All That Lives Must Die (39 page)

Eliot was afraid. Not for his own safety, but for Jezebel’s.

There was no sign of her anywhere, and from his vantage, he could see the curve of the road for miles. There was no way she could have gotten so far ahead of him. Something had happened to her.

He ran—

—but made only a few strides before a crushing force hit him from behind, lifted him off the road, and into the tall grass, rolling over and over with him.

Something smashed against the side of his head.

Eliot shrugged off the weight on his chest, scrambled to his feet, and raised his fists.

Jezebel lay before him, her hair tousled over her face.

Next to where she’d pinned him was a pulverized rock. Eliot touched his head, and pebbles of granite fell free.

“You hit me?” He rubbed his head. There was no blood . . . but his skull should’ve been crushed from that blow.

“You!” Jezebel whispered, brushing her curls aside, her eyes wide.

His anger vanished as he saw that her bandages had sloughed off in their tumble. Her wounds from earlier today were only pale scars on her arms and shoulder.

She stood and smoothed out her tartan skirt.

“You’re better,” he breathed.

“The land,” she said. “Every Infernal is connected to their land . . . and it to them. It is the source of our strength.”

She came to him and touched his head. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were one of them,” she whispered. Her fingers combed through his hair. She was Julie Marks once more: eyes blue and pale and her face soft and all human.

But her touch turned rough as she examined him. “That rock should’ve killed you,” she growled. “So you are truly Infernal, after all.” Her face hardened and her eyes crystallized, becoming the color of raw emeralds. “Why did you follow me?”

“To help?”

“You came to the Poppy Lands to help me?” She laughed.

But her laugh died as the grass withered and turned to dust, and shadows sprang up in their place.

From this darkness, a shape pulled itself free: as in the alley, a Droogan-dor with pointed limbs and needle teeth. But unlike in the alley, this shadow creature was bigger . . . the size of a car. Cold radiated from it that chilled Eliot’s soul.

“Still the fool!” Jezebel took his arm and drew him closer, hissing, “They’ve seen you. You’ve doomed us
both!”

43
. Flocks of creatures are often designated by a special words, e.g., a “murder” of crows or a “pod” of whales. Groups of Infernals (fallen angels) are called an “exodus” of angels (or Infernals). Although this grammatical designation has entered the vernacular, it remains controversial and contested by the Catholic Church for two reasons: first, Infernals almost never group (making the term largely hypothetical); and second, it suggests that the “fallen” angels’ exit from Heaven may not have been the result of an expulsion after losing a war, but instead, a
voluntary
departure. —Editor.

               45               

SHADOWS, HONEY, AND BLOOD

Eliot watched the Droogan-dor push itself out of the shadows like some sticky birthing . . . unable to comprehend the geometry of the situation—until his brain unfroze.

He pulled Lady Dawn from his pack.

“Don’t worry, we’ve fought
hundreds
of these things before,” he reassured Jezebel.

Jezebel grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back into the tall grass. “But not in Hell. Here they are stronger.” She let go of him, and her hands became venom-dripping claws.

“It’s just a—”

The words died in his throat. The just-freed creature was now the size of an elephant, with ten pointed crablike limbs.

The Droogan-dor lunged at them.

Eliot instinctively flicked his fingers over his violin strings. There was an earsplitting twang.

The air between him and the creature blurred with energy—cracking the thing’s exoskeleton, splitting open the ground and making its front legs stumble.

Jezebel darted in and clawed its eyes.

The Droogan-dor reared back, screaming, shaking its upper body, pushing forth
two
new heads from the holes Jezebel had carved out.

It pulled free from the cracks in the earth.

Jezebel was right: This wasn’t like the things they’d fought in the alley. It was growing, as large as a bus, getting bigger as more shadows adhered to it.

It stabbed at Jezebel.

She dodged and rolled. Its claw left an impact crater where she’d stood.

“Run, Eliot!” she cried. “I’ll delay it.”

“Not this time,” he murmured. This wasn’t like a gym match, where all you do is get the flag and end the battle.

Eliot drew out his violin’s bow and tossed aside his pack.

He played “Julie’s Song.” It was sweet at first, then turned dark and sorrowful. He kept playing because he knew it would change into the weapon he’d need. He played and remembered her smile, how her human laugh had sounded like tiny sleigh bells, and how he had played her song that summer day . . . and made the sun rise early just for her.

The Droogan-dor screamed, rearing back, flailing its needlelike legs at him, but not daring to come closer to the music.

Eliot was on the right track. He had to focus, couldn’t be afraid. He had to make the song right.

But the right notes felt very far away. Neither light nor hope nor love belonged in this place. It was like forcing oil and water to mix.

He stayed and he played. He had to. For her.

The Droogan-dor snorted, shook its heads to overcome its aversion, and charged Eliot. It was a dozen pointed limbs and tons of black armor rushing headlong to crush him.

And still Eliot played . . . with nothing but hope to shield him.

Jezebel watched, horrified, her mouth agape.

