All That Lives Must Die (56 page)

               68               

NOT A TIME TO BE COY

Fiona tried to scrunch down low so no one would see her as Aunt Dallas turned her 1968 VW van into Presidio Park.

Talk about embarrassing. Even in San Francisco, the van got looks. It was painted in tie-dye swirls, and over that were plastered decals of cherry and peach blossoms. It looked like the van had tumbled through an orchard and then thrown up rainbows. It also left a litter of real flowers in its wake.

Dallas kept well below the posted speed limit as they wound along the streets, creeping past a funeral in progress.

Fiona didn’t see any of the roads Uncle Kino had used . . . and wondered if she’d ever have found her way back to the entrance of the Lands of the Dead by herself.

She glanced to the front passenger’s seat, where Dallas had insisted Eliot sit (much to Jeremy’s disappointment). Eliot scrutinized every tree and tombstone, leaning forward and searching.

Fiona hoped Eliot survived this attempt at heroics,
and
that he survived Jezebel. All by herself, that girl was more treacherous to her brother’s well-being than any gym class or duel.

Fiona shifted in her seat.

By some unfortunate quirk, she sat next to Jeremy and Sarah on the middle bench of the van. Jeremy slid into her at every turn, no matter how slight.

Behind them, Robert stretched out, and Amanda had wedged herself in a corner of the backseat.

When Aunt Dallas had picked them up, both Covingtons had greeted her with great formality—even though Dallas looked like a college drop-out in her cut-off shorts, flip-flops, and a top that was little more than a handkerchief and spaghetti straps. Of course, thanks to Miss Westin’s Mythology 101 class, they knew she was the goddess Clothos, sometimes called Mother Nature, and a dozen other equally impressive names throughout history.

Aunt Dallas had smiled at Sarah . . . not so much at Jeremy (who couldn’t take his eyes off her tanned skin).

When she saw Amanda, however, Dallas made much over her, running her fingers through her tangled hair as if she were a beloved pet, and somehow smoothing out the mess and restoring its fiery luster. Amanda had hugged her, briefly but fiercely.

Robert bowed and muttered a greeting. Dallas had ordered him to sit in the very back. This chilly exchange had to be due to the fallout from when Robert quit working for Uncle Henry. Apparently, employees of the League were only rarely terminated (in the nonlethal sense of the word).

And Dallas’s greeting of Fiona . . . well, there were no embraces or smiles. Dallas hadn’t been able to get past her disappointment that Fiona wore her old, ill-fitting Paxington uniform.

Fiona tried to explain that Madame Cobweb’s custom creation was dirty (as in blasted to tatters by an exploding tank) but Dallas hadn’t listened.

Once the greetings were over, though, Dallas turned to Eliot and said, “Tell me what this is all about. And don’t skip any details—especially about this girl.”

No one had mentioned anything about a girl. Somehow Dallas just knew.

Eliot took a deep breath and told his story: who exactly Jezebel was—even how she’d been Julie Marks, died, went to Hell, and then got recruited by the Infernals to tempt him.

All light and happiness drained from Dallas’s features as she listened.

Eliot explained that back in Del Sombra, Julie could have brought him over—but she didn’t. Then she got punished and changed by the Infernals into one of them . . . although this last bit, Eliot admitted, was a guess on his part.

He went on telling Dallas that Team Scarab needed Jezebel to win the next match and their finals.

Dallas then turned her attention back to the road as it turned deeper into forested graveyards. The asphalt became covered in eucalyptus leaves, shadows crisscrossed their way, and the breeze stilled. It looked like no one had traveled down here in months.

The van whooshed through the leaves and the way became a dirt path that wound through trees and crowded headstones that leaned at odd angles.

The road branched, one way back to Presidio Park, and one way blocked by two posts with a chicken wire gate hung between them. A rooster perched upon a faded sun had been carved on one of the posts.

“Wait inside,” Dallas ordered them.

She got out and examined the posts, and then got on her knees and looked up at the gate.

Jeremy leaned forward to get a better look (and
not
at the gate).

Fiona elbowed him.

Jeremy slammed back into the seat. “No harm done, dearest Fiona,” he said, gasping. “Just observing the local scenery.”

Behind them, Amanda gagged with disgust.

Dallas stood, hands on her hip, and touched the gate. With a squeak, the chicken wire door swung open.

A breeze swirled eucalyptus leaves into the air—blinding them to the outside world.

Dallas opened the driver’s door and climbed in.

The leaves ceased their motion and dropped immediately to the ground.

Fiona got that “elevator sinking” feeling she was beginning to associate with shifts in space, although it looked as if nothing had changed.

