All That Lives Must Die

made a deal for her life and soul in exchange for seducing him into damnation everlasting.

“Shhh,” Sealiah said, “quiet your thoughts.” She looked down upon her, her features a mix of pity and disgust. “Since you have yet to be trained on the higher arts of trickery, our young Eliot will sense any attempt to hide the truth-so do not. It would backfire and further alienate you from him.”

“I shall do as you say, my Queen,” Jezebel said. “But. . won’t he hate me?”

“Oh, my precious dear-of course he will. How much you have yet to learn of men.”

Sealiah drew Jezebel closer and slipped her arms about her shoulder. This felt wonderfully warm and comforting and yet terribly dangerous at the same time.

“Eliot will hate you, at first. But you will then have the boy’s interest. . which, when mixed with his good intentions and budding manly concerns, will curdle into love.”

Jezebel understood. She didn’t like her part it in, but she nonetheless appreciated the cleverness of the ploy- both dreaming of and dreading what would happen to her and Eliot when it came to fruition.

“Then,” Sealiah said, glancing at her game of Towers, “we will have him.”

16. BREAKFAST SPECIAL

Eliot ran along the sidewalk. Fiona raced him to the spot on the granite wall where the entrance to Paxington hid in plain sight.

He’d gotten a few paces ahead of her because she had to dodge a flower cart parked on the sidewalk (and she was too prissy to run around it on the street-even a few feet).

He stopped at the wall, touched it, and panted.

She shrugged as if to say, Whatever-I let you, but couldn’t speak because she was breathing too heavily.

Eliot knew they wouldn’t be late today-absolutely not.

He’d learned how to set the alarm on his new phone and gotten up extra early. He hadn’t wanted to take any chances, though, so he and Fiona raced all the way from the breakfast table down through Pacific Heights, onto Lombard Street to here.

Eliot opened his phone, double-checking that they had plenty of time to make it to class. They did.

He found the crack in the wall, focused on it, and this time it was easy to slip around the corner that shouldn’t exist.

It still felt weird.

Fiona came in right behind him.

The alley to Paxington was shaded, and the ivy-covered walls cooled the already chilly air. Cafe Eridanus was full, the outdoor tables taken by older students eating pastries and drinking lattes before school started.

Eliot paused and inhaled scents wafting from the cafe: freshly ground coffee and steamed milk, a slightly charred citrus odor from flaming crepes suzettes, melting butter, bacon, and sourdough bread just out of the oven.

“Come on,” Fiona said, and moved toward the gate.

Eliot’s stomach complained, and he lingered. He would die if he had to sit through an entire lecture, or at the very least, he wouldn’t be able to hear Miss Westin speaking over his grumbling digestive tract.

“Just a sec,” he said. “I’ll grab a bite-”

Eliot’s mind halted mid-thought. Even his stomach stopped rumbling.

His father sat at one of the outdoor cafe tables under the sky blue canopy. Three older Paxington boys stood around him, so Eliot hadn’t seen him at first.

The plates and coffee cups at his table had been shoved aside. Louis moved his hands over the tablecloth, shuffling three cards.

“Don’t take your eyes off it this time,” Louis told the boys. “Not for an instant!”

Eliot edged closer. Fiona was right behind him.

Louis’s cards were facedown on the table, and each creased down the center so they could be easily manipulated. One was dog-eared. Another had a water spot in the center.

Eliot felt something off. . and understood Louis was trying to fool the boys by making the shuffling look so simple and the cards so easy to identify.

“Now,” Louis asked the boys. “Where is the Queen of Spades?”

“That one.” A boy pointed to the center card.

Another told him, “No, it’s the one on the right.”

Louis smiled. “Are you sure?”

He looked up as he said this, and caught Eliot’s eyes. Something passed between them, a slight tilt of the head, recognition, and an invitation to watch and learn.

“I’m sure,” the boy said, “the center card. Flip it already and pay up.”

Louis obliged. The card was the three of hearts.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, genuinely sounding sad. “You’ll get it next time, I’m sure.” He scooped their money off the table.

The boys asked for one more game, but Louis said no. “I have other customers this morning.” He gestured at Eliot and Fiona.

The three boys left, muttering and arguing over how they had lost track of the queen.

Eliot and Fiona moved to the table.

“You came here to see us, didn’t you?” Eliot asked.

“Of course, my boy.” Louis clasped him warmly by the shoulder. “You look dashing in that uniform, by the way. The girls shall swoon.”

Eliot felt instantly two feet taller.

Louis turned to Fiona. “And you, my dearest Fiona, you look. .” He gesticulated with his hands, but couldn’t find the right words as he looked her over. “So nice.”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“True,” Louis said. “I am often not where I am supposed to be. And your mother has promised to kill me if I ever came near you again.” He shrugged. “But she does not know of this meeting, so the point is moot.” He stood, pulled out a chair, and gallantly offered it to Fiona.

Fiona remained standing and glared at him.

Louis was unfazed by this. He looked for the waiter, saying, “Let us not dwell on the ugly past and all these wretched parental custody issues, shall we? Let us just forgive one another, order breakfast, and chat. There’s so much lost time to make up for.”

“Forgive each other?” Fiona said. “What have we done that needs your forgiveness?”

Louis raised a finger. “Tut-tut. I won’t hear of it. All is forgotten and pardoned.”

Eliot sat.

Sure, he was still mad at Louis for using them as bait to lure Beelzebub into a trap (a trap, by the way, that hadn’t worked). Only by the narrowest of scrapes had they not been killed. And sure, Louis was an Infernal, the Prince of Darkness, and perhaps evil incarnate. But he was their only relation who had ever given them straight answers. Something in very sort supply these days.

Besides, Eliot was hungry.

A waiter came and took out a notepad.

“Shall it be two or three specials?” Louis asked Fiona.

She toyed with the rubber band on her wrist, and then reluctantly settled into the chair.

“Ten minutes,” she told Eliot. “No more. If we’re late again for class. .”

“Yes,” Louis purred, “Miss Westin once had a guillotine for her tardy students.” He looked utterly serious and he made a chopping motion onto the table. “Three specials,” he told the waiter. “Make it a rush.”

“Oui, Monsieur Piper.”

Eliot studied his father. He looked so different from the dirty homeless person he’d been just a few months ago. . and definitely different from the bat-winged fallen-angel woodcuts he’d seen in Paradise