All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [156]
“You!” Jezebel whispered, brushing her curls aside, her eyes wide.
His anger vanished as he saw that her bandages had sloughed off in their tumble. Her wounds from earlier today were only pale scars on her arms and shoulder.
She stood and smoothed out her tartan skirt.
“You’re better,” he breathed.
“The land,” she said. “Every Infernal is connected to their land . . . and it to them. It is the source of our strength.”
She came to him and touched his head. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were one of them,” she whispered. Her fingers combed through his hair. She was Julie Marks once more: eyes blue and pale and her face soft and all human.
But her touch turned rough as she examined him. “That rock should’ve killed you,” she growled. “So you are truly Infernal, after all.” Her face hardened and her eyes crystallized, becoming the color of raw emeralds. “Why did you follow me?”
“To help?”
“You came to the Poppy Lands to help me?” She laughed.
But her laugh died as the grass withered and turned to dust, and shadows sprang up in their place.
From this darkness, a shape pulled itself free: as in the alley, a Droogan-dor with pointed limbs and needle teeth. But unlike in the alley, this shadow creature was bigger . . . the size of a car. Cold radiated from it that chilled Eliot’s soul.
“Still the fool!” Jezebel took his arm and drew him closer, hissing, “They’ve seen you. You’ve doomed us both!”
43. Flocks of creatures are often designated by a special words, e.g., a “murder” of crows or a “pod” of whales. Groups of Infernals (fallen angels) are called an “exodus” of angels (or Infernals). Although this grammatical designation has entered the vernacular, it remains controversial and contested by the Catholic Church for two reasons: first, Infernals almost never group (making the term largely hypothetical); and second, it suggests that the “fallen” angels’ exit from Heaven may not have been the result of an expulsion after losing a war, but instead, a voluntary departure. —Editor.
45
SHADOWS, HONEY, AND BLOOD
Eliot watched the Droogan-dor push itself out of the shadows like some sticky birthing . . . unable to comprehend the geometry of the situation—until his brain unfroze.
He pulled Lady Dawn from his pack.
“Don’t worry, we’ve fought hundreds of these things before,” he reassured Jezebel.
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