All That Lives Must Die (25 page)

“Some are gods, so-called,” Mr. Ma answered. “Some heroes. Some merely brave fools. But there is one thing that you have yet to appreciate, Miss Lane. The Infernals are led by the Great Satan himself.”

The man in front of the Infernals screamed. Talons grew from his hands; curved ram horns burst forth from his head; skeletal bat wings cracked and popped from his spine.

He grew . . . taller and larger than any man could be . . . grew until he was six stories tall . . . skin darkening to amber and orange and finally electric crimson . . . and then he burst into flame.

The Great Satan roared a deafening challenge to the army of gods. Then he charged.

26
. Thule is a mythic land, whether wholly fabricated or based in fact is a matter of continued debate. Ancient peoples described it as an island north of Great Britain. In the Middle Ages, it was thought to be Iceland, Greenland, or Svalbard. Confusing this issue is the use of “Ultima Thule” in medieval geographies to mean anywhere beyond the edge of the world. Nazi mystics believed Thule real, the Nordic equal to Atlantis, where once dwelled a race of supermen.
Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 9, Mythic Places,
Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.

27
. “The blood spilt that day we used to write the
Pactum Pax Immortalis
. Were we craven? Or wise? Constantine united East and West under Holy Christian rule . . . did we creatures of light and dark see doom for all? Stop warring long enough to fight the greater foe? Only the truth be certain slain on that battlefield.” Coded passage, page 48, deciphered and translated from the original Greek,
Mythica Improbiba
(Bezzle edition), Father Sildas Pious. ca. thirteenth century.

               26               

THE BATTLE OF ULTIMA THULE

It happened fast.

Fiona was so filled with raw adrenaline, though, that her mind slowed everything.

Satan crashed toward the Immortals on the field.

The only thing she had ever witnessed to compare to this creature was seeing the bones of a
Tyrannosaurus rex
in a museum. But the dinosaur was close only in size and the head full of teeth—it wasn’t moving, screaming, and filled with flaming violence.

Satan was a true nightmare.

Seeing it made her wanted to whimper and hide.

As he ran, the fire in one hand solidified into an iron lance, pitchfork tipped and white hot.

Following his lead, the other Infernals took shape.

One lay down and transformed into a serpent, longer and fatter, and swelled into a form that dwarfed Satan . . . corpulent coils of scaled flesh that wormed forward, crushing the rocks before it to dust.

Another strode forth, each step growing in size until it was a giant that cast shadows in all directions; at its center darkness that defied the sunlight. Fiona saw its smile, however, swimming suspended in the black nothingness, fanged and full of malice. It dragged a chain whip the size of a tank tread with fishhook barbs.

Mitch stepped next to Fiona and furiously scribbled this into his sketchbook. “It’s not real,” he whispered. His voice wavered, unsure.

But Fiona couldn’t answer. It felt like there was no oxygen in her lungs.

A bat-shape cloud took to the air, screaming, and leaving a trail of crows and insect clouds and smog.

There was a clockwork man with bladed arms, a woman who dripped boiling poison and left a sizzling trail of lava in her wake, a three-headed hound with black eyes, a dragon, some shapeless tentacled horror, and centipede with a million needle legs.

Fiona forced herself to look away—or she would have frozen completely solid with terror.

She turned to the Immortals.

They stood tall and held their formation. They braced lance and spear and held their shields before them, ready for the onslaught. None broke ranks.

Uncle Aaron shouted orders and raised an impossibly large sword. His army cheered.

Fiona’s heart leaped with joy.
Yes!
She felt the courage and the power and the nobility flowing though her blood as well. Her fear evaporated. She gathered herself and stood taller. She would have given anything to be with her family on that field.

Immortal archers loosened arrows; a cloud of spines filled the air, arcing up and toward the enemy.

One archer held back his shot, however. He wore silver armor, so mirror-polished that he blended with the background. He ran onto the field, bow held out before him.

He launched a sliver of light from his bow—its trajectory flat and so fast, it streaked under the other arrows.

The Great Satan dodged—surprisingly even
faster
than this arrow—although the projectile grazed his side and left a scar of blue flames.

The arrow continued on course, rocketed toward the Infernals, and struck the monstrous serpent in the right eye—obliterating the socket and exploding out the back of the angular viper head.

The serpent hissed and thrashed, its coils smashed trees and hills, blocking the advance of the other Infernals.

The other arrows landed, some sticking the Infernals and drawing blood, most harmlessly bouncing off or shattering upon their bare skin.

