by Eric Nylund
Dallas wasn’t sure of anyone or anything anymore.
She crossed the room, her high heels clipping over the marble.
She considered many in the League her family. . but that didn’t excuse their bad behavior and paranoia. . the preservation of their power at any cost. . or that their next move might be to murder her youngest nephew.
She tossed the Council summons into her fireplace and pressed a button on the wall.
Flames whooshed to life and consumed Lucia’s note.
There would be complications and consequences for that little rebellion. No one simply defied the League. . and no one quit the League of Immortals once a member.
Across her vast living room, clapping echoed off high walls covered with Picasso paintings.
“Bravo!” Henry cried.
Dallas didn’t turn. It was no surprise that he had entered her sanctum without knocking (she had, after all, extended him an open invitation), but for some reason this time, the violation of her privacy made her irrationally angry.
“How long have you watched?”
“Not long.” She heard his footstep approaching. “Just enough to see you finally come to your senses.”
“Sense! What do you know of sense?”
She spun, ready to confront him-but stopped. . and had to laugh.
Henry looked ridiculous. He was dressed as an eighteenth-century French nobleman in a silver-and-black waistcoat with embroidered peacocks chasing peahens up and down the sleeves, with silver buttons, black velvet pants that tied at his calves, silver stockings and buckled shoes. Topping it all off was a ridiculous powdered wig.
Henry the Fool. He would live as a fool-continue as a fool-and one day die playing the fool.
And she loved him for it.
“I’m off to the Governor’s Ball,” he told her, with a luxuriant wave over his outfit. “It’s a costumed affair. Would you care to join me? You’re a bit underdressed, but I doubt anyone will be looking at your clothes. . ”
“No,” she told him. “I need to think about everything you’ve told me of the twins and the Infernals and the League. . and your plans.”
He nodded. “Thinking is overrated, darling Dallas. That’s the League’s modus operandi, not mine. I require the Dallas who acts.”
That Dallas.
He was talking about part of her she had long buried. There is no need for that creature in this world. And yet. . if the world was ending-why not summon the demons of her past?
“Do you know what you’re doing, Henry? Really?”
“The costume ball? Oh. . no, I see you mean that other thing. No. I don’t ‘know’ anything.” Henry sobered. “But it is my best guess.”
“It all comes down to a guess?”
Henry shrugged.
Dallas sighed, knowing her heart of hearts that she’d trust one of the Old Wolf’s guesses over any of Cornelius’s laser-precise calculations or a Council consensus engineered by Lucia.
She marched over to the wet bar.
Henry followed, helping himself to her sixty-year-old scotch.
Dallas set her hand on a black marble square. It warmed under her touch.
There was a hum and the wall parted, revealing racks of gleaming knives and swords, and the polished wooden and the blue steel of pistols and rifles.
These did not belong to the carefree hippie girl façade she had enjoyed as much as Henry had enjoyed his multitude of masks. These instruments of destruction belonged to her alter ego.
Her finger lit on of her twin gold swords-last wielded at Ultima Thule and still as sharp as the day when Audrey had given them their edges.
There were two matchlock pistols with barrels the size of her fist. Hand cannon, Aaron had called them.
It was a small collection, nothing like Aaron’s armory, but there were all dear to her, and almost every weapon here had a matching mate. Lucia was always telling her that she didn’t know her right from her left most of the time.
True enough. She was perfectly ambidextrous.
As Dallas gazed at these instruments, she grew afraid-not for herself, but for all those that she loved.
She turned back to Henry. “Are you sure? Once I start, I won’t be able to take it back. Aaron and Gilbert-they will be devastated.”
“I know they will be,” Henry whispered. He swirled scotch and peered into its depths. “I also know your aim is unerring. I’m counting on both.”
She stared at her beloved cousin, taking in every silly detail of his face. It would be the last time “Dallas” would look upon him.
She closer her eyes and turned.
