All That Lives Must Die (46 page)

A girl in the audience snickered. “That’s ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ ”
51

Someone shushed her.

Eliot paid them no attention and kept playing. This song, whatever it was, was his and his family’s. It was the mother he’d had, if only for a moment, before Louis left and everything changed—before Audrey severed her connection to him and Fiona. A connection he’d never get back . . . that he mourned over.

The song was simple, slow, and full of that loss. Each note was leaden and painful in the still air. He felt completely alone up on the stage.

It was a stupid little baby thing . . . but it was his.

He put himself into the song, all the love and happiness of his perfectly imagined family that had never been: growing up with a real father and mother . . . having Audrey’s tenderness, Louis’s guidance—not 106 rules.

But that was a lie. The notes soured under his fingers, and he shifted to a minor key.

About him, the spotlight flickered and dimmed.

He’d never had real parents. Nothing about his family was normal. He cast aside his dream and faced the fact that he was the son of the Eldest Fate, Atropos, and of Lucifer, the Great Deceiver. Maybe that made Eliot a freak, or a nerd, but something in him had to be part divine and part darkness.

The simple song under his fingertips now spoke of the heavens wheeling overhead, and among them a boy . . . ascending to stars—or falling like his father, crashing and forever burning.

One day he would be very much more than simple Eliot Post.

He finished, the last notes echoing throughout the grotto like the beating of his heart.

There was no clapping.

Eliot couldn’t see any faces in the dark.

He trembled from the exertion and from the humiliation that he’d put everything he was out there for strangers to see.

Ms. DuPreé set one hand on his shoulder. “That was good,” she whispered. “Real good, kid.” She smiled and her eyes sparkled. “Stick with me, and one day I’ll make you a star.”

49
. “Muses to laugh, to leap, to lament, to perish, and to be born anew.” Translated from Latin. —Editor.

50
.
Rhonchial
means “pertaining to snoring,” and
musicaster
is a mediocre musician, so in this context “one who’s moderate musical talents sounds like snoring.” —Editor.

51
. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was first published as “The Star” by Jane Taylor in 1806. It is sung to the French melody “Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman.” The older French lyrics (among many variations) are translated here as:
“Ah! I shall tell you, Mum, / What causes my torment. / Papa wants me to reason / Like an adult / I say that candy / Is better than being right.”
Perhaps closest to the original source is this couplet from the obscure Benedictine Hymn scroll,
Obsequium Angelus
, authored by Father Sildas Pious ca. thirteenth century:
“ ’Ware young child the Morning Star. / Look away and you’ll go far. / Like a jewel ablaze in dark, / fallen angel casting spark. / ’Ware the dark and ’ware the light. / Naught but trust in God at night.” Origins of Art and Power in Music
, Erin DuPreé, M.F.A, Ph.D., Paxington Institute Press, LLC.

               53               

CHALLENGE

Fiona followed her stupid map to the far side of the Ludus Magnus. She was irritated they thought she needed a map when she’d been wandering around here for a half a year already . . . more irritated that she
had
needed the map.

Although she had seen the far side of the Ludus Magnus before, had even had a bird’s-eye view from the top of the obstacle course, she’d never noticed this tiny sister coliseum.

Instead of columns, giant statues stood along curve of its outer wall: an armored knight, a one-breasted Amazon, and a gladiator with trident and net.

She passed through the wide entrance. The inside training grounds were the size of a softball field, with sand and mud and grass and concrete surfaces, dotted with wooden practice dummies; steam-powered, multi-armed robots; barricades of spikes and razor wire, racks of swords and shields and spears—and lots of open space to fight.

In the center stood Mr. Ma. About him in a loose circle were ten boys in their Paxington school uniforms (not gym sweats).

Fiona’s heart skipped a beat. Of course Mr. Ma would be the combat instructor. Who else but sadistic, by-the-book Mr. Ma?

She did a double take, though, as Mr. Ma laughed and smiled and patted one of the students on the back. He seemed more at ease here than in gym class. Maybe she’d catch a break and he might actually be
nice
to her. Unlikely.

The boys in the class were bigger and more serious than the ones she usually saw on campus. Upperclassmen. Two of them she recognized from that first-day demonstration of the obstacle course; one had had a broken arm, but he looked no worse for the injury today.

Fiona worried that she might be late—despite having made sure that she had an early start this morning. It was one of those things that just seemed to happen to her: misreading the grandfather clock at home, class getting moved up . . . Eliot doing something to mess them up, like start a small war.

She checked her phone. No, she still had ten minutes.

As Fiona walked toward them, however, she noticed one more thing different with this picture.

Robert Farmington.

He stood with the other boys (just as tall but not quite so filled out), and he looked completely at ease—as he always did. He had a black eye, but nonetheless laughed along with Mr. Ma, and grinned—until he saw her.

His smile dried up. The others turned.

Mr. Ma’s smile similarly vanished, and he was once again the same stern figure who made her life miserable in gym.

