MORTAL COILS (38 page)

Cecilia
worried her hands. Her spider—now dragonfly—was once again ceramic and perched
atop the teapot.

“Better
to have kept running,” Cecilia whispered.

“Cease
your prattling lectures on how you think I should run my family.”

Cecilia’s
lips trembled. She said nothing, but hatred smoldered in her eyes.

Audrey
felt like kicking something helpless, so she added, “You had three sons once.
Did not one of them kill their father?”

Cecilia
looked as if she’d been struck. “May all our children be so cursed.”

This
touched one of Audrey’s last exposed nerves. It was a sensation so sudden that
Audrey, even with faster-than-lightning reflexes and a clockwork intellect, was
blindsided. She had protected herself from any attachment surrounding the
children, but their father . . . he was entirely another matter.

Audrey
stood and her chair fell over.

Her
shadows multiplied, crossed, and crisscrossed. Darkness spread across the
hardwood floors, up the plaster walls, and enveloped the midday light in the
window.

Power
collected about her, a hurricane of spinning razor shards that cut the air.

“You
wish me to act?” Audrey said in a whisper that resonated through every atom in
the room and shook the windows.

Cecilia
backed into a corner and huddled, arms over her head, whimpering in the storm.

“You
wish death?” Audrey said. “If Eliot and Fiona fail, if the Council or their
father’s family take them, then I will destroy everyone. Everything.”

If
Audrey unleashed her vengeance, no creature or Council law would stop her. To
do so, however, she would have to utterly give herself over to it; she would
have to sever all ties to pity, remorse, and friendship. All human ties.

And
Cecilia was her last link to that humanity.

“If
the time to kill comes,” Audrey said, “you, old woman, will be the first to
go.”

28

A
HUNDRED HATE-FILLED EYES

Fiona
and Eliot made it to the Del Sombra city limits where Robert had asked to meet.
Despite the chocolates she had eaten at Ringo’s, Fiona was dead tired after the
fifteen-minute speed walk.

This
far off the main tourist avenue there wasn’t much: an abandoned housing
development; the Oro Recycling Plant, with its mountains of cardboard and
plastic bottles; and little Franklin Park.

They
waited on a park bench in the shade of a eucalyptus tree. Cicadas buzzed. Next
to the bench was a terra-cotta fountain that hadn’t run in years because of
water conservation efforts. The wind shifted and brought with it the scents of
melted plastics and wet pulp.

It
would have been peaceful here if it weren’t for the trembling tension running
through Fiona’s core.

She
wanted to get away—as far and as fast as she could. But even Grandmother had
given in to the Council’s demands that they complete these tests . . . tests
where their lives might be at stake.

“You’re
sure he said here?”

“Yeah,”
Eliot replied, wiping sweat from his forehead. He fished out a bottle of water
he had filled at Ringo’s and offered it to Fiona.

She
accepted it and drank deeply. All that chocolate had gone down butter-smooth,
but the sugar had made her throat raw.

“Any
idea what kind of heroic trial could be here?” he asked.

“Urban
myths, Robert said.” Fiona glanced at the recycling center. Maybe move one of
those cardboard piles? Turn it all into what? She searched for some trace of a
childhood fairy tale—something every kid picked up just by breathing. Had there
been a story about turning straw into silver? Or was it paper into gold? There
was nothing. Grandmother had done a superlative job of keeping that stuff out
of their lives.

She
shook her head and sighed. Everything that had happened since their birthday
two days ago had taken on a skewed reality. Or maybe their lives up to that
point had been the unreal part. With Grandmother keeping them in the dark, how
could they be sure what was going on, or who they really were?

Eliot
got a take-out bag from his pack and dug out a hunk of garlic bread. Julie had
wrapped it up for him before they left. “You want some?”

“Not
hungry.”

Eliot
munched on the butter-slathered bread.

Fiona’s
stomach twisted. What she needed was a few more chocolates.

She
wished she had more time at Ringo’s. She’d only had three: an almond cluster
with tiny marshmallow bits; and two truffles, a lime ice that actually chilled
her tongue, and the other a rich crème de cacao. She remembered each delectable
bite.

But
then Eliot and Julie had found her and said there was a “family emergency.”
Eliot said they had to leave. Julie had ordered Linda to reschedule her dentist
appointment and Johnny to load the dishwasher after lunch. Mike would never
have done that for them. Was Julie being so nice because she actually liked
Eliot?

Something
was so wrong with that picture.

In
the distance a deep-throated motorcycle rumbled, and all thoughts of her
brother and Julie and chocolates vanished.

Fiona
and Eliot stood, shielding their eyes from the sunlight.

Robert
raced toward them. At the edge of the park he skidded to a halt and dismounted
his motorcycle. He didn’t bother to take off his leather jacket or skullcap
helmet.

“This
way.” He started walking. “There’s not a lot of time.”

His
features were set in cast-iron determination. The way he just turned his back
to Fiona made her wonder if she had done something to make him angry.

