All That Lives Must Die (53 page)

She got to her knees. Hallucinations or not—she wouldn’t lie here and bleed to death.

She had to defend herself. Or get back to Mr. Ma.

Or, if she couldn’t do that, she’d at least be on her feet if this was the end.

Dizzy, Fiona pushed on her knees and rose. She looked at the clouds again. A line in the sky flattened and arced toward the street.

That was a contrail made by jet engines. She squinted and saw a Korean-war era warplane: a MiG-15. They had two 23 mm cannon.

It was doing . . . what was it called? A strafing run.

Funny how her last thoughts were from the old encyclopedia-loving Fiona Post. Maybe that’s what she truly was made of after all.

That was okay. She liked
that
Fiona Post.

She clutched the chain in her hands. She had no regrets about what she’d done. It had been the right thing—the only thing she could have done.

Fiona stood tall and proud and faced death as it rushed at her.

56
. Translation from Spanish, “excrement-eating dog.”—Editor.

               62               

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Eliot hung onto the sidecar for his life.

Robert’s Harley clipped an overturned car, and then narrowly missed several people (civilians and soldiers) running from the courtyard.

He swerved around a burning pickup, and Eliot realized that their insane speed was warranted. Maybe . . . they’d even gone too slow. In the center of the courtyard, Fiona stood nose to nose with an armored tank.

Eliot blinked to make sure he saw that right.

Fiona crouched and jumped at it, lashing forward with a thick chain. The chain wrapped about the turret and muzzle.

She pulled—severed metal from metal.

The tank exploded. Inside.

Steel and titanium mushroomed out—and a dozen detonations followed and lit the courtyard—blasted the armored tank to smithereens, as well the ground for twenty feet in every direction.

Fiona tumbled through the air, bounced, rolled . . . and lay limp in the dirt.

Was she dead? He and Robert should’ve gotten there faster. Done
something
. A cold, hard shape took form in Eliot’s mind—a dangerous thought that if his sister was gone, a lot of people were going to pay for it . . . starting with Uncle Henry and the League.

Robert ducked but didn’t slow as molten metal and shards of stone whizzed past them.

He skidded sideways next to Fiona.

Eliot jumped out of the sidecar, guitar in hand.

Robert stayed on the bike, pulled his Glock 29, and aimed at the three soldiers huddled in the alley.

One of the soldiers spoke into a handheld radio and pointed at the sky. The other two had Kalashnikov machine guns. They looked stunned, at least for the moment.

Eliot’s reached for Lady Dawn’s strings.

Robert was faster. He shot three times—one round cratered the wall over the soldiers’ heads. Two bullets hit the Kalashnikov stocks and shattered wood.

The soldiers dropped their weapons and ran.

Fiona moved . . . got to her knees, and slowly stood.

“Are you okay?” Eliot asked, helping her up.

This had to be the stupidest thing he’d asked in weeks, because blood trickled from Fiona’s ears and nose. She ignored Eliot and looked with glazed eyes up at the sky.

. . . To the same spot where that soldier had pointed.

Eliot turned. A MiG-15 jet dived toward them on what had to be a strafing run.

Robert stood next to Fiona and propped her with one arm. She must really have been hurt because she let him touch her, even leaned against him. She tried to raise her hands, but the chain she clutched seemed too heavy for her to lift. Robert had his Glock and frowned at it. Useless against a jet.

Eliot stepped in front of her and Robert and whispered, “I got this one.”

Fight or run—there wasn’t much of a choice.

The MiG would close in seconds, not enough time to cross the courtyard.

And there wasn’t just him and Fiona and Robert to protect; there were all those people in the church in the line of fire. Eliot was partially responsible for them, too. Not just because he wanted to save innocent people, but because
he
was connected to this: Uncle Henry had said the League engineered this war—Robert’s “party tip” to drive down today—and Fiona (what
was
she doing here?). It was too much of a coincidence . . . like the League had pulled a fistful of tangled strings to trick them into coming. Why? So he and Fiona could pass another of their cruel tests?

