All That Lives Must Die (20 page)

“What happened?” she asked Mitch.

“Didn’t get there in time,” he said with a shrug, but otherwise seemed unfazed. “Once the music stopped, it took me longer than I thought to find the right way.”

Sarah stalked up to her. “Next time you be halfway to the flag, I suggest—strongly suggest—you keep going. The match would have been over in a blink if you’d let them have your brother a wee bit.” She trounced off.

Fiona was too shocked to reply.

She couldn’t image what those four White Knights would have done to Eliot. They would have put him in the hospital for sure.

Maybe that was the point.

A few broken arms, and you could reduce the number of opponents on the other team—maybe permanently, so if you had to play that team again, there’d be fewer of them, and a better chance to win.

Logical. And horrifying.

Robert, covered in sweat, came up to her and Eliot. “You guys all right?”

“We’re fine,” she told him.

Why hadn’t Robert stayed with them? Had he wanted to win so badly that he’d forgotten everything else?

Looking at him as he stood panting, soaked, a faint bruise under one eye, she wondered again just what he was doing at Paxington. He wasn’t interested in books and learning. Robert lived to ride.

Before she could figure out how to even ask Robert about any of this, Mr. Ma spoke.

“Three at Scarab’s flag,” he announced. “Four for White Knight at seven minutes thirteen seconds. A moderately good time. Win for the Knights.” Mr. Ma nodded at their team, and then looked over to Fiona and Eliot. “A loss for Scarab.”

The White Knight boys and girls exchanged high fives and went to their injured teammates to help the medics dress wounds and get them off the field. None of them spared Fiona another look.

And why should they? They’d lost.

“Too many weak links on this team,” Jeremy said bitterly, and walked off the field.

Eliot looked like he’d been struck.

Fiona didn’t like the way Jeremy had said that . . . it sounded like a threat, and she wondered if the students on the other teams were the
only
ones she’d have to worry about.

21
. Tamara Pritchard, part of the Dreaming Families, and infamous for her use of Life/Death dual magics, was born with gifts we could scarcely imagine. Had her focus been magical rather than social engineering during those early years . . . she would have been a real threat to us.
The Secret Red Diaries of Sarah Covington, Third Edition,
Sarah Covington, Mariposa Printers, Dublin.

               20               

LITTLE WHITE LIE

Eliot was sure Jeremy and Sarah Covington blamed him . . . with their averted glances and cold shoulders all week. And yet, they still spoke to Fiona, and Jeremy always tried to open doors for her.

As far as they were concerned, he was just her “little brother,” the kid with the violin who had caused half their team to lag behind and lose their first match.

He sat in the back of Miss Westin’s Mythology 101 class. This week she continued her lecture of the mortal magical families. He’d learned about the Kaleb clan and the Scalagari family.
22

Everyone at Paxington was special in their own way. Some families had political clout, others had powerful magic, and some had a pedigree that stretched back to antiquity.

And while Eliot, at least in theory, had
all
these things, no one could know (thanks to the League’s stupid rules).

Even if there weren’t rules, Eliot wasn’t sure it would matter. If people knew who and what he was—
especially
if people knew who and what he was—that would just make it worse. He’d be the Immortal hero kid with all the power, family, and political connections who
still
lost the match for Team Scarab.

Miss Westin ended the lecture and wrote an extra-credit reading assignment on John Dee on the blackboard.

Fiona sat next to Eliot. While she was completely absorbed, scribbling this down, he grabbed his notes and slunk out of class.

“Wait a second,” Fiona hissed after him.

Eliot kept going. He wanted to be alone.

Slipping through the blackout curtains and double doors of the auditorium, he blinked in the too-bright sunlight after being in the shadows for the last two hours.

Or maybe losing the match
wasn’t
his fault.

What if everyone on his team shared the blame? What if losing was as much Jeremy and Sarah’s fault for not meeting ahead of time and coming up with a plan? They were the ones who were supposed to know everything.

Eliot had actually helped Fiona and Mitch find the right path before getting ambushed.

What if Team Knight had just been better prepared?

As his eyes adjusted to the noontime sun, he saw that he wasn’t the only one to have left early.

Jezebel was here as well.

Last week, when she had looked at him as he held Lady Dawn—at that particular moment—Jezebel had looked
exactly
like Julie . . . down to her blue eyes.

The fantasy of Jezebel being Julie vanished as Jezebel tilted her head, blinking in the sunlight, getting her bearings. Her features were too sharp, cheekbones pushed up higher . . . and, of course, she was an Infernal protégée.

Julie had just been . . . well, Julie. Normal. Mortal. Nice.

Concern creased Jezebel’s otherwise smooth forehead as if she was worried she would be seen. Then she spotted him. Her eyes narrowed with disgust. She turned and walked off in the opposite direction.

But that look—it was the same annoyed, you’re-under-my-skin-look that Julie had given him . . . just before she had kissed him the first time.

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 shimmered 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.

22
. The Scalagari family is renowned for its weavers and fine tailors. They employ highly guarded methods to weave magical aspects into cloth. Their camel hair overcoats, for example, are impervious to bullet or blade, and are said to have the “strength and weight” of an entire mountain woven into their feather-soft fabric. The Scalagaris also have a darker side, reputably connected to the criminal underworld. From ancestral estates on Sicily and the isle of Nero Basilica, it is said they operate gambling, extortion, and smuggling rings (under constant investigation by Interpol; no charges, however, have ever been bought to court).
Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 14, The Mortal Magical Families.
Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.