“Good morning, Miss Post,” he said.

The way he said it, though, was laced with disapproval—as if what he meant to really say was:
Good morning, Miss Post, and notice that while you’re on time, you’re not early . . . indicating that you don’t have the dedication to the martial arts that these other fine young men do, so why don’t you go back to bed and get your beauty sleep and not worry your not-so-pretty-little head about such things?

Imagined or not, irritation made her neck flush with heat.

“I’ve come to learn how to fight,” she told him as confidently as she could (which sounded more like a squeak to her).

“I’m sure you have,” Mr. Ma replied. He nodded to Robert. “But as you can see, I’ve already had one freshman who has contested the prerequisites for this course. I have no desire to babysit
two
such fledglings. It would not be fair to the others.”

Robert looked at the ground, unable to meet her gaze.

The prickly heat on her neck spread across Fiona’s chest. Anger or embarrassment or both—she wasn’t sure.

It was completely unfair. Just because Robert had gotten here a few minutes earlier and passed Mr. Ma’s stupid test? A test she was sure she could pass, too.

“Miss Westin said I could challenge your prerequisites.” Fiona had wanted to say this calmly and logically, as if Mr. Ma had just overlooked some bookkeeping error, but it came out sounding petulant.

“I’m sure she did. But Miss Westin’s influence stops at the entrance of this hall.”

Fiona pursed her lips. Something solidified in her . . . a titanic, immovable mass of stubbornness.

“I
will
challenge your prerequisites,” she told him. She had made that sound exactly as she wanted this time—as if she were contesting Mr. Ma personally.

The other students collectively inhaled and held their breaths.

Mr. Ma narrowed his eyes slightly as he took her in, and then after a moment said, “A challenge, is it?” He chuckled. “What would be the point, Miss Post? You need a signed permission slip first.”

He turned back to the others.

“I have one.” Fiona got out the piece of paper and handed it to him.

Mr. Ma looked at the permission slip—which covered all the things she had expected: a dozen hypothetical near-fatal injuries, and the four Ds (death, decapitation, dismemberment, and disembowelment) . . . as if there weren’t already a million different ways to get beaten, broken, or killed in Paxington.

What was absolutely fascinating to Fiona, though, was that Audrey had signed it.

Fiona had gone back and forth on the best way to approach her mother—how learning to fight would actually increase the odds of her graduating—it was better to learn in a structured and supervised environment where there were medics nearby rather than doing so outside of classes where
anything
could happen.

Audrey hadn’t listened. She had simply taken the permission slip and signed it.

On the signature line of the page, her mother had printed
Audrey Post
, and then next to it she had drawn an infinity symbol with a line stricken diagonally across.

Mr. Ma gazed upon her signature, and his face crinkled so hard in concentration that it looked like a prune with two deeply set dark eyes. As he continued to gaze at it, Fiona saw the ink was thicker than she recalled, almost bulging off the page . . . and it scratched deeper into the surface than it ought to have without tearing through.

He ran his thumb over the symbol. Mr. Ma then folded the paper and tucked it into his warm-up jacket.

“So be it,” he whispered. “I accept your challenge.”

One of the older boys stepped forward, but Mr. Ma held a hand up at him and shook his head. “I will do this.”

The other students looked amongst themselves, confused.

Robert’s eyes widened. “Don’t fight him, Fiona,” he said. “It’s a trick.”

A smile creased Mr. Ma’s wrinkled lips. “Listen to your friend, Miss Post. He is correct: I
do
intend to trick you.”

Fiona saw real concern on Robert’s face. But Robert was always overprotective . . . and he didn’t know what she was capable of anymore. Besides, if
he
had done this to get into the class, so could
she
.

“You can try,” she told Mr. Ma.

Mr. Ma looked her over and gave a snort.

He stalked to a rack of weapons, considered the sticks and shields and practice swords, and then selected a pair of wooden samurai swords,
bokken
, and tossed one to Fiona.

She hefted it. Heavy.

From her studies of kendo, she knew these solid wooden swords couldn’t cut. They had a simple chiseled simulated edge, but nonetheless had enough weight to bruise quite effectively, break bones . . . or even bludgeon a person to death.

Her confidence flagged and her stomach flip-flopped.

What did she think she was doing? Mr. Ma had a million times more fencing experience than she had.

No. She’d sparred with Uncle Aaron and did okay (and she bet Aaron could have walloped Mr. Ma). And when she had fought the Lord of All That Flies, Beelzebub, she’d held her own . . . for a while. At least the Infernal had treated her as a real threat.

Not like a joke, as Mr. Ma did.

Fire sparked inside her and the fear evaporated.

Mr. Ma held the tip of his
bokken
up. “Come at—”

Fiona lunged.

He deflected her point and whipped his sword around.

She blocked—but the force of his blow sent her skidding sideways in the dirt, and pain shuddered up her forearm bones.

The old man was stronger than he looked. Faster, too.

She feigned high, drop the tip of her sword—thrust up toward under his chin.

