MORTAL COILS (104 page)

He
sighed.

There
was no going back. He couldn’t pretend (even with his new glasses) that he was
simple bookwormish Eliot Post anymore after surviving three life-or-death
trials, defeating a fallen angel, and being proclaimed an Immortal Hero.

He
pulled the Eye of Horus amulet from his pocket. The golden eye gleamed even in
the twilight. It felt heavy and made him feel as if he’d really done something
special. Still, he hadn’t put it on yet . . . and he wasn’t sure why.

He
pocketed the thing and it clattered against the dice in his pocket. He’d kept
the dice as a souvenir from the Last Sunset Tavern. He’d tossed them
experimentally a few times. It was fun to rattle and throw them, but he’d
stopped because they reminded him of the other side of his family.

Eliot
wished he could just forget the families—both Immortal and Infernal. He was
scared that he’d make a mistake with all the intricate politics and get more
people killed.

He
imagined that none of this had ever happened and he and Julie were together
somewhere, maybe skiing the Swiss Alps, then relaxing in a secluded hot spring
afterward, completely isolated from the world.

But
he shouldn’t do that kind of little-kid thing anymore. He couldn’t afford
slipping off into his fantasy worlds. If he didn’t keep his mind on reality,
keep focused on the dangers in orbit around him, he might get himself or Fiona
into trouble.

He
flash-backed to Beelzebub poised over them, his jagged obsidian knife
glittering, ready to slash down and part flesh from his soul. He and Fiona had
bested the fallen angel . . . in part because of Eliot and his music.

He
pulled Lady Dawn from his pack. Cee had gotten him a violin case, battered and
worn, but much better than the rubber boot he had been using.

Lady
Dawn had never looked better, despite all her adventures. Perfect and polished,
her strings taut and tuned. She was much more than mere wood and sinew, though.
After her strings were snapped, they had regrown overnight by themselves.

He
stroked the wood and flexed his hand. The poison still throbbed in his palm. He
had wanted to tell someone in the League . . . but it felt like a secret.
No—more than that: it felt as if they’d do something bad to him if they ever
found out.

Besides,
it didn’t hurt that much and it got better when he played. It also reminded him
there was a price to pay for his music, and limits to his control.

As
he considered his music, he realized that part of his talent was due to his
imagination: the choir of voices that accompanied the old songs, seeing
children romp about a maypole as he played the “Mortal’s Coil” nursery rhyme,
envisioning the death of all in the Symphony of Existence.

So
maybe daydreams weren’t little-kid things, after all. They were the first step
in transforming fantasy into reality.

He
propped Lady Dawn on his shoulder and set bow to her strings.

Six
crows circled overhead, cawed, and landed on the edge of the roof. They beat
their wings as if applauding, then settled and stared at him with black,
glittering eyes.

Eliot
took a step back. He didn’t know what these birds were (besides the obvious
common raven species, Corvus corax). Were they messengers sent by someone in
the families, or here just because they liked his music?

Whatever
they represented, Eliot decided there was no need to be rude. He bowed to the
birds with an extravagant flourish as he had seen Louis do, then he played.

He
started with the simple “Mortal’s Coil,” then his thoughts drifted to Julie
Marks and her song. As the music turned dark, clouds gathered, but Eliot
quickly moved on to the hopeful part of her song—embellishing and improvising,
expanding the good feelings, and wishing that her life was better, and that
wherever she was, she was happy.

His
heart broke and he poured its contents into the music, sweetening every note,
making it so filled with longing that the air felt as if it could no longer
hold the sound . . . as if it would burst.

The
world hesitated. The universe paused.

The
sunrise exploded over the horizon and filled the land with color and light.

70

Eliot
played and played.

The
crows squawked and beat their wings.

Eliot
played for Julie. He played for the entire world. He played like a madman. He
played for the pure joy of making music.

70.
The sunrise along the 121° longitudinal demarcation was six minutes
twenty-three seconds early that day. Initially it was dismissed as light
reflecting off clouds, but reports soon came in of the sun’s early arrival
where there was no cloud cover—from Seattle, Washington, to Lompoc, California.
The phenomenon remains to this day utterly inexplicable and a cornerstone myth
of the Post Family legend. It was the first time (although certainly not the
last) when Eliot Post’s power would be so publicly displayed. Gods of the First
and Twenty-first Century, Volume 11: The Post Family Mythology, 8th ed.
(Zypheron Press Ltd.).

79

JEZEBEL

Sealiah
spurred her Andalusian mare, Incitata, and the beast trampled the servants
opening the gate of her villa, Doze Torres. Sparks flew as steel-shod hooves
shattered paving stones.

She
raced at breakneck speed down the winding mountain road and entered the Valley
of Fragrances. She pulled back the reins and paused to see for herself what her
guards had reported. Incitata reared back and snorted, angry at being slowed,
but nonetheless obeying her mistress.

There.
Upon the horizon, the perpetual mists and gloom boiled, and gray glowed silver.

The
sun was rising.

