by Eric Nylund
“Her lie. .,” Eliot said. “The words sounded hollow. I don’t know. I could just tell.”
“Of course,” Louis replied. “Any Infernal can hear obvious lies.”
The black cat seated next to Louis looked up and glanced at Eliot, ears flicking forward.
“How is that possible?” Eliot asked.
“How does a dog hear the faintest whisper? How do bees see ultraviolet? Superior senses, my boy.”
Eliot remembered what his father had told him long ago: that the truth would be best between them. He wondered now if the reason for that was entirely moral. . or if it was just good Infernal politics.
“Can the others, the Immortals, hear lies, too?”
“No more than any other person with a modicum of wit.” Louis chuckled. “They are entirely different creatures.”
This halted Eliot’s thoughts cold.
“Wait-if you’re different species, how’d you and my mother. .? I mean, Fiona and me. . how’d you. .?”
Eliot blushed, unable to finish.
Louis held up both hands. “How foolish of me! I am sorry, Eliot. I should have realized your education in this would have been conveniently ‘forgotten’ by Audrey. I shall give you all the details.”
He dug into his pocket and pulled forth a string of individually wrapped foil packets, each the size of a half dollar.
Condoms.
Eliot’s blush heated to a blazing intensity, and he quickly waved them away. “That’s okay,” he said. “Cecilia covered basic, uh. . reproduction last year.”
“A pity.” Louis looked disappointed as he shoved the condoms back into his pocket.
Not that any contact with the opposite sex had been possible with Rule 106, the “no dating” rule in effect. Still, Eliot had had to learn everything about reproduction: earthworm sex organs, chromosomes, and the inherited hemophiliac anomalies of Russian royalty.
“So. . I’m a mule?” Eliot whispered. Mules were a sterile hybrid and a genetic dead end.
Louis frowned, and sparks danced in his eyes. “No. You and your sister are hybrids akin to the mighty griffon-half eagle and half lion-noble, powerful, and awe-inspiring. No Infernal has ever been anything less!”
Eliot’s pulse quickened as he listened, almost believing that he could be special. “So why are Infernals different? I’ve seen Miss Westin’s family tree. Infernal, Immortals, even the mortal magical families, they all have a common origin.”
“Oh. . that,” Louis said, and sniffed. “Well, we have evolved. We have land. The others do not.”
Eliot crinkled his forehead. “Land? Like office buildings? Uncle Henry has land.”
“No,” Louis said, drawing out the o. “We are monarchs of the domains of Hell, the benevolent kings and queens over the countless souls who are drawn there to worship us. That gives us true power. Without land, we would be the lowest of the low.”
Eliot pondered this comparison of formidable Uncle Aaron or even Audrey to the “lowest of the low.”
And yet, he sensed no outright lie in Louis’s words.
But if true, why didn’t the Infernals overthrow the Immortals? Rule everyone? Why have a neutrality treaty at all?
And who ruled that blasted landscape and all those people who had rushed the gate in Uncle Kino’s Borderlands? None of them seemed “benevolently ruled.” Something wasn’t right with Louis’s picture.
“Do you have one of these domains in Hell?” Eliot asked.
Louis eased back. “Ah, well, regrettably there were setbacks to my personal portfolio when I was demoted to mortal status.” He set a long hand atop Eliot’s and patted it. “Worry not. I have plans in motion to reclaim what was once mine.
“But let us talk more of your problem,” Louis said. He twisted off his pinkie ring. It was a battered gold band with a clear crystal cabochon. He held it up to the light and squinted. “I believe I have met your Jezebel once before. Observe.”
A tiny figure appeared in the ring’s stone. . which reflected and wavered in the water glasses on their table. . then in the curves of the spoons and forks. . and then along the inner curve of Eliot’s glasses.
Everywhere Eliot looked: there was Jezebel.
She stood with head lowered, wearing a black velvet cloak that highlighted her pale skin and platinum locks.
Eliot stopped breathing.