Dallas swung her knees around to face Eliot. “Before we go any further,” she said, “there are things I must tell you, and one thing I’ve got to get straight from you, nephew of mine.”

Eliot swallowed. “Sure.”

Fog covered the sky and the sun dimmed.

“Heroes are always tromping off to Hell,” Dallas whispered, “but only the ones with a good reason
return
to tell the tale.”

Eliot squirmed in his seat.

He was hiding something. Eliot was lousy at keeping secrets. They both were. Why bother to develop such a talent when Audrey had seen through every fib they’d ever told in their adolescent lives?

“For every Orpheus or Ulysses or Dante who came back,” Dallas continued, “there were hundreds looking for knowledge, or eternal youth, or just very uncool treasure seekers”—she cast a sidelong glance at Jeremy—“and those guys never get out.”

It was Jeremy’s turn to squirm now.

Fiona pressed her lips into a straight line. This was ridiculous. She and Eliot had faced monster crocodiles and Infernal lords. Sure, a trip to Hell wasn’t going to be easy—but they could handle it.

“We’re not little kids,” Fiona said.

Dallas held up a finger to silence Fiona.

Fiona (quite involuntarily) shut her mouth.

“So, clue me in, Eliot,” Dallas said. “Tell me there’s more to this than passing a gym class.”

“Well,” Eliot replied, his voice dry, “if we don’t pass gym, we don’t graduate our freshman year at Paxington.” His gaze dropped to his lap.

Dallas lifted his chin so he couldn’t look away. “There’s a time when it’s cool to be coy,” she whispered. “This ain’t one of them.”

“Okay,” Eliot said. “. . . I care for her.”

“Care?” Dallas asked. “I
care
about puppies and daffodils, but I wouldn’t risk my life for them. I wouldn’t risk the souls of my friends and family, either.”

Dallas scooted closer to Eliot. “Give me the truth and nothin’ but, or I turn around.”

Eliot flushed.

Fiona felt the heat from Eliot where she sat, but he wasn’t embarrassed; his eyes gazed straight into Dallas’s.

“I love her.”

Dallas was quiet and stared back, nodding.

“When I think of Jezebel,” Eliot whispered, “I burn. I can’t think of anyone or anything else. I’d risk everything I had, or ever will have, for her.”

Fiona’s mouth opened to protest. Or maybe it’d just dropped open from the shock of hearing
those
words come out of
her
brother . . . the only occasionally heroic, and
always
nerd—now so determined, and against all odds . . . so romantic.

It was a side of him she’d never seen. A side, quite frankly, so devoid of reason, she could have done without.

And yet, it might be a sign that her immature brother was finally growing up. He was making the
wrong
choices, sure . . . but at least making
his own
wrong choices for once.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. Wisely, though, he said nothing.

Sarah and Amanda sat on the edge of their seats. They hung on Eliot’s words.

Robert looked outside, pretending not to hear. (This had to be a macho guy thing; they’d die before they’d ever admit to having a romantic bone in their body.)

Dallas sighed and fanned her face and chest. “I believe you, and I’ll do everything I can to help.”

She put the van in neutral and rolled through the gate.

Then Dallas floored it.

The van raced down a stone-paved path and through a city of mausoleums. Rows of gravestones stretched to the horizon.

They went over a hill, and there were lawns and fields and a clear river running alongside them. Many mausoleums here had their walls torn down, and the stones used for barbecues and playgrounds and handball courts. People tossed Frisbees and ran and laughed and ate and drank and looked like they were having the time of their lives.

Fiona shuddered. But that wasn’t right: no one here was having the “time of their lives” . . . because they were all dead.

The honored dead, Uncle Kino had called them, resting here before they went somewhere else.
“The dead are restless
,” he’d said.
“No one living, not even I, understands what moves them.”

The van’s rear wheels slipped on a patch of grass. Dallas leaned over the steering wheel, concentrating.

Fiona checked her seat belt. “What’s the rush? We want to get there in one piece, right?”

“Exactly why we need speed,” Dallas said.

They slid around a curve. The van bounced, rocked, almost tipping.

“Kino has alarms that go off when anything alive enters his domain,” Dallas said. “His guards will investigate, and then they’ll fink us out.”

She swerved around a tree growing in the middle of the road. The side mirror hit and shattered.

“Why should Kino care who comes here?” Eliot asked, hanging on with both hands to a ceiling strap.

“He protects Elysium Fields,” Dallas replied. “Infernals, Outsiders, and Older Things always try and muck up the natural order. They collect souls.”

Eliot looked at Fiona and shrugged.

Jeremy, though, nodded. He apparently had more experience with the dead, having spent centuries in the Valley of the New Year in Purgatory.

