MORTAL COILS (43 page)

The
wound in its shoulder healed before Fiona’s eyes. The puncture closed. Clear
scales grew and darkened to match the cast-iron black of the rest of its body.

Fiona
took another step back and pulled Eliot along with her. “Maybe we should be
going.”

Eliot
yanked free of her hand. “But I have a million questions. Who is our family?
Where do they come from? What about our father?”

Souhk
turned and stared at them, so long that she wondered if the intelligent part of
its mind had submerged, and they now faced a hungry reptile—not their new
friend. Maybe Souhk was both.

“I
must eat first,” it growled. “You must survive the other trials . . . and your
families. Ask me questions after that.” It lumbered toward the water, each
weighty step shifting the bones of the island. “Return in a year. I will have
finished then.”

A
year? How much food did Souhk need? And what was he going to eat? She glanced
at the hill of bones at her feet; a human skull stared back. Fiona didn’t want
to know.

“Just
one question,” Eliot called after it. “Please.”

It
paused and turned.

“Please,”
he repeated in a tiny voice.

“Very
well, ask one question then, maker of music.”

Eliot
puffed out his chest.

That’s
all her brother needed, someone calling him a musician. If Grandmother ever
found out he had that violin . . . she’d what? What could she do to them now
that they’d faced a giant crocodile?

“Ask
him about the next trial,” Fiona whispered.

Eliot
shook his head. “We know about our mother’s side of the family. That we have to
somehow grow and become like them to survive . . . but what about our father’s
family? Will they get involved? How do we contact them?”

Souhk
rushed toward Eliot and Fiona—a sprint much faster than either could believe—it
skidded, sent bones flying, and halted only an inch away.

Eliot
and Fiona instinctively drew closer together . . . as if this could possibly
protect them.

“That
is more than one question,” it hissed.

Souhk
cocked its huge head, angling its stare at them both. “I see them in you. There
is more danger in dealing with your father’s family than your mother’s. Few
survive their interests. Avoid them at all cost.”

Souhk
glanced about the room. Fiona thought this gesture unmistakably one of fear. It
then turned and slid into the water without a sound. With one great swish of
its tail it propelled itself out of the room.

“They
are the Infernals,” Souhk said. “Mortals call them something else, though . . .
the fallen angels.”

SECTION
IV

PAWNS
IN PLAY

31

FAMILY
GATHERING

Riding
in a tanklike ice crawler, wrapped in a down-filled cocoon, Sealiah considered
her journey—a private jet from Los Angeles to Reykjavík, helicopter to the
interior of Iceland, followed by crawler ride when the winds proved too fierce
. . . all to get to one of the last untainted Old Places.

Iceland
. . . had there been anything wrong with warmer Las Vegas (apart from the
antiseptic absence of good taste)? Or had Beal’s overdeveloped sense of drama
gotten the better of him? Surely there was no practical reason to drag them
here, other than to prove that he could drag them all here.

Still,
it had been ages since she had seen the place.

Her
skin prickled. They were close.

Beyond
the crawler’s windows, halogen headlights punctured the blackness and
illuminated swirls of snow.

The
global-positioning display on the dash beeped. They were near sixty-four
degrees north, seventeen degrees west: dead center in the middle of nowhere.

The
driver said, “I’ll get the cold-weather suits, my lady.”

Sealiah
cast off her blanket, opened the door, and jumped three meters to the ground.

Her
boots shattered the ice on impact and sent the scale armor covering her thighs
shivering. The howling winds flash-chilled the mail on her chest and shoulders
and whipped the arctic-fox-fur cape behind her.

She
took a deep breath and let the cold freeze her blood. Thinking of her cousins
made her boil, and she could not afford the pleasure of a blind rage tonight.

Sealiah
marched to an outcropping of rock. A dim red glow emanated from the far side,
and she saw men.

She
checked her blades, Exarp and Omebb, to make certain they were not frosted in
their scabbards.

The
guards held Kalashnikov machine guns. They raised their aim at her approach,
but lowered them when they saw that she wore only bits of choice metal in the
subfreezing weather.

They
bowed deeply before her.

Splashed
upon the ice was blood. Apparently one of them had not bowed low enough for her
cousins.

A
dozen ice crawlers sat close, their engines idling. News of the Post children
must have spread to have attracted so many to this remote location.

Perhaps
Beal was not the fool she had thought. Convening the Board here limited the
number of family members attending and gave him a chance to retain control. Or
was “control” the last thing he had in mind?

She
approached the statues that flanked the subterranean entrance. They were vague
shapes of black stone. One could still make out the chiseled square-tip swords
in their hands, however.

Sealiah
bit her thumb and smeared blood upon each sword. Not even she dared enter this
place without the proper respect.

She
descended the spiral of stairs.

Warm
air rushed past and melted the ice that clung to her. She smelled hot iron and
sulfur.

