All That Lives Must Die (47 page)

Mr. Ma gazed into her eyes. He wasn’t angry. It was as if he were searching for something that he’d misplaced a thousand years ago.

And then he blinked and nodded. “Very nicely done, Miss Post. Come, we were covering the basic fighting stance . . . which I note you could use some improvement on.” He motioned for her to join the other boys, and very much made a point of not turning his back on her.

Fiona hid her surprise. So now he was actually inviting her to join the class? She didn’t understand, but she wasn’t going to question it, either.

As she joined them, though, the other students shuffled away. Not one of them offered their congratulations or would look her in the eye. Not even Robert.

Fiona stood by herself.

Mr. Ma showed them how to stand and fight, how not to lose one’s balance as they shuffled their feet.

She watched and listened and learned, but felt hollow inside, as if she were alone in the world . . . as if she’d severed much more with that one little cut than she had meant to.

________

“Robert! Wait.” Fiona jogged after him along the trail through the grove, catching up. She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. “Robert, please. What’d I do? Is it because I’m the only girl in the class?”

Robert stopped, looked at her, but didn’t say anything.

It felt weird trying to get Robert to talk to her, almost pleading, after working so hard to put some distance between them. But he was in her class now. They’d have to talk, wouldn’t they?
Not
talking would be weirder.

She waited for Robert to explain, but instead he turned and walked away.

He stopped after two paces, sighed, and turned back to her. “It’s not that.” He shook his head, but then seemed to decide something. “You
cut
him, Fiona.”

“That was the point, wasn’t it? Show him I was good enough to get into the class? It’s the same thing you did.”

Robert paled. “I didn’t fight Ma. I wouldn’t have the guts to try.”

“Okay, so one little paper cut.”

Robert stared at her, unblinkingly. “You really don’t know, do you?”

Fiona shot him the look that she usually reserved for Eliot, the
obviously you’re being too stupid for me to understand
look.

“I guess not,” Robert said. “It’s in
The Mah
bh
rata
.”

“East Indian mythology? Miss Westin hasn’t covered that yet, so how could I know?”

Robert blinked. “It was a movie. Pretty cool one, too. Look, sorry, I just assumed everyone knows this stuff. . . .”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you forget that until last summer, Audrey kept Eliot and me isolated? As in a total-vacuum-of-all-things-diabolical-and-divine type isolated?”

“Okay, it’s just that Mr. Ma is an Immortal, and has the power to choose when he dies.”
52

“So what?” Fiona demanded. “No kidding: he didn’t die today.”

“He’s not supposed to,” Robert explained. “Not until the end of things. He’s not supposed to get touched. Not a bruise, not a chipped tooth . . . not even one little cut.”

“One little cut . . . ,” Fiona echoed, and her stomach twisted into knots. “I still don’t see the big deal. So I caught him off guard with—” She stopped. “Wait, what do you mean ‘until the end of things’?”

“Mr. Ma is supposed to get hurt only at the end . . . of everything.”

That sense of wrongness was back. As if when Fiona had cut Mr. Ma, she’d broken something unbreakable . . . that couldn’t be repaired.

“The end of days,” Robert whispered. “Ragnarok. Armageddon. That’s what everyone’s freaking out about. They think because you hurt him, well, maybe you might have
started
it.”

52
. Benjamin Ma (aka Bhishma and Mr. Ma), gym teacher and combat instructor at the Paxington Institute before the end of the Fifth Celestial Age. May be the same Immortal warrior from the Sanskrit epic,
The Mah
bh
rata,
who took an unshakable vow of celibacy and was thereby gifted by cosmic forces with the power to choose the time of his death. Reputedly killed in the climatic battle of
The Mah
bh
rata,
however, similar warriors and yogis appear later in history, and this famous death may have been faked (certainly he did nothing to dissuade the useful rumor). The prophecy of his death triggering the end of things, of course, was proved true—foreshadowed when Fiona (ironically sent with permission slip in hand by Death incarnate) drew his blood that fateful day.
Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 11, The Post Family Mythology
. Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.

               54               

MUSIC TO END THE WORLD IF THOU DESIRE

Eliot sat cross-legged on his bed. He had a lot to do. He’d tackle the hard stuff first: tonight’s music homework.

He had to play his violin for fifteen minutes without repeating himself. Ms. DuPreé said he had to or “the bit of creativity that hadn’t been sucked out of him yet would solidify like concrete.”

But repetition was part of the music Eliot knew. Self-taught with “Mortal’s Coil,” “The Symphony of Existence,” and “The March of the Suicide Queen”—those pieces had ordered stanzas and repeated phrases that built on each other.

How did you make music
without
repetition?

He pushed his violin case away. Maybe he’d get to that later.