When she opened them again she beheld one of the two weapons that had no mate: a bow of fused ram horns with a row of golden arrows next to it. It was deadly. . but a relic from another Age.
She moved to its modern counterpart, forged in 1915, when she had believed the Great War might’ve been the last war on Earth. It had been centuries ahead of any other weapon constructed on this world, and even today, none was its equal. It was a matte gray bolt-action rifle with a thirty-inch barrel, a stock of fine-grained ebony (tiny snipes on the wing engraved upon it), retractable bipod, a mounted telescopic sight that could see through walls and in the dark and heat sources and aetherics and was self-focusing and had built-in microsecond “wink” flash suppression.
Arranged under the sniper rifle were rows of modified.338 Lapua Magnum ammunition, each round the length of her index finger, and each individually tailored to her exact specifications of powder load, overall weight, and metallurgical tip composition. Each was engraved with identifying mnemonic phrases like: “Double Down,” “Flush,” “Inside Straight,” “Wildcard,” “Stand Pat,” and the ultimate, “Last Call.”
She could obliterate a dime-sized target on a moonlit night in high winds from two kilometers.
She could kill any living creature from a considerably longer distance.
As she ran her fingers over the cold metal, she remembered the pleasure of its recoil.
Dallas submerged into memory and was no more. She was a child’s toy that had to be lovingly packed away, perhaps to be taken out and played with another time. . but not in this Age.
All believed that Audrey was the most dangerous of the Sisters of Fate-the Cutter of All Things, the Pale Rider, Kali, and Death incarnate; she was indeed terrible and impressive.
Some said that Lucia was the most powerful-the Weaver of the Threads of Fate, the Balance, Blind Justice, Lady Liberty, and She Who Topples Nations. She was certainly the most articulate and cunning of them.
But Dallas had also worn many names throughout history as well-happy-go-lucky avant-garde Dallas, Mother Nature, or simply Little Red. . but before all these she had been dark and full of wrath, and cataclysms and destructions had followed in her wake.
And they had all forgotten.
She was the Waning Moon, Hecate, and the Storm Which None Survived.
She was once more Artemis the Huntress.
89 NO REST FOR THE WICKED
Robert kept his eyes closed and wished the world would go away. Behind his lids the sun beat on him-a nice, natural sunshine. The surf churned thirty paces from where he lay in the sand. He smelled the open cerveza and limes wedges in a nearby ice bucket.
He should’ve been 100 percent chill.
But all he saw when he closed his eyes with that swollen red sun in Hell. . the flash of swords and shadows. . and Fiona’s tear-streaked face as she cradled Mitch, watching him burn and die.
He felt his gut twist because the one girl he’d been hooked on now hated him.
He wasn’t in Hell anymore, though; he was in his hidden fishing cove near Puedevas, Mexico-a six-pack and lobster enchiladas from the cantina, and him lounging in the sand.
So why feel lousy?
Maybe living people weren’t supposed to come back from Hell. How had Dante Alighieri done it? (Inferno was one of the books Robert had read and actually enjoyed in Miss Westin’s class.) Dante Alig
hieri had walked through Hell, into Purgatory, and then into Heaven. He’d been able to do that because he got a hand from the poet Virgil, and his one true love, Beatrice.
Robert’s spirit guide, Marcus, hadn’t led him anywhere-except smack into a war. And he sure wasn’t no poet or Beatrice.
Robert also felt bad about Amanda. He should’ve gone back to look for her body. But how to get past all those angry dead in the Blasted Lands? The thought of her soul suffering in the fires of Hell made him shudder, despite the warm sun.
And what about Eliot? Now that he had Jezebel and was an Infernal Lord, was he staying in Hell?
Robert grabbed a chunk of ice from the bucket and pressed it to his forehead.
Trouble hadn’t miraculously stopped when Robert got back to San Francisco, either. There’d been a note on his apartment door: a summons to the Headmistress’s office.
Like any of that mattered anymore. Robert wasn’t going back to school.
