All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [77]
“You want the truth?” she whispered sweetly, but there was cruelty in her voice as well.
Eliot had a feeling this was much more than a simple question. It was something Infernal. A ritual he didn’t understand, like signing a contract in blood. It was dangerous.
He couldn’t stop himself, though. He had to know.
“I do,” he said.
She glared at him for a heartbeat. Her hands dropped to her side. The air chilled. “How can you be so smart and so stupid at the same time?”
Eliot had often wondered this very thing, but wasn’t about to admit it.
“I was Julie Marks long ago,” she told him. “I lived in Atlanta, ran away, made many foolish choices, and died of a heroin overdose. I wasted my life.”
To hear her speak of her death so casually horrified Eliot.
A boy and girl from their Mythology 101 class passed by, shot curious glances their way, and hurried along.
“I died,” she continued, “and I went to Hell, the Poppy Lands of Queen Sealiah. I won’t bore you with the torment heaped upon my unworthy mortal soul there, but just know that I was picked by my Queen and given a chance to live again.”
The chill from the shadows made Eliot shiver.
This was the truth, though—he sensed that much—and it tasted addictively sweet to him.
More students passed them, and gave Jezebel a wide berth, wanting to avoid those preternaturally cold shadows.
“That is when I came to you, Eliot, darling.” She inched closer, the shadows dragged along with her, and her voice rose over the murmurs in the corridor. “I was sent to seduce you, to trick you to come back to the lightless realms. I was bait, which you so eagerly tasted.”
Eliot took a step back.
“But you left . . . without me.”
She paused; confusion crossed her features, then it cleared. “Yes, another in a long string of mistakes I’ve made. Instead of seducing, I was seduced by your music . . . into believing there was something more, something better.”
“It’s not too late,” Eliot told her. “There’s still hope. There’s always hope.”
“Like there was hope when I ran away to protect you? When they caught me and dragged me back to Hell? Like there was hope when they did so many unpleasant, unspeakable things to me to repay my hope-filled kindness?”
Jezebel laughed. It was the sound of breaking glass and ancient glacier ice crackling. It was a thousand prancing, dancing booted feet that crushed dreams.
“There is no hope in Hell, Eliot Post. And there is no longer hope in my heart. I am a creature of the Lower Realms, reborn into the Clan Sealiah. The venomous blood of the Queen of Poppies forever flows through my veins. Dare not tempt me with your vile hope ever again, if you desire to draw another breath.”
Every student in the hall had stopped to listen to this.
Eliot retreated another step and backed into a column.
Jezebel leaned closer. “You are a complete, utter moron. A fool of such sterling caliber, you could be the Prince of Incompetence. I wish I’d never met you.”
Eliot felt as if he’d been struck—not because of her stinging words, but because of her declaration. Her words had been like Cee’s were that one time: backward sounding, turned inside out, made of smoke, and reflected in the mirrors in his thoughts.
A lie.
“That’s not right,” he said. “I mean, probably not that other stuff you just said, but that last bit . . .”
“What are you babbling about?”
Jezebel appeared outwardly confident; however, the shadows about her had lost some of their chilled solidity.
“You said you wished you never met me,” Eliot whispered, ignoring the gathering students. “That was a lie.”
Jezebel flushed and locked gazes with him.
The crowd about them fell silent, and stepped back.
“You dare accuse me of . . . of . . . lying?” she breathed.
Her skin reddened, both hands arched into claws, the air about her shimmered like a mirage.
Eliot held his ground, though.
He was tired of being lied to. Everyone had lied to him his entire life. And now he had this gift to hear pathetic, lousy mistruths. He wasn’t about to let it pass.
“It was obvious,” he said louder, crossing his arms