The Order of Odd-Fish (34 page)

The crowd exploded with boos. Oona Looch was right: the crowd didn’t like an Ichthala duelist. Jo gripped her lance tightly and shouted Sefino’s recommended response:

“So, Ichthala! Boasting in speech, yet paltry in deed! I
am
Aznath, Silver Kitten of Deceit, and my meow is your death sentence; my purr, your despair; my litter box, your grave! Let fly your thrashing tongue, your gnawing teeth, your gulping throat; I choke your esophagus with the foodstuffs of destruction; I fill your greedy maw with the meal of dishonor! Devour it, Ichthala; taste it well; savor your doom; for that is all you shall ever devour again!”

The crowd went wild. The chant of “Aznath! Aznath!” started up. Fiona sneered from within her Ichthala costume (a smaller, wearable version of the idol she’d made for Desolation Day) and yelled over the chanting:

“Who can take seriously this idle braggadocio, from a weakling both vile and pusillanimous? Do you not know, Aznath, that I, Ichthala, the All-Devouring Mother, shall gather unto myself a thousand living scorpions and sew them into a pair of scorpion underwear? And do you not know that I shall force you to wear this underwear? For I
shall
do this, Aznath; and as you howl, stung in the most unmentionable places by your own writhing, poisonous underwear, I shall also set that underwear on fire. And then I’ll kick you. I have spoken!”

“Can it be, Ichthala?” retorted Jo. “Have you dishonored even your own dishonorable self, and stooped to stitching disgraceful undergarments in your diseased fantasies? Do such whimsies allow you escape from your nauseous existence, and your ignominious fate? For your fate is this: I, Aznath, Silver Kitten of Deceit, shall cut you into narrow strips, and stretch your entrails into a thin twine, and then string a guitar with them. And then I will play your
second
least favorite song on that guitar, for to play your
least
favorite song would be too good for you, and frankly, a bit much.
I have spoken!
”

Fiona was enraged. “I’m going to rip off your fingernails, Aznath, and feed them back to you in a spicy gumbo of your own blood!”

“I’m going to eat your children!” countered Jo. “I don’t care if you don’t have any yet! When you’re in labor, I’ll be waiting outside the delivery room with a knife and a fork!”

“I’m going to tear out your intestines!” foamed Fiona. “Then I’ll make a rodeo lariat out of those intestines, and then I’ll lasso you with those intestines, and then
hang you with your own intestines
!”

“I’m going to cut off all your fingers,” shouted Jo, “and then I’m going to cut off your mother’s fingers, and your father’s fingers, and the fingers of everyone you love! Then I’m going to build hundreds of dollhouses out of these severed fingers!
Then
I’m going to put rats in all these houses, and then, after the rats get comfortable,
I will kill all the rats;
and then I will
burn
down the city; and then will I kill
you,
with a diamond dagger plunged deep in your dark, unholy, malformed, unnatural, godless, nauseating, cancerous, wretched, crap-spackled
heart!
I HAVE SPOKEN!”

The crowd roared and screamed and stamped their feet in glee.

“Avaunt!” said Fiona.

“Hark!” said Jo.

“Fie!” said Fiona.

“Alack!” said Jo.

“Egad!” said Fiona.

“Forsooth!” said Jo.

“Aaaaaaaagh!” said Fiona, and jumped onto her ostrich. Jo swung her leg over Ethelred, and the ostrich sprang to its feet. Fiona reared back and launched into the arena, dipping and climbing toward Jo. Ethelred scampered back, spun, hunched, and charged into the air, diving toward Fiona.

Jo brandished her lance, flicked the trigger so that fire blossomed out either side, and spun it around. Fiona flipped her flaming lance back and forth, the flames zigzagging blindingly. Then they were on top of each other, clashing and scrabbling in midair, as their ostriches shrieked and clawed.

Everything went black. The screams and noise of the Dome of Doom were gone. The Ichthala blood boiled over in her, pulsing so violently that Jo felt it was nearly bleeding out of her eyes. Far away, deep in the distant darkness, there was a tiny, colorful man, dancing.

She was back in the Dome of Doom. She gasped for air. Fiona was driving her back to the wall. Jo almost fumbled away her lance. Feebly she tried to counter Fiona’s attacks, but Fiona whacked her parries aside. Jo was overwhelmed. She was going to lose. It took everything in her to fend off Fiona, but Fiona was hardly trying. Fiona held back, puzzled, searching for trickery in Jo’s apparent weakness, casually bashing her around, surprised, even disappointed, at how easy she was.

