MORTAL COILS (86 page)

Louis
kicked his feet, hoping this would appease the feral brain of his cousin . . .
while his hands and arms, now made even more slippery by Uri’s sweat and the
increasing pressure, squirmed and wormed upward,

fingertip
by fingertip over Uri’s chest until . . . Louis touched the hard leather knife
sheath . . . then the hilt of Saliceran.

Just
a bit farther.

His
fingers wrapped around the knife’s handle.

Uri
froze and his eyes widened.

He
knew he had made a mistake, but what could Uri do? If he released him, Louis
could immediately draw the poisoned blade.

So
Uri did the completely predictable thing: he squeezed harder.

Louis’s
spine crackled along its length. The additional force, however, propelled his
lubricated hands and arms upward as if shot from a cannon.

Grasping
the blade and pulling it free of the scabbard, Louis twisted it so the edge
ripped through Uri’s silk shirt and the jagged tip grazed his cousin’s neck.

A
black line appeared where the blade had cut skin—blisters blossomed along with
red lines of poison that traced a web of blood vessels.

Uri
screamed.

He
dropped Louis in an unceremonious heap and clutched at his throat.

Saliceran’s
kiss was legendarily painful.

Louis
still somehow held the blade. He gulped in air. The black spots at the
periphery of his vision cleared.

The
blade was half the length of his forearm. In the First Great War, it had been a
mighty sword—broken upon the ultimate immovable object, alas. Now its pieces
lay scattered among the stars. This last remaining jagged shard forever wept
oily venom that smelled of honeysuckle and almonds. Runes so old even Louis
could not read them were etched upon Saliceran’s Damascus layers.

Uri
wheezed and gasped as the poison worked deeper, ballooning the tissues of his
neck.

Louis
did not make the same mistake his cousin had. Without preamble, speech, quote,
or hesitation he stabbed the beast in his eye.

Uri
cried out. His hands slashed at the air, reaching for one last thing to grasp
and crush.

Louis
stepped away.

Uri
blinked with his one remaining eye . . . and fell onto the concrete, shaking
the foundation. He convulsed once, twice, then expelled one last great sigh and
lay still.

“Sorry,
Cousin,” Louis whispered.

And
he did actually feel sorry for Uri. He had loved Sealiah. True, in his own
slavish dysfunctional way, but it was love nonetheless. And love like that
deserved to survive, if for no other reason than to make both parties eternally
suffer.

“You’re
better off this way,” Louis said. “These things never work out. Trust me. I
have some small expertise in such matters.”

Every
bone in Louis’s body seemed cracked. The pain was electric along his spine.

It
would pass. Physical injuries would be easy to repair once he performed the
ritual to drain the last bits of power clinging to Uri’s physical form.

He
reached for Uri’s neck to check for a pulse, but the tissues there were too
swollen. So, Louis gingerly removed one of Uri’s shoes and felt the artery at
the ankle. There was no motion, no warmth or life.

Saliceran’s
poison had felled king and pope, immortal and angel—which is what it was made
to do, after all.

He
moved to Uri’s chest, unstrapped the sheath and slid the poisonous blade back
inside.

Louis
turned the now covered blade over in his hands and considered. With Saliceran
he had new options. To do what, though? Besting Uri was like pitting a matador
against a mammoth. A highly unlikely contest . . . but one with a slight chance
that the man would walk away.

What
he was considering now would be like a mosquito jousting with a bullet train.

Unless
Louis was especially, extraordinarily, and expertly deceptive.

Perhaps.

With
a rag he shut Uri’s one good eye, then closed what remained of the other. He
patted him once on the forehead. Louis considered saying something to
commemorate the passing of his cousin. What could one say? He was faithful? A
good soldier to the end? A slathering puppy ever following his mistress’s heel?

He
decided a moment of silence would serve.

Feeling
he had observed all the proper ritual and form and bestowed every drop of
respect his cousin deserved, Louis unbuttoned Uri’s jacket, tugging and
wrestling each sleeve off his massive arms.

The
jacket—like some stage magician’s never-ending handkerchief—revealed itself to
have enough cloth to make a circus tent. There were hundreds,

if
not thousands, of interior pockets. The Scalagari family tailors had outdone
themselves.

He
ran his hands along the silk lining. His long fingers twitched, and he delved
into one pocket after another, pulling out mystical seals, a Magic 8 Ball,
bells, a sextant, and a rolled-up star chart.

“No,
no, no,” Louis whispered.

He
felt again and removed a thick manila file folder.

Opening
it, he found reports on the Post twins: Eliot’s newly formed musical ability,
and even more intriguing, Fiona’s talent for cutting.

Louis
suppressed a shudder. The girl took after her mother.

