All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [89]
“Sure,” Eliot said, pushed it closer. “It does everything.”
Eliot regretted letting the phone out of his grasp the second Louis touched it. If anything happened to it, Audrey would kill him.
Louis poked and turned it this way and that. For an instant the phone seemed to vanish—but that was just a trick of the light, because then Louis immediately set it back on the table.
“I must upgrade mine one of these days. Now, explain what weighs so heavy upon your heart.”
Eliot told Louis about Jezebel—that she was an Infernal like him—then backtracked to when she’d been mortal Julie Marks at Ringo’s Pizza Parlor, and how she’d been nice to him, and how they’d been at the Pink Rabbit and he’d serenaded her.
“I have heard that melody,” Louis said, wistful. “A lovely thing. Ripe with hope. So tragic.”
“Yeah,” Eliot whispered.
Thinking about her song made him sad. Like there was no longer any hope for the Julie Marks he’d known . . . and there was even less hope for them now that she was the Infernal Jezebel.
Louis made an encouraging gesture, indicating that he go on.
Eliot then told how Jezebel had arrived at Paxington, her titles, how she looked so much like Julie, and so much not like her, how she fought and saved him in gym class . . . and then how he had confronted her about the truth, and how she had revealed everything.
“She lied to you?” Louis asked, bemused. “And you told her as much? You know, there is no greater offense for an Infernal to be caught in a lie.” He smiled, but there was a hint of malice to it.
“Her lie . . . ,” Eliot said. “The words sounded hollow. I don’t know. I could just tell.”
“Of course,” Louis replied. “Any Infernal can hear obvious lies.”
The black cat seated next to Louis looked up and glanced at Eliot, ears flicking forward.
“How is that possible?” Eliot asked.
“How does a dog hear the faintest whisper? How do bees see ultraviolet? Superior senses, my boy.”
Eliot remembered what his father had told him long ago: that the truth would be best between them. He wondered now if the reason for that was entirely moral . . . or if it was just good Infernal politics.
“Can the others, the Immortals, hear lies, too?”
“No more than any other person with a modicum of wit.” Louis chuckled. “They are entirely different creatures.”
This halted Eliot’s thoughts cold.
“Wait—if you’re different species, how’d you and my mother . . . ? I mean, Fiona and me . . . how’d you . . . ?”
Eliot blushed, unable to finish.
Louis held up both hands. “How foolish of me! I am sorry, Eliot. I should have realized your education in this would have been conveniently ‘forgotten’ by Audrey. I shall give you all the details.”
He dug into his pocket and pulled forth a string of individually wrapped foil packets, each the size of a half dollar.
Condoms.
Eliot’s blush heated to a blazing intensity, and he quickly waved them away. “That’s okay,” he said. “Cecilia covered basic, uh . . . reproduction last year.”
“A pity.” Louis looked disappointed as he shoved the condoms back into his pocket.
Not that any contact with the opposite sex had been possible with Rule 106, the “no dating” rule in effect. Still, Eliot had had to learn everything about reproduction: earthworm sex organs, chromosomes, and the inherited hemophiliac anomalies of Russian royalty.
“So . . . I’m a mule?” Eliot whispered. Mules were a sterile hybrid and a genetic dead end.
Louis frowned, and sparks danced in his eyes. “No. You and your sister are hybrids akin to the mighty griffon—half eagle and half lion—noble, powerful, and awe-inspiring. No Infernal has ever been anything less!”
Eliot’s pulse quickened as he listened, almost believing that he could be special. “So why are Infernals different? I’ve seen Miss Westin’s family tree. Infernal, Immortals, even the mortal magical families, they all have a common origin.”
“Oh . . . that,” Louis said, and sniffed. “Well, we have evolved. We have land. The others do not.”
Eliot crinkled his forehead. “Land? Like office buildings? Uncle Henry has land.