“I see the reason for your interest,” Louis whispered. “But there is another to focus your attentions upon.”
A second woman appeared in the ring. And as impossible as it seemed to Eliot, she was more beautiful than Jezebel, with copper red hair and feral eyes. She radiated power-waves of the stuff that made Eliot’s pulse quicken.
She was intoxicating and overwhelming.
“That creature,” Louis explained, “is Sealiah, Queen of the Poppy Realms and your poor unfortunate Jezebel’s mistress. She is the reason for her being at Paxington. A rather clumsy attempt to seduce you. . one that I fear is working, however.”
“Yeah, I know,” Eliot sighed. “But there has to be a way to save Jezebel while not falling into the trap.” He gazed up at his father, every fiber of his being hoping Louis could help.
Louis tapped his pointed chin, thinking. “I admire you wanting it all. . I shall consider the situation and concoct something.”
Eliot nodded, truly grateful. He was completely out of his depth. Any advice would be welcome.
He tried to envision that family tree Miss Westin had drawn in class and where this Sealiah, Queen of Poppies fit. He couldn’t remember-although now that he reimagined it, there was something else that had nagged him about the Infernal family tree.
“I keep seeing this name come up in class,” Eliot said. “One Infernal who might or might not be dead? No one seems sure. Satan?”
Louis’s face went rigid. “Oh. . him.” An eyebrow twitched in irritation. “Do you know people still confuse the two of us?”
“What happened? His name was scratched off the family tree, not erased like if he’d died.”
Louis shrugged. “He left. Said he grew tired of the endless bickering. Can you imagine?” He picked up a napkin and made a great show of wiping his hands. “Who can say if he lives or not? When a puppy goes missing for ten years, one assumes it was run over by a truck, no?”
Eliot remembered what Mr. Welmann had said: That the dead grew restless and moved on. If Satan were dead, where would he move on to? Did Infernals go to Hell if they died?
Louis tapped the table. “Remain focused on our relations in the here and now, my boy. The ones trying to stab you in the back, eh?”
Eliot nodded.
“For now,” Louis said, “watch your Jezebel, but keep your distance. Neither be cool nor solicit her attentions. And tell no one of my involvement. I fear your sister and mother would not understand what is clearly an Infernal family matter.”
Not telling Audrey-that would be easy. She might take the matter of Jezebel up with the League. That could get messy, fast. But not telling Fiona felt wrong.
He decided, though: He’d trust Louis this once.
Eliot held out his hand for his father to shake. “Deal.”
Louis’s face split into a crooked smile, and he grasped Eliot’s hand.
It felt as if Eliot grasped lightning and raw pumping blood and had a tiger by the tail all at once.
But it also felt good-like he and his father were now in this together.
Sure, it was stupid and dangerous to trust his father, the self-admitted Prince of Darkness, but at the same time, it also felt like the smartest, most important thing Eliot had ever done.
25. STONES THAT WEEP
Fiona stepped off the bus with the rest of Team Scarab.
It had been an awkward hour-long ride from Paxington through hills of central California.
First, on this small bus, she had had to sit behind Miss Westin-not the ideal location for gossiping or discussing with Eliot the politics of their Immortal relatives.
Second, Miss Westin had segregated the boys from the girls. Amanda was on Fiona’s right, face plastered to the window, alternately too shy to speak, and then exploding in rapid bursts of enthusiasm over her new clothes and Aunt Dallas, and when was she going to show up again after school?
Behind her sat Sarah Covington and Jezebel, who exuded icy silence at one another.
Thank goodness Mitch Stephenson had the seat across the aisle-and while not daring to cross the gender boundary that ran down the center of the bus, he nonetheless managed to occasionally communicate with her with a smile and roll of his eyes as Jeremy Covington went on and on next to him about his life and exploits in the nineteenth century and how the twenty-first century had gone to the dogs without servants and a rigid social order.
Robert and Eliot seemed to be having a normal conversation in back. Fiona caught only snatches of what they said. She thought they might have been talking about a video game because there were lots of gesticulations with fists and karate chops.