The next problem on his list was Fiona. He’d hardly seen his sister this semester. She came home late from her Force of Arms class, showered, slept, and then got up at 3
A.M
. to do homework. She was such a zombie by the time they walked to Paxington in the morning, he barely got a grunt or two out of her.

Which normally would’ve been great . . . except he had a feeling they’d need to work together more than ever to survive the rest of the school year.

Any free waking moments Fiona had between classes, she spent with Mitch. Not that it was any of Eliot’s business, but Robert was hanging out less with their group because of it. He couldn’t decide if Robert and Fiona not being together was a good or bad thing.

Which brought him to the next problem to solve: gym class.

Team Scarab practiced like their lives depended on it. Sarah was great. She’d learned how to harmonize with Eliot’s music, and together they could shatter a three-foot-thick beam halfway across the course. Fiona and Robert were just as impressive, stronger and faster than they’d ever been . . . although there was definitely some unresolved tension between Mitch and Robert. The only one who didn’t seem to be trying so hard was Amanda. Jeremy shot her glances that could kill, and occasionally he’d lose his temper and stomp out of practice.

The problem with gym wasn’t them, however, or even the competition. It was the unfair ranking system.

The lowest-ranked team had been dissolved: Team Soaring Eagle because of a disastrous accident during their first match this semester. Six deaths.

He’d thought about quitting that day. No school—no matter how fantastical or magical—was worth dying for.

But Fiona convinced him it was just an accident, a terrible accident, but one that could happen anywhere.

Maybe. But it wasn’t just anywhere where you had to dodge spears and swords sixty feet off the ground.

The result of Eagle’s dissolution hadn’t been a review of safety rules, a suspension of play, or the academic bell curve normalizing. Instead every team slipped
down
in the ranks one notch (sliding the entire freshman population that much closer to flunking). To make the cut and graduate, Team Scarab
had
to win two of their remaining last three matches.

Of course, gym would be a lot easier if they had their strongest player. Jezebel’s presence, however, would generate a whole new set of problems . . . but they’d be problems Eliot would
want
.

He dug through his pack and found Jezebel’s handkerchief, still stained with the blood from when she kissed him, still smelling like vanilla and cinnamon.

She hadn’t been at school since the start of the semester. Two weeks and no trace.

How long before they kicked her out?

It’d be the least of her worries, though; it meant the war in the Poppy Lands was still on.

Where she’d be fighting . . . or hurt.

Or dead.

His blood chilled at that thought.

So why was he here? He should’ve been back on the Night Train and helping her—whether she wanted it or not.

Was it because he knew they’d get in a big fight and she’d just try to get rid of him again?

Or was he just the world’s biggest chicken?

He swallowed, remembering the swarms of Droogan-dors that had enveloped Queen Sealiah’s knights . . . and left only frost and shadow in their wake.

Eliot made a fist, crushing her handkerchief, and then tossed it over to a corner of the pack.

His skin itched just thinking about her. She was so obstinate.

He was getting nowhere with these human relationship problems. Like music, they had patterns: attraction, coming together, fighting, breaking up—wash, rinse, and repeat.

Eliot pulled his violin case closer. Maybe he could make some progress on Ms. DuPreé’s assignment. He got Lady Dawn and admired her fiery wood grain that looked like molten gold and amber.

He played slow and strived to define his confused feelings. It swelled from him, roiled and swirled about him in the room, making homework pages flutter and books tremble on the shelves.

But it felt dangerous, too, like he was tapping into emotional waters deep and dark.

As he started thinking about how to express himself, his fingers fell into old habits, and they repeated a phrase, and built upon it.

He stopped.

That
was
right. That was how the music
should
be played, but it wasn’t the assignment.

He hissed his frustration.

Why was it that the others in music class never had these problems? They just played. They just did it. Their passion flowed from them effortlessly.

David Kaleb had a silver horn that flashed the reflected spotlights like his own light show. When Sarah Covington sang, she seemed warm and friendly (everything she actually wasn’t). And the older boy who had auditioned, his guitar had been bold and strong and big. Masculine.

Eliot glanced at Lady Dawn. Was he outgrowing her?

When he practiced in front of the others, he’d been embarrassed. Lady Dawn was the instrument a “good little boy” would play.

There was something else. When he had summoned the dead that first time at Groom Lake, she’d snapped a string. He curled his hand, still feeling the pain. It was as if she had done that on purpose because she disapproved . . . like she was alive.

Eliot had to be just imagining that.

He set aside the violin and stared past the gleaming surfaces, trying to feel more.

She was quiet. There wasn’t even that subsonic hum he usually sensed about her. She was sulking.

“It’s time I tried something else . . . ,” Eliot told her. “I mean—”

He couldn’t continue. What if she were really alive? Hadn’t he seen crazier things? It didn’t matter, though—real or imagined, the problem between him and her would still be there.