They
followed him out of the park and into the deserted housing development—through
tumbled-down cinder-block walls, bare concrete foundations, and cracked
asphalt.

Robert
halted in a patch of sand. The only thing nearby was a tumble-weed. He flipped
open a phone and said, “We’re there. . . . Yes, sir, right away.”

He
pocketed his phone and then kicked at the sand. Buried underneath was a manhole
cover.

“This
was going to be a huge housing tract,” Robert told them. “Some con artist made
off with the money, though, but not before roads were built, a few foundations
poured, and they put in sewage lines.”

“Our
‘heroic’ trial is in a septic tank?” Eliot asked unbelievingly.

“Sewer,”
Robert said. “Big difference.”

“So,
besides the obvious, what’s in the sewer?” Fiona asked.

“An
alligator.”

Fiona
and Eliot exchanged a blank look.

“Don’t
you guys know this urban legend?” Robert asked. “Kid bought a lizard in a pet
store, but it never stops growing. His dad flushes the thing down the toilet,
and a few years later, bang—alligator in the sewers of Del Sombra.”29

“You’re
kidding,” Eliot said.

Robert
shook his head.

“Our
trial is an alligator?” Fiona said. “What do we have to do? Take a picture of
it and prove it exists?”

“The
Council already knows it’s down there. They want you to . . .” Robert looked at
the sand, unable to meet her gaze. “Their exact wording was ‘vanquish the
beast.’ And you’ve got to get back to the surface with proof in two hours.”

Fiona
couldn’t believe this. Vanquish was just a fancy word for kill. How were she
and Eliot going to kill a real alligator? Shotgun or not, they weren’t
hunters—she’d never killed anything on purpose before. Even the spiders she
found trapped in the bathtub she gently removed and set on the windowsill
before turning on the water.

29.
The first record of large reptiles in sewers comes from the Byzantine Empire.
Guards routinely scoured the sewers of Constantinople hunting crocodiles
(although this legend may have been started to dissuade would-be invaders from
attempting to gain access in this fashion). The first modern reckoning is from
1935 in New York City, when an alligator escaped from a ship hailing from the
Florida Everglades. The unfortunate reptile was discovered by two boys
disposing of snow down a storm drain and beaten to death with their snow
shovels. In reality alligators are prone to disease and therefore it is highly
unlikely that any would survive long in such conditions. Gods of the First and
Twenty-first Century, Volume 6: Modern Myths, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).

Robert
unstrapped his watch and handed it to her.

She
took it and slipped it on next to the rubber band on her wrist. The watch was a
stainless steel Rolex with three chronometers. It was heavy and too big, but
she wouldn’t have taken it off for the world.

Eliot
whispered, “What if we can’t do this?”

“Man,
I don’t know,” Robert said, but his conciliatory tone made it clear that he
knew exactly what would happen.

Prove
their possible worth to remain alive, Aunt Lucia had said. And after everything
Grandmother had told them about the family—how they killed off all those other
children—Fiona knew they had to succeed or meet a similar fate.

Eliot
swallowed and said nothing.

Fiona
wondered why anyone thought they could kill an alligator in water, an animal
bred for millions of years to prey on clumsy land dwellers like themselves.
Unless they thought there was something special about her and Eliot.

“When
you told me that our mother was a ‘goddess,’ ” she said to Robert, “that wasn’t
slang for something else. You meant she was really a . . .” She couldn’t say
it; it was so impossible.

Robert
took off his helmet and scratched his head, looking confused. “Didn’t anyone
tell you about her?”

“No
one tells us anything,” Eliot said.

“Well,
maybe that was the right thing,” Robert replied. “Your family has money,
political connections, and is smarter than anyone I’ve ever run across. They’re
like that because they’re all old—hundreds of years, maybe older. But they’re
not like the gods in the movies or comics with lightning bolts or stuff like
that. More like . . .” His lips moved but he failed to find the right words.

“Italian
princes?” Eliot suggested. “The Cosa Nostra?”

Robert
nodded. “Yeah. Part mobsters, part worldwide conglomerate, but one hundred
percent dangerous.”

Fiona
didn’t want to accept any of this . . . but there was Mike and his hand getting
burned after he’d touched her, and Eliot’s talent with that violin. Were those
parts of them inherited from some preternatural family?

“They
wouldn’t have set this up,” Robert said, brightening, “unless they thought you
had some chance.”

Fiona
wasn’t sure if that meant fifty-fifty or snowball-in-a-furnace odds.

Robert
glanced at the sun. “I’ve said everything I can . . . and a little

more
than I should have.” He then whispered, “Did you get everything I told you to?”

Fiona
pulled the sawed-off shotgun from her book bag.

Robert
whistled, impressed. “Westley-Richards. That’ll do. Aim for the gator’s head.
Even better, wait until it opens its mouth and then shoot.” He didn’t look very
confident as he said this, though.