“I can get you to the edge of the Borderlands,” Dallas said. “If
I
cross that, then Kino himself will notice and personally come.
That
would put an end to everyone’s trip.”

Fiona remembered how mean her Uncle Kino was. Worse even than Mr. Ma.

“So how are we supposed to find the gate?” Fiona asked. “You said you’d take us there.”

“I said ‘I’d get you there.’ There’s a big difference.”

The road’s paving stones became a broken jumble. The trees looked dry and sickly and the grass was dead. Wind buffeted the unaerodynamic van. Iron gray clouds covered the sky.

“We’re almost there.” Dallas looked right and left, squinting.

“What are we looking for?” Eliot asked.

“Your guide. Someone dead always shows up for a true hero. They never get top billing in the stories, but Dante had Virgil, and Ulysses had Old One-Eye Farius who figured
everything
out for him.”

“But we don’t know anyone like that who’d help us,” Fiona told her. “I mean, no one that’s dead.”

Dallas perked up in her seat. “Then who’s that?”

She pointed to a clump of twisted trees and the person-shaped shadow standing there. It stepped out and waved at Dallas’s van.

               69               

BETRAYAL AT THE GATES OF PERDITION

Fiona squinted. She couldn’t see who this “spirit guide” was supposed to be.

Aunt Dallas eased the van to a halt and flicked on the headlights.

The person waiting outside was a man.

Robert jumped up, banging his head on the roof, but that didn’t slow him as he opened the side door, jumped out, and ran to the man.

It was Marcus Welmann—the middle-aged man who’d come to their old Del Sombra apartment on their fifteenth birthdays—the man who had taught Robert to be a League Driver—and the person who’d been killed by their mother. He’d also been nice enough to help them escape the Borderlands the first time they came here.

Mr. Welmann opened his arms and embraced Robert.

The two stayed like that as Fiona and the others climbed out of the van, and then Mr. Welmann released Robert and looked into his eyes.

Tears streaked Robert’s cheeks, something Fiona thought she’d
never
see. She wanted to look away; it was such an intensely personal moment, but Robert then turned to face them, smiling (and quickly wiping away any traces of those tears).

Mr. Welmann wore the same AC/DC T-shirt, camouflage pants, and sneakers they’d last seen him in. Did the dead ever change clothes?

“Marcus says he can get us to the Gates of Perdition,” Robert told them. “Open the thing, even, if we want.”

“Mr. Welmann,” Fiona said with a nod of greeting. “How’d you know we were coming?”

“Hi, kids.” Mr. Welmann bowed toward Dallas, and he added, “M’Lady.” He cleared his throat and straightened his shirt. “Remember how I said last time the dead are restless and get an itch to move on? Well, I got that feeling right after we parted ways.”

Robert shot Fiona an accusatory glance that could have melted cast iron.

She’d never told Robert about Uncle Kino’s kidnapping them and bringing them here, or about Mr. Welmann. But what was she supposed to say?
Oh, Robert—by the way, Eliot and I were in the Land of the Dead yesterday and we bumped into your old teacher, the one our mother killed
. That would’ve gone over well.

But Mr. Welmann had also asked her to pass along a warning to Robert: that whatever he was doing at Paxington, he was in over his head. That he should just ride away.

Between the relief at surviving that trip to the Borderlands, homework, and the dramas of gym class, though, it’d slipped her mind (Eliot’s too apparently).

That, and she and Robert hadn’t exactly been speaking to each other all year.

How had they ended up so far apart? What had started as her trying to protect him from the League by putting a little distance between them . . . had become a huge rift. She wasn’t sure if they were
even friends
at this point.

“I felt pulled here.” Mr. Welmann looked toward the darkening skies farther into the Borderlands. “It’s not exactly the direction I had thought I’d be going.” He shrugged. “But I figured it couldn’t hurt too much to take a look-see.”

He clapped Robert on the shoulder. “When you guys showed up, I knew it was right. Like fate or something?” His gaze drifted to Dallas, and he raised an eyebrow.

Dallas shook her head. “I wouldn’t say that exactly. Hang on a sec.” She rummaged under the driver’s seat and got a purple day pack with a stenciled peace sign. She tossed it to Mr. Welmann. “A few things I’d packed for emergencies: granola bars, water, first aid kit—stuff like that.”

Mr. Welmann hefted the tiny pack (which seemed heavy). “Thanks.”

It was odd that Mr. Welmann got a “feeling” and came here just when they needed him. Coincidence? Aunt Dallas trusted him . . . but Fiona didn’t know.

