All That Lives Must Die (59 page)

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THE TOWER GRAVE

Eliot walked down the center of the Night Train tracks.

He had Lady Dawn slung over his shoulder, and the instrument banged along his back. For the first time since Louis had given him the instrument, he didn’t feel like lugging it around.

It was quiet here and merely hot (compared with the furnace temperatures elsewhere on the plains). Occasionally a meteor would slam into the dust and leave a crater, but they never hit the train tracks. Even whirlwinds that sprang up vanished before they crossed the tracks.

But quiet was the last thing he wanted because he kept thinking about Amanda, and how she’d died to save them, so Eliot could get the girl he
really
cared for.

Would he have done the same for Amanda? Or was Paxington making him selfish? Or was it his Infernal blood?

How had this all gotten so out of control?

Fiona walked next to him, and for once in her life, she had nothing to say.

That was driving him nuts, too. If she’d just yell at him—tell him how stupid his plan had been . . . something . . . then he could’ve defended himself.

The silence was like a knife slowly twisting in his brain.

Mr. Welmann took point, on the lookout for mobs of angry damned or onrushing trains. Robert walked on Eliot’s right side, balancing on the railroad track. He’d unbuttoned his shirt all the way, and dirty shirttails flapped about him.

They were quiet, too.

More condemnation by the lack of conversation.

It was hard to tell how long they walked. The light from the furnace-orange sun was always behind clouds, and never changed. Robert’s watch was busted. Fiona’s phone displayed jumbled characters when she’d tried calling Mitch, and she got a “caller unavailable” message.

Mr. Welmann scanned the horizon. “Uphill grade,” he told them.

Eliot nodded, not caring. It was as if this place evaporated his ability to think straight and all he could do was walk on these tracks.

There were channels and riverbeds alongside the rails now, bone dry as if there had been running water in them a million years ago. As the plains sloped up, black rocks jutted from the ash and seared red clay. There were even a few spots of lichen.

Eliot’s mind cleared a bit when he spotted stunted sagebrush. There were scrub pines, too, twisted and tortured, but alive.

As they neared the summit of this hill, a breeze carried a hint of moisture.

He got to the top, and it was as if someone had drawn a line along the ridge—splotches of moss appeared on the other side, the earth was black loam, pine forests sprouted and thickened into a jungle that blanketed the valley beyond, and a ribbon of muddy river snaked down its center. The sunlight turned from blazing orange to a cool silver overcast.

Eliot took a deep breath, and smelled a “compost” scent mixed with honey and the perfume of a million flowers.

“The Poppy Lands,” he said.

“Duh,” Fiona muttered.

Despite her sarcasm, despite the fact they’d just lost one of their team, Fiona’s eyes were wide, taking it all in and gleaming with curiosity. She’d always wanted to travel and see exotic places. This was about as exotic as you could get.

Flowers grew everywhere: fleshy orchids with inviting petals, drooping wisteria cones that dangled nectar-sticky stems, and carpets of pinhead-sized blossoms the color of cotton candy.

The train tracks continued down the slope—cutting through forest and jungle.

They followed them.

Whatever chemicals or magic protected the train tracks, it also kept the vegetation off. Still, as they entered the jungle, the trees crossed overhead and formed a tunnel.

The bugs left them alone, too. That was a good thing. There were clouds of metal wasps, giant beetles that bored into hardwood like it was Styrofoam, and butterflies that fumed acid vapor trails in the air.

“Doesn’t look like there’s a war going on here,” Robert said.

Fiona took a few pictures with her cell phone camera.

Mr. Welmann held a hand, indicating they halt. “Don’t be too sure,” he said, and pointed ahead.

The train tracks ended. Jungle blocked their way.

“Line’s been cut,” Mr. Welmann said. “That’s one of the first things you do in the war. Sever your enemy’s supply routes and communication. Get them alone. Wear them down.” He frowned.

Fiona stepped up to the jungle. “Everyone back.” She pulled out her chain and spun it over her head. She turned the whirling mass flat, and walked into the jungle where the tracks used to run.

Branches, vines, and roots sheared about her in a circular path.