“One lucky shot,” Mr. Ma said, “or perhaps it was not luck, may have decided the battle before it started. The mighty Leviathan was distracted. The Immortals would have not survived a direct confrontation with the Beast. Learn the lesson: Remove your largest opponent if you are able. You might be as lucky.”

Fiona spotted a man in the chariot by Uncle Aaron’s side. He was older, handsome, with a curled white beard. He shouted orders, and Aaron nodded with grim determination, looked once upon Satan bearing down on them, and stepped aside, ordering the soldiers nearby to do the same.

She saw now that the older man was larger than Aaron, muscular, and regal. Four white stallions drew his chariot. Within the chariot’s carriage were metal coils and spinning armatures that sparked and arced electricity and connected to the lance held by the man.

The apparatus spun faster, and the air about the chariot wavered and smoked.

The man spoke to his horses and they snorted with fear, but nonetheless pulled the chariot ahead.

He shouted and flipped a switch on his lance.

Electricity chained along the length of metal.

A flash. The air cracked. Lightning leaped from the lance’s tip and struck Satan.

The monster writhed in agony, dropped its pitchfork, and fell to its knees.

But then the lightning diminished and sputtered and died.

Satan was smaller now, perhaps only three times the size of an ordinary man. The warrior in the chariot barked orders, and Uncle Aaron and soldiers ran forward.

Satan looked up, smiling, and from his knees jumped upon them.

The monster ripped limbs from men and tossed broken bodies about like toys.

Uncle Aaron deflected claw and lashing tail and bat wing with his sword, but even he was driven back.

The man in the chariot fired his weapon once more, but the charge was a fraction of the original blast, and it only momentarily slowed Satan . . . before the monster turned and came for him.

The charioteer snapped the reins, and his warhorses galloped forward. He swerved at the last moment and jumped from the chariot—

—as it crashed headlong into Satan.

The electrical apparatus exploded in a cloud of sparks and arcs and gears and coils and chariot wheels, and left a cloud of dust, obscuring all. Four horses emerged unscathed and bolted across the field.

The charioteer, spear held before him, moved forward into the cloud.

“What’s going on?” Fiona cried. “I can’t see any more.”

“Something I have never seen,” Mr. Ma remarked as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “The angle is different this time. This is when Zeus and Satan met in deadly combat. Later, leaderless, both sides were too disorganized to continue their war. It was the single most important factor responsible for their neutrality treaty.”

“Wait,” Eliot said. “You’re telling us those two are going to die? I mean, they did die?”

Fiona had been so engrossed, she hadn’t even noticed Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab pressed close around her.

Mr. Ma nodded as he squinted into the rising clouds of dust on the battlefield. “Observe how both sides now engage.”

Infernals clambered or flew over the bulk of the writhing Leviathan, and attacked the army of Immortals.

Dozens of heroes enveloped Infernals, but the fallen angels were too powerful and they killed many, leaving a trail of broken and wounded gods and goddesses.

Across the field, one group of Immortals rallied. Aunt Dallas led them, a golden sword in each hand, fending off a giantess Infernal with flaming hair and dripping poison from her claws.

The warriors at Dallas’s side fell one by one, but she fought on, determined and fearless.

This was not the Dallas that Fiona knew—not the shoe-shopping, care-about-nothing socialite. This was Dallas the
goddess
.

More wind and dust whipped across the field, and Fiona couldn’t see her anymore.

“Curious . . . ,” Mr. Ma remarked. “This is not like the other times.”

“I have to know what’s going on,” Fiona whispered. She moved toward the ring of weeping stones.

Mr. Ma set a hand on her arm. His flesh was immovable iron, and he checked her motion.

Fiona turned to him. Mr. Ma’s eyes were unyielding—but so were hers. In her veins raced the blood of the Immortals. She felt ten feet tall. She felt a sense of pride and purpose that she had never before experienced.

“I
have
to go to them,” she whispered. “And I will.” Her gaze dropped to his hand.

Mr. Ma looked about . . . perhaps to see where Miss Westin was, but not seeing her anywhere, he sighed and released Fiona.

Did he know what she was? Surely the teachers at Paxington had to know that she and Eliot were half Immortal. He had to know that it was her family out on that battlefield.

“Very well,” he said. “I, too, wish to see what is happening. We shall investigate this anomaly together. You
will
stay behind at all times . . . or I can and will carry you back here, child. You understand?”

She nodded.

They started down the hill.

“Hey!” Eliot said, trotting after them. “If you’re going, so am I.”

“I will accompany you as well,” Jezebel declared, stepping forward.

“I’ll go, too, if that’s okay.” Mitch flipped over a new page in his sketchbook.

Mr. Ma sighed, shook his head, then looked to the rest of Team Scarab.

