All That Lives Must Die

her on anything. First she’d grill her on how she’d escorted the twins through the Lands of the Dead. (Kino would absolutely die.) They’d talk about her “lack of responsibility,” assign some punishment, but ultimately, they’d do what they always did and dismiss her as inconsequential. . and then move on to what they really wanted to talk about: how Eliot had gone over to the other “side.”

It had all spun completely out of control.

And while Dallas could take care of herself and any League meddling, Eliot and Fiona could not.

She had gotten a glimpse into the psyches of the twins. They were young and yet they understood more about the truth of things than most Immortals.

Fiona would take responsibility for the entire world if they let her. It could crush her. But Fiona knew the League needed a real leader-not a bureaucracy. If they didn’t kill her first, she might one day be that leader.

Eliot, on the other hand, just wanted enough freedom to figure out who he was. Poor kid. He believed that there was neither clear-cut good nor evil when it came to Immortals and Infernals. . just individuals with their own agendas.

There might be some truth to that, too.

Certainly their father had helped-perhaps for his own selfish reasons, but nonetheless he had helped them. . while many in the League would love to see both twins dead in the name of political stability.

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 facade 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