It was like Area 51 all over again. People getting killed because of them; only this time, he’d do something to save them.

Eliot heard the roar of the jet. Felt the rumble in his bones.

Its dive leveled and it angled on a straight shot through the open street of Costa Esmeralda’s cityscape canyon.

Eliot gripped Lady Dawn, his hands sweating, and he played.

There was no time to warm up with nursery rhymes. He needed raw force—fast—enough to
destroy
.

He flicked out a bassy power chord, throwing the strength of his arm into it. The notes resonated from Lady Dawn’s body and shook the dust off the cobblestones and blew away smoke and ash.

The jet wobbled on its trajectory, but kept coming—and shot. Twin cannon spit fire and death at them.

Bullets sparked in the air between him and it, bouncing off a wall of sound, peppering buildings, tracers making spirals.

Nothing got through.

But as the jet streaked toward him, Eliot’s barrier shuddered and contracted—force meeting force.

Eliot needed more power.

He double-pumped the strings and danced his fingers up the scale, back and forth; wavering mirage air and water vapor flashed outward.

The MiG spun, righted, and ceased the machine gun fire.

It launched two missiles.

Lady Dawn jumped under his hands—and his fingers stepped up the register—a lightning-fast bridge, found, and held, a high C.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Eliot saw the shadows in the alleys lengthen and sharpen into slices of darkness that cut through the noontime light . . . and sway as if they danced to his music.

The missiles streaked at them, hit the wall of noise, and blossomed in sparkling rosettes, shattering glass and blasting apart the steel frames of nearby office buildings.

The jet was almost on them. It shuddered, a blur, and its metal skin peeled—wingtips fluttered to pieces. The fuel tanks breached and ignited.

The pilot ejected, a plume of white smoke that arced from the craft.

But the flaming, out-of-control MiG fighter aircraft was still on course, plummeting straight at Eliot.

He let go of the single note and flicked the strings—power chord upon power chord, building upon their resonant echoes, increasing in pitch and intensity, sucked in the air from the courtyard, blasted out feedback-laden notes, waves of pressure, and lines of force that seemed to emanate through and from his body as much as Lady Dawn’s.

It was as if they were one, rocking back and forth, playing together.

Glass ruptured off every building for six blocks. Asphalt bucked and crumbled. Water mains burst and showered into the air.

The MiG-15 exploded: fire and spinning metal and burning fuel still on an impact course.

Eliot pounded on Lady Dawn as hard as he dared . . . and then as hard as he
could
. Her strings cut into his fingertips.

Before the jet crashed into him, Eliot found the strength for one last downward power stoke.

Buildings on either side of the street shook and cracked, and two toppled over.

The tumbling wreckage of the MiG-15 detonated
again
—driven back as if someone had blown out a lit match.

Confetti bits of metal and trails of oily smoke drizzled down . . . harmless.

Eliot exhaled. He shook out his numbed hand and arm.

“Very cool,” Robert murmured.

Fiona shook her head as if just now seeing them. “What are”—She looked back and forth between them—“you two doing here?” Her brow scrunched and her expression was a mix of confusion . . . and, as she concentrated on Eliot, annoyance.

She doubled over in pain.

Robert caught her and his hand came away bloody. He scrutinized the seeping, bubbling wound on her side. “She needs help.”

Fiona went limp.

Eliot took a step forward, feeling helpless to do anything, forgetting everything he’d ever read in
Marcellus Master’s Practical First Aid and Surgical Guide
.

“Shock,” he said. “Her pulse is strong, though. That’s a good sign, but we’ve got to get her to a doctor.”

A crowd emerged from the church and stared at them.

Eliot called out, pleading, “Is one of you a doctor?
Hay un médico
?”

The people gaped, pointed, and they ran away.

How could they not help them after he’d just saved all their lives?

