All That Lives Must Die

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.

7. THE FOOL’S OPENING MOVE

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.

His hand rose toward her.

But he sensed the lines of deadly force radiating from her.

Henry reconsidered and dropped his hand. Perhaps the Fool best suited today’s dismal occasion.

“Did you know,” Henry asked her, “that San Franciscans call the Transamerica Building-?”

“Pyramid,” Audrey corrected him. “It is the Transamerica Pyramid.”

“Quite right. They also call it the Great Alien Ring Toss. Others say it looks like an ice cream cone stuck into the earth.”

Audrey turned, raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

So much for his attempt to lighten the Lady’s mood.

Henry dug into his pocket and retrieved his silver hip flask, unstoppered it, paused to savor the scent of a thousand flowers, and then took a nip. The liquor exploded through his thoughts, leaving curlicues of smoke and memory. He exhaled the vapors.

In truth, Henry’s mood needed lightening as much as Audrey’s did. He was attempting to think six moves ahead of the Council and the Infernal Board-a worthy challenge for any fool.

Or perhaps he was taking this affair with the twins too seriously?

He took another drink and offered the flask to Audrey. This was just for politeness’ sake. Never in a million years would Audrey join him. The sun and moon were more likely to unexpectedly eclipse.

Audrey mashed the EMERGENCY STOP button and took the flask.

How wonderful! Someone other than himself had done something surprising.

Audrey inhaled the bouquet, and her pupils dilated. “It would be less dangerous to carry refined plutonium through the city than real Soma.” She took a long pull, to Henry’s dismay, drinking nearly half. A rare blush spread outward from her neck.

She handed the flask back and said, “I assume you have countless layers of trickery planned with regards to my children?”

Henry put on his best How could you ever think such a thing? You wound me, woman look, and then stammered, “If only you knew how much I care for Eliot and Fiona.”

“I know,” she said, “but sometimes, Henry, people would be better off without any of us ‘caring’ about them.”

She set a hand on his chest-the lightest of touches.

Henry wasn’t sure where this was going, for Audrey never casually touched anything. He backed into a corner of the elevator.

Audrey pressed closer and remained with him. Her fingers dug into his black turtleneck. “I sense your heart beating and feeling. You do care for them. . as much as any of us can.”

She grasped a handful of his shirt.

The threads in the weave constricted about Henry’s ribs.

“As long as by ‘caring for Eliot and Fiona’ you mean you have their best interests in mind-and not yours.”

Henry started to protest, but found the air gone from his lungs.

“Did you know Fiona has learned the trick of cutting with string?” Audrey asked. “She has yet to discover that it can also be done with many strings at once. . like woven cloth.”

Audrey pulled his shirt taut.

Henry had a sudden vision of Audrey ripping the shirt from his torso-like some stage magician trick-only this would not be trickery. . and what would remain of his torso would fit though a martini strainer.

Audrey let go.

She tapped the EMERGENCY STOP button. The elevator continued up.

Henry recovered and straightened his turtleneck. He took one more swig from his flask.

The elevator doors parted, and cold fresh air blasted them.

They stepped onto the uppermost secret level of the Transamerica Pyramid.

The aluminum shutters on the angled walls were open, and mid-morning light streamed into the space. This level of the pointy part of the landmark building had been filled with dust bunnies before he’d had it renovated. The space had been redecorated with ultramodern velvet couches (designed in the 1960s, when there actually had been a vision of an ultramodern future).

Of course, the family was already here.

Lucia, Henry noticed first-Audrey’s sister, the Middle Fate, and sometimes called (although he thought with the greatest irony), Blind Justice. Then there was Gilbert, known first as Gilgamesh, whom Henry fondly