Eliot felt the connection: it all poured from him—no distance could keep him away and no darkness could prevail against his unwavering hope.

Sunlight streamed from the cracks in the earth, from his eyes and fingertips, and made the very notes from Lady Dawn waver in the air like heat.

The Droogan-dor’s wailing pitched to a panicked ultrasonic cry. Its exoskeleton bubbled and steamed and popped, and it disintegrated into dust and ashes before Eliot’s feet.

The song ended and Eliot fell to his knees, spent.

The light went out and the darkness rushed in like a cold tide.

There was a soothing, gentle rocking motion. Somewhere far away, Eliot heard his name called by the sweetest southern-accented voice imaginable.

Eliot . . . Eliot, honey, snap out of it
.

The gentle rocking became urgent.

“Eliot!”

Pain lashed across his face, sharp and electric. His eyes flew open in time to see Jezebel raising her open hand for another slap.

He blocked her swing and caught her. Wrapping his fingers about hers, he got up and didn’t let go.

“I’m fine,” he whispered. There was an edge in his voice that he hadn’t intended.

Jezebel stared at him, then at their intertwined hands. She wasn’t angry as usual; rather, her forehead wrinkled with worry.

Eliot touched her captured hand lightly . . . then released her.

“We have to move,” she said, and nodded across the road.

Eliot blinked, trying to see what she meant, still recovering from his performance. His eyes focused, and he instantly understood: The fight was far from over.

The battle on the distant hills had spilled into the meadow. Hundreds of knights in thorn-spiked plate mail slashed at a handful of giant Droogan-dors, impaling the creatures upon lances; cannon fired puffballs of fungus that exploded and showered spores that took root and dissolved all in their path; legions of foot soldiers armed with lanterns and flaming oil sprayers made lines of light in the gloom . . . but the creatures from the House of Umbra were too strong. They stabbed and crushed everything within reach.

“They shift shape so easily,” Eliot murmured. “Why are they so strong now?”

Louis had told him Infernals normally had only two shapes, one humanoid, the other a “combat” form.

“The Droogan-dors have no shape to begin with.” Jezebel glanced about. “And as for their strength . . . all creatures of the dark are stronger in Hell, strongest of all on their lands.”

Lands
. She meant the domains of Hell.

Was Eliot, son of the Prince of Darkness, a creature of darkness stronger here, too?

He gazed once more at the battle. Where the shadow creatures killed and advanced, the land changed. Grass and flowers died. The bare earth dried and cracked, and jagged spikes of black rock grew in their place.

Like the place was becoming another land.

“You said you’re connected to land,” Eliot said, “but the connection goes
both
ways, doesn’t it? The land is connected to you?”

“Yes,” she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him along. “We can discuss it while we’re running for our lives.”

She pulled him through the fields, running parallel to the road, still on “her” side, where the land was full of life, where Eliot guessed she’d be the strongest.

Farther ahead, though, the road wound about more hills . . . upon which more battles raged.

Eliot halted, stopping Jezebel her tracks. “Wait a second,” he said. “Where are we going?”

“Doze Torres.” She yanked him back in her direction. “My Queen’s castles. We shall be safest there.”

Eliot didn’t budge.

He scrutinized what lay ahead, not liking what he saw. In some battles, Queen Sealiah’s forces outnumbered the shadows three to one and pushed them back. In a few cases, her forces lit the fields on fire to drive the shadows away (at best, a delaying tactic). But in the majority of the battles, it was an even match . . . with lots of casualties on either side.

Eliot wasn’t sure what happened to the souls of the dead when torn apart by shadow creatures—if they ceased to exist, regenerated, or just lay there in pieces for all eternity.

He was pretty sure, though, he knew what would happen if
he
got torn into tiny pieces.

“That way’s too dangerous.” He drew Jezebel closer to him. “The safest path is back.” He pointed over his shoulder. He could just see the top of the train station’s glass spires.

“No,” she insisted. “I cannot leave. I must fight.”

“No, you don’t,” he told her. “Come back with me. We’ll get you a dorm room at Paxington. The Droogan-dors would never dare come there.”

“Where I’d be safe?” Jezebel dropped his hand, and her face turned cold. “Where I would slowly die?”

Eliot looked at her. That was no lie—but he was light-years from understanding what she meant.

“The land,” she said, growing annoyed with him. “You saw the connection.”

He nodded, starting to get it. When the Droogan-dors won, they took the land and made it Mephistopheles’. And logically, the more land that Infernal Lord had, the stronger he became . . . while Queen Sealiah lost her land and grew weaker.

“What happens if you lose?” Eliot whispered. “Lose all the land?”

Her hand rose to her throat. “There would be no more Jezebel. At best, the soul of Julie Marks would belong to Mephistopheles. But in all likelihood, as a Duchess of the Royal House of Poppies, I would be destroyed.”

Eliot refused to accept that. His father had lost all his lands and not been destroyed . . . but he was the Great Deceiver, and a full-blooded fallen angel. Jezebel wasn’t.