Eliot felt, then heard, subsonic quaking and thunderous crashes behind him. He wheeled and watched every office building for three blocks collapse into dust and rubble—a swath of destruction
he
had caused.

Those people in the church might have been grateful, they might have helped . . . if they hadn’t been scared out of their minds.
57

Eliot touched Lady Dawn, ran his bloody fingertips over her fiery wood grain. He smiled. He liked this new incarnation of the violin. She no longer fought him. How much power could they together summon?

He had also enjoyed the destruction and havoc they’d wreaked.

The smile on his face vanished. Fiona was in shock and bleeding to death—what was he thinking?

“Get her into the sidecar,” he told Robert. “I’ll ride on the back. Just go slow until we get on the highway.”

Robert lifted Fiona into his arms. She yelped, but clung to him and let him carry her toward his bike.

The power when Eliot had played was seductive. He had felt glee as he blew the jet apart, rapture at seeing buildings fall at his whim . . . and was horrified that he wanted to do it all again.

“Put her down,” someone behind Eliot commanded.

Mr. Ma dropped off the last rung of a fire escape, followed by six upperclassmen Paxington boys. Dante Scalagari was there, and he looked grim, made a move toward Fiona—but Mr. Ma checked his motion with a hand on his shoulder.

“I shall take Miss Post,” Mr. Ma told them. He pointed toward the roof of the building he’d climbed down. A jet helicopter sat there, blades spinning up to full speed.

Robert glared at Mr. Ma and held Fiona tight.

Mr. Ma continued toward him. “You cannot jostle her on a motor bike with a punctured lung,” he said, glancing down at her, “and likely other internal injuries.”

Robert’s glare faded and the color drained from his face.

Mr. Ma stopped before Robert and held out his arms. “We have medical supplies on board. I can stabilize her.”

Robert looked to Eliot.

Eliot wasn’t sure. How much did he trust
any
Paxington teacher? Especially one who tried to kill them every few weeks? Enough to literally place his sister’s life in his hands?

But Mr. Ma was right: On the bike they might hurt Fiona more. And if the unthinkable happened . . . the League would kill Robert for trying and failing to save her life.

“You won’t hurt her?” Eliot asked.

Mr. Ma blinked. “No.”

Eliot listened with great care. There were no weird echoes or any backward whispers that he detected from the lips of liars.

Eliot nodded to Robert. Robert passed Fiona to Mr. Ma.

Mr. Ma held her as if she weighed no more than a feather.

“I’m going with her,” Eliot told Mr. Ma. “We’re stronger together.” His tone left no room for discussion on the matter.

Mr. Ma looked at him a moment, then nodded.

The Paxington helicopter lifted off the roof, turned, and lit in the courtyard.

As they walked toward the craft, Eliot glanced back at Robert. Worry and helplessness etched his friend’s face, and Eliot understood that pain. He’d felt the same thing for Jezebel . . . and he knew at that moment that Robert loved Fiona.

Near the helicopter, Mr. Ma ducked, and held his unconscious sister closer.

Eliot barely made out his whispered words over the noise of the blades. “School rules give me no choice in the matter.” Mr. Ma told her. “You get an F for today’s lesson.”

But then for the first time, Mr. Ma’s craggy features softened, and tiny laugh lines crinkled the corners of his eyes. “And even though I must hate you, young lady, for we appear to be on opposites sides of fate . . . for dueling an armored tank to save people that meant nothing to you, you
deserve
an A-plus.”

57
. Buildings in a four-block radius were declared structurally unsound and ordered demolished by the newly elected Costa Esmeralda Parliament. Miraculously, the church in the adjacent courtyard was unscathed, save a single shot-out window (and this even miraculous in that witness and photographic evidence corroborate that for three days after, sunlight passing through the open frame was colored as if the window were intact). Given these miracles—and, of course, the fact that this church was later the location where the Divine reentered the mortal world (see
Volume 11, The Post Family Mythology
)—the church was rechristened Bastion of the Herald of Light and selected by the New Catholic Church of the Sixth Celestial Age as the site to rebuild the Vatican.
Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 2, Divine Inspirations
. Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.

