All That Lives Must Die

The Infernals retreated back to their hellhole.

Heroes gathered wounded comrades and limped toward the hills.

Fiona felt the dream begin to fade, the ancient memories submerging into shadow and silence.

“I lost Zeus and Satan,” Eliot said, looking around. “Mr. Ma, you said they died? Where are their bodies? Satan should have left a big smoking crater.”

Mr. Ma cast his gaze about. “Indeed. Not this time. .” His voice trailed off as he pondered. “Come.” He indicated they follow him deeper into the fog.

Fiona would have given anything to see Zeus one more time. She’d look up everything there was on him in her books tonight. How had one Immortal ever led the League when the modern Council of Seven Elders could barely decide anything?

Things were different back then-that’s why. Even Dallas had been a real warrior.

Mr. Ma found Zeus’s broken chariot: coils and copper-wound armatures still arcing and smoldering. There were great gashes in the earth, and blood-splashes of crimson and tar-black ooze everywhere.

But no trace of either Satan or Zeus.

“History tells us they did die,” Mr. Ma whispered. “At this very spot.” He knelt and touched the earth and blood. “And yet so much is different-more real-in this version of the dream.” He looked at Fiona and Eliot. “I wonder. .”

He stood.

“The demonstration is over.” Mr. Ma strode back toward the hill and the circle of stones.

The fog cleared, and overhead it was a sunny California afternoon again.

“You will each write a three-thousand-word paper,” Mr. Ma told them, “comparing and contrasting the fighting and philosophical styles of the two sides. Due Wednesday.”

They’d just relived one of the most important battles ever. . and he was assigning homework? Fiona wanted to do something significant: wage a battle, lead an army, change the world, be a real goddess.

Fiona kicked the dirt in a futile act of rebellion.

Mitch trotted alongside her. “I sketched their formations,” he said. “You want to hang out after school? Have some coffee and compare notes?”

Fiona’s thoughts completely derailed. She almost tripped. “Coffee?”

“Sure.” Mitch smiled his reassuring smile that made Fiona feel like she’d known him forever. A smile that could even make her forget she was mad.

She glanced at the hilltop where Robert was, and that ruined her mood again. He wasn’t going to ask her out for coffee any time soon. Things were so different now between them.

Her analysis of how she was so not like the ancient gods would have to wait. So would obsessing about how she and Robert could fit together with the League always between them.

The real world had to take priority, and right now that meant homework. . and maybe being friends with Mitch.

“I’d love coffee,” she said.

27. A WRONG TURN

Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab got on the bus and got driven back to Plato’s Hall.

There Miss Westin lectured on the ramifications of the Battle of Ultima Thule. . how the then leaderless Immortals and Infernals signed a neutrality treaty (the Pactum Pax Immortalis) in 326 C.E. . which provided stability for the mortal magical families to surface and thrive. . and prompted a fragile cooperation between mortals, fallen angels, and Immortals to preserve the ancient knowledge in Emperor Constantine’s Court of God’s Peace. . which made the Paxington Institute possible. . and was the indirect cause of the modern political balance between mortals and Immortals everywhere. . and the reason they were all here today.

The Pactum Pax Immortalis was the treaty that Louis had mentioned, the one he said Eliot and Fiona might unravel.

If they undid that, what happened to the world?

On top of all that, Eliot couldn’t stop thinking about Jezebel. Compared to everything else, his personal problems shouldn’t matter.

And yet, Jezebel sat just a few seats away. . and it very much did matter.

The scent from the battlefield was still with Eliot-all the smoke and blood and dust, but Jezebel’s perfume- vanilla with hints of cinnamon-overwhelmed him.

All he could focus on was how she had lied about wishing she’d never met him.

Miss Westin dismissed class. Everyone filed out; even Robert and Fiona left without him.

Eliot lagged behind.

Miss Westin gave him a long look, nodded behind her glasses as if she understood everything. . and then left the room as well.

He was alone.

That suited Eliot fine. He’d slink home and get that paper done for Mr. Ma-maybe even dig out his old Mythica Improbiba and see what it said about old Satan and Zeus. It would feel good to do almost normal homework for once.

He wandered out of the classroom and across campus, not looking where he was going until he was near the front gate.

Jezebel was there, walking along the same trajectory. . but not alone.

Dante Scalagari and that tall Van Wyck boy Jeremy had trounced the first day (who still had his broken nose taped), walked with her. They showed great interest in everything she said.

Well, of course, every boy at Paxington would be interested in her.

Something sleeping stirred inside Eliot, however: a heat that sparked and kindled. His hands curled into fists.

He took a deep breath.

There was no way he was going to march over there and try to insert himself in their conversation. . and yet, he found himself doing precisely that.

“Hey. .,” he said.

The boys’ smiles faded, and Jezebel’s face turned to stony disdain.

“It’s our young Master Post,” Dante said with a polite tilt of his head.

“I was wondering if we could talk,” he said to Jezebel. Eliot’s ears burned, but somehow he pressed on, getting the rest of the awkward words out as quickly as he could. “About gym class. Strategies for our next match, I mean.”

“The way I heard it,” Van Wyck said, flicking his angle-cut hair from his face, “a good strategy might be for you to sit out the next match.”

“Donald, there’s no need for that,” Dante said to his friend, and gave an apologetic shrug to Eliot.

Jezebel’s gaze fell upon Eliot. “I must speak with the boy,” she said. “If you two wouldn’t mind.” She flashed them her patented hundred-watt smile.

“As you wish, lady,” Dante said. He and Donald van Wyck bowed, and they left (although not before Van Wyck gave Eliot a withering look).

Jezebel’s smile vanished. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “For being the son of the Great Deceiver,” she whispered, “you, Eliot Post, are a rotten lair.”

His head snapped up, and he returned her hateful stare. He wasn’t lying-well, he was. . about wanting to talk about gym class. But hearing how pathetic a liar he was coming from her-that just fanned the flames inside him.

Eliot flushed, but it wasn’t from embarrassment. This was some animal instinct to move and take her in his arms and. . what? It was so much darker than his normal high-adventured daydreams, it startled him back to normal.

Louis had said how Infernals could easily tell lies from the truth. He must have just insulted Jezebel with that