MORTAL COILS (95 page)

No
time to ponder what they’d all do on the other side.

She
turned to the fading doorway, held her breath, and stepped through.

It
was dark. She knew she’d made it, though, because the cold vanished. She
inhaled the scent of old cardboard and balmy California air.

A
police officer entered the storage room. Cotillion girls brushed past him. The
officer looked about, utterly confused.

Robert
stepped through the doorway next. He took Fiona by the elbow, sidestepping
toward the refrigerated room.

“Hey!”
the policeman said, spotting them. “Wait right there.”

But
it was too late. No one was waiting for anything anymore.

The
crowds from the Valley of the New Year streamed through the painted brick
wall—Lord Jeremy Covington and his boys, the Indians, men in tuxedos and women
in sequined gowns, foxhunters on horseback, winos, and a troupe of clowns. They
spilled over one another and shoved the officer out of the way, some grabbing
kegs and bottles as they did so, all of them making for the open front and back
doors of the tavern.

“There
are more coming,” Robert whispered to Fiona. “Lots more. We need to leave.”

He
led Fiona through the refrigerated compartment and the outer door into the
parking lot.

Jeremy
and his masked friends tussled with police officers on the tavern’s

porch.
Several men in tuxedos clambered into police cars, mounted the Harleys, and
drove off.

Fiona
took a step toward Jeremy. “He’ll be okay,” Robert assured her. “Remember,
we’ve got our own troubles. Eliot. And Louis.”

Fiona
halted. Robert was correct.

They
got into the Maybach, Robert fired up the engine, and they rocketed out of the
parking lot, scraping past two police cruisers blocking the exit.

“Let
me borrow your phone,” Fiona said.

Robert
dug out his cell phone and Fiona dialed home. It rang twice and was then picked
up.

“Hello,
Cee? . . . Is Grandmother there? . . . No? Then take a message. . . . Yes, I’ll
wait—just hurry.”

Robert
floored the gas. The acceleration squished Fiona into her seat. “We’ll be in
Del Sombra in no time.”

Fiona
glanced at the setting sun. “Good . . . because that’s how long I think Eliot
has.”

72

A
TRICK UP HIS SLEEVE

Eliot
walked among the lengthening shadows. Cars drove up and down Midway Avenue in
Del Sombra. Many had double-parked in front of the Pink Rabbit.

He
heard folksingers playing inside, but as much as Eliot wanted, he had no time
to stop and listen. It was late, and he had to find Louis before sunset.

Eliot
crossed the street to Ringo’s—still closed for renovations—and headed to the
alley. He paused, however, to get Lady Dawn from his pack.

He
flexed his hand. Would the infection take root inside him again? Louis had
noted it earlier and said it was an “occupational hazard.”

Eliot
took a deep breath. He did not want do this alone. He believed that Louis’s
life was in real danger, but the thought of dealing with the other side of his
family made him reconsider. Everyone—Souhk, the Council, Mythica Improbiba,
even Robert—had warned him about them. Were they actually fallen angels, evil
incarnate? Or was that just propaganda?

Eliot
imagined he was a hero, swooping in at the last moment to save his long-lost father,
who was being held in a medieval castle. There would be a duel with rapiers . .
. maybe Julie would be there to save as well.

He
made himself stop. Retreating into his daydreams only distracted him from what
was really happening. It was little-kid stuff, anyway. Time he outgrew it.

Eliot
stepped into the alley.

The
shadows here were thick as black velvet. Every scrap of trash had

been
cleaned up. Lit candles sat alongside the walls, illuminating brick and cinder
block with dancing flickers.

Louis
had his back to Eliot, scrutinizing his work: a design of chalk arcs and dots
and zigzags that covered the wall to the two-story roof, across the asphalt of
the alley, and over the opposite wall.

It
looked like a giant cocoon spun from geometry and ancient symbols. The lines
pulled at the light and made everything darker about them. Looking at the
design gave Eliot chill bumps—part from revulsion, part from recognition, and
part from a static charge building in the air.

He
turned his attention to Louis. He’d always felt a connection with Louis, even
when he had thought he was only a bum.

Eliot
wanted so badly to run over there and hug him, then tell him that he had hoped
and had waited all his life for his father to miraculously reappear.

But
he held back. He had to.

Louis
was family. And all the family Eliot had met thus far hadn’t exactly been nice
to him or Fiona. In fact, they had almost gotten them killed three times
already.

Louis
cocked his head and drew in a deep breath. “So, you came.” He turned to Eliot.
His smile wavered with emotion.

“Something
wrong?” That had to be the stupidest thing Eliot had said all week. Of course
something was wrong. Louis had said his life was at stake.

“Everything
is all right, now that you are here.” Louis fiddled with the chalk in his
hands. “As long as you trust me. Please tonight of all nights, trust me. It
will be confusing. And dangerous.”

Eliot’s
stomach fluttered. He so wanted to trust him . . . but a deep primal instinct
screamed at him to turn and run. If Louis’s life was truly in danger, wouldn’t
Eliot be in greater jeopardy?