Only Mr. Ma wasn’t there. He’d sidestepped a split second before, and his sword was a blur coming toward her.

She twisted out of the way.

Too slow.

The
bokken
hit her side. Ribs shattered. Every particle of air blasted from her lungs.

Fiona crumpled . . . although somehow stayed on her knees and didn’t sprawl facefirst into the dirt.

She also managed to hold on to her
bokken
. A small victory.

Necessary, too.

Because Mr. Ma didn’t show mercy. He swung his
bokken
in a double overhand stroke.

Through a haze of agony, she lifted her sword to block—barely. The impact sent new lightning strikes of pain shuddering through her bones.

She fell, dropped her
bokken
, and panted in the dust. Helpless.

Mr. Ma stood over her.

Fiona couldn’t breathe, it hurt so much. She couldn’t move. He had her.

“That,” Mr. Ma said, looming over her, “should be quite enough, I think. Go away, Miss Post . . . or you will lose your head.”

His tone was irritatingly polite with just a hint of pity. He turned and walked back toward his students.

No one, but no one,
ever
turned their back to her in combat. She was Fiona Post, daughter of Atropos and Lucifer—daughter of Death incarnate and the Prince of Darkness. She was a goddess in her own right . . . and more.

The world tinged red through her eyes. She welcomed the pain of her broken ribs. Let it set her mind aflame. Let it burn.

Fiona grasped her wooden sword.

She stood.

There was more pain, but it didn’t matter. The pain was in some other Fiona Post, one she’d pushed deep inside. Some new Fiona surfaced. This other Fiona said: “You should’ve finished me when you had the chance, old man.”

Mr. Ma halted and cocked his head.

The other students, even Robert, stared, astonished . . . and backed farther away.

Mr. Ma slowly turned, his eyes narrowed, and he nodded. “Perhaps I should’ve at that.”

He lunged at her; she met him.

He struck three times. Her arms moved on their own—without thought—and parried. She riposted, but he just as effortlessly deflected her blows.

Mr. Ma slipped inside her guard and struck her dead center in the chest. The force shattered his
bokken
into splinters.

The impact pushed Fiona backwards into a crouch.

It had force enough to shatter a person’s rib rage and liquefy a human heart.

Fiona gritted her teeth. Fortunately, she wasn’t feeling very human at the moment. She smiled. His strike hadn’t even bruised her.

The world to her looked as if it were on fire—all brilliant ruby red and tinged with the blood that pounded through her, blazing with anger.

Mr. Ma backpedaled as she approached. He grabbed two new
bokkens
off the weapons rack.

Fiona swung with wild abandon, screaming her rage.

He parried each blow. His defense was solid . . . perfect, in fact. She would never get through. She would beat on him until he wore her down, and then she’d make a mistake, or collapse from exhaustion, and she’d lose.

Her anger doubled and redoubled, and it felt as if her world would explode.

But the other, submerged Fiona started thinking again. She had to get around that perfect defense of his somehow . . . from behind? Under? No, those wouldn’t work.

Maybe the way around his defense was
straight through
.

Fiona stepped back and gazed upon the chiseled wooden surfaces of her bokken, and forged her hate into something stronger: resolve.

The planes and fibers of the wood stiffened, and the length of the
bokken
hummed with power. The rounded notched surfaces smoothed to a clean edge, a line that seemed to slide in and out of her vision, it was so fine.

A
cutting
edge.

Her rage subsiding, she strode toward him, her
bokken
held high—and brought it down.

Mr. Ma must have sensed a flaw in his perfect defense, some danger—even before her
bokken
touched his, because his ever-calm expression puckered and she saw the tiniest flicker of fear in his eyes.

Her
bokken
passed through his as if it weren’t there, cleaving the wood in two.

Mr. Ma leaned back.

Not far enough, though.

The tip of Fiona’s
bokken
crossed his face . . . and she felt resistance along her cutting edge—something hard, so she pushed
harder
with her arms and her mind—and his flesh yielded.

It was nothing serious. She hadn’t wanted to cut off his head. It was just a reminder that he should
never
turn his back on her again: a nearly microscopic slash curved from his cheek to chin.

She stepped back.

Mr. Ma felt the wound, and his fingers came away a tiny smear of red. He stared at it for the longest time.

The other students stared, too.

Fiona no longer felt the anger; she wasn’t even glad that she’d given Mr. Ma a taste of his own medicine.

Something was wrong.

It felt as was if she’d broken a rule—and not just some Paxington rule that might get her expelled. This rule felt like it should not have been able to be broken, like gravity. The entire universe felt as if it might unravel because of what she’d just done . . . starting from where Mr. Ma stood . . . from that one tiny cut.

Mr. Ma curled his fingers into a fist and took a breath. The wound on his chin stopped bleeding.

He moved toward Fiona.

The
bokken
slipped from her grasp. She started to say she was sorry—but halted herself. She wasn’t sorry, and she wouldn’t lie about it.