Eliot and the others followed—at a respectable distance, but not too far back, because as soon as Fiona passed, tendrils wormed back and new braches extruded.

Thirty more paces like that and they emerged back onto clear tracks.

Ahead was a train station that looked like a gigantic hothouse, one that someone had taken a baseball bat to and busted every pane of glass.

Standing outside the station were six knights in mirror-polished steel plate mail embellished with gold and emerald inlay. Foot-long thorns bristled from their armor. They held weapons that looked part hunting rifle, part medieval execution ax.

Robert drew his gun. Fiona touched the chain on her wrist, but then instead pulled off a rubber band and stretched it.

The knights saw them, and they sank to one knee.

“Well,” Fiona whispered, “that’s . . . different.”

“Huh,” Robert said. He lowered his gun, but didn’t holster it.

“It will be okay,” Eliot told them, and plodded ahead.

Like the Ticket Master who had bowed before Eliot on the Night Train, these guys had to have mistaken him for an Infernal Lord.

As Eliot and the others approached, the knight in front stood, and with his head still bowed, he said, “Most noble Master Post, and Miss Post, son and daughter of the Prince of Darkness, we are your honor escorts, the Knights of the Thorned Rose, Queen Sealiah’s personal guards.”
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These guys knew exactly who they were.

“Honor guard, right,” Robert said with a snort. “Why should we believe you guys?”

Fiona shot him a look for being so rude.

The knight standing turned his stilted visor to Robert, and stared at him a long moment.

“Because, sir,” that knight said, “the dismembered bodies of three hundred of the finest soldiers and knights litter the road from here to the Twelve Towers—proof enough that we have fought and bled and suffered long to clear a way so you may proceed unmolested to our Queen.”

“Do we even really need to go any farther?” Fiona asked Eliot. She turned to the knight and inquired, “Is Jezebel with you? Or close? She’s the one we want to talk with.”

“No, great Lady,” the knight said, and ducked his head apologetically. “The Duchess of the Burning Orchards is at the side of our Queen.”

Fiona sighed. “Figures.”

“A second, please?” Eliot said the knight in charge.

Eliot stepped back with the others and they huddled. “We have three options,” he whispered. “Steal a train and get out of here.”

“I’m betting the tracks are cut in
both
directions,” Mr. Welmann told him.

Eliot nodded in agreement. “We go ahead, but on our own.”

He gazed down the road and saw the burning remains of soldiers, twisted armor and broken lances, smoldering napalm, and torn bits of shadow slithering . . . a swath of ruin and battle for miles. Here and there, however, body parts twitched and moved.

What happened to the dead in Hell when they—what was the right word for it—died? Did they slowly come back together? Or did they just lie there in pieces forever?

Eliot swallowed, trying not to get sick again.

“Or,” Eliot said, “we let these guys take us to their Queen.”

“Into what might be a trap,” Fiona reminded them.

“I think they’re telling the truth about them fighting and dying just to help us,” Eliot said.

Fiona chewed on her lower lip. “Well, they don’t seem like they want to immediately kill us. That’s progress.”

“I don’t want to go back through those Blasted Lands,” Robert murmured.

“Or hoof it through the rest of Hell,” Mr. Welmann added.

Fiona sighed and shook her head. “I guess we go with the welcoming committee . . . for now.”

Eliot returned to the knights. “Please,” he told them, “show us the way, sir.”

The head knight motioned to his men. They rose and formed a loose circle around them. Eliot didn’t particularly like being surrounded by armed warriors, but they
seemed
okay; none of them looked directly at them, and their weapons pointed away.

Still, instinct told Eliot not to trust anyone in Hell.

The Poppy Lands were worse than Eliot remembered from his previous trip on the Night Train. The earth was scorched in spots, frozen in others, and heaps of salt scattered everywhere so nothing could grow—some regions so blasted and broken that it didn’t look like
either
Queen Sealiah or the attacking shadows controlled it.

These lands felt abandoned and wrong.

They hurried over terrain that looked like the surface of the moon—and over a half-burned bridge that spanned a river choked with vegetation and oil slicks and bodies and chunks of ice.