“It’s not like we’re breaking up or anything,” he continued, fidgeting his hands. “Look, I just need to try out a few other instruments. Something a little more . . .”

Eliot searched for a rational excuse (flimsy or not) to tell her.

“I’m tired of living in my dad’s shadow,” he said. “The violin is
his
instrument. I need something that belongs entirely to me.”

Lady Dawn just sat there.

Eliot couldn’t stand it. He picked her up, set her in her case, and slammed it shut.

Okay, so he
was
losing his mind. Maybe. But tomorrow he was going to find a new instrument to play.

He opened the giant tome he’d checked out from the Hall Of Wisdom. It was Volume Twelve of the Copper-Prince edition of
The Mah
bh
rata
, tonight’s assigned reading. Miss Westin had jumped ahead in their syllabus and had them working on Eastern Indian mythologies all of a sudden.

He read about battles, and betrayals, and family politics, stuff that usually interested Eliot, but he felt guilty about setting aside his trusted violin.

Eliot pressed his forehead to the page and groaned.

He just needed to clear his head, rest his eyes for a moment, and then he’d read . . . and make a few notes. . . .

________

This was the most moronic dream Eliot had ever had. He dreamed that he slept in his bed. No dragons to slay, no being late for some midterm he’d never studied for . . . just drooling on his pillowcase, snoring gently, books pushed aside.

Did he really look like such a dork when he slept?

The lamp was off to his room, but light streamed in from under his door. Half shadows gave his room a weird underwater feel.

There was a sigh nearby, and Eliot knew he wasn’t alone in his dream.

A person stood by his bed . . . a girl.

Eliot was wide awake now (at least in his dream) as he sat up and saw this girl wore nothing—just a silhouette of skin and long hair that was half pinned up, half escaped in loose curls.

She was too small to be Jezebel or Sarah. Maybe Amanda?

The girl stepped closer.

“Look into mirrors,” she whispered, “and thou beholdest not what is before your eyes, Son of Darkness.”

Definitely not Amanda, either. This girl’s voice was silk smooth and sounded
so
familiar.

The girl leaned against his bed, planted one knee, and eased onto his legs.

“For thou would I do anything,
be
anything,” she said. “Thou art the one I have waited for.”

Eliot wanted to say something—but his tongue wouldn’t work.

She slid onto his body. Her flesh was warm and she didn’t stop until her face was directly over his.

Eliot finally saw her. Beautiful didn’t describe her features. She had something beyond human, Immortal, or Infernal beauty. Her eyes were amber flecked with gold and blazed wild with passion.

“Not since before time was, doth I so offer myself,” she said, her breath tickling his neck. “Thou art the one I was created for, and thou created for me.”

Eliot could no longer breathe.

Her lips were directly over his. Every curve of her body pressed into his.

“No other hath ever made me feel like thou dost. Not even thine father.”

She kissed him.

Eliot tensed and pulled her closer, smothered in sensation. Every nerve flamed. Color flashed across his closed eyes.

He’d never been kissed like this—not Julie’s urgent passion—not Jezebel’s narcotic sting. This was high art and animal instinct blended. This was beauty and lust and heartbreakingly perfect. It was what every kiss should have been . . . but
never
could be.

The girl pulled away, panting.

“We shall together make music the likes of which even God has not yet dreamed,” she whispered. “Music to end the world if thou desire.”

She pressed her lips back to his. They embraced and burned.

________

Eliot bolted upright.

He was drenched in sweat, and sheets tangled about him. His face hurt as if someone had punched him, bruised, and his lips felt sunburned raw.

Eliot got up and noticed, much to his mortification, something amiss with his groin. He grabbed a pillow to hide the state of his physiology there.

Pulse still pounding, he remembered the dream—especially the girl. How could he forget? And yet, the details were fading fast.

He fumbled for the light on his nightstand, found it, and snapped it on.

Homework papers and books lay scattered on the floor. It was as if someone had come in, tossed it all, and then danced in the mess for good measure.

His violin case wasn’t there.

Eliot dug through the debris. Panic shot through his heart as he found the violin case—just the case neck, busted off and smashed flat.

He held his breath. Was it possible he’d done this? Subconsciously repressed all the anxiety about his music and taken it out on poor Lady Dawn? Crushed her in his sleep?

He tore through the mess, searching, and found more bits of cardboard and leather from the case, but no trace of his beloved violin.

Eliot breathed again.

Okay, it had to be somewhere. He riffled through the papers, piling them on his desk. He looked under the bed, too. The violin wasn’t there, either.

He’d never forgive himself if he’d damaged Lady Dawn. His father had given him the instrument.

His father.

Eliot remembered something the dream girl had said. It was hard to recall much more than her kiss or the way she’d pressed into his body, but hadn’t she said that he made her feel like no other had . . . not even his father?