All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [308]
“Isn’t that all you are?” he asked. “Maneuvering Eliot to your side, and getting me and Fiona to kill Mephistopheles? All those tortured damned souls you keep in Hell?” He licked his lips, afraid he’d said too much, but nonetheless he pressed on. “You tell me if there’s more to being Infernal.”
“You wound me with the truth.” She looked up, the pain shining in her eyes. “We were once all so much more.”
She pulled her legs into a kneeling position and stretched out her arms. “And perhaps for you, Robert Farmington, I can summon one brief glimpse of our past.”
Sealiah arched her back and looked as if something red-hot had been shoved into her center—and then light burst forth and blazed pure white: she was a creature of divine beauty that shone through Robert’s mind with wide white wings and angelic glory.
And then it was gone, and Robert was left blinking at splotchy purple afterimages.
Sealiah lay huddled before him, panting. “That is what we once were.”
She sat up, her face pale and lined with exhaustion. “And I fear you are correct: we are no longer those creatures. My last chance to touch that part of me dies with your refusal, hero.”
She slowly stood and stumbled back toward the ocean.
Robert got to his feet. “Wait.”
She stopped but kept her back turned.
Sealiah was the ultimate damsel in distress. She wasn’t human—Robert had to remind himself of that, but did she have to be human to need saving?
What if he could save her? Change her? That might change everything.
He’d never been able to say no to any woman who needed help. It wasn’t in his DNA.
And what needed saving in all the worlds more than a fallen angel?
Still with her back to him, Sealiah whispered, “You also said you wanted to forget, Robert. I could . . . could help you with that as well. I would look forward to it.”
Forget? Could he?
Fiona? Everyone at school? And the League?
Robert didn’t think so, as much as he wanted that. But maybe—just maybe, he could grow out of his mistakes and regrets and become something more than just Robert the messenger boy, Robert the spy, and Robert the pawn.
He took her hand, whirled her around—pulled her into his embrace.
Sealiah curled against his chest, and tilted her head up.
They kissed and wrapped around each other.
The ocean surged about their feet and splashed up their legs.
Robert felt as if he were drowning.
He let the tide of her passion take him.
90
THE LONG WALK HOME
Eliot couldn’t figure it out. This was just too much stuff.
He stepped back and looked over the items spread on his bed: jeans and sweaters and T-shirts, soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, first-aid kit, flashlights, a white-gas stove, tent, sleeping bag, rain jacket, sun hat, parka, waders, a box of extra guitar strings, and books—stacks and piles of ancient tomes and scrolls and moldering texts that were his required reading for the summer. The books by themselves weighed fifty pounds.
He had to take it all though, because where he was going he wasn’t sure what to expect.
Could he really do this?
Yes. He’d already made up his mind. The rest was just details.
How he’d come to this particular life-altering decision was a combination of logic, guesswork . . . and a feeling that he was 100 percent absolutely correct. It was instinct: like a plant heliotropes toward the sun, or stone falls because of gravity.
He was going.
His gaze landed on his guitar case. Lady Dawn—he couldn’t forget her.
He’d need a wheelbarrow for all this stuff.
Eliot went to the window, opened it, and let the rare unfogged San Francisco sunset stream into his room. He took a deep breath. It smelled clean.
He was doing this, he told himself again. And yet, if he was so sure, why was he terrified?
There was a tiny tap at his door—followed by several raps, too loud, like the person on the other side was overcompensating for their initial timidity.
“Come in?”
Fiona opened