In
almost any other place this would have been normal. In the Poppy Realms of
Hell, however, the sun had been banished. For countless millennia Sealiah’s
land had lain submerged in twilight gloom. Mist shrouded and fog layered;
greenhouse effects trapped the heat. Her orchids thrived in the sweltering
humidity and shade. They could not withstand the direct rays of the sun.

She
squinted and perceived the beginnings of the dawn—never closer to showing
itself since she had taken this place for herself after the Great War.

What
else could it be . . . but a prelude to invasion?

Let
them try. They would find the Queen of the Poppies more than prepared.

She
closed her eyes and felt the distant sun warm her face.

Deceptively
comforting. And close. Just over the next hill.

Sealiah
gestured at her jungle. Vine and creeper parted. Incitata trotted onto the
newly made path through the thicket, and up the opposite hillside.

Sensing
its mistress’s excitement, the jungle opened fleshy blossoms to her, blanketed
the atmosphere with toxic perfumes, and drizzled nectar and streamers of
pollen.

As
Sealiah crested the hilltop, she pulled Incitata’s reins, halting before the
brightest spot in the growing dawn. Nothing grew here save a single Hellspiral
tree.

Sealiah
bit her lip, surprised that the light sought this place. And yet, this made
sense: another link to the Post twins, specifically Eliot.

The
Hellspiral trees within her domain were a treat for those who had especially
offended her. Planted as a tiny helix seedling, the tree quickly grew around
its victims. It fed upon suffering, twisting about limbs, caressing, warping,
pulling, and stretching, until the embraced was no longer recognizable . . . at
least not as human. What remained after the tree had grown to its full height
was a bag of flesh and torn sinew and pulverized bone.

71

Upon
this particular tree, so contorted she could barely breathe, were the remains
of the mortal once called Julie Marks.

Surrounded
by curling runners, a single blue eye upon the tree winked open. “All hail the
Mistress of Pain,” Julie said, and laughed.

It
was defiant laughter, or the laughter of one gone completely mad.

Under
normal circumstances, Sealiah would have burned the tree and its occupant for
such insolence. She needed, however, much more than a momentary satisfaction.

Sealiah
let her blood cool. In truth, there was something to be admired in the girl.
Few had ever shown a fraction of this courage.

“Greetings
to you, worm food,” Sealiah said.

“What
do you want?”

71.
Devil’s hazel (aka Hellspiral). Extinct species. Closest relative was the
ornamental corkscrew hazel (Corylus avellana “Contorta”). According to oral
history, the devil came to Ohio in the late eighteenth century to bargain for
souls. So successful was his business that he fell into an exhausted sleep
under a hazel tree. Old Scratch’s evil perverted the tree’s seeds, and they
sprouted black-barked saplings that covered seven acres in a single night—
trapping squirrel and deer and crushing them to death. John Chapman (aka Johnny
Apple-seed) oversaw the removal of this evil taint. After several failed
efforts and two fatalities, he ordered the entire wood burned, and the earth
salted and then dug up and cast into the Olen-tangy River. St. Hawthorn’s
Collected Reference of Horticulture in the New World and Beyond, 1897 (Taylor
Institution Library Rare Book Collection, Oxford University).

“To
ease your pain.”

“Words
I have heard before,” Julie whispered. “The pain always returns. What’s the
point?”

“This
is different. I offer a road to the source of your suffering, your young Master
Eliot.”

“Eliot?”
All defiance left Julie’s tone. She said nothing for a long time, then
whispered, “I can hear him. Can you? He’s calling me.”

The
light intensified about the Hellspiral tree and its leaves shuddered.

Sealiah
heard the notes of a faraway violin. Straining and yearning, they called from
an incalculable distance. It was the song Eliot had composed for the girl, so
sad—but then bursting full of life, growing louder, and now filled with . . .

The
sun rose.

. .
. hope.

Clouds
boiled away. The full strength of the sun poured upon the hilltop.

Not
beheld in this land for thousands of years, every winged creature took to the
air terrified; every crawling thing scurried for cover; tangling vines
withered. The Hellspiral tree steamed and popped. It shook its leaves free with
a long sigh and died.

The
teeth of Julie Marks’s mouth curled into a broken smile. Her twisted fingers
reached toward the sunlight . . . reached toward her beloved and his music that
sounded triumphant throughout the Valley of Fragrances.

Sealiah
blinked at the alien sun, furious at this boy who had dared violate her realm,
impressed as well that he had the power to do so.

Yes,
Eliot Post had tremendous power, but he lacked experience. He had just tipped
his hand with this display of sentimentality, a mistake even the most juvenile
Infernal would have avoided at all cost.

The
light intensified to noontime brilliance and the violin crescendoed, but then
the notes trailed off, still playing, but sounding now distant as they
Dopplered into silence.

Clouds
covered the horizon.

The
sun sank back behind the hills, and the light dimmed.

Julie
sighed upon the now dead tree, her crooked smile still there, but fading as
well.

“Was
it everything you wanted it to be?” Sealiah asked.