               63               

WOLF UNDER THE WAVES

Henry Mimes tried on the captain’s hat and regarded himself in the mirror bolted to the wall of the guest quarters. The pilfered cap was a tad too big, and the golden fringe and black canvas didn’t look right with his silver hair. Not his colors, alas.

It was just another reminder that he was a mere passenger on this submarine.

He twirled the hat on his finger. It was hard to let go of the rudder, even among friends, when one was used being the Captain.

A fluted speaker whistled to life. “Mr. Mimes?” said a tinny voice. “They’re ready for you, sir.”

“Tell them I’m on my way,” Henry replied.

He left his cramped quarters and entered an equally cramped corridor. Two uniformed ladies bumped into him.

Henry smiled, did his best to bow, and greeted them both.

They returned his salutations . . . and his promising smile.

“Would you lieutenants be good enough to take this to the bridge?” He handed the hat to the athletic brunette.

They said they would. There were more smiles and flirtatious glances, and then they went on their way, squeezing past.

Henry watched them go.

Or perhaps such close accommodations did have
some
advantages, after all.

And yet the
Coelacanth
was definitely not a craft he could spend more than a day bottled up in. Wolves did not do well beneath the waves. He preferred the open sea and fresh air. No matter how much opulence one cocooned oneself in, all submersibles were susceptible to a loss of buoyancy and gravity, and could become more coffin than vessel.

He ran a hand over the brass pipes that curved along the walls. Every square millimeter was polished and etched with tiny porpoises and sardines and scallops. Still, it was a lovely sinking tin can. Gilbert ran a tight ship.

It was technology millennia ahead of anything else when it had been forged. There was nothing like it in all the seas. In thirty years, however, American or NATO or Russian naval engineers would have the technology to detect her subtle, silent movements through the waters.

Men glimpsing legends.

Which was one of the reasons Henry knew change was coming. “A matter of time” as Cornelius might have said, although he and the other Council members seem determined to ignore that fact as long as they could.

Henry moved through three pressure doors, down a spiral stairs and entered the launch bay. The walls of the cavernous chamber were ribbed for strength, and from the ceiling a variety of small submersibles hung like mechanized insects caught in a web.

The
Tinker
, however, was the one Gilbert had selected for their journey today.

Unlike the other modern titanium-and-polycarbonate-composite mini-subs here, this diving bell had been part of this vessel’s original complement, crafted by the same master of the seas who had forged the
Coelacanth
.

The
Tinker
was a treasured relic—a gleaming geodesic bubble of foamed gold alloy encrusted with half-meter circles of diamond windows coaxed from the earth and polished to perfection—constructed to withstand pressures that would crush her modern counterparts like Styrofoam coffee cups. The mermaids along her curves still gleamed and beckoned as if they had been carved yesterday.

The diving bell was lowered into the moon pool, and a soft blue light glowed to life as she touched the ocean.

Gilbert and Aaron waited for Henry, and from the crossed arms and look on Aaron’s face, he could tell they had been waiting some time.

“Am I late?”

“Is that a question?” Gilbert muttered, and straightened the cuffs of his black captain’s uniform. “By the way, have you seen my hat?”

“Not recently . . . ,” Henry replied.

Henry could see why Gilbert, with beard trimmed in precise stylish angles, and the
Coelacanth
had inspired Mr. Wells to write an entire novel about them.

Aaron donned a leather bomber jacket and offered one to Henry.

“No thank you,” Henry said. “I shall be quite comfortable.”

Gilbert boarded the craft. Henry crossed the gangplank and ducked through the tiny doorway. Aaron was right behind him (cowboys boots clonking over the metal), and once aboard, he irised the outer hatch, and then wheeled tight the inner hatch.