There were also three voice mail messages from Henry. Robert had responded to these by ripping the answering machine out of the wall.
Sure, Henry could find him. He knew Robert’s hiding spots. But Robert thought he might be strong enough now to refuse Henry’s subtle suggestions and his not-so-subtle threats.
Robert curled his fist until bones cracked and sinews popped with tension. His new strength was from Henry’s Soma. How long would that last? And he wasn’t just physically stronger. Robert felt something hard in his mind now, too.
He grabbed a bottle of beer, but just held it, the cold glass sweating in his hand.
So now what? Robert was unemployed, maybe with no living friends on Earth, and certainly with no girl to worry about.
He laughed. This emo-feeling-sorry-for-himself thing just wasn’t him.
Okay. . he did feel a little sorry, but Robert knew he was going to be fine. He’d get over Fiona. Heck, he could stay right here and do a little fishing. With the cash that Henry had given him for school he might carve out a nice life on the Sea of Cortez. Maybe learn how to surf.
His fishing line tugged and the bell tied to it tinkled. His pole bent toward the water.
Robert got up. All this deep thinking stuff was fine-but not when it interfered with the barbecued sea bass he was counting on for dinner.
He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. . and saw something was wrong.
No, not a something-a bunch of somethings.
There were fish in the water, hundreds of them: perch and damselfish, and even a bluefin tuna or two thrashing in the surf. Behind them were sharks-white-tipped reef and nurse and even a flashing set of great white jaws-all frothing and fighting along the beach.
Tuna and great whites never got that close to shore.
There had to be a freak storm or a tsunami to get them all here at once.
A girl stepped from the blood-tinged surf as nonchalant as if she were stepping out of a chlorinated swimming pool.
She had all the right curves, and the sun glistened off her tanned skin. Her hair was red and gold and snaked down her neck, curling about her breasts. . which was when Robert realized that she only wore a few strategically placed bits of clinging seaweed.
He took a step closer-but halted, realizing that besides the weird fish something was very wrong with this male fantasy come to life.
First: whenever he’d been attracted to any girl recently there’d been trouble. So that immediately set off alarm bells.
Second: the color of her skin wasn’t anything he’d see before-bronze mixed with gold that glimmered like molten metal.
Third: she was wearing something, an obsidian knife strapped her shapely calf. A knife coated with blood.
And fourth: he got it, finally. He knew her. It’d just taken a moment because she wasn’t in armor, and she wasn’t supposed to be here-on Earth, that is.
This was Sealiah, Queen of the Poppy Lands.
She moved across the sand toward him, her steps crooked, and her body swaying and switching back and forth. Far shorter than Robert’s six feet, she somehow managed to make it feel like she towered over him-naked and slight, but radiating enough regal confidence that he felt like dropping to his knees and kissing her feet.
He wasn’t so stupefied, though, that he’d forgotten his manners.
He hitched his thumb at the bucket of beers. “Thirsty?” he asked. “Help yourself.”
She smiled. Robert noted her blood-rimmed lips.
Sealiah took one of the beers and chugged, rivulets of foam dribbling down her chest and stomach. She finished and grabbed the lime and wiped her lips with it. “Ahhh. .,” she purred. “Your hospitality is appreciated.”
Robert stared unabashedly at this performance (what else was a guy supposed to do?) and he struggled to remember that this wasn’t a woman standing before him. She wasn’t even human. Not even close.
He could smell her now, though, and it was like every flower that had ever bloomed. Her perfume teased and pulled at him.
“So. .,” he said, drawing on some supernatural cool from the center of his soul. “You just swimming by, or was there something you wanted?”
“Oh, there is very much something I wanted.” She inched closer and her lips parted. “But I thought we would discuss business first, and then we could see to the pleasure part of the transaction.”
Robert backed up an inch, although it took a great deal of effort.
He tried to see the monstrous creature with tendrils and horns and bat wings inside her, but instead, all he could see was a woman that would make every supermodel on the planet weep with jealousy, and he found himself staring at her-all the way to the tiny down blond hairs that covered her red-gold flesh.