There
were notes on their daily activities: their work at Ringo’s, their walk home,
how they spent far too much time cooped up in their dreary apartment.

Until
recently.

Surveillance
photos showed Eliot walking and talking with a lovely blond thing. From Eliot’s
awkward posture and his demure eye contact, Louis surmised that she was the one
who had stolen his heart.

In
more photos the two of them were in the park, eating and drinking . . . embracing.
The boy obviously took after his father—attracting the wrong women.

Louis
expelled a heavy sigh. He must find time in the near future to school his son
about the intricacies of the deadlier sex.

Next
were pictures of Fiona dismounting a motorcycle, accompanied by the same young
man who had fetched Eliot last night. More pictures showed these two walking in
the woods, with one snapshot of them kissing on the sidewalk.

He
found a separate file on this boy: Robert Farmington. There were all the relevant
facts and figures. He was a Driver for the League. Interesting. Kissing Louis’s
daughter? He was a rebel and rule breaker. Louis approved.

He
ran his fingertips over Robert’s ruggedly handsome face. “You will do nicely.”

Louis
cleared his throat. “Robert Farmington,” he whispered.

And
then louder: “Robert Farmington.”

He
stretched his voice into something a half octave higher. “Robert Farmington.”
There—just as he remembered him last evening.

Down
to business, then. Louis had his orders, fates to seal, and an Infernal pact to
fulfill.

He
would deal with his daughter first, and as requested, exile her to the Valley
of the New Year.

He
felt a tad guilty. Not about potentially trapping her in a shadow realm
forever, but rather because he didn’t feel the way for her as he did Eliot.
Perhaps she reminded him of her mother too much. No matter. Once she was in the
Valley of the New Year, there would be all the time in the world to catch up.

Louis
found Uri’s cell phone, looked up the phone number for the Posts’ residence,
and dialed.

After
Fiona, Eliot would get his turn. No matter what Louis’s personal plans
entailed, he, at all costs, had to betray his son and deliver him to Beal.

The
phone rang and connected.

“Hello?”
Louis said. “This is Robert Farmington calling for Fiona, please.”

67

TROUBLE
CALLS

Fiona’s
room was a mess. Her possessions lay scattered everywhere, and a mountain of
dirty clothes had been kicked into the corner. If anyone still enforced RULE
16, everything Fiona owned would get tossed out.

It
was funny. Why was she worried about her material possessions after three
life-or-death trials?

Still,
it was the principle of the thing.

She
picked up her collection of Roman histories and set them back on the shelf.
Books deserved better treatment. Next time she felt angry, she’d take it out on
something that deserved it.

But
that was the odd thing this morning; she didn’t feel anything.

Ever
since she had cut herself in that fun-house maze, it had been getting harder to
feel sad or scared or even happy. Anger was the only emotion that came easily.
But that was no good. She couldn’t run around feeling angry for the rest of her
life.

If
she closed her eyes and concentrated, she could feel a glimmer of happiness and
hope. She and Eliot were done with the League’s trials. They had to accept them
as family now . . . or maybe not. She could almost hear them deliberating over
them now.

At
least the tests were over. No more out-of-the-blue adventures in the middle of
the night.

As
she thought about the League and her new extended family, she lost focus on any
happy feelings.

She
righted her antique globe and turned it so the Pacific Ocean and Micronesia
faced her.

Was
this the detachment that Grandmother always seemed to possess? Cee had told her
that Grandmother had cut herself, too. Fiona doubted very much, though, that
she had severed her appetite as well. How many never-empty boxes of cursed
chocolates could be out there?

Fiona
remembered what had made her feel good. She rummaged through her dirty
clothes—ripped apart her sweatpants and pulled out a single cotton thread.

Cutting.

That
would make her feel again. With increasing regularity, cutting things gave her
pleasure.

She
pulled the thread taut and focused. The fiber twisted end to end, sharpening
until it seemed to vanish—a line of force that rippled through the air.

She
cast about her room, searching for something to destroy.

Books
. . . typewriter . . . furniture . . . she cherished it all. She sighed. That’s
all she needed was to make more of a mess.

Fiona
relaxed, and the string went limp.

Maybe
it was better to feel nothing than to feel joy over destroying something
precious.

She
toyed with the string, draping it over both hands. It reminded her of how
Dallas had showed her the trick of looking at her life . . . and how she had
seen the end of that life.

She
stared at the thread, made it go out of focus and back into view, in that
out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye way.

The
thread blurred into many fibers, a pattern that stretched back into her
past—and farther ahead from where she held it—to the future.

The
weave in the past was the same, save for the fringe leading up to the present.
That line frayed so much that it looked as if it were about to snap. She stared
closer at this part. Microscopic tendrils wrapped about it, twined together,
and made a bridge from yesterday to today.