Dallas looked back to Elysium Fields and cocked her head. “If you’re going to do this, you better move. I hear him coming.”

“Kino,” Mr. Welmann muttered. “Not someone to tangle with.”

Fiona strained to hear, but heard only the wind.

“Go—” Dallas made little shooing motions. “I’ll drive around and leave false tracks for that old sourpuss.”

“Oh, Eliot, wait.” Dallas leaned close to him and whispered. Eliot nodded, and then she kissed him on the forehead.

“This way,” Mr. Welmann said, hefting the pack over his shoulder. “I know a shortcut.” He bowed once more to Dallas (she curtsied back this time) and then he marched toward a forest of dead trees.

Robert followed, and so did Eliot.

Fiona looked back to Dallas for some encouragement or parting words of wisdom, but her aunt’s attention was firmly fixed on the Borderlands. Without another word, Dallas climbed in the van and drove off.

The scant sunlight (and a fair amount of Fiona’s courage) faded with her aunt’s departure.

“Let’s go,” Fiona muttered to Jeremy and Sarah and Amanda—all three of them suddenly looking less thrilled by Eliot’s quest.

Nonetheless, they followed Mr. Welmann into the forest.

“What’d she tell you?” Fiona asked Eliot.

He looked away. “It was personal.”

Probably some advice on how to get a girl
not
to hate you—Eliot desperately needed that.

Fiona itched all over. She didn’t want to be here, either. This was beyond stupidity; Eliot was going to get them killed . . . which was precisely why she
had to
go along: to make sure that didn’t happen, dragging him back unconscious and bleeding if that’s what it took.

But Fiona swore it was the last time she’d get him out of trouble of his own making.

They trod upon a crooked path through the forest. Overhead a few stars appeared through the tangle of skeletal branches. Fiona didn’t recognize any constellations; the points of light seemed smaller and colder than they should have been.

The dead forest ended at the edge of a dry lake bed. The earth was cracked and blasted, and volcanic ash spiraled into whirlwinds. A hundred yards from here, the land fell away—plunged miles down to the lava fields of Hell. The sky was coal black, but beyond the cliff’s edge, the horizon glowed like a furnace.

Amanda stood transfixed, staring at the roiling thermals and flashes of fire.

There was, thankfully, a fence between them and Hell. It looked as if a monolithic dinosaur had crawled onto the edge of the cliff, clung there, and then perished, leaving curved femurs and rib bones and talons that made a gigantic tumble of a barrier. For good measure, someone had added rolls of concertina wire (bits of cloth and flesh clinging to its spurs) along the top.

Set in the center of this fence stood the Gates of Perdition. They were bronze and rusted steel, gears and cogs and worn filigreed hinges oxidized blue-green. Spikes bristled from every surface. There were six combination locks . . . some thimble tiny, others that you’d need both hands to turn.

Only a certified crazy person would try to open this thing.

“So how do we open it?” Eliot whispered to Mr. Welmann.

“I can do it.” Mr. Welmann ran a hand over his beard-stubbled face. “Then I’ll jam the lock so it doesn’t shut. It’d be a heck of a mess if we got stuck on the other side.”

“How exactly are you going to open it?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Mr. Welmann’s bushy eyebrows bunched. “But I know I can. Like I knew to wait for you and your brother. I think dead heroes are
supposed
to be able to get into Hell”—he swallowed—“unfortunately.”

Fiona heard the rumble of approaching thunder.

She turned.

Headlights pierced the haze of volcanic ash—far away, but they turned and vanished.

Robert closed his eyes and concentrated. “V-8,” he said.

Mr. Welmann nodded. “That’s a three hundred ten horsepower V-8,” he corrected. “Specifically from a black 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham.”

“Kino’s car?” Fiona asked.

Robert slipped on his brass knuckles.

“Don’t even think about it,” Mr. Welmann warned Robert. “Your aunt might be crazy enough to play chicken with Kino in that van of hers . . . but even she wouldn’t dare tangle with the Lord of the Dead on his home turf.”

Amanda trembled. “I don’t know about this anymore,” she whispered.

Jeremy and Sarah shared a worried glance, and then Jeremy gave his cousin a slight shake of his head.

“Get to the Gate and you’re safe,” Mr. Welmann told them. “It’s Infernal property. Kino’s not allowed to cross or even touch it. Just step across, and you’ll have all the time you’ll need to figure this out.”

Amanda paled and looked sick—caught between the gates of Hell and the Lord of the Dead.

Eliot glowered at them, maybe understanding that everyone was coming to their senses and support for his crazy plan was faltering.