Sometimes they could be so foolish.
Eventually Fiona opened her copy of Homer’s Odyssey. She read (or rather tried), managing to reread the same paragraph about Circe about twenty times over the bumpy roads.
She gave up when the bus pulled onto a dirt road. They bumped along for a few more minutes and eased to a halt.
The door folded open, and Fiona stepped off after Miss Westin.
There was nothing here, just rolling hills, golden grass, and the occasional orange poppy that trembled in the breeze. The bent black oaks seemed to wave to her.
“Clear the bus,” Miss Westin instructed. “We have another group coming through.”
Fiona marched out the door, to the rear of the bus, and leaned against it. Another group of students marched toward them, escorted by Mr. Ma, who held his usual clipboard. It was Team White Knight. They queued in front of the bus’s doors.
The Knights glared at Fiona and the rest of Team Scarab; Fiona returned the favor.
Tamara Pritchard still sported a black eye from their match. Good.
Miss Westin and Mr. Ma carefully checked off names in her black book and on his clipboard, comparing notes. . as if someone was going to get lost in all this open expanse of nowhere.
Fiona wanted to ask again what this was all about. She’d tried before when they’d been herded onto this bus from Miss Westin’s classroom earlier that morning.
Miss Westin had told her: “Words are. . insufficient.”
Eliot was last to tromp off the bus.
Miss Westin then instructed Team White Knight to board the bus.
Mr. Ma moved between the two groups and crossed his arms (Fiona suspected, to make sure there was no trouble of outside of gym class between Team Scarab and the Knights).
Tamara Pritchard snorted as she passed Jezebel. “We told the Wolves all about your little tricks.” She sneered. “They’ll be ready for you.”
“Oh, really now?” Jeremy quipped. “We face Team Wolf next?” He tilted his head in mock appreciation. “Thank you very much, lassie, for the information. We’ll be well prepared, then.”
Tamara’s face contorted into a scowl as she got onto the bus.
The slightest smile appeared on Jezebel’s lip, and she told Jeremy, “I am so glad you are on our side.”
Fiona wished the freshman teams weren’t kept so isolated. Surely they could all learn better together.
Why make everything so competitive?
Or was there a reason? What if the mortal magical families were just as aggressive outside school? Then it made sense that Paxington had to prepare its students not only for magic-but also for cutthroat business and political realities.
It all seemed endlessly Machiavellian.
She sighed and made a mental note, however, to find out more on this Team Wolf.
Mr. Ma and Miss Westin spoke in hushed tones. The two teachers couldn’t look more different.
The Headmistress had on a black dress with a lacy collar. She wore a hat with mesh across her face, held a tiny black parasol, and had donned dark sunglasses.
Mr. Ma wore slacks and a polo shirt, and looked like he had spent his entire life playing golf, with dark golden skin and a picture-perfect physique (even at his advanced age).
Eliot sidled next to her. “Hey,” he whispered.
“You hear what this is about?”
He shook his head.
Fiona was relieved that Eliot wasn’t holding a grudge for this morning. Something had felt a little “off” between them for the last couple of days-actually since their first gym match. This morning hadn’t helped matters.
Fiona had had to try on all six uniforms that Aunt Dallas couriered over. Each fit, but had been designed for a different look. . some scandalous, with how short the skirt had been raised and the jacket engineered to push up her chest. She settled on a “normal” uniform that simply fit. It was a huge improvement over her too-small uniform, and gave her an enormous confidence boost. She hadn’t realized how little she’d been able to breathe.
Also, she got a bit distracted with all the other clothes that Dallas had sent: dresses and new jeans and twenty pairs of shoes (none of which Fiona seemed to be able to balance in).
It’d been fun to look at them, even try a few on, but it all reminded her how trivial her aunt could be.
Weren’t Immortals supposed to do heroic, important things? Why was Aunt Dallas wasting time and money on that stuff?
“About me being late this morning,” she murmured to Eliot. “Won’t happen again.”