Again Jo blacked out, sucked down into darkness and silence. The little glowing man was still dancing. She strained to force her way out, but the Dome of Doom came back only in one-second snatches, and she was always pulled back down into the darkness and the dancing man, rapidly coming closer, a crumb of color in a black ocean.

Fiona was flying away from her. Round one was over. The crowd was booing at Jo’s inept fighting. She wheeled Ethelred around and flew back to her perch, where Ian and Nora waited to adjust Ethelred’s armor and give Jo water.

“I’m getting killed out there,” said Jo.

“First-round jitters,” said Ian. “Now go back out there and show her what you’ve really got!”

“I’m blacking out!” said Jo, but nobody heard her over the noise. Ian and Nora shouted encouragement, but Jo saw the worry in their faces. Ethelred squawked and dived back into the arena. Fiona swooped toward her. Round two had begun.

This time Fiona didn’t mess around. Every time Jo attacked, Fiona swatted her aside and came back with a furious combination of ripostes that battered her so hard she could barely stay in her saddle. Fiona’s lance stabbed, slashed, bashed, and skewered her, biting into her armor, tearing at the fur, burning her skin, pummeling her.

Jo wasn’t good enough. No amount of practicing could have prepared her for Fiona. The ostriches fluttered and circled each other, growling and snapping. Jo struggled to keep just out of Fiona’s striking range. It took all of her skill just to hold Fiona at bay. The crowd groaned and booed. They didn’t want defense; they wanted action.

Fiona lost her patience. Snarling with contempt, she drove her attack forward with new force. Jo couldn’t block it. With a blinding series of feints, stabs, thrusts, and slashes, Fiona broke Jo’s defenses and battered her, whacking her shoulders and arms, spearing her in the chest, and finally walloping her over the head. The crowd cheered wildly.

Once again Jo blacked out. The Ichthala blood gushed and tingled through her, oily and full of seething power. She was drowning in it, swallowing lungfuls of black, sticky blood. The dancing man was closer now. It was the Belgian Prankster. He was saying something.

Jo screamed and shook herself, breaking out of the nightmare, but just barely. At any moment it could absorb her again. She tried to flee Fiona, but she was panicking now, making mistakes. Fiona saw her chance and whacked Jo from behind, bashing the back of her head.

The Dome of Doom flickered. She was going to die. She could hardly even defend herself, and inside she was drowning, sucked into a furious undertow of Ichthala blood. Fiona was bringing her lance around in a flaming sweep—Jo mounted a desperate defense, but Fiona shattered it, knocking her clear off her ostrich.

Jo was falling. She had lost. Her mind blinked back and forth between the arena and darkness. She was falling in the arena and she was falling through miles of blackness, into the lap of the Belgian Prankster. The water was rushing up to swallow her, and the Belgian Prankster’s face filled her vision, whispering: “I’m right here to help. Let me help you.”

Jo hit something. It wasn’t water.

She grabbed whatever it was and held on for dear life.

Ethelred had dived down and caught her.

The crowd went nuts. It was a beautiful move. Fiona flitted above in a victory swoop, thinking the applause was for her, and Jo saw her chance. Spurring Ethelred upward, she aimed her lance straight up, and just as Fiona noticed her—too late—Jo speared the underside of Fiona’s ostrich’s wing.

The ostrich squealed. Jo yanked her lance out. Ostrich blood spattered on her. Her lance was gory with blood and burnt feathers. The crowd shrieked and roared. Fiona’s ostrich could hardly keep in the air, and she retreated, looping and zigzagging back to her perch. Jo just barely made it back to her own perch.

“Brilliant move, Jo,” yelled Nora. “Absolutely brilliant!”

“I can’t go back out there,” wheezed Jo.

“You have to!” shouted Ian. “You own this now! Go out there and finish her off!”

“I’m blacking out!” protested Jo. “I’m dizzy, I can’t!”

“Finish her!” said Ian and Nora, shoving Jo back into the fray.

Fiona’s seconds had patched up her ostrich as best they could, but it was no use—the ostrich could barely keep aloft. Still Fiona whipped her ostrich toward Jo, half flying, half falling—

And then Fiona
leaped off.

Fiona crashed on top of Jo, and now they were both on Ethelred.

The crowd couldn’t believe their eyes. It was an audacious move. Jo and Fiona struggled in the saddle, each trying to push the other off, but Jo couldn’t twist around enough to fight. They scrabbled and grappled as Ethelred squealed in confused outrage, and just when Jo thought she was forcing Fiona off, Fiona got an unexpected grip on Jo and chucked her off entirely.