“I’ve come to offer you a job,” she said.
That snapped him out of it.
Yeah, she was gorgeous.
Yeah, she was close enough to grab.
And yeah, she smelled great.
But she just wanted what every other otherworldly creature had ever wanted from Robert: to stick him in a bind where he’d risk his life and limb and soul for some twisted scheme.
Something clicked inside Robert. His pulse slowed and he felt cold, and strong in a way that he’d never felt before: impervious on the inside.
“No thanks,” he said. “I’ve had jobs before. None of ’em ever seemed to work out for me. Guess I’m what you’d call a lousy employee.”
Sealiah’s smile faltered.
Now Robert could see the monster inside-smoldering in her eyes.
He pushed his luck and added, “If that’s all you wanted to say, no offense, I’d just like to be left alone. . and left to forget, ma’am.”
Robert went back to his towel and lay down, crossed his arms behind his head and gazed up at the infinite blue sky (but also watching the Infernal out of the corner of his eye).
Sealiah stayed where she was, staring at him, still smelling insanely good to Robert. Her lips pressed together, and the air around her heated and shimmered-but then she chuffed with amusement.
“You are stronger than I realized.” She came over and sat on the blanket next to him.
This close, Robert felt her pulse thrum in the air between them. His blood wanted to race and catch up and run with hers. He took a deep breath, though, and kept his cool.
She scooched closer. A few drops of seawater dripped onto him. “You want to be left alone, Robert? Really? Are you hiding? Licking your wounds?” She looked him over as if he were a prime rib.
He shrugged.
“You can, you know,” she said. “But in a few months, perhaps a year or two there will be no neutral parties left. There will be nowhere to hide. All will be involved in this. Or they will be dead.”
Robert was suddenly thirsty. More than anything he wanted to grab one of those beers just within his reach and drink the whole thing. But to do that he’d have to reach past her, touch her, and that would be like falling. . and he wouldn’t be able to stop himself once that happened.
She leaned closer. “You will eventually have to choose a side.” Her breath whispered over his chest, and gooseflesh pebbled there.
It felt great, and Robert became dizzy for a moment, but then found his mental footing again.
“Then,” he told her, “I choose my side.”
Sealiah threw back her head and laughed. It sounded like funeral bells. Birds in the nearby trees took wing, screeching in fear.
“I was correct to choose you as my champion against Mephistopheles,” she said. “In a sense you possess the strength to do for me more than any other ever has. . ” Her voice trailed off as if she’d just realized something and it had halted her super seductress act dead in its tracks.
She blinked and shook her head. “I can help you as well. I could make you stronger than you ever dreamed. All you need do is remain my champion, Robert Farmington of Arkansas.”
Her fingertips brushed against his forearm, and shivers of pleasure arced from her to him.
“And all you need do is swear one tiny oath of loyalty.”
“No way.” Robert pulled away. “No oaths. No contracts. No blood ties. Like I told you: I’m done working for anyone else.”
She looked him a long time. The ocean pounding sounded like a typhoon.
“No,” she finally said, “I can see that now. You are too strong, perhaps.”
Again, for a moment, she didn’t look like any Infernal he’d ever seen before as the skin between her perfectly smooth brows crinkled with frustration.
Her gaze then dropped to the sand and she murmured, “Is it because. . I am what I am? You think me evil? Twisted? And you believe that is all that I am?”
Robert heard the hurt in her voice. Infernals were really good liars, though, so he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a game. Robert was always rushing to save damsels in distress. This time, though, something told him this was real vulnerability, something maybe none other had ever seen in the Queen of Poppies.
“Isn’t that all you are?” he asked. “Maneuvering Eliot to your side, and getting me and Fiona to kill Mephistopheles? All those tortured damned souls you keep in Hell?” He licked his lips, afraid he’d said too much, but nonetheless he pressed on. “You tell me if there’s more to being Infernal.”