On the horizon glowed the Twelve Towers of Queen Sealiah. They perched upon the edge of a cliff. Each tower was different: one was an ancient tree with only a crown of a few spare branches; one was ghostly white and taller than all others; one flickered with lines of phosphorescing fungus. Searchlights played through the air. Cannon and cauldrons smoldered atop the outer walls. Industrial cranes stood among the towers, casting their long steel arms back and forth.

As they neared, one crane lowered a platform.

With a wave of his gauntlet, the head knight indicated that they get on.

Eliot hesitated. Once they got on this thing and were inside those walls, it would be harder to turn around and leave if they wanted to.

Queen Sealiah was more than just the monarch of this domain of Hell. She was also part of his family. And Eliot had met only one of his father’s relations, Beelzebub. He’d tried to kill him and Fiona. Eliot didn’t think that’s what Sealiah had in mind, though.

He looked around, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the platform.

His sister, Robert, and Mr. Welmann got on, too, and it rose into the air.

He saw the land for miles around—desolate, burning, and shattered. Oddly, there was no fighting. If this was a war . . . where was everyone?

The platform lifted up and over the outer wall, where there were hundreds of artillery pieces poised ready to fire, archers, and knights peering through telescopes. Clouds of insects and bats swarmed around them in formations.

Within the great courtyard were tens of thousands of armored knights and soldiers. They hurried to reinforce the walls, sharpen weapons, and load rifles.

Before Eliot and the others they parted like a retreating tide, all falling to one knee in supplication.

This was completely weird.

One day, Eliot was a social zero at school, practically invisible. And here? He was treated like royalty.

He tried to smooth out his scorched and ripped school jacket, but it didn’t work.

Their escorts led them to the tallest tower on the plateau. It was as large as a skyscraper and bone white, which Eliot saw was actually made from bones: dinosaur; elephant; whale; and countless grinning human skulls. Upon the top of the tower sat the three largest skulls, something Eliot had only seen in books, the teeth-filled fossilized remains of
Tyrannosaurus rex.
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As they mounted the hundreds of steps, a lone figure appeared at the top to greet them. Jezebel.

Eliot halted in his tracks.

It felt like he’d been struck in the head.

Part of him had thought he’d never see her again . . . thinking her dead, or captured . . . or a million other things that could have happened to her that would have kept them apart. They seemed fated never to be together.

Seeing her now. Here. Finally. He didn’t know what to do but stare.

Her face was unblemished and luminescent, and her lips parted as she saw him. She was different from when he’d last seen her on the Night Train. Her features were too smooth and perfect . . . almost otherworldly. It was as if her face had been recast and fired and ground to a mirror finish, like that of a porcelain doll.

While her face was enchanting, the way she was dressed was anything but inviting. She wore a platinum breastplate the same color as her hair, and it was enameled with roses and orchids, and covered in black metal thorns. A chain mail skirt the color of dried blood hung about her hips and covered high studded combat boots.

She took a step toward him.

Eliot couldn’t resist; he started toward her again. His heart beat so hard, he thought it would explode in his chest. All he wanted to do was take her by the hand, turn around, and get out of here.

With every step, his blood warmed, heated . . . burned.

He felt intoxicated. Yes. He wanted to taste her again—even if her kisses were poisoned. He was addicted to how he felt when she was around.

Their escort knights halted on the steps ahead of Eliot. They bowed before Jezebel, and she, in turn, inclined her head to recognize them.

“You are dismissed, Captain,” Jezebel said, her tone icy.

The knights retreated down the steps.

Eliot jogged up to Jezebel. He would have thrown his arms about her or taken her hand at least, but with her in that thorned armor, he’d get impaled if he tried.

Jezebel hovered near him; her gauntleted hand reached out for him, and then pulled back.

Her gaze darted past Eliot to take in Fiona, Robert, and Mr. Welmann as they walked up. Her eyes narrowed a bit—and then softened again as she looked back to Eliot.

“You came,” she whispered to him, voice trembling. “After I tried so hard to push you away. Eliot, you will never know what that means to me.” In an even lower voice, she said, “But there is more danger here than you can imagine.”