MORTAL COILS (105 page)

The
last of Julie’s smile vanished. “Don’t talk to me about him. I’ve made my
choice: Eliot over you. He hasn’t forgotten me. There’s still hope.”

Hope
in hell. What an amazing and terrifying concept. Even Sealiah would not torture
her minions by giving them hope. It was far too cruel.

“Indeed
he has not forgotten.”

Julie
chuckled. “And that must drive you crazy. Him coming for me like that.”

Sealiah
could almost pity the girl had she not had a need for her. Blind faith was ever
balanced on a razor’s edge and so easily toppled by a few choice words.

“I
heard his music, yes,” Sealiah replied. “And I saw the sunshine. Briefly. But
was there more? Is he coming? Was he even playing for you?”

“It
was for me! One day he will come.”

Doubt,
though, tinged the girl’s voice—proof that Julie Marks was not entirely a fool.

“Of
course he will,” Sealiah said. “As all men do: riding to the rescue of the women
they love. Has not every man done thusly for you? Even after you left them?”

Julie
was silent.

“I
am sure he appreciates your nobility. I am sure he will serenade you every day.
After all, what could distract the young man? Surely no other woman has found
him.”

Julie’s
lips quivered. “You lie.”

“I
only lie to you with the truth, child.”

Julie
Marks knew the nature of men. She understood that even gallant Eliot Post would
not remain so forever. He would play now and then . . . but his passion would dim
to memory . . . and he would eventually move on . . . as they all did.

And
then Julie would be alone again, her hope-filled heart as broken as her
physical form.

Tears
corkscrewed down the black trunk of the Hellspiral tree.

Sealiah
touched them with their fingertips and tasted the sorrow. “There may yet be a
way for you.”

Julie’s
eye blinked away the tears and narrowed suspiciously.

“As
the attention span of a man is only as long as his arms, you must be with him.”

Julie
closed her eyes. “Go away,” she whispered. “I . . . I can’t take any more of
this.”

“You
misunderstand. I came to offer you a new deal.”

“Like
you did before?” Julie asked indignantly.

“Before
my terms were too generous. A mistake I never make twice. This time there will
be no bargaining, no rolling for terms. You must become my creature, not only
your soul, but your heart, your mind—all that you are.”

Julie
blinked quickly, thinking.

Sealiah
admired this: still thinking even after she’d been wracked with pain upon the
tree. Still thinking even though her heart had just been broken. It was
promising.

“And
I will leave hell? Go back to him?”

“This
will forever be your home, and I will send you where I need you. But as your
primary duties will involve Eliot Post, you will surely see him.”

Julie
struggled against the trunk of the tree, some instinct in her human body trying
to escape the inevitable. The hope still poisoning her.

Eventually,
though, she stilled.

And
then, after a long time, Julie finally whispered, “I’ll do it. Everything I
have—just take it.”

“Even
your hope?” Sealiah whispered.

“It
hurts so much.” A ragged sigh shuddered out of the girl. “Yes.”

“You
must be my slave. My plaything, if that is what I desire. Or if need be, my
instrument of destruction.”

“Yes.”

“The
Pact of Indomitable Servitude is irrevocable. Once taken, you will be mine
forever. But you will see Eliot again, that I promise.”

“Yes,”
Julie whispered so softly that Sealiah barely heard.

“So
be it then.”

Sealiah
touched the Hellspiral tree. The dead wood splintered and crumbled. A pile of
skin and broken bones that was Julie Marks fell at her boots.

Incitata
snorted and backed several paces away, her equine sense of smell offended.

Sealiah
dismounted and knelt so her shadow fell over the child, blocking her even from
the half-light, letting the darkness within deepen to utter black.

Sealiah
removed her riding gloves and touched her. Julie recoiled and quavered, but it
was too late for her now.

Sealiah
whispered ancient words . . . words that she had not uttered since she had done
this for her Urakabarameel so long ago . . . words she’d thought she would
never have occasion to speak again.

Sealiah
slit her own flesh with a fingernail, and a single drop of her precious

blood
pooled and clung to her—so filled with power and life that it refused to part.

She
touched this to Julie’s corrupted flesh and continued to chant the ritual
words.

The
green-black drop became a slick that spread over the girl’s form, burning away
the weakness, consuming all that was imperfect.

Julie
Marks screamed.

It
would be the last time she would ever do so.

Flesh
and bone reformed. Shadows cloaked the shuddering figure.

Sealiah
unbuttoned her shirt and removed the emerald nestled within her navel. Carved
upon the gem were the runes of her clan. She cleaved a single plane from the
stone the way one might deal a card off the top of a deck.

She
reached down and pulled up the newly made hand, pressing the sliver of emerald
deep into the palm.