She
emerged in a large cavern. To her right a frozen wall glistened amber. Ice
stalactites dangled a hundred feet above her head. Paving the floor were
hexagonal basalt tiles. A dozen paces in, this floor tilted and submerged into
a lake of molten stone. Pillars rose from the boiling lake. Once there had been
faces of heroic proportions carved upon them. Gods before there ever was a word
for “god” or a humanity to worship them.32

What
would Sealiah have given to coax these Ancients to whisper their secrets? But,
alas, time had caught up and overtaken even them.

32.
“In the cave were gods before God, locked twixt stone ice and flame / Blind and
deaf until the end of days / Tread with care traveler / Let titans sleep until
the stars fall.” From the “Saga of Yorik Bloodied Beard” in Father Sildas
Pious, Mythica Improbiba (translated version, Beezle edition), c. thirteenth
century.

A
narrow wedge of stone thrust out precariously over the molten lake. Upon it a
slab of basalt served as a table.

Most
of the Board had already arrived and stood at their places.

Abby
wore pink for the occasion, a thin ribbon of silk wound about her slender form.
She stood at the far right of the table, one step from the edge—as if daring
anyone to push her in. A red-and-black centipede curled up her pale arm, eating
something bloody from her hand.

Lev
stood opposite her in the same polyester sweat suit he had worn last time, the
outfit living up to its name: soaked with his perspiration. His corpulent chest
heaved, panting in the heat. He fanned himself with a hubcap-sized medallion
strung about his neck.

Ashmed
stood next to Abby, close to the foot of the table. He wore an immaculately tailored
gray suit and silver tie that glowed in the molten illumination. He nodded at
Sealiah, a small sign of respect, or interest, which sent an unexpected thrill
through her.

How
she wished there were no layers of politics between her and her cousin. She
would like to know him without the constant undercurrent of suspicion,
intrigue, and danger that was more intimately bound to their character than the
DNA in their cells. Even such thoughts were dangerous, as they could be
detected and exploited . . . which made this fantasy all the more stimulating.

Oz
turned and beckoned her to stand near him. He wore the leather fetish gear of a
Hells Angel and had his hair curled like an eighteenth-century Parisian
whore’s. A beauty mark was on his powdered cheek.

“Greeting
to Queen of the Poppies,” he purred, and gestured to the foot of the table.

Sealiah
moved to join them . . . but slowly. She took her time and carefully glanced
about the cavern. It was always wise to examine treacherous terrain.

Many
of the Board members had brought their entourages. Gathered on the far side of
the cavern where the air was cooler and breathable, men in tuxedos and women in
cocktail dresses sipped champagne in carved-ice flutes. Shadow bodyguards
slithered upon the walls, gathering whispers and spying on spies.

Almost
unnoticed, disguised as the catering staff, or standing with a nonchalance that
dared any to see them, were other family members. Samsawell, the Ever Hungry
(who she heard now called himself Sam); vulnerable-looking, old Mulciber of the
Infernal Eternal Bureaucracy; and even reclusive Uziel, the Golden Child,
Prince of the Killing Fields—all represented powerful non-Board clans.

Predators
and scavengers alike were gathering. Each pretended not to notice her noticing
them.

Beal
made his entrance, contriving to time his appearance with a pair of exploding
jets that geysered from the magma. Molten droplets and sparks filled the
superheated air—reflected and magnified on the distant walls of ice.

Beal
took his place at the head of the table outlined by fountains of fire.

Sealiah
had to grudgingly admit it was a fine effect.

He
wore a tuxedo with black shirt and a cape of ostrich feathers. The only color
was his blue eyes and the fist-size sapphire that dangled on a leather thong
about his throat. In his hand he cradled a black rat.

“Let
us begin,” Beal said. “I will only lie to you with the truth.”33

He
pretended to just now notice Sealiah. “Very good, the Poppy Queen has joined
us. Although not part of the Board, I thought it apropos to have you here to
report on the progress of your temptress.”

She
tilted her head in faux appreciation and checked her rage at his mocking. She
had already made her report to him. Julie Marks was ready to make her move: a
lion pouncing upon a kitten. Sealiah understood why she was really here. To be
watched.

“The
honor is mine,” she replied. Her smile wiped the joy from Beal’s features.

Beal
set the rat on the table and gestured. Porters in silver heat suits carried a laptop
and wide-screen plasma viewer to the table. “I have called us here to discuss
developments in the Post case,” he said.

The
Board exchanged glances, save Ashmed, who sat still.

The
rat leaped to the floor, and mighty Uri stood in its place, smoothing his
tuxedo. He did not look at Sealiah.

Her
heart ached to have him so near again. He was her knight disguised as a pawn
upon the board. But he was in play; she could not pull him back now . . . so
she made her heart ice once more.

33.
Traditional Infernal greeting. Infernals lie to suit their own end, but
according to myth they can unfailingly detect any falsehood. Therefore, it is
considered the gravest of insults for one Infernal to simply lie to another.
This greeting assures Infernal kin of their respectful intentions, i.e., only
lying by omission or twisted fact. Experts consider it emblematic of their
warped values. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 13: Infernal
Forces, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).