involvement, even if that meant losing my lands. . and my life.”
Fiona snorted. “Looks like you did okay to me.”
Mitch smiled. It was the same smile that made her feel warm and loved, but there was an edge to it, something that reminded Fiona of a wolf.
Mitch’s voice became deeper. “Sealiah lost focus on the war, obsessed with wooing Eliot to her side. She succeeded, but his help was too little, too late.”
Eliot. And Robert.
Fiona had almost forgotten them, she was so engrossed in her own drama.
“Then why kill Robert?” she said, struggling to keep her voice from breaking with sorrow. “And why fight me if you cared so much?”
“I didn’t realize it was you and Robert until too late. I mean, I knew. . but the blood. . when it burns. .” Mephistopheles looked exasperated as he tried to explain. “I would have never consciously harmed you.”
Fiona had felt that way before. When her blood ran hot-she could have killed without thinking.
But what about Robert? Dead on the field somewhere. How could she ever forgive that?
She couldn’t. But she couldn’t think about Robert anymore. Her blood would demand revenge. . and that mustn’t happen now-not when she was on the verge of being able to accept Mitch’s mercy and get Eliot and herself out of here in one piece.
Oh, but Eliot! He’d never leave without his stupid Jezebel.
“Okay,” she said, lost for a moment as she struggled to hold her anger in check. “You were attacked. You got hot. You defended yourself. I get that. But winning isn’t everything.”
Mephistopheles gazed down at her, suddenly wary. “What do you mean?”
“Can’t you stop? Leave Sealiah one scrap of land so she can fix Jezebel?”
Mephistopheles looked like this was a bad joke-then his face fell. “For Eliot. Yes, as he goes, so do you.”
Was that true? Would she stay and fight even now for Eliot? After she had been so badly beaten? Amanda and Robert were gone, and she was tired of always fighting. There’d been so much bloodshed. She was sometimes even tired of being Eliot’s sister.
But that was the right thing to do. Family stuck together. No matter what.
Fiona looked up into Mitch’s face. Even if it was Mephistopheles. . it was Mitch Stephenson, too. She couldn’t stop thinking of him as the boy she knew.
Eliot was playing his music again, that same song, the one full of hope.
The sky brightened.
Mephistopheles winced, but he didn’t notice the strange orange half light as he continued to stare into her eyes.
“Yes,” Mephistopheles told her. “For you I would leave on the brink of my victory.” He blinked, surprised by his own words. “What an impossible thing you have made possible.”
An impossible thing: hope in Hell, and mercy in the depths of darkness.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
The battle continued about them-shouts and gunfire and screams.
“I will leave,” Mephistopheles said, “if you let me take you back to school. And if we can go back to being friends. . perhaps growing into something more in time.”
Him and her? Friends? More than that? After he had revealed what he was? After she’d seen him murder Robert? Taking his mercy and escaping Hell was one thing. Going back to the way things were? No way.
But would she have done any different in his place? Her Infernal blood on fire? She didn’t know.
Fiona’s head swam. This was so confusing. There were too many feelings to sort through. . and since she’d cut herself, she didn’t trust her feelings anymore. She actually felt as if she were balancing on her tiptoes-one tiny push either way and she’d land. . but which way? Give in to her burning hate and avenge Robert? Or stay collected, make peace, and live to fight another day?
This was the same decision she’d been struggling with all year: choosing between Robert and Mitch (although right now neither seemed like the correct choice, because one was dead, and the other was evil).
But while she was trying to figure this out, Eliot and others were dying around her.
She could stop the fighting. She had to stop it. For all their sakes.
So she decided. She and Eliot would get out of here alive.
It was funny-she was about to make peace with an Infernal Lord, one who’d been part of a plot to get her on their side, one who’d walked away from those schemes to save her. . and they’d both ended up exactly where the Infernals had originally wanted them to be.
“Delicious irony is ripe in the air,” Mephistopheles whispered. “Let us not waste the moment.” He offered her his hand. It was the hand without the gauntlet, the one she’d cut off, the one that had grown back-flesh and shadow: white smooth skin and long articulated fingers, reaching for hers.
“Come with me, Fiona. Come and we will walk and talk and be together.”
The last thing in the world she wanted was to touch him. . but something in her blood called to his blood. Like the bloodlust she’d felt before in battle. . only this was far more passion than rage.
Fiona couldn’t help herself.
Her hand was drawn to his. She dared to reach for him, fingers outstretched.
They touched and he pulled her up to stand with him.
There was heat and life and the world around them stilled.
All other thoughts of the battle and her exhaustion and grief stilled. This was everything she’d wanted: a way to survive this war she’d been dragged into, and a way for Eliot to get his rotten girlfriend back so he wouldn’t make everyone miserable for the rest of his life.
And Fiona would be with Mitch.
Her suspicions slipped away. Her pulse hammered in his chest and throat.
