Eric Nylund - All That Lives Must Die

“Yeah.” Amanda looked back to the floor.

“Are you okay?” Fiona asked. “We never got a chance to see you after. .”

“Sure, I’m great,” she said, although the way she struggled to get her words out, Eliot guessed otherwise. “Your uncle got me back to my family. He was great. He talked to them. Explained how I got kidnapped. How you guys saved me. I dunno, my parents never mentioned it after that.”

Eliot wondered what Uncle Henry had done. He had an uneasy feeling something more was going on with Amanda Lane and the League.

“Then I got the scholarship,” Amanda said, “everything paid by Mr. Mimes. He said I belonged here.” She looked around. “I’m not so sure this was a good idea.”

Something was weird about this. Why would Uncle Henry bring a normal girl here after she’d almost been killed once by the League?

Eliot glanced at Fiona, and she nodded back, thinking the same thing.

“Stick close to us,” Fiona whispered to Amanda.

Eliot was going to add his own words of reassurance, but all thoughts drained from his head when he spotted the blond girl who had caught his attention before. . as she moved toward them.

She most definitely was not Julie Marks, however. This girl was taller. Her hair was pure platinum blond that curled into ringlets about her face. Her skirt seemed shorter than the other girls’. She moved with a liquid grace that made Eliot’s heart beat faster.

In fact, every boy watched her as she stopped before their table.

“M’lady,” Jeremy said, and bowed ridiculously low before her. Mitch gave her a cordial bow, which provoked a raised eyebrow from this new girl. Sarah and Fiona simultaneously crossed their arms.

“Would you do us the honor of joining our team?” Jeremy asked. “We have two from glorious Clan Covington, a lad from the most ancient Stephenson family, Fiona and Eliot Post. .” Jeremy searched for some embellishment or title to add to their family name, but failed.

The girl smiled. It was Julie’s hundred-watt smile, and yet so unlike Julie’s, because while this one was just as dazzling, it was also somehow cruel.

“Your solicitation is as empty as your head,” she told Jeremy. “You know not whom you ask, your eyes too full with too obvious intentions.”

This insult seemed to please Sarah.

Jeremy opened his mouth to defend himself, but the blond girl ran right over him with her words: “I am Jezebel, Protector of the Burning Orchards and Duchess of the Many-Colored Jungle of the Infernal Poppy Kingdoms, Handmaiden to the Mistress of Pain. . and bringer of doom to mortals such as you.” Her smile never faltered. “Now ask me to join, if you dare.”

The room went silent, and everyone watched.

She was an Infernal? Like Beelzebub? Or their father?

Was that why Eliot felt that he knew her? He should be wary, but he was also fascinated.

“Aye,” Jeremy said. His eyes could not meet hers. “There’s been no Infernal protégée at Paxington for three hundred years. Your terrible power would honor us, Lady Jezebel.”

Jezebel huffed a laugh. “You are a rogue, Covington. I appreciate that.” She looked over Sarah, moving on quickly, as if the girl were nonexistent. Next she considered Mitch, who had the strength to meet her gaze, and she nodded. She then glanced at Eliot and Fiona-just for an instant, but clearly seeing something in them that she liked, because her eyes widened with interest. Her gaze traversed to Amanda, scrutinizing the unremarkable girl the longest.

“You have an interesting mix of blood and power on this team,” Jezebel told Jeremy. “I suppose it will do as much as any other collection of bumbling mortals here.”

Jeremy beamed, extremely pleased with this new addition to their group. He shot a glance at Amanda, probably wondering if Jezebel assumed she was on their team. . and if he had to accept this new unexpected teammate because the Infernal obviously liked her. He sighed and with great reluctance slipped Amanda a scarab token and then looked away.

Jezebel moved to the edge of the table and, with a dramatic flounce, sat on it, crossing her legs so her skirt flashed pale, slender thigh.

A full-blooded Infernal on their team. Eliot could only imagine what kinds of advantages and disadvantages that would give them. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure what kind of game they would be playing that they’d need an Infernal.

Weren’t Infernals supposed to be unpredictable? Cheaters? Dangerous?

Students clambered about their table-all now asking to join. The sheer mass of the crowd pushed Eliot, Amanda, and Fiona back. Apparently, the Paxington students appreciated the power of an Infernal more than they feared one.

“Let chance decide,” Jezebel said. She reached for the platter on the table, selected the last golden scarab token from the pile-and flung it across the room.

Before Jeremy could protest, students scrabbled and pushed to get the token as it clattered across the floor.

Jezebel laughed as she watched boys and girls wrestle for the coin.

Eliot watched, too, and saw someone he recognized tossing aside students like he was an experienced wrestler. But the gold coin rolled away from him-kicked back and forth by the others.

This had to be the person who had called to Eliot earlier.

. . and if he were on Team Scarab, Eliot knew he’d have at least one friend.

Let only chance decide? Eliot would see about that .

He twisted around, unzipped his backpack, and opened his violin case.

With one eye, he watched the scarab coin wobble along the floor, spinning, then kicked up, bouncing over the desks.

Eliot quietly plucked Lady Dawn’s strings.

The heat from his old infection burned along his wrist. He felt air move about him, and saw the coin jump to his notes-ricocheting this way and that-half random, but partially under his command now as well.

It drunkenly rolled toward the boy he knew-who dived for it!

Others leaped for the coin, too, dog-piling into a heap.

Eliot held his breath, hoping.

He quickly surveyed his team: Fiona, his ever-irritating sister; Amanda Lane, more of a social outcast than even himself; Jeremy and Sarah Covington, whom Eliot didn’t like one bit; Mitch Stephenson, a nice guy; and the Infernal Jezebel, who stared at Eliot and his backpack, leaning forward, one hand over her throat, fascinated.

. . and one last teammate.

The boy stood from the pile of students, holding aloft the golden scarab.

He turned and faced them, grinning, blood on his split lip. His James Dean appearance looked out of place in a Paxington jacket instead of his normal leather one.

Fiona gasped.

It was Robert Farmington.

Henry Mimes changed names like other men changed their hats. Along with his nom de guerre shifts, he altered his personality, often becoming the Name.

Earlier this morning, he had been the Messenger. Now, though, as he stood close to Audrey in the private elevator that whisked them to the top of the Transamerica Building, he felt an impulse to try on the Big Bad Wolf.

Audrey wore a dark silk blouse and looked as she had in the old days, clad in similar cold colors, offsetting her alabaster skin. The Pale Rider. She and her sisters were the first of them to show greatness; she was the first woman he had ever called a “goddess.”

She ignored him.

Lovely? Yes. Even more important: unattainable. Audrey was as perfect as a woman could be.

Her diamond earrings cast a scattering of reflections over her shoulders and throat. . her skin was so lustrous. One touch and he knew he could warm that stone-cold flesh. How lonely she must be.