All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [38]
A black Cadillac with tailfins rolled to a stop just outside.
Mr. Dells growled and moved toward the gate, shaking his head. “You’re blocking the entrance. No one is allowed to park here. Not even you. Especially you.”
“Oh man,” Robert said, “I definitely cannot be here.” He walked away.
Fiona started after him, but froze as she saw the car door open and the tallest man she’d ever seen get out. His skin was dark. His smile, cold. His eyes locked on to her and Eliot.
Uncle Kino.
“I am not parking,” Uncle Kino told the Gatekeeper. “I’m here to pick up. Them.”
10
THE GATES OF PERDITION
Eliot stared at the man who climbed out of the Cadillac. Uncle Kino looked taller than he remembered—like he could step over the walls of Paxington, like he was more shadow cast at sunset than flesh and blood.
He blinked and Uncle Kino still looked tall . . . but no longer unnaturally so.
The last time he’d seen Kino, he and Fiona had just been officially accepted into the League. Kino had made a point of shaking Eliot’s hand.
“I am here to take them,” Kino again told Harlan Dells.
Mr. Dells crossed his arms over his massive chest. “This is a safe haven. They go only if they want to, Mr. Saturday.”12
Kino sniffed (this might have been a laugh; Eliot wasn’t sure) and donned sunglasses. “There’s no trouble here today,” he told Mr. Dells. “Why don’t you go sweep some hallways, eh, janitor?” He turned to Eliot and Fiona. “Come, children.”
Audrey and Cee had drilled into Eliot and Fiona since they were little kids that it was very much not okay to accept rides from strangers.
But Kino was part of the League. It would be no different if Uncle Henry had come to pick them up. Wouldn’t it?
Eliot tried to see Kino’s eyes past the smoky lenses of his sunglasses, but couldn’t, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure.
“This is Council business,” Kino explained. “Your mother sent me. She said to tell you that you will be able to do your chores and homework afterward.”
Now that sounded right. After entrance and placement exams, a campus tour, a reading assignment that probably would take months, and whatever the Council now wanted—of course there would be chores to do at home.
Eliot looked at Fiona, and she slowly nodded, confirming his hunch.
“Okay,” Eliot said.
Mr. Dells uncrossed his arms, flipped the switch on the side of the gatehouse, and the large iron gate rolled silently open.
Eliot took a step toward Kino’s car.
“Wait.” Kino held up his large hand.
“You just said you wanted us to come,” Eliot told him.
“You got dice on you? No dice!” Kino said, and pushed his sunglasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “Not in my car.”
For a second Eliot didn’t know what he meant. He then realized he still had the dice from the Last Sunset Tavern in his pocket. His lucky charms. He’d used them to guess on the last multiple-choice parts of the placement exam he hadn’t had a clue about.
He pulled them out of his pocket. “They’re just—”
“They’re just getting thrown away,” Kino declared.
Fiona turned to Eliot and rolled her eyes. That was the look she reserved for when Audrey laid down the law. A look that said, Shut up and do what you’re told, because we’re not going to win this one and it’s no use trying.
But Eliot wasn’t just going to throw them away. They were his.
He squeezed them in his fist, felt their recessed pips, all those random possibilities contained in his hand. It made him feel in control.
“Toss them here, boy,” Mr. Dells said. “I’ll hold them for you.”
With a sigh, Eliot handed them over.
Mr. Dells rattled them in Kino’s direction. The taller man sneered at this and slowly sank back into his Cadillac.
Fiona ran for the front passenger’s side door. Eliot sprinted after her.
“The back,” Kino told them. “No children up front.”
They reluctantly moved to opposite rear passenger doors and opened them at the same time. Eliot paused to admire the way the car’s back swept up into two tails.
He then slid inside, and so did Fiona.
The backseats were slick red leather, the interior panels mahogany with chrome accents. There was