All That Lives Must Die

“Not really.” Eliot grunted as he carried all their equipment: a backpack picked up at their Pacific Heights house on the way out here-filled with flashlights, Fiona’s old shotgun, shells, and rubber waders. He also had his guitar slung on his back.

Fiona heard the resentment in her brother’s voice.

Yeah-she knew he wanted to be with Jezebel (she practically gagged thinking of them kissing)-but he had been just as curious about this. . once he remembered.

Fiona glanced up. To the east was the Del Oro Recycling Plant, shuttered and closed. To the west was Del Sombra, at least what was left of it.

She felt a pang of grief as she saw dust devils spinning down what had been Midway Avenue, where their apartment building had been. . and Ringo’s All-American Pizza Parlor. . and the Pink Rabbit. A few skeletal building supports stood erect, but everything else had been burned down.

And while some agro-entrepreneur had planted fields of grapevine between here and there, the city had been left alone.

She asked Eliot, “A little help?”

Eliot sighed like she’d asked for six pints of blood, but relented and dropped the backpack and pulled his guitar around. He plunked the strings and the notes sounded like drops of water.

The sands shifted.

He plucked out more three chords that reminded her of running trickles and currents and something alive snaking through that water.

A line in the sand traced from Eliot, curved thirty paces straight ahead, until it spiraled to a stop.

Fiona strode toward the spot. She knelt, brushed aside the sand, and found the steel underneath. There was a tiny hole in the manhole cover, and she stuck her finger in it and tugged. No way. It weighed too much-and the thought of being stopped by such a trivial thing made her anger flare.

She ripped the thing out and tossed the solid metal disk like it was a Frisbee.

Eliot handed her a flashlight and a pair of rubber boots.

“What’s down there?” Sarah asked.

“Sewer,” Fiona replied, pulling on the too-tight boots.

“I can see that. But why are we going down there?”

“There’s no ‘we.’ You’re staying up here.” Fiona regretted the commanding tone she used. Sarah was trying to do right by them. “Look,” she added, “it’s going to be dangerous. There’s something. . well, not evil, more. .”

“Hungry,” Eliot finished for her.

Sarah arched an eyebrow. “I can take care of myself.”

She meant it. But why would anyone want to crawl into a sewer with them?

Then Fiona understood: Sarah wanted to prove she was their friend and would have followed them into danger. . even into Hell, if she’d been given the chance.

But that was stupid. This could really be dangerous.

On the other hand, Fiona wanted her to come and prove her sincerity. She knew that was wrong: Friends didn’t do that to each other.

But had Sarah truly ever been her friend?

“Suit yourself,” Fiona told her. “But if you chicken out halfway there-you’re finding your own way back. Eliot and I have business to take care of.”

“Hey,” Eliot said. “That’s not right.”

“It’s okay,” Sarah said, casting an uncertain glance down the hole. “I’ll be fine.”

Fiona clambered into the sewer hole and down the ladder. Last time she’d plunked into the water. This time, she found the ledge by the channel and stepped onto it.

She played her flashlight beam over the cinder blocks of the intersection. Mats of slick algae covered everything, hanging down from the ceiling like boogery stalactites. She imagined herself slipping on the stuff and going headfirst into the slimy water.

Sarah came down next and then Eliot.

Eliot plucked a note and it echoed down a single passage only. “That way.”

Sarah tested her foot on the ledge. “Hang on.” She knelt and touched the concrete ledge. The cinder blocks shifted; a ripple in the stone spread outward and raised into a waffle pattern. “A bit of traction, courtesy of Covington conjuration.”

“Thanks,” Fiona murmured, and plodded ahead.

No rats this time. . although Fiona almost wished there were. She spotted a pile of algae-covered rodent bones. Ick.

They spiraled down, and the water gurgled faster in the channel next to them. Cinder block was replaced by ancient brick and rusted supports, and the air was thick with humidity and the scent of blood.

Ahead was the chamber they were looking for. It was bigger than Fiona recalled, half a block wide with three holes in the roof where sunlight filtered through from the surface. The room was flooded; in the center of this lake was an island of bones-all chewed and broken.

Sitting upon the island was Sobek, oracle crocodile, the once-Egyptian god of the passages to the Underworld.

It had been their first heroic trial to “vanquish” the forty-foot-long reptilian beast that lived in the Del Sombra sewers. It was all part of some weird urban legend about alligators flushed down toilets that Fiona had never understood.

A year ago, Sobek could have easily killed them. It had even pinned Fiona to the ground and opened its maw as if to devour her. . and she’d gotten a look into the black oblivion inside the creature. It had been injured, however-a spike driven through its shoulder, and they had made friends with it by pulling the thing out.

She and Eliot had been weak and naive then, and survived only because the crocodile had been convinced by his prophetic powers that they were going to kill it.

Maybe it hadn’t been wrong. She and Eliot were young gods now, tested in battle.

Everything had changed.

But so had Sobek.

Its body was as big as an eighteen-wheel semitruck, and its thick tail sinewed about the island of bones. Its armored scales were glossy ebon black flecked with green and gold.

A pair of slitted eyes opened and stared.

Fiona’s stomach sank. It was like something she might’ve seen in a science book on the Permian period, something that lived before even the dinosaurs. . something primeval, instinctively cunning, and utterly savage.

There was a pull from the creature, and she felt her feet involuntarily shuffle forward through the water.

Eliot set his hand on Lady Dawn strings and the light vibration snapped her out of the reptile’s hypnotic sway.

Sarah, who had put on a brave face all the way down here, now stood locked with terror.

“Stay here,” Fiona whispered to her.

Sarah gave a nod, and remained frozen in place.⁷¹

Fiona and Eliot waded through the water to Sobek.

Its tail uncurled, slid into the murky pool, and swished with irritation. “You have returned too early,” he told them with a voice so resonant that it shook Fiona’s bones and made ripples dance on the water.

“Only-” Fiona’s voice broke.

Sobek had told them to return in a year. . when he’d answer questions for them. A year in which the crocodile had said it needed to eat and replenish his strength. Fiona had thought that exaggeration at the time, but looking at the jumble of bones and its increased mass. . she wondered.

She cleared her throat and tried again. “Only twenty-six days until the year is up,” she managed.

“We need to know what’s going to happen,” Eliot added.

A snort exploded through the reptile’s snout. “I have foreseen your early return. So I’m here. And ready. Come closer.”

Fiona swallowed and moved toward the island of bones, careful not to slip on the slimy remains and impale