All That Lives Must Die

Jezebel grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back into the tall grass. “But not in Hell. Here they are stronger.” She let go of him, and her hands became venom-dripping claws.

“It’s just a-”

The words died in his throat. The just-freed creature was now the size of an elephant, with ten pointed crablike limbs.

The Droogan-dor lunged at them.

Eliot instinctively flicked his fingers over his violin strings. There was an earsplitting twang.

The air between him and the creature blurred with energy-cracking the thing’s exoskeleton, splitting open the ground and making its front legs stumble.

Jezebel darted in and clawed its eyes.

The Droogan-dor reared back, screaming, shaking its upper body, pushing forth two new heads from the holes Jezebel had carved out.

It pulled free from the cracks in the earth.

Jezebel was right: This wasn’t like the things they’d fought in the alley. It was growing, as large as a bus, getting bigger as more shadows adhered to it.

It stabbed at Jezebel.

She dodged and rolled. Its claw left an impact crater where she’d stood.

“Run, Eliot!” she cried. “I’ll delay it.”

“Not this time,” he murmured. This wasn’t like a gym match, where all you do is get the flag and end the battle.

Eliot drew out his violin’s bow and tossed aside his pack.

He played “Julie’s Song.” It was sweet at first, then turned dark and sorrowful. He kept playing because he knew it would change into the weapon he’d need. He played and remembered her smile, how her human laugh had sounded like tiny sleigh bells, and how he had played her song that summer day. . and made the sun rise early just for her.

The Droogan-dor screamed, rearing back, flailing its needlelike legs at him, but not daring to come closer to the music.

Eliot was on the right track. He had to focus, couldn’t be afraid. He had to make the song right.

But the right notes felt very far away. Neither light nor hope nor love belonged in this place. It was like forcing oil and water to mix.

He stayed and he played. He had to. For her.

The Droogan-dor snorted, shook its heads to overcome its aversion, and charged Eliot. It was a dozen pointed limbs and tons of black armor rushing headlong to crush him.

And still Eliot played. . with nothing but hope to shield him.

Jezebel watched, horrified, her mouth agape.

Eliot felt the connection: it all poured from him-no distance could keep him away and no darkness could prevail against his unwavering hope.

Sunlight streamed from the cracks in the earth, from his eyes and fingertips, and made the very notes from Lady Dawn waver in the air like heat.

The Droogan-dor’s wailing pitched to a panicked ultrasonic cry. Its exoskeleton bubbled and steamed and popped, and it disintegrated into dust and ashes before Eliot’s feet.

The song ended and Eliot fell to his knees, spent.

The light went out and the darkness rushed in like a cold tide.

There was a soothing, gentle rocking motion. Somewhere far away, Eliot heard his name called by the sweetest southern-accented voice imaginable.

Eliot. . Eliot, honey, snap out of it.

The gentle rocking became urgent.

“Eliot!”

Pain lashed across his face, sharp and electric. His eyes flew open in time to see Jezebel raising her open hand for another slap.

He blocked her swing and caught her. Wrapping his fingers about hers, he got up and didn’t let go.

“I’m fine,” he whispered. There was an edge in his voice that he hadn’t intended.

Jezebel stared at him, then at their intertwined hands. She wasn’t angry as usual; rather, her forehead wrinkled with worry.

Eliot touched her captured hand lightly. . then released her.

“We have to move,” she said, and nodded across the road.

Eliot blinked, trying to see what she meant, still recovering from his performance. His eyes focused, and he instantly understood: The fight was far from over.

The battle on the distant hills had spilled into the meadow. Hundreds of knights in thorn-spiked plate mail slashed at a handful of giant Droogan-dors, impaling the creatures upon lances; cannon fired puffballs of fungus that exploded and showered spores that took root and dissolved all in their path; legions of foot soldiers armed with lanterns and flaming oil sprayers made lines of light in the gloom. . but the creatures from the House of Umbra were too strong. They stabbed and crushed everything within reach.

“They shift shape so easily,” Eliot murmured. “Why are they so strong now?”

Louis had told him Infernals normally had only two shapes, one humanoid, the other a “combat” form.

“The Droogan-dors have no shape to begin with.” Jezebel glanced about. “And as for their strength. . all creatures of the dark are stronger in Hell, strongest of all on their lands.”

Lands. She meant the domains of Hell.

Was Eliot, son of the Prince of Darkness, a creature of darkness stronger here, too?

He gazed once more at the battle. Where the shadow creatures killed and advanced, the land changed. Grass and flowers died. The bare earth dried and cracked, and jagged spikes of black rock grew in their place.

Like the place was becoming another land.

“You said you’re connected to land,” Eliot said, “but the connection goes both ways, doesn’t it? The land is connected to you?”

“Yes,” she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him along. “We can discuss it while we’re running for our lives.”

She pulled him through the fields, running parallel to the road, still on “her” side, where the land was full of life, where Eliot guessed she’d be the strongest.

Farther ahead, though, the road wound about more hills. . upon which more battles raged.

Eliot halted, stopping Jezebel her tracks. “Wait a second,” he said. “Where are we going?”

“Doze Torres.” She yanked him back in her direction. “My Queen’s castles. We shall be safest there.”

Eliot didn’t budge.

He scrutinized what lay ahead, not liking what he saw. In some battles, Queen Sealiah’s forces outnumbered the shadows three to one and pushed them back. In a few cases, her forces lit the fields on fire to drive the shadows away (at best, a delaying tactic). But in the majority of the battles, it was an even match. . with lots of casualties on either side.

Eliot wasn’t sure what happened to the souls of the dead when torn apart by shadow creatures-if they ceased to exist, regenerated, or just lay there in pieces for all eternity.

He was pretty sure, though, he knew what would happen if he got torn into tiny pieces.

“That way’s too dangerous.” He drew Jezebel closer to him. “The safest path is back.” He pointed over his shoulder. He could just see the top of the train station’s glass spires.

“No,” she insisted. “I cannot leave. I must fight.”

“No, you don’t,” he told her. “Come back with me. We’ll get you a dorm room at Paxington. The Droogan-dors would never dare come there.”

“Where I’d be safe?” Jezebel dropped his hand, and her face turned cold. “Where I would slowly die?”

Eliot looked at her. That was no lie-but he was light-years from understanding what she meant.

“The land,” she said, growing annoyed with him. “You saw the connection.”

He nodded, starting to get it. When the Droogan-dors won, they took the land and made it Mephistopheles’.