Amanda stood behind one of the stones, barely peeking out, trembling.

Robert sighed and looked at Amanda, then said, “I’ll stay here and watch.”

Jeremy crossed his arms. “I have no desire to see the blood and guts of gods and devils, up close, thank you very much.”

Sarah Covington glanced uneasily from the battlefield, to Mr. Ma, to her cousin, and then whispered, “I guess I’ll be staying here as well.”

Mr. Ma turned to the rest of them. “Stay close to me, then, and always behind. I will tolerate no wandering off.” Then more to himself, he said, “Something is very wrong.”

He strode down the hill, and they followed.

Eliot trotted next to Fiona, apparently just as curious about their family, although he was looking more at the Infernals. She was fascinated with them, too . . . in a grotesque, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it-because-it’s-so-horrific way.

How could she and Eliot be related to them? And how could they look so human one moment and so completely monstrous the next? Which was their real form?

Overhead, flocks of crows and vultures circled.

Was their father a man or that thing they’d caught a glimpse of standing over Beelzebub as Del Sombra burned down around them? A bat-winged nightmare?

Mr. Ma led them past heroes who fought valiantly, picking a path through the debris of broken catapults, and gingerly avoiding where the earth smoldered as cooling lava.

The fog parted before them.

Immortals and Infernals clashed in combat, but moved out of their way with perfect timing as if these memories were squeezed aside by the presence of real people.

Fiona wanted to touch something, pick up a sword and fight—help her family somehow. But if this was just a memory from the weeping stones, she couldn’t interact with anything here—and vice versa.

So why, then, was Mr. Ma looking so concerned? He paused and surveyed the battle through the mist and smoke.

A stone’s throw away, Aunt Dallas battled for her life against the Infernal with flaming hair. Her enemy was smaller now, but Dallas fought alone. Every soldier that had been in her group lay in the dirt with throats and arms and chests torn out.

“That is Abaddon, a Destroyer,” Jezebel dryly commented. “A match for any god.”

The Infernal slashed. Her nails scraped down the length of one of Dallas’s swords as she parried. The metal sparked and shattered at the hilt.

Dallas stabbed with the other sword, and penetrated the monster’s heart. It didn’t slow her down.

Abaddon drove her back against jagged rocks, forcing her to her knees. Dallas fought on, tears of rage streaking her face, and would not give up.

The Infernal was going to kill her.

Fiona had to do something.

She glanced back at Mr. Ma, who had his back turned, surveying the far side of the battlefield.

Fiona wasn’t stupid enough to break her promise and run off on her own, but she had to do
something
.

She knelt, grabbed a fist-sized rock, and threw it.

The stone hit Abaddon on the side of her head and bounced harmlessly off . . . but it
did
connect.

And it got her attention. She turned.

“You shouldn’t have been able to that,” Mitch whispered.

The Infernal turned back to Dallas . . . then halted again and cocked her head as if hearing something.

Fiona felt motion in the air—like an arrow’s whistle or a blade just before it cuts.

The woman in bone armor emerged from the mist. Audrey was wide-eyed, long white hair flowing over her shoulders, teeth bared, and holding twin curved daggers of sharpened tooth and tusk.

She slashed at the Infernal so fast, feinting and weaving a razor pattern in the air.

Abaddon hissed fire.

Audrey ducked, rolled, the flames unfurling over her head, and then she bounded forward again—slashing.

The Infernal held out a hand to block.

Her pinkie severed and wriggled upon the ground. She screamed and took three strides backwards. Abaddon glared at her opponent . . . then turned and fled into the smoke.

Audrey helped Dallas to her feet.

They hugged—then Audrey wheeled about, staring straight at Fiona.

Mitch stepped next to Fiona, touched her lightly on the shoulder, and whispered, “Don’t move. You hit that Infernal with a rock . . . maybe they
can
interact with us.”

She raised her jawbone visor and stared at Fiona and Mitch, Eliot and Jezebel. Really seeing them.

To witness her mother like this. . . . Not Audrey Post, but Atropos, a primitive goddess, fighting, full of life and battle lust. It was so unlike the stately woman she thought she knew, and yet so like her mother, all her iron will and inner strength.

Fiona reached out—stopped.

Her mother’s eyes hardened into a cold deadly glare.

Mr. Ma stepped in front of Fiona.

The connection broke.

Audrey shook her head as if clearing a dream and returned to her sister’s side. They joined Uncle Aaron and other Immortals that formed a phalanx against a single Infernal, the mechanical man with bladed arms.

Mr. Ma gave Fiona a look that promised a long lecture about following the meaning of his instructions.