“Okay, listen up,” Fiona said. “We run for the gate. Eliot and Marcus—take point. Amanda you keep up with me. After us, Jeremy, Sarah, and Robert bring up the rear and yell if you see those headlights.”

This felt like a gym match: Fiona providing the strategy and Team Scarab pulling together to overcome a series of insane obstacles. It was as if they’d trained for this all year. Maybe there was something, after all, to Mr. Ma’s methods.

She glanced over her shoulder. If this didn’t work, if Kino got to them, it’d be best to scatter. She would make a stand and face him while the others got back to the forest.

“Go,” Fiona ordered.

They sprinted for the gate (probably the first people in all history to actually run
toward
the entrance to Hell!), and then skidded to a halt before its closed doors. Six dial combination locks (the largest the size of a hubcap, descending to one the size of a dime) were set into a precise dotted line next to the Gate’s massive bronze handle.

Far away headlights reappeared in the haze . . . turned to the right and then the left, and then crept forward.

“Hurry,” Fiona whispered.

Mr. Welmann spun the combination lock dials—one by one, using both hands, not even pausing—then he stopped them and spun them the other way. “My birthday,” he muttered. “Those lucky lotto numbers . . . license plate of my first car . . .”

He finished with the first, largest combination.

There was a click and a series of pings that resonated throughout the metal.

Fiona looked for the headlights. They were gone. A bit of luck, maybe.

Mr. Welmann stopped four more dials in quick succession and they clicked into place.

Fiona heard the ratcheting of large wheels, squealing and groaning as if they hadn’t been oiled for centuries.

An engine’s roar made the air tremble.

Fiona jumped as high beams flicked on and illuminated the Gate.

The Cadillac had crept up to them, lights off. It was a hundred yards away, now peeling out straight toward them.

Amanda clung to Eliot.

Eliot tried to shrug Lady Dawn off his shoulder and maneuver it around, but Amanda was in the way.

Jeremy and Sarah stepped forward, though, faces rigid with concentration. They held up their hands—waved them as if performing some sleight of hand stage magic.

Dust and ash filled the air, and the grit congealed into a pane of mirrored glass between them and Kino’s car.

The Cadillac fishtailed to a stop, momentarily confused by the appearance of another pair of headlights racing toward it on a headlong crash trajectory.

“Nice work,” Fiona said. For once, she was glad the two pain-in-the-rear conjurors were on her team.

But that trick wouldn’t fool Kino long.

Mr. Welmann clicked the last dial in place.

The Gate’s internal mechanisms hissed steam and sparked. A seam appeared and one side opened wide enough for a single person to squeeze through.

On the other side a rocky path zigged and zagged toward and over the cliff. Far below, lava geysered, rivers of molten rock snaked, and volcanoes belched smoke.

All they had to do was cross over—shut the door (but not completely)—and they’d be safe from Uncle Kino. But Fiona decided this was crazy dangerous . . . and they hadn’t even gotten to Hell yet! So, she’d wait until Kino left, and then she’d abort Eliot’s rescue mission, and get them out of here (dragging her brother out by his ears if necessary).

But Fiona couldn’t move.

Her feet rooted to the earth, and fear chilled her despite the furnace heat that billowed through from Hell.

No—she was a goddess, the daughter of Death. She
was
scared . . . but fear would have to wait.

“Move,” she whispered, and ushered Amanda to the opening.

But Amanda dug in her heals and stopped.

Robert stepped up and slipped one arm around her. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this,” he told Amanda.

She nodded. Together they crossed over.

“Mr. Welmann,” Fiona whispered. “Jam the lock. Eliot, get your guitar ready. We might need cover.”

Eliot and Mr. Welmann passed through.

She glanced back. Kino’s Cadillac sat there idling, not getting any closer.

Fiona inched toward the gate. Her shoes crunched over desiccated soil. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and stepped to the other side.

She exhaled and blinked.

It was hot, as if someone had opened the oven door and she stood in front of it. Not hot enough to blister, not quite. Hot enough, though, to make her instantly thirsty and sticky with sweat.

Mr. Welmann reached into the exposed lock mechanism. “I think I see it,” he said. “Give me a second.”

Jeremy and Sarah lingered on the Borderland side. Sarah frantically whispered to her cousin—not frightened. She looked agitated.

“Come on, hurry!” Fiona called to them.

Jeremy stepped up to the slight opening. His blond hair was plastered with perspiration. He grinned—and pulled Sarah behind him. She cried out in pain as he wrenched her arm.

Jeremy threw himself against the Gates of Perdition—

—and slammed it shut.

Mr. Welmann jerked his hand out of the gate’s mechanism just before there was a series of clacks . . . as its locks clicked into place.

They were trapped in Hell.