Portals offered views all the way around, as well as up and down. Control panels, levers, and valves made a ring of controls along the outer surface of the
Tinker
—which Aaron and Gilbert busied themselves pulling and prodding and checking. One panel was dotted with empty vacuum tube receptacles, and a laptop computer had been soldered upon it.

Henry gravitated to the center of the craft, where shrimp cocktails lounged on a bed of chipped ice, along with caviar and fresh sushi. A dozen thermoses of heated sake were labeled:
KAKUNKO JUNMAI DAI GINJYO
.

Dire circumstances and the possible end of the world notwithstanding, Cousin Gilbert could always be counted on to be an impeccable host.

“Care to lend a hand?” Aaron growled.

“Not really,” Henry replied as he munched on a shrimp.

Gilbert spoke into a tiny gramophone-like device: “Ready to launch, Mr. Harper. Steady as she goes.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” a voice from the gramophone replied.

“Mark gyrocompasses,” Gilbert told Aaron.

Aaron flipped switches. “Online and checked.”

The
Tinker
eased below the waterline. Her glow lines intensified to a brilliant blue as they descended into the darkness.

Gilbert then spoke to gramophone again: “Sever connections, Mr. Harper.
Coelacanth
to station keeping.”

“Station keeping, aye, sir.
Tinker
away.”

There was a
clack
, and then the diving bell floated free . . . and proceeded to sink to the bottom of the ocean.

The exterior lights were bright enough that Henry saw the seafloor beneath his feet. It grew as they approached a crack in the earth a hundred meters wide. This particular abyss had remained undiscovered by man, and Henry hoped it would remain that way for a long, long time.

They entered the chasm, and Henry spied the columns and stairs that zigzagged at angles that should not (in any strict Euclidian sense) exist. He averted his eyes and tried not to look at the tentacled idols and cavernous temples that clung to the walls like ancient crustaceans. The shadows of shadows moved within those places. These were the remains of a civilization that predated the Titans: the Old Ones who had vanished from this world . . . or as some feared, were still dreaming in a nonstate in the In-Between Places.

Henry just hoped that, as League experts predicted, this trench would in a century subduct under the mantle. Only then would he be able to safely forget about it.

Until then, everyone avoided the place . . . which was
precisely
why they were here. Eyes and ears had followed them everywhere else.

“Ablate the portals,” Gilbert ordered.

Aaron twisted a dial and the windows darkened.

“Counter aetherics,” Gilbert said.

Aaron tapped on the laptop computer. “Circuits warming; channels alpha through gamma all in the green.”

“Initiate sound cancellation.”

Aaron nodded.

“That’s it, then,” Gilbert said, and both men exhaled and seemed to finally relax.

Aaron grabbed one the silver bottles of sake, popped the lid, inhaled its steaming contents, and downed the thing in a single draft.

“We sulk about like children hiding from their elders,” Aaron muttered with great sarcasm. He opened another sake. Although from this bottle, he took only a sip, and then set it aside because he knew—despite his bristling—these drastic precautions were indeed warranted.

“Tell us about Costa Esmeralda, Henry,” Gilbert said.

His coconspirators leaned forward and listened.

So Henry told them what had occurred yesterday in Central America—everything that he and his spies had observed: Fiona’s reaction during her Force of Arms class, and Eliot’s and Robert’s charge to her rescue.

Aaron’s fists clenched harder as Henry related how Fiona had stood up to a Soviet T55 main battle tank, cut it down, and survived the resulting explosion.

Both men shared worried glances as Henry related the raw destructive force that Eliot had unleashed with his guitar.

Aaron let out a long whistle. “They’ve progressed further and faster than I would’ve predicted,” he said, and tugged on his long mustache.

“Than anyone,” Henry agreed.

“But how do they
feel
?” Gilbert asked. “Is the League’s plan to make them sympathetic to their cause working?”

“Eliot doubts the League and their intentions,” Henry told him. “A wise thing for any teenage boy to question authority. So, unless I have completely misread the situation, he is where
we
want him.”