“Okay,” he said, “that’s it, then. I’m staying and fighting.”

“No, no, no.” She pursed her lips. “We’re only going to the castle so I can be safe and you can get an escort out of here. I won’t let you die for me.”

He crossed his arms. “I’m not leaving you.”

Cannon fire lit the nearby ridge, and bioluminescent puffballs whooshed overhead, lighting the sky like ghostly meteors—impacting and exploding on the opposite side of the valley with flashes of pastel lights, illuminating the solid wall of onrushing shadow.

Jezebel balled her hands into fists. “You—are—so—stubborn!” she said through gritted teeth, and she shook her platinum curls.

She grabbed his hand and raced back the way they’d come. “Fine. The train, then. My orders definitely do not cover this.”

As they ran, her wounds bled once more. Was it the sudden motion? Or was it because Queen Sealiah was losing?

Eliot risked a glance back.

Knights upon giant centipedes charged downhill; monster bats screeched overhead, dropping lines of phosphorescent napalm—and rushing down the opposite hill against these forces, a tide of dark, full of limbs and jagged maws and a thousand unblinking eyes.

Eliot turned and ran faster—and slowed only once they got inside the great glass station house.

“How long?” he panted. “Until another train?”

“
We
do not wait,” Jezebel replied.

She went to a wrought-iron pillar and opened a call box. Inside was an ancient phone. She turned a generator crank and spoke into the fixed microphone: “Ready the
Poe
. No delays.”

Jezebel replaced the earpiece and closed the box. She then moved to his side, seemed to deflate, and rested her forehead on his shoulder. “I was going to tell you you’re a fool,” she said, “but I think you already know that.”

Eliot held her lightly.

She let him, leaning closer. “I . . . I just can’t believe you came for me,” she whispered. “I tried so hard to push you away. Why didn’t you go?”

Eliot tilted her chin up and looked into her eyes. They were a shade of blue-green he hadn’t seen before—part Jezebel, part Julie.

He wanted to tell her that from the moment he first played her song, learned what she was inside and out and what she could be, he had loved her.

But until he had come to Hell to save her, even Eliot hadn’t quite realized that. He just didn’t have the words . . . so he opened himself to her, let her look through the windows of his eyes into the depths of his soul.

Jezebel stared deeper and deeper; she held her breath, and held him, her hands clutching his jacket tighter.

The moment was broken as an engine chugged and strained against inertia, pulling three rail cars from the roundhouse.

She released him and took a step back; her hands, however, still rested lightly on his chest as if she couldn’t let go.

The train and its cars were all polished brass and gleaming rosewood. As it pulled in front of them, hissing steam, Eliot smelled lilacs and a hint of sulfur.

A bald porter emerged, set down a step, and bowed before Jezebel. With a flourish, he waved them both into the car. “Destination?” he asked.

“Market Street BART station, San Francisco, the Middle Realm of the Earth,” Jezebel commanded. “And relay my wish to the conductor to make no stops along the way.”

“It shall be as you command.” The bald porter hurried off.

Eliot followed Jezebel into the rail car.

The wall panels of the car were silver dust mirrors veined with filigrees of gold. The ceiling was Tiffany stained glass with lilacs and dragonflies, but along the edges were mushrooms and crystalline millipede motifs with tiny real bones. There were bloodred silk lounges, and a desk with modern computers and phones, and along the wall a bar with cut crystal decanters. In the back were red curtains, slightly parted, and within he spied the ruffle of a round bed.

“All the conveniences one could desire,” she told him.

There was velvet in her voice. It was nice. Not a lie per se . . . just something wrong nonetheless that heightened Eliot’s awareness.

She shut the door, moved closer, and her hand pressed against his chest, slowly running up and tracing his contours with her nails.

About them, dozens and hundreds of reflections of him and her all mirrored their touching. The air within the rail car turned hot.

Yes . . . something was very wrong; at least the rational encyclopedic part of Eliot’s mind was screaming that to the rest of him (and being ignored).

Her fingernails slipped inside his shirt and scraped along bare skin. It was electric.

Eliot set a hand on the small of her back and pulled her closer.

Jezebel sighed. “If only . . . ,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?” Eliot asked.

“I mean,” she said, taking a deep breath, “you may be perfect, Eliot Post, Son of Darkness, but you’re not the only one capable of sacrifice for”—she struggled with her next words—“the ones they care for.”

Eliot crinkled his brow, confused.

She leaned closer and kissed him. It was soft; then she pressed harder, her lips urgent.

Eliot caressed her and tasted honey. He drowned in that sensation, dizzy, only with her while the rest of the universe vanished.

There was a stab inside his cheek. Like a needle. It was lightning fast, the prick gone as fast as the sensation had registered.

Heat and pain lanced through his mouth and then his throat, pumping down the vein in his neck.

Eliot staggered back, one hand making a choking motion about his throat, the other brushing across his lips . . . and coming away bloody.