All That Lives Must Die (16 page)

               16               

BREAKFAST SPECIAL

Eliot ran along the sidewalk. Fiona raced him to the spot on the granite wall where the entrance to Paxington hid in plain sight.

He’d gotten a few paces ahead of her because she had to dodge a flower cart parked on the sidewalk (and she was too prissy to run around it on the street—even a few feet).

He stopped at the wall, touched it, and panted.

She shrugged as if to say,
Whatever—I let you
, but couldn’t speak because she was breathing too heavily.

Eliot knew they wouldn’t be late today—absolutely not.

He’d learned how to set the alarm on his new phone and gotten up extra early. He hadn’t wanted to take any chances, though, so he and Fiona raced all the way from the breakfast table down through Pacific Heights, onto Lombard Street to here.

Eliot opened his phone, double-checking that they had plenty of time to make it to class. They did.

He found the crack in the wall, focused on it, and this time it was easy to slip around the corner that shouldn’t exist.

It still felt weird.

Fiona came in right behind him.

The alley to Paxington was shaded, and the ivy-covered walls cooled the already chilly air. Café Eridanus was full, the outdoor tables taken by older students eating pastries and drinking lattes before school started.

Eliot paused and inhaled scents wafting from the café: freshly ground coffee and steamed milk, a slightly charred citrus odor from flaming crêpes suzettes, melting butter, bacon, and sourdough bread just out of the oven.

“Come on,” Fiona said, and moved toward the gate.

Eliot’s stomach complained, and he lingered. He would die if he had to sit through an entire lecture, or at the very least, he wouldn’t be able to hear Miss Westin speaking over his grumbling digestive tract.

“Just a sec,” he said. “I’ll grab a bite—”

Eliot’s mind halted mid-thought. Even his stomach stopped rumbling.

His father sat at one of the outdoor café tables under the sky blue canopy. Three older Paxington boys stood around him, so Eliot hadn’t seen him at first.

The plates and coffee cups at his table had been shoved aside. Louis moved his hands over the tablecloth, shuffling three cards.

“Don’t take your eyes off it this time,” Louis told the boys. “Not for an instant!”

Eliot edged closer. Fiona was right behind him.

Louis’s cards were facedown on the table, and each creased down the center so they could be easily manipulated. One was dog-eared. Another had a water spot in the center.

Eliot felt something off . . . and understood Louis was trying to fool the boys by making the shuffling look so simple and the cards so easy to identify.

“Now,” Louis asked the boys. “Where is the Queen of Spades?”

“That one.” A boy pointed to the center card.

Another told him, “No, it’s the one on the right.”

Louis smiled. “Are you
sure
?”

He looked up as he said this, and caught Eliot’s eyes. Something passed between them, a slight tilt of the head, recognition, and an invitation to watch and learn.

“I’m sure,” the boy said, “the center card. Flip it already and pay up.”

Louis obliged. The card was the three of hearts.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, genuinely sounding sad. “You’ll get it next time, I’m sure.” He scooped their money off the table.

The boys asked for one more game, but Louis said no. “I have other customers this morning.” He gestured at Eliot and Fiona.

The three boys left, muttering and arguing over how they had lost track of the queen.

Eliot and Fiona moved to the table.

“You came here to see us, didn’t you?” Eliot asked.

“Of course, my boy.” Louis clasped him warmly by the shoulder. “You look dashing in that uniform, by the way. The girls shall swoon.”

Eliot felt instantly two feet taller.

Louis turned to Fiona. “And you, my dearest Fiona, you look . . .” He gesticulated with his hands, but couldn’t find the right words as he looked her over. “So nice.”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“True,” Louis said. “I am often not where I am supposed to be. And your mother
has
promised to kill me if I ever came near you again.” He shrugged. “But she does not know of this meeting, so the point is moot.” He stood, pulled out a chair, and gallantly offered it to Fiona.

Fiona remained standing and glared at him.

Louis was unfazed by this. He looked for the waiter, saying, “Let us not dwell on the ugly past and all these wretched parental custody issues, shall we? Let us just forgive one another, order breakfast, and chat. There’s so much lost time to make up for.”

“Forgive each other?” Fiona said. “What have
we
done that needs
your
forgiveness?”

Louis raised a finger. “Tut-tut. I won’t hear of it. All is forgotten and pardoned.”

Eliot sat.

Sure, he was still mad at Louis for using them as bait to lure Beelzebub into a trap (a trap, by the way, that hadn’t worked). Only by the narrowest of scrapes had they not been killed. And sure, Louis was an Infernal, the Prince of Darkness, and perhaps evil incarnate. But he was their only relation who had ever given them straight answers. Something in very sort supply these days.

Besides, Eliot was hungry.

A waiter came and took out a notepad.

“Shall it be two or three specials?” Louis asked Fiona.

She toyed with the rubber band on her wrist, and then reluctantly settled into the chair.

“Ten minutes,” she told Eliot. “No more. If we’re late again for class . . .”

“Yes,” Louis purred, “Miss Westin once had a guillotine for her tardy students.” He looked utterly serious and he made a chopping motion onto the table. “Three specials,” he told the waiter. “Make it a rush.”

“Oui, Monsieur Piper.”

Eliot studied his father. He looked so different from the dirty homeless person he’d been just a few months ago . . . and definitely different from the bat-winged fallen-angel woodcuts he’d seen in
Paradise Lost
(part of last night’s reading assignment). Louis wore black slacks and a black silk dress shirt undone to his sternum (with buttons that looked like real diamonds). Eliot thought this might be what a stage magician would look like.

But it was Louis’s face that fascinated Eliot most. His eyes sparkled as if he had just been laughing; his nose was crooked and hooked at the end; his thin mustache and goatee were immaculately trimmed and pointed; and his silver-streaked hair had been pulled back. It gave him an air of casual grace, elegance, and above all else . . . mischief.

“What do you want?” Fiona asked their father.

“What I want?” Louis got a faraway look in his eyes and stroked his chin. “I want my family to be whole and happy. I want you two to graduate from Paxington
maxima cum laude
, bar none,
merito puro
! I want to sail a galleon of solid gold upon a lake of jewels in my treasure kingdom the size of Nevada! I want the love of a beautiful woman. All women! I want the respect and adulation of billions. I want the world to be my pearl-stuffed oyster!”

Louis made eye contact with the waiter. “Although,” he said with a sigh, “I’d settle for a cup of this establishment’s wonderful Turkish coffee. What about you, darling daughter?”

“I want you to stop calling me that,” she said.

“I want answers,” Eliot chimed in before his sister worked up a head of steam.

Louis brightened and turned to him. “And so you shall have them, my boy. Ask! Anything. I shall be your unbiased oracle.”

The waiter brought coffee and orange juice and a basket of steaming blueberry muffins drizzled with butter.

Eliot tore into a muffin, drank half a glass of juice, and then said, “Uncle Kino drove us to the Gates of Perdition. To show us where Infernals come from. Was it really Hell? Is that where you live?”

Louis considered for a moment, and slipped four sugar cubes into his coffee. “He showed you . . . yes, but only the absolutely most wretched part. It’s like driving through the worst sections of Detroit and being told that is America. Why, you’d miss out entirely on Disneyland and Las Vegas.”

“Please,” Fiona scoffed. “Are you saying there are
nice
parts of Hell?”

“There are forests, jungles, and cities filled with exotic delights,” Louis said. “There are circuses, meadows of flowers, castles filled with lords and ladies—realms beyond imagination.”

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.