Somersaulting through the air, Jo flailed her arms and grabbed the leg of Fiona’s much-abused ostrich. Jo clung on as it shook its leg, shrieked, and tried to bite her; finally, with a ferocious kick, the ostrich flung her across the arena, and Jo hit the cage wall.

Jo grabbed the bars of the cage, hanging on. It wasn’t over until she fell in the water. But she had lost her ostrich, she had lost her lance, she was bruised, bloody, and broken—and then she blacked out again. The Belgian Prankster gibbered to himself in the darkness. She felt the Ichthala blood build up, brimming behind her eyes, a black, sludgy gelatin, foaming out of control inside her. It was power.

Jo knew what the Belgian Prankster wanted. He wanted her to use the Ichthala’s powers. But she knew that once she did that, she would unlock the All-Devouring Mother inside her, and the Silent Sisters would come, and then…Jo could feel the shape of the power, stronger than nature, so strong that if she used it, the universe itself might unravel. It was almost unraveling her now.

Jo opened her eyes. She was still clinging to the side of the cage. She saw the faces of the crowd, just beyond the bars, bestial and ugly, screaming for blood. She twisted around, looking down into the arena. Fiona could hardly control Ethelred—the angry, loyal ostrich bucked fiercely under her, turning around to bite Fiona every chance he got.

Jo scrambled up the bars of the cage. Somehow Ian and Nora had gotten a new ostrich and lance and were waving her over. Jo started to cross the ceiling, hand over hand, toward her perch on the opposite side.

The crowd was on its feet, stamping and hollering and pressing their faces against the cage as Jo hung from the dome. Some hooted encouragement, others screamed abuse, still others tried to stamp on Jo’s fingers or pry them from the bars. Jo looked down—far below, Fiona was riding Ethelred hard, breaking him. It wouldn’t be long before she’d broken him enough to come after Jo.

At last Jo made it down to her perch. Ian and Nora were yelling something, but Jo hardly heard them. She grabbed the extra lance from Ian and mounted the ostrich—Dame Delia’s bird—and looked down at Fiona, just in time to see that Fiona had drawn a gun.

With an echoing blast Fiona fired.

The bullet nicked a cage bar just inches from Jo’s head, ricocheting off with a spark.

The crowd heard the blast, saw the gun and flew into a panic. If bullets were flying around, anyone could be shot. Suddenly the spectators’ area was thrown into a tumult of screams, elbows, and shoves, everyone stampeding to get out of the Dome of Doom.

Jo was astonished Fiona had brought a gun. Fiona probably hoped Oona Looch would understand why, once she revealed what Jo was—she was already shouting it now:

“Do you know who Jo really is? I’ll tell you! She’s—she’s—”

But nobody was listening. The crowd was charging for the exits, trampling each other underfoot, clogging the doors and hallways. More bullets zipped past Jo, cracking into the bars and walls nearby. Dame Delia’s ostrich was spooked by the gunfire; it whirled and fled into the spectators’ area, knocking down Ian and Nora on the way out. Moments later Fiona came in pursuit, squeezing Ethelred through the same exit.

For a duelist to fire a gun was unprecedented, but for the duelists to fight in the spectators’ area was unheard-of. Fiona rampaged after Jo, firing wildly, overturning tables and breaking the furniture. Jo just barely kept a dozen yards ahead, as Dame Delia’s ostrich awkwardly fluttered through the debris and panicking mob. People tried to keep out of the way of the huge, flapping ostriches as they crashed through the tables and bars and couches, scattering chairs and toppling cabinets of bottles that shattered with mighty crashes, sloshing the floor with gallons of expensive drinks. Oona Looch’s daughters ran after the ostriches, trying to bring them under control, but even they were kicked, trampled, and flung aside.

Jo wheeled around and ducked back into the Dome of Doom. Fiona charged after her. Jo heard the blast of a gun, and once again she blacked out.

The Ichthala blood seethed smoothly through her, from the corners of her heart to the tips of her fingernails, threading its way to exactly where it needed to be. The Belgian Prankster said, “It’s your power. You took it, just like you had to. Now use it! It belongs to you!”

But Jo felt like
she
belonged to
it
. The blood was welling up, squirting out of her eyes, running out her nose, gurgling in the back of her throat, seeping from under her fingernails. She tasted it in the back of her throat, like motor oil.