“It’s cool,” he whispered back.
He sounded like he meant it, too. No quips. No vocabulary insults.
“We have a special All Hallow’s Eve treat for you,” Miss Westin said to them. She tilted her parasol so her pale face revealed itself. “Today we conjure the dead.”
Fiona shivered.
“Not a literal summoning of the deceased,” Mr. Ma added. “But a recreation of memories. We shall watch the last great battle between the Infernals and a collection of Immortals that would precipitate the founding of the League of Immortals-circa 336 C.E.”
Fiona’s heart jumped. They were actually going to see Immortals fighting?
Robert raised his hand and asked, “It’s like a movie, then?”
“No.” Miss Westin pointed to the hill behind her. “We have transported stones from the ancient battlefield. They remember all that occurred, and on All Hallow’s Eve, we can coax them to share their recollections.” She nodded to Mr. Ma.
“Let us talk as we walk,” Mr. Ma said, and strode up the hill along a faint path.
Grasshoppers took to the air and whined about him.
Fiona and the others fell in behind him.
Mr. Ma explained, “The stones are said to be ancient beings, petrified and set to guard some priceless treasure-or some unspeakable horror-from ages long past. Or maybe they are just stones, who can say?”
She squinted. There were yellow rocks on the hilltop, nothing extraordinary like the monolithic Easter Island carvings, although some were the size of a car, and a few did stand upright.
“We will stand in the center to start,” Mr. Ma said. “Then I shall awaken our friends, and the battle will occur on the far side of this hill. We shall watch and not interfere.”
They mounted the hilltop.
“Feel free to examine the stones,” Mr. Ma told them.
Fiona noted that the stones made a rough ring. No grass grew between them. The earth there was hard and cracked. It reminded her of the sterilized dirt in Hell, and she suppressed a shudder.
Jeremy went to one stone and reached out to touch it. . hesitated, then pulled his hand back.
Mitch took out an art pad and, and examining one severely cracked stone, started sketching. Amanda stood close and admired his work.
Jezebel bowed to one of the monoliths with grave solemnity.
Fiona and Eliot inspected one that stood upright, a pillar that could have been a sandbla
sted termite mound.
“I feel something,” Eliot whispered.
Fiona took a deep breath and inched closer. There was something. Almost not there. . something. . sleeping?
She held out her hand.
She had no intention of actually touching the stone, and yet her fingertips pulled closer and did just that.
The rough texture became smooth like polished marble, then yielding like flesh. For a moment, Fiona could make out features, faded and forgotten and dreamlike: the suggestion of a cheek and eye where she touched, and there a leg, part of an armored chest, the barest outline of a broken, square-tipped sword.
This felt older than stone.
She blinked, and the stone was just rough sandstone. And she wasn’t touching it, either.
Yet the feeling of its different smoothness lingered on her fingertips.
“Weird,” she murmured.
“You heard it, too?” Eliot whispered. “The crying?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,” Eliot whispered. He looked pale in the sunlight.
Before she could ask him to explain, Mr. Ma came to them. He smelled of exotic black tea. “I ask that you keep your violin in its case,” he said to Eliot in a hushed voice. “These memories need no further coaxing.” Although his voice was friendly, his eyes were dark and deadly earnest.
“Yes, sir,” Eliot immediately replied.
“You are a good boy,” he said.
Fiona and Eliot shared a confused look.
Mr. Ma went to center of the circle. “We begin,” he announced. “Stay within the circle as I awaken them.” His spread wide his callused hands.
Team Scarab gathered closer around Mr. Ma.
Fiona noted that Robert stood opposite her, trying not to look her way. With his hair wind-tousled and in his eyes, he appeared every bit the rebel despite the Paxington uniform.
Was this where they were now-not even looking at each other?
She had done everything this week to avoid thinking about Robert-even reorganized the books in her room thematically instead of alphabetically.
Maybe there wasn’t a solution to the problem of her being in the League of Immortals and Robert being an outcast from the League.
