All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [272]
He turned to Marcus. “Where is she?”
Marcus understood exactly who he meant. He nodded across the field.
Past a hundred soldiers and a dozen of Sealiah’s knights fighting to stay on their horses, there was a ring of those shadow gorillas—and past them stood Mephistopheles in a clearing. He had his back to Robert. He wasn’t so tall as Robert remembered, but still three time the size of a professional wrestler.
And through the fighting and bodies and bloodshed, Robert caught a glimpse of Fiona on the ground, struggling to get to her knees . . . as Mephistopheles strode toward her.
He couldn’t believe she’d been stupid enough to fight that thing without his help. She always thought she was better than him—than everyone.
Robert would show her, though; he’d save her . . . and what?
Nothing. He wouldn’t say a word. He had nothing to prove to Fiona.
He just wanted her safe.
Marcus grabbed Robert’s shoulder. “You can’t,” he said, guessing his intention. “That’s an Infernal Lord on his own land. Fiona might have a chance. Maybe Lucifer or Sealiah or even Eliot. But you? No way.”
Robert shrugged off Marcus’s hand.
He was about to tell him what he could do with his warning when he heard Eliot’s music . . . close . . . swelling through the air and up to the sun.
Robert looked—blinked as he saw the sun in eclipse, blinked again as solar flares lanced from the edge of the dark disk, and the star swelled along with Eliot’s song, growing larger and orange, then became a red giant star, flooding the battlefield with its blood-colored light.
Eliot did that.
Robert stared dumbstruck, trying to figure what kind of power that took.
Across the battlefield Mephistopheles’ soldiers panicked and the shadows cringed.
And Robert knew he had his chance.
He charged, slashing and burning through the soldiers and blasting any shadow that stood between him and Fiona. A spear grazed his back, but he ignored it, ran forward—and broke into the clearing.
Twenty paces away, Mephistopheles stood over Fiona, his back to Robert.
The Infernal reached for Fiona.
She was on her knees, one had outstretched before her to ward him off. She wasn’t fighting. She looked frail and beaten.
One quick grab, and Mephistopheles would snap Fiona’s neck.
Robert couldn’t cross the distance between them in time. He hefted Saliceran and hoped it was his day for one-in-a-million shots.
With both hands, he raised the jagged, broken blade over his head.
As hard as he could, he threw it.
80
THE LAST MOMENT WHEN EVERYTHING WAS STILL POSSIBLE
Knights and shadow creatures hacked one another to pieces, but Mephistopheles’ army had encircled and guarded him and Fiona (a relatively easy thing . . . because they were trouncing Sealiah’s soldiers).
Fiona sat with in a clearing twenty paces across: a spot of peace among the chaos and bloodshed—not that that made figuring out what she was seeing any easier.
“This is a trick,” she whispered to the thing that looked like Mitch.
Mitch was from the Stephenson family, wielders of white magic, and enemies of the Infernals. How could he be in Hell? He’d told her that he had to deal with “family matters . . .” that was back in Germany, wasn’t it?
“It was a trick,” Mitch—or Mephistopheles—or whatever he was said. “At least in the beginning.” He held up a hand and indicated the war. “All this, a plan concocted by the Infernal Board of Directors to draw the offspring of Atropos and Lucifer into our influence.”
Fiona heard the words but they didn’t make any sense. Her face contorted with confusion.
“It was actually your father’s suggestion.”
“Louis!”
Of course that made sense: him being the cause of their trouble. With all the restraint she could muster, however, she focused back on Infernal Lord standing in front of her. Fiona was going to ask how a war—of all stupid things—was supposed to get her and Eliot to like the Infernals.
Her mouth hung open, however, as the answer slammed into her brain.
She’d seen it happen: Eliot enraptured with Jezebel from day