All That Lives Must Die

He was going.

His gaze landed on his guitar case. Lady Dawn-he couldn’t forget her.

He’d need a wheelbarrow for all this stuff.

Eliot went to the window, opened it, and let the rare unfogged San Francisco sunset stream into his room. He took a deep breath. It smelled clean.

He was doing this, he told himself again. And yet, if he was so sure, why was he terrified?

There was a tiny tap at his door-followed by several raps, too loud, like the person on the other side was overcompensating for their initial timidity.

“Come in?”

Fiona opened his door. She wore one of those outfits Aunt Dallas had got her in Paris, a blue-silver jacket, silk blouse, and matching skirt. It made her seem ten years older. She also had that silver rose pin the League had given her. Fiona looked annoyed at Eliot-then her face went slack as she saw the stuff on his bed.

Had she come here to chew him out again for claiming the Infernal land and saving Jezebel? Was she going to play the “older” sister and give him advice and order him around?

Or was it something else?

There was a look on her face: one you might give some mentally ill person walking repeatedly into a corner, or the piteous glance you might give a homeless person huddled in a cardboard box.

Which, in Eliot’s near future, might not be too far from the truth.

She asked, “What do you think you’re doing, Rheinardia ocellata? ”⁷⁴

Eliot ran fingers through his unruly hair. He hadn’t had time to get it cut all year and it was one long mess.

He had more important things, though, to occupy his thoughts than his hair or devising a return shot in for vocabulary insult like fescennine absquatulative physagogue.

“I’m packing,” he told her.

“I can see that.” Fiona set her hands on her hips. “Look, forget whatever you’re doing. We need to talk about what Sobek said: that parting of the ways thing. It has to be a metaphor.”

“No,” Eliot replied. “It means that you and I are going in different directions.”

“I know that,” she said. “Like your music and my combat training.” She shook her head, dismissing any other notion. “You need to get dressed, because we’re scheduled to see the League Council this evening. They’re going to help us figure it out.”

The skin at the base of Eliot’s spine crawled. The thought of him standing in front of all the Elder Immortals, explaining that he was an Infernal, was the last place in the world he wanted to be.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve already got my part figured out.”

It hurt him to say those words because he knew he couldn’t take them back, that what he was doing now would be irrevocable.

Fiona scrutinized him, and then moved over to his bed, cataloging all the equipment. “You’re going back, aren’t you?” Her voice dripped with contempt. “To Hell-and those Burning Orchards?”

Eliot kept his voice level. “I have to.”

“I bet you do,” Fiona said with a sneer. “You and Jezebel together all summer long? I’m going to get sick just thinking about it.”

“You’ve got it wrong. I’m going, but Jezebel is staying at the Paxington dormitory. She has to make up the classes she missed or she won’t be coming back next year.”

Fiona stared at him, her mouth open, not understanding.

Eliot wasn’t sure he could explain it-but he tried. “She and I talked about it. She wants to learn more. . and I’m not going to hold her back.”

Eliot tactfully skipped the part of the phone conversation he’d just had with Jezebel twenty minutes ago where she had spelled it out for him: she was basically his slave-bonded to land he now owned, and that Eliot could’ve ordered her to come back with him. . and be with him.

That had kind of soured the entire heroic fantasy he had had about him and her. After all he’d been through to save her-he didn’t even know if she really liked him. . for him.

Someone like Jeremy would have been okay with that, but Eliot needed someone by this side (raw animal sexual attraction, notwithstanding) because they wanted to be there-not because they were forced there by some magical bond.

Eliot would figure what to do with his sort-of girlfriend, but later, after he solved a much bigger problem.

“So, why are you going back?” Fiona asked. “Are you going to give that land to Dad?”

“You don’t understand,” Eliot told her, exasperation creeping into his voice. “I can’t give it up.” He forced what he’d been feeling since he’d taken possession of his domain in Hell into words: “That land is bound to me. It’s part of me. If someone takes it, they take me. . my soul, too.”

Fiona’s blinked, absorbing what he said, and then her hands clenched into fists. “Then we have to do something. There has to be a way to sever that tie.”

Eliot held up both hands. “Don’t!” He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as he imagined Fiona cutting out a part of him. “I want this,” he said. “I can feel the land calling to me, making me stronger, something more than just ordinary Eliot Post.”

“Ordinary? You’re a hero in the League of Immortals, for crying out loud! Think about it. If you go back there, they’ll kill you. You saw how Sealiah and Mitch-Mephistopheles fought for their lands. What makes you think a bunch of Infernals won’t gather their armies and just take your land?”

“I don’t know,” Eliot whispered. “There’s no reason they wouldn’t. Maybe Dad can help.” This sounded unconvincing, even to himself. “But I have to be there, Fiona. I can’t help it.”

“Well, I can’t-I won’t accept that,” she told him, standing taller. “I’m not going to stand by while you fight for your life. There has to be something we can do.”

They locked stares. Eliot so wanted to communicate everything he felt-the pull of the land, and the need to prove himself. Why didn’t she get that? They used to be able to explain encyclopedic volumes of information and feelings with a single glance, but Fiona wasn’t listening to him anymore. She was trying to communicate something entirely different: her disappointment, her displeasure, her disapproval-that she knew what was right for him.

“Eliot? Fiona? My doves?” Cecilia poked her head through the open door, glancing over them both, and her eyes hardening as she took in the equipment on Eliot’s bed. “Your mother would like to see you in the dining room.” She smiled with trembling lips, but Eliot heard the iron authority of Audrey behind the polite request.

“Great,” Fiona muttered, and strode past Eliot. “We’re not done talking about this.”

She had no idea how made up his mind was. . although, what was he going to tell Audrey? And how could he stop her from stopping him?

Cee stood waiting for him, her smile brightening. She wore pants, nineteenth-century things with flared thighs and a white canvas belt-like she was going elephant hunting with Ernest Hemingway. (For all Eliot knew, that’s precisely what she might’ve done last time she wore them.) She had on a khaki blazer and wore desert camouflage army boots.

“We better see what you mother wants,” Cee told him.

“Yeah.” Eliot had a feeling that someone in this family (other than him) was about to pull a fast one.

He marched into the dining room.

Audrey and Fiona stood side by side. It struck Eliot how much they looked alike: tall, thin, and serious, but Fiona was in gray and his mother in a neat black dress. He’d never seen his mother in black, though, and it made him stop and stare. She looked like she was going to a funeral. . and somehow it looked good on her.

On the dining table sat three cloth sacks. They were full of bottled waters, beef jerky, boxes of cereal, vitamins, and protein bars.

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what Eliot is doing?”

Eliot pressed his lips into a single white line, astonished that she would break their confidential trust. Technically, though, she hadn’t really snitched on him. . but it was darned close.