He
straightened. He’d come this far. He wasn’t chickening out now. “Tell me what I
have to do.”

“Such
bravery,” Louis whispered, “clearly from your mother’s side.”

Eliot
gestured to the tangle of lines. “You need help with this thing?”

“It’s
only a doodle.” Louis tossed his chalk aside. “No, it is close enough for
tonight’s work.”

“Close
enough for what?”

“It
is an electrical circuit.” Louis pointed to symbols. “Transformer coils,
capacitors, a fuse there—all of which enable a simple transfer of power.”

Eliot
squinted, trying to understand the pattern, but he couldn’t

concentrate.
He hadn’t come here to decipher ancient pictograms. He had come to save Louis’s
life . . . and to ask him one question.

“Are
you my father?”

Louis
looked at him a long time, almost as if he were asking a similar question: Are
you truly my son?

“I
am your father,” Louis finally said. “Louis Piper, Lucifer, the Morning Star,
and the Prince of Darkness. We share the same blood.” He held out his arms,
beckoning for him. “Can you not feel it?”

Eliot
could indeed feel it. He knew Louis spoke the truth. A part of his life missing
for the last fifteen years clicked into place, and he took a step toward his
father.

This
wasn’t the devil portrayed in the medieval Mythica Improbiba wood-cut. He was
Louis, clean and sober and waiting for him with open arms. He was his father.

But
again, Eliot hesitated, because while he knew Louis told him the truth, he also
sensed it wasn’t all the truth. And that was a kind of lie, wasn’t it? So many
things still had to be explained.

“You
left us when we were babies.”

“Left?
Never, my boy.” Louis dropped his arms. “My leaving was entirely your mother’s
doing.”

“Tell
me. Everything. Please.”

Louis
checked his watch and sighed. “Is this what you want to talk about? Her? I, who
know half the secrets of the universe, and you want to hear of one romance and
my lapse in sanity?” He shook his head. “How disappointingly normal of you.”

Eliot
opened his mouth to take it back. He so wanted Louis’s approval. But, no—he
wouldn’t be dissuaded from the truth.

“Tell
me,” Eliot said, his voice now full of iron. “No one ever talks about my
mother. It’s as if she’s still alive . . . and everyone is scared of her.”

“Still
alive?” Confusion flickered over Louis’s face. “I begin to see just how large
this conspiracy against you and Fiona has truly been.” His face brightened.
“Very well, what can I say? We met, fell in love, did all the things people in
love do, which precipitated you and your sister.”

“Only
that shouldn’t have happened, right? People from the two families, the League
and the Infernals, aren’t supposed to like each other . . . let alone, you
know.”

Louis
quirked his eyebrows. “So you’ve been told of the Pactum Pax Immortalis, have
you? How open-minded of the League.” He snorted. “Well,

in
the beginning we did not know each other’s true identity. In glorious
ignorance, we consensually joined . . . two months in Paris, one month in Rome,
Istanbul, Cairo, Nepal, and finally San Francisco . . . the best time in my
life. But inevitably the proper biology took root. That is when your mother
grew suspicious I was not as I appeared.”

“What
were you supposed to be?” Eliot asked, confused.

“Normal.
Human. And with such types, your mother’s blue-blooded kind has . . . let us
call them ‘technical difficulties’ with reproduction.”

Eliot
wanted to ask about all those other cousins on his mother’s side of the family
that Aunt Lucia had mentioned. If it was so hard to have children, where had
they come from?

Louis
continued, “I was similarly befuddled by passion. Had I known who she was . .
.” He chuckled. “I must have truly loved her to be so blind. How else can one
explain such cosmically foolish behavior? Alas, all sewage under the bridge, as
they say.”

Eliot
didn’t understand how Louis could say he had loved her one moment, then regret
it so much the next. “She didn’t love you back?”

“Of
course, what woman could not love me?” Louis made a tiny bow to the shadows.
“But upon deducing my true Infernal nature, she thought I would take you and
your sister away. My people have a terrible, and highly unjustified,
reputation. But whoever believes the man in such things? And whoever blames the
woman for her rash, hormonally induced actions?”

“She
severed you from your power.”

“Such
is the sharpness of a woman’s anger, my boy. Be well forewarned. Better that
she had killed me, so I would not have to drown in a sea of human self-pity.”
Louis curled his hands and folded them across his chest as if he felt this
anguish anew.

Eliot
wanted to put an arm on his shoulder and comfort him the same way he had when
Eliot had told him about Julie.

“But
I had to come back to you and Fiona,” Louis said. “Where else was I to go? You
two were the last bits of what I adored. If I could no longer be with the woman
I was meant for . . . at least I could look upon you and remember the love we
once shared.”

There
was more—Eliot could sense it—a mountain of larger truth submerged under an
ocean of deception. Louis had told him that there would always be truth between
them, but just enough truth for him to hide behind.

“And?”
Eliot demanded.

“And
what?”