“I have a concern,” Gilbert whispered. “There had been a hundred witnesses. . . .”

“In fact, an entire church full of them,” Henry replied.

“And you took care of it?” Aaron asked. His eyes narrowed.

“Oh, relax.” Henry patted his hands together. “Even I would not do such a thing to protect our secrets.”

Aaron looked unconvinced.

“Besides, there was no need,” Henry said.

Gilbert quirked an eyebrow. “A hundred ‘God-fearing’ people saw our nephew destroy several city blocks—and there’s no need?”

“Well, ‘god-fearing’ is exactly the point.” Henry reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes.

Aaron clamped a hand on his arm. “Must you always play the Fool? We’re breathing almost pure oxygen.”

“Oh . . .” Henry smiled. He had, of course,
not
forgotten; he just enjoyed rattling Aaron. “Where was I—oh yes, those hundred people did indeed see Fiona and Eliot. They believed them two angels sent to deliver them from evil.”

Gilbert and Aaron sat perfectly still.

“The implications are chilling,” Gilbert whispered.

Aaron scoffed. “A coincidence,” he said, “that this happened on the footsteps of some Catholic church. Nothing more.”

Gilbert raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Let us not waste our time with such superstitions, gentlemen. What of Fiona? Where is her heart on these matters?”

“That’s the rub,” Henry said. “Fiona has strong convictions and is not easily swayed. She is balanced among numerous forces . . . and suitors. Even I would not dare predict the mind of a lady in such a situation.”

“Then we still have time to take action.” Aaron stood halfway, remembered where he was, and stopped before he bumped his head. He looked like a caged animal. “We must convince her.”

“In point of fact,” Henry replied, “we are out of time.”

“The Infernals?” Gilbert asked.

“Indeed,” Henry said. “My contact at Paxington has informed me that a letter has been sent. The Fallen Ones make their move for the children . . . today.”

“You tell us this now?” Aaron said, his eyes widening. “We must do something!”

Henry could practically feel his cousin’s pounding pulse within the tiny bubble. “No—it is precisely why we
cannot
take action,” he said. “We are bound by the
Pax Pactum Immortalus
.”

Aaron loosed an explosive sigh. He grabbed the sake he had set aside and drank it.

They were silent a long moment. Henry sensed the crush of the endless sea around them and found it oddly comforting.

How he missed his uncle. Were Poseidon’s ashes scattered in these very waters? What would he say to all this?
Madness
?
Folly
? Or perhaps
The game is on
?

“Your Paxington contact,” Gilbert finally whispered. “Did they give you any specifics on the Infernals’ plans?”

“The school is neutral, which makes them the most elusive, and perhaps the most dangerous, players upon the board.” Henry’s hand felt his throat (a silly instinctive reaction). “And the cost to extract even this morsel of data,” he murmured, “. . . I must not push.”

Gilbert nodded. His lips pressed together into a single grim line. “And Dallas,” he asked, “can she be made to see our side of things? Help us?”

Henry flipped his hand dramatically. “Her loyalty flits and dances hither and yon.” He cocked his head. “I don’t know where she will land, but we dare not underestimate her. When she awakens, she may be our greatest asset to play . . . or our fiercest opponent.”

Aaron shook his head. “I will not stand against Dallas, I—I cannot, if it comes to that.”

“Well,” Henry said, and eyed the sushi. “We need not decide such things today. Try the soft-shell crab. It looks divine.” He plucked up chopsticks and mixed soy sauce and wasabi on a plate shaped like a flounder.

“How can you eat?” Aaron asked, sneering at the fish.

“Really, Henry. Don’t you ever take anything seriously?” Gilbert demanded. “It’s not just our necks on the chopping block if this goes badly. And not just Eliot’s or Fiona’s either. It’s everyone. Everywhere.”

Henry picked up a piece of sushi and toasted Gilbert. “Oh yes, yes, I completely understand the stakes, Cousin. That’s precisely what makes it so much fun!”