In her haze she saw them together-not because of any tricks, but because he’d been noble and protected her when everyone else in her life only wanted to use her. With their powers combined they could leave-go anywhere-do anything. . even if that was simply go back to school and figure things out, one slow step at a time.
Fiona felt hope and happiness and knew everything was possible for them. It would be a moment she’d treasure and reflect upon every day for the rest of her life.
A sound intruded on their moment: a helicopter whoop-whoop of blades slicing the air-then metal screeching against metal.
Mitch stiffened. His face contorted with agony. A dent popped in the center of his chest plate-pushed out from the inside.
His hand jerked from hers. He turned.
A sword stuck out from his back.
Fiona stared, shocked, dumbfounded. . as she recognized the weapon. It was the broken s
word her father had tried to kill Beelzebub with, the same one Sealiah had given Robert. It penetrated Mitch’s spine between his shoulder blades, and the Damascus steel dripped fire that transformed his black plate mail to ash.
He fell.
She caught him.
Robert stood at the edge of the clearing, staring at her and Mitch. . looking triumphant. . perplexed. . and then shocked.
Robert was alive? But she’d seen him impaled.
Every shadow creature on the battlefield fell and dissolved under the brightening red sunlight.
Mitch coughed out smoke and embers. He and Fiona together sank to the ground. She turned him so he lay on his side in her lap.
Flames crackled and spread around the blade.
Fiona, horrified, reached for the handle to pull it out.
“No,” Mitch rasped. “That blade destroys whatever it touches-using the power of its wielder, whatever that may be. Touch it and you will cut me to my core and kill me. I would not have that weight upon your soul.”
“But you’re going to die with that thing in you,” she whispered.
The flames spread across his back. He shuddered with pain. He clutched her tighter. “Assassination,” he said. “Backstabbing. It is our way. Even you, Fiona, played your unwitting part.”
“Me?” She never wanted this. Fire licked Fiona’s arm and she didn’t feel it.
How had this happened? They had made their peace. It was all fixed. They’d be together and happy. But that one moment when nothing else mattered, when everything was still possible. . now burned before her eyes.
“Sealiah found a hero and his lady in need of protecting,” Mephistopheles whispered. “With the sun coaxed by hope, and with the God-broken Blade, she concocted a brilliant last-minute gambit.” He chuckled. “Or perhaps she had it planned all along-the intricate, devious machinations of an Infernal. I have lost to a superior opponent.”
“No!” Fiona cried. “Don’t give up! Someone else can take the blade out.”
The last shadow on the field dissolved under the sun as it fully emerged from the moon. The ice on the ground steamed.
“Too late,” he told her. “The light has won this day. My time is over. Yours is just beginning, fair goddess. And our time, alas, was never to be.” He reached up and touched the tears that streamed onto her cheeks. “Still. . a fine death if it be in your arms.”
“Fiona!” Robert cried.
She ignored him and held Mitch close. The flames rose higher and engulfed them both. Mitch held her. They burned together.
This wasn’t happening. She wouldn’t let go. Not ever.
The flames crackled with renewed intensity, they flared and sputtered and sparked. Fiona felt his strength fade. . and his very touch dissolve to dust.
The fire guttered and died.
Mephistopheles’ shadows were gone. His patchwork soldiers stumbled and fell apart. A mighty cheer rose from Sealiah’s knights.
Fiona had nothing but an armful of ashes. She tried to hold them; they blew away. When she looked up, her vision blurry with tears, she saw Robert standing near.
Louis sauntered up, and his smile faded as he beheld Fiona and her blackened hands.
Eliot ran up to her as well-stopped short, seeing the sword and the ashes-having no clue what had happened, but able to read Fiona’s pain.
And finally Sealiah and a retinue of knights approached. Where she stepped the soil churned with worms and roots and covered with flowering moss. She nodded at each of them, practically glowing with pleasure, and looking more regal and lovely than ever.
“The war is over,” the Queen of Poppies announced. “The House of Umbra has fallen. We are victorious.”
Fiona glared at them all-hating them more than she had anything, most of all Robert. She wanted to get up and cut them to pieces. The rage built within her until all she saw were red pulses.
But she held back.
Fighting without thinking-what had it cost her in blood and pain and the people she’d loved? That’s how she’d gotten here in the first place. She vowed she wouldn’t repeat that mistake.
It’d take time, but she had to consider what this meant to her. She wasn’t sure what exactly she had to do first. . but Fiona knew with all her heart and soul that her war with the Infernals had just begun.
