All That Lives Must Die

Julie Marks at Ringo’s Pizza Parlor, and how she’d been nice to him, and how they’d been at the Pink Rabbit and he’d serenaded her.

“I have heard that melody,” Louis said, wistful. “A lovely thing. Ripe with hope. So tragic.”

“Yeah,” Eliot whispered.

Thinking about her song made him sad. Like there was no longer any hope for the Julie Marks he’d known. . and there was even less hope for them now that she was the Infernal Jezebel.

Louis made an encouraging gesture, indicating that he go on.

Eliot then told how Jezebel had arrived at Paxington, her titles, how she looked so much like Julie, and so much not like her, how she fought and saved him in gym class. . and then how he had confronted her about the truth, and how she had revealed everything.

“She lied to you?” Louis asked, bemused. “And you told her as much? You know, there is no greater offense for an Infernal to be caught in a lie.” He smiled, but there was a hint of malice to it.

“Her lie. .,” Eliot said. “The words sounded hollow. I don’t know. I could just tell.”

“Of course,” Louis replied. “Any Infernal can hear obvious lies.”

The black cat seated next to Louis looked up and glanced at Eliot, ears flicking forward.

“How is that possible?” Eliot asked.

“How does a dog hear the faintest whisper? How do bees see ultraviolet? Superior senses, my boy.”

Eliot remembered what his father had told him long ago: that the truth would be best between them. He wondered now if the reason for that was entirely moral. . or if it was just good Infernal politics.

“Can the others, the Immortals, hear lies, too?”

“No more than any other person with a modicum of wit.” Louis chuckled. “They are entirely different creatures.”

This halted Eliot’s thoughts cold.

“Wait-if you’re different species, how’d you and my mother. .? I mean, Fiona and me. . how’d you. .?”

Eliot blushed, unable to finish.

Louis held up both hands. “How foolish of me! I am sorry, Eliot. I should have realized your education in this would have been conveniently ‘forgotten’ by Audrey. I shall give you all the details.”

He dug into his pocket and pulled forth a string of individually wrapped foil packets, each the size of a half dollar.

Condoms.

Eliot’s blush heated to a blazing intensity, and he quickly waved them away. “That’s okay,” he said. “Cecilia covered basic, uh. . reproduction last year.”

“A pity.” Louis looked disappointed as he shoved the condoms back into his pocket.

Not that any contact with the opposite sex had been possible with Rule 106, the “no dating” rule in effect. Still, Eliot had had to learn everything about reproduction: earthworm sex organs, chromosomes, and the inherited hemophiliac anomalies of Russian royalty.

“So. . I’m a mule?” Eliot whispered. Mules were a sterile hybrid and a genetic dead end.

Louis frowned, and sparks danced in his eyes. “No. You and your sister are hybrids akin to the mighty griffon-half eagle and half lion-noble, powerful, and awe-inspiring. No Infernal has ever been anything less!”

Eliot’s pulse quickened as he listened, almost believing that he could be special. “So why are Infernals different? I’ve seen Miss Westin’s family tree. Infernal, Immortals, even the mortal magical families, they all have a common origin.”

“Oh. . that,” Louis said, and sniffed. “Well, we have evolved. We have land. The others do not.”

Eliot crinkled his forehead. “Land? Like office buildings? Uncle Henry has land.”

“No,” Louis said, drawing out the o. “We are monarchs of the domains of Hell, the benevolent kings and queens over the countless souls who are drawn there to worship us. That gives us true power. Without land, we would be the lowest of the low.”

Eliot pondered this comparison of formidable Uncle Aaron or even Audrey to the “lowest of the low.”

And yet, he sensed no outright lie in Louis’s words.

But if true, why didn’t the Infernals overthrow the Immortals? Rule everyone? Why have a neutrality treaty at all?

And who ruled that blasted landscape and all those people who had rushed the gate in Uncle Kino’s Borderlands? None of them seemed “benevolently ruled.” Something wasn’t right with Louis’s picture.

“Do you have one of these domains in Hell?” Eliot asked.

Louis eased back. “Ah, well, regrettably there were setbacks to my personal portfolio when I was demoted to mortal status.” He set a long hand atop Eliot’s and patted it. “Worry not. I have plans in motion to reclaim what was once mine.

“But let us talk more of your problem,” Louis said. He twisted off his pinkie ring. It was a battered gold band with a clear crystal cabochon. He held it up to the light and squinted. “I believe I have met your Jezebel once before. Observe.”

A tiny figure appeared in the ring’s stone. . which reflected and wavered in the water glasses on their table. . then in the curves of the spoons and forks. . and then along the inner curve of Eliot’s glasses.

Everywhere Eliot looked: there was Jezebel.

She stood with head lowered, wearing a black velvet cloak that highlighted her pale skin and platinum locks.

Eliot stopped breathing.

“I see the reason for your interest,” Louis whispered. “But there is another to focus your attentions upon.”

A second woman appeared in the ring. And as impossible as it seemed to Eliot, she was more beautiful than Jezebel, with copper red hair and feral eyes. She radiated power-waves of the stuff that made Eliot’s pulse quicken.

She was intoxicating and overwhelming.

“That creature,” Louis explained, “is Sealiah, Queen of the Poppy Realms and your poor unfortunate Jezebel’s mistress. She is the reason for her being at Paxington. A rather clumsy attempt to seduce you. . one that I fear is working, however.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eliot sighed. “But there has to be a way to save Jezebel while not falling into the trap.” He gazed up at his father, every fiber of his being hoping Louis could help.

Louis tapped his pointed chin, thinking. “I admire you wanting it all. . I shall consider the situation and concoct something.”

Eliot nodded, truly grateful. He was completely out of his depth. Any advice would be welcome.

He tried to envision that family tree Miss Westin had drawn in class and where this Sealiah, Queen of Poppies fit. He couldn’t remember-although now that he reimagined it, there was something else that had nagged him about the Infernal family tree.

“I keep seeing this name come up in class,” Eliot said. “One Infernal who might or might not be dead? No one seems sure. Satan?”

Louis’s face went rigid. “Oh. . him.” An eyebrow twitched in irritation. “Do you know people still confuse the two of us?”

“What happened? His name was scratched off the family tree, not erased like if he’d died.”

Louis shrugged. “He left. Said he grew tired of the endless bickering. Can you imagine?” He picked up a napkin and made a great show of wiping his hands. “Who can say if he lives or not? When a puppy goes missing for ten years, one assumes it was run over by a truck, no?”

Eliot remembered what Mr. Welmann had said: That the dead grew restless and moved on. If Satan were dead, where would he move on to? Did Infernals go to Hell if they died?

Louis tapped the table. “Remain focused on our relations in the here and now, my boy. The ones trying to stab you in the back, eh?”

Eliot nodded.