Jeremy hit him on her account? Or was that just an excuse?
The other boy got up.
Although he was on a lower row in front of them, he stood taller than Jeremy by a full head and was so bulky, it looked like he could, and would, pick up Jeremy with one meaty hand and crush him. “Okay, Covington, you’re on.” He stalked out of the lecture hall.
Jeremy pushed past Fiona. Sarah got up to follow her cousin.
So did Eliot. . and then Fiona. . and then everyone in the class.
Outside they all crowded about Jeremy and the Van Wyck boy. Looking at the ludicrous size difference between the two, Fiona was seriously worried Jeremy was going to get killed.
The Van Wyck boy looked down on Jeremy, pausing. . because perhaps he was wondering what it would prove to beat up someone in such a mismatch?
“Why don’t we forget about this,” the Van Wyck boy offered. “There’s no point in fighting. Unless you were going to use only magic.”
Robert Farmington sidled up next to Fiona. At first she didn’t recognize him in his neatly pressed school uniform. He had gotten a haircut, too.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” Robert whispered to her.
“Me, too,” she said. “But now’s not the time.”
“Right.”
Robert sounded disappointed. But how did he expect her to talk when Jeremy was about to get pounded flat?
Jeremy stuck his face a hand’s span from the other boy’s. “You want to see me magic? Well, here’s some.”
Jeremy spit into his face.
The Van Wyck boy turned red. He stepped back, cleaning off the spittle with one quick angry wipe. “Okay, Covington-you asked for it!”
Jeremy backed off, smiled, and danced back and forth as the other boy started shrugging off his jacket.
Jeremy didn’t wait. He socked him in the nose.
Bone and cartilage cracked.
The Van Wyck boy fell backwards into the wall, both hands covering his face, tears gushing from his eyes.
The students cheered and yelled.
Jeremy punched him in the gut. He lashed out with his foot, connecting with the other boy’s knee.
The Van Wyck boy doubled over. His leg crumpled.
Jeremy kicked him once, twice.
Fiona felt something greasy in the back of her throat and thought she might be sick.
Miss Westin watched impassively, arms folded over her chest, almost as if she were grading the boys on a test.
If no one was going to stop this-Fiona would.
She pushed her way through the crowd.
Jezebel, though, got there first. The other students let her pass, seeming to fear getting in the way of an Infernal. She stepped between Jeremy and the Van Wyck boy just as Jeremy brought back his foot for another kick.
“You’ve won,” Jezebel said.
Jeremy blinked, and the rage faded from his eyes. “Do you think so?” He drew back, smiling, for one final coup de grace.
“First blood”-Jezebel nodded to the downed boy-“is as far as they allow in campus duels.”
Jeremy lost his smile as he watched his opponent cough a globule of blood and snot from his face.
“Continue if you want,” Jezebel nonchalantly told him, “but it would be a shame to have a team member suspended over such a trivial rule.” She glanced at Fiona. “And over such a
Jeremy straightened his jacket and brushed back his silky blond hair. He knelt and told the boy, “That should teach you a lesson. Next time, mind your manners when in the presence of a lady.”
Jeremy then bowed to Fiona, and although he faced her, he seemed to be performing for the watching crowd. “Your honor be upheld, fair maid.”
A few girls giggled.
Fiona wanted to slap Jeremy’s grin off his face. . but there’d been enough violence for one day.
Miss Westin, without comment, turned and marched back to class. Most of the students took this as their cue to leave as well.
Fiona went to the Van Wyck boy to help him up, and even though it wasn’t her fault, she thought she should apologize.
The boy’s bloodshot eyes stopped her cold, however; it was pure spitting-cobra venom.
He blamed her. And there’d be no explaining or apologizing it away.
Fiona also knew that somehow, one day, he was going to get even with Jeremy… and with her.
Jezebel stepped off the Night Train, slipped off her loafers, and set her bare feet upon the black loam of the Poppy Lands of Hell.
She wriggled her toes, felt her blood pulse, and felt the warmth and life flow back into her bones.
Although she wore the uniform of a Paxington schoolgirl (not the pantyhose, however; there were limits to what she would endure), and although she looked much like a mortal girl (albeit one of extraordinary and enchanting beauty), within her heart beat pure poison and hellfire.
She was Infernal. This was her domain.
They belonged to each other.
Jezebel inhaled the pollen-laden air, tasted the odors of vanilla and honeysuckle, the sweet decay and mold spore.
Behind her, the train hissed and screamed and pulled out of the station house.
Jezebel picked up her book bag and strolled to the adjacent stables.
Servants bowed and scraped before the Duchess of the Many-Colored Jungle and Handmaiden to the Mistress of Pain.
They handed her the reins of the readied Andalusian mare.
The snow-white beast neighed, stomped with razor-shod hooves, and then bowed its head as well, recognizing her status.
Jezebel mounted, wheeled about, and galloped toward the Twelve Towers to make her report.
The Poppy Lands lay in perpetual twilight. Luxuriant fields of color spread in all directions; opium flowers and orchids looked like a galaxy of fallen stars. Between thunderous hoofbeats, she heard the endless churning of worm and cockroach through the rich soil. In the distant hills rose the jungle, thick and dark, covered with vines and moldering with resplendent fungus.
She dimly remembered what it was to be mortal in this realm, and she recalled being repelled by the narcotic decay and the overwhelming vapors.
This was a dim memory, though-the vestiges of her hope-filled human soul.
It hurt to remember.
Her Queen had told her if she ignored it, it would soon go away-like the summer sniffles.
Indeed. She was Jezebel now, filled with the power of Hell, primordial and more intoxicating than the opium to which she had once been so addicted.
The serfs of the fields genuflected as she rode past.
They did not tend to the poppy harvest as usual, but rather cultivated spear and pike thickets, rolled spore cannons upon the backs of the giant bats as the animals hissed and squeaked in protest, and propped suits of plate armor among the twining bramble. . which would coil and fill them and bring them to life.
