All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [65]
17
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
Fiona was mortified. Nothing like this ever happened in homeschooling. She’d never had to undress in front of other people.
She was grateful she hadn’t worn her gym shorts and T-shirt under her school uniform. That’s how she thought it might work. She’d tried it at home, but the extra layers only added to the wrinkled appearance of her jacket and skirt.
The Paxington girls’ locker room had only the illusion of privacy. There were rows of benches and lockers so you couldn’t see everyone at the same time. But still, within the range of a casual glance, dozens of girls laughed and chatted as they stripped out of their uniforms like this was the most ordinary thing in the world.
Fiona didn’t think she could blush any harder as she struggled with the buttons on her shirt.
Maybe it was a lifetime of eating Cee’s home cooking, maybe it was her severed appetite, but she felt so skinny, so . . . unendowed, compared with the other girls.
Plus all these other girls had perfect manes of hair. Fiona’s hair (thanks to the foggy morning) was all frizz.
Not to mention they all wore makeup. They had purses bulging with lipstick and powders, liners and every brush imaginable.
Fiona had used Cee’s homemade soap, which efficiently removed dirt (and your first layer of skin), but didn’t really enhance anyone’s beauty.
Fortunately no one noticed her.
She looked at her feet and focused on slipping out of her skirt and into her gym shorts as fast as she could.
Fiona would have done it with her eyes closed if she wasn’t afraid she might have done something dorky like put them on backwards.
She’d never look like these girls. They’d had fifteen years to perfect their looks. They had every modern product and advantage.
She’d just have to be happy with who she was and how she looked . . . though that was easier said than done. Who was she, really? Immortal? A goddess-in-training with the League of Immortals? Or an Infernal? The daughter of the Prince of Darkness?
Both?
But then why did she still look like Fiona Post, shut-in, social and beauty moron?
Louis showing up this morning had thrown her off. She hadn’t expected to feel anything for him . . . or if she had, she expected it would have been contempt. He still sounded half crazy, but there was something else there: a spark of wit and intelligence.
He was her father, and she wanted to feel a bond with him. She wanted to have something approaching a normal relationship . . . at least with one of her parents. Was that too much to ask?
Jezebel sauntered into the locker room. The girls fell silent.
The Infernal stepped up to the locker next to Fiona’s, opened it, and removed her jacket.
Fiona started to say hi, but Jezebel (although she had to see her; she was standing right there) acted like she was completely alone in the locker room.
Jezebel shrugged out of her top and bra.
Fiona quickly turned away.
But not before she caught a glimpse of Jezebel’s snow-white porcelain skin, ample curves, and taut stomach. Like pictures Fiona had seen recently in her mythology books—that’s how goddesses were supposed to look. Or demons.
A girl approached Jezebel and cleared her throat.
Jezebel ignored her.
The girl was tall, tan, blond, and athletic. Fiona remembered her from team selection. She was on White Knight.
“Hey.” The girl confidently leaned on a nearby locker. “I’m Tamara. A bunch of us were going to grab coffee after class today. You want to hang out?”
“I don’t care who you are,” Jezebel told her. “What makes you think that I have need for coffee . . . or the company of mortals?”
Tamara’s features bunched together in outrage. “Why, you little bit—!”
Jezebel turned.
The air was charged with tension. The hair on the back of Fiona’s neck prickled.
Jezebel’s shadow crossed Tamara, darkening her face.
But that was wrong. Fiona checked her own shadow—yes, the overhead lights cast several weak shadows in various directions. Jezebel’s shadow somehow defied the optics of the situation, and had collected into a single slice of dark.
Whatever Tamara was