Julie
fought, clawed at Sealiah, but to no effect.

The
emerald took root. It would be a mark upon her to show that she’d been adopted
by the clan Sealiah. It was also a gift of power—deadly and fearsome. It would
make her one of them.

“Arise,”
Sealiah commanded.

The
lump of shadow at her feet obeyed and stood.

She
wore a hooded cloak of the blackest velvet, twining vines and midnight orchids
embroidered upon its edges. The creature within had skin flawless and snowy
white, so untainted by the rays of the sun that blue-green veins could be seen
pulsing underneath. She was muscular without its detracting from her ample femininity.
Her nails were blood-red and pointed. Her hair shone platinum and curled in
honor of the Hellspiral that had once held her captive. Her eyes were the color
of jade and full of an intensity that could captivate the heart of any young
man. She was beautiful beyond words.

A
tinge of jealousy flickered within Sealiah before she remembered that this was
entirely her creation.

“You
are Julie Marks no longer,” declared Sealiah. “You are reborn, an Infernal
agent, and henceforth all shall know you as Jezebel.”

72

72.
Like the title Satan, Jezebel (along with other names, e.g., Cain) serves as an
honorific within the Infernal order, and only one being possesses one at any
given time. The hierarchical arrangement of such titles, however, remains
largely a mystery. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 13:
Infernal Forces, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).

Jezebel
groveled before Sealiah. “Command your most humble slave, mistress.”

Sealiah
set one hand upon Jezebel’s head—to caress or dash upon the stones as she saw
fit.

“Stand,”
Sealiah whispered. “We have a party to attend.”

80

TRADE-OFFS

Louis
stood on the fore observation deck of his eight-hundred-foot ultra-luxury ocean
liner, Vainglorious. The sun had just set upon the Indian Ocean, and porpoises
played in the bow wave of the vessel.

73

He
had started his welcome-back party a day earlier in Shanghai, and it showed no
signs of dissipating; in fact, it had picked up steam and grown into a
delicious floating festival of debauchery.

Louis
had, however, just received word that the Board of Directors was going to
appropriate his ship to convene an emergency meeting.

He
nursed his Bloody Mary. He had been drunk, and then this “honor” by the Board
had been heaped upon him. It had reminded him that within the family,
diminished mental capacities usually preceded the end of one’s existence.

So .
. . sober from now on he must be.

He
turned to the grand ballroom and watched his cousins and their respective
entourages dance and drink his priceless champagne and cognac. New china had
been flown in by helicopter as every plate had been smashed hours ago in a bout
of Greek dancing.

73.
The Vainglorious (if this is the vessel’s true name) fails to appear on any
nation’s maritime registries. It confounds engineers as it appears to be
assembled from state-of-the-art equipment (radar arrays and satellite dishes),
but also bits that precisely match photographs of the USS Cyclops (lost without
a trace in the Bermuda Triangle in 1918), the Graf Zeppelin (the only
Nazi-produced World War II aircraft carrier), the Andrea Doria (sunk in 1956),
as well as portions believed to be from oil-drilling rigs. The Vainglorious has
often been described as “the most expensive and the ugliest thing afloat on the
seven seas.” Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 6: Modern
Myths, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).

Once
upon a time, he would have joined them, but now it all seemed pointless. They
were only interested in gloating over Beal’s fall from power. And no one had so
much as whispered congratulations upon his return.

Well,
mistakes would be made by his happy and drunk cousins, and he would gladly take
advantage.

Louis
spotted Mulciber at the buffet table, poking the finger sandwiches, but not
actually eating any.

He
waved at the curmudgeon.

Mulciber
surprised him and smiled back. In the old days, he would’ve attempted to plant
a dagger in Louis’s back before such an acknowledgment.

Beal’s
death apparently had everyone in a good mood. After all, what was more
stimulating than fighting over the scraps of the former chairman of the Board’s
power?

Only,
there was nothing to fight over.

Beal’s
power now thrummed through Louis’s veins—the result of a masterful plan where
Louis had used his children as bait. What would his cousins do if they knew?
Tear him to pieces in a fit of jealousy? Or applaud his daring?

Louis
curled his fist. Yes, Beal’s power was there, although not all of it. Some had
dissipated into the aether, the normal tiny losses from any transfer of power.

But
Eliot and Fiona had been caught in the transfer pattern as well. They had to
have tasted a portion of Beal’s soul as well. That could complicate things in
the future.

Oz
staggered on deck and collapsed on the railing next to him, reeking of wine.

“Deep
in thought, O glorious Morning Star?”

A
lace bandage covered Oz’s face. He wore a costume of a seventeenth-century
French courtier with frilled collar, gold brocade vest, juxtaposed with silver
spandex pants and the platform boots of a rock star.