67. The first printed Faust legend is Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587) written by an anonymous German author. The publisher Johann Spies (1540–1623), however, claimed the chapbook was culled from the journal of the original Dr. Faustus. He explains that Faustus ritualistically invited the Devil to reside within him, so that the Devil could share mortal experiences (such as love), while he would gain Infernal knowledge. In a note scribbled on his first draft-Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), author of the English The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, claimed to have used the same ritual. Marlowe was reputedly an atheist, and while awaiting trial for heresy, Marlowe died. Numerous accounts say that he was killed in a drunken brawl, assassinated, while some claim that he stepped into a shadow and was never seen again. Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave at St. Nicholas, Deptford, so this later assertion cannot be disproved. The Journal of Dr. Faustus resides in the Beezle Collection, part of the Taylor Institution Library Rare Book collection, Oxford University, and may be viewed only by special permission from the Stephenson Family Trust. Golden’s Guide to Extraordinary Books, Victor Golden, 1958, Oxford.
81 INFERNAL LORD
By the time Eliot pushed and shoved his way past Sealiah’s knights, all he saw was Fiona. Mephistopheles was gone.
Sealiah, Robert, Mr. Welmann, and even Louis were all there, staring at his sister.
Fire burned in Fiona’s lap. The coals disintegrated to ash even has Eliot watched. The heat didn’t seem to hurt Fiona or even scorch the shreds of her school skirt.
Eliot was about to ask her what had happened-but shut his mouth as his eyes met hers. They were red from crying and full of pain. . and utter contempt for all of them.
Across the battlefield shadows dissolved and vanished; patchwork soldiers either fell apart, or they came to their senses and rejoined Sealiah’s army.
The war was over.
Eliot wanted to shout in triumph, but his elation died as he glanced at Robert, who looked like he’d been hurt, covered in blood. . but more than that, hurt on the inside. Mr. Welmann held him back from Fiona.
Eliot couldn’t stand it. “Fiona,” he whispered. “What happened?”
The fire in her lap guttered and went out. Fiona examined her ash-covered hands. She finally looked up at Eliot. He’d never seen her in such agony.
“It was Mitch,” she said.
She had to be dazed. Eliot shook his head. “That’s not possible. It was Mephistopheles.”
In hushed tones, she explained exactly how it was possible. How Mephistopheles approached Mitch, the distant progeny of Dr. Faustus-how Mitch had let him in-how Mephistopheles purposely had not dragged them into this war. . as it had been planned by Sealiah and Louis and the rest of the Infernal Board.
As she related this last bit, she glared at their father.
Louis rolled his eyes and made a gesture with his hands as if to say, What exactly did you expect?
Eliot had never suspected Mitch. He’d studied and fought by an Infernal all year and hadn’t even sensed it? Eliot had known about Sealiah’s part in this, though. Jezebel had admitted as much. That little truth and trust between them had made it all the more difficult to abandon her.
But the thing that really got to Eliot was how connected it at all been. The Infernal Board had been involved? His father?
“Mephistopheles had just agreed to leave Sealiah a bit of land,” Fiona continued in a whisper. “He would have withdrawn. There could have been peace between everyone.”
There was more to this she wasn’t telling. Eliot picked up on it: how Fiona had liked Mitch. . and how she’d been reaching out to him before Robert had struck him down. Things had been
strained and awkward between Fiona and Robert before this. Now? There’d be a rift between them that’d never heal. . because it wasn’t just Mephistopheles who had been ready to leave the battle-Fiona had been ready to go with him.
“There would have been peace?” Sealiah said with a toss of her coppery hair. “Then disaster has been averted. An ignoble death for our opponent, and all’s well that ends well.”
Eliot felt Sealiah’s power return in a tidal rush. Her connection reestablished to her lost domains. . as well as Mephistopheles’ now-conquered lands. A crown of woven thorns snaked through her hair and blossomed.
Fiona glared daggers at the Queen, which Sealiah ignored as she turned Robert. “And our thanks to you, my Champion. You have Our favor.”
Robert nodded, accepting this “honor,” and handed Sealiah back her sword’s scabbard. All the color, however, drained from him as he took in Fiona’s pained expression.
Sealiah retrieved Saliceran from where it lay in the dirt. She flicked the blade and char sloughed off. The Damascus steel once more wept poison, and fumed where this dripped upon the earth.
Sealiah put the sword away. Eliot shuddered at the wet scraping sound as it slid back into its sheath.
“There is still much to do,” Sealiah told them, a smile spreading across her face. “There are the spoils of war. Celebrations. Honors and treasures to take!”
Fiona stood with great deliberation. She looked at them. Behind her gaze was unstoppable death. Hate rolled off her in waves.
She blinked, however, and looked away.
“You celebrate.” She turned and walked off. “I’ve lost. . everything.”
No one followed her. No one said a thing.
Eliot knew that he should let her be. In her current emotional state, one wrong word could set her off. Better to let her cool and then they would talk.
But as much as he knew that was the logical thing to do, he couldn’t let her suffer alone. He had to stand by her side as he always had for him. Cee had always said: they were stronger together.
“Fiona,” he whispered, catching up to her. “Talk to me. Please.”
She turned and examined him. There was no hate or pain in her eyes anymore, just a long thoughtful glance. She shook her head.