All That Lives Must Die mc-2

by Eric Nylund

  “Knock ’em dead,” she told Eliot. “You’re better than all of us put together, you just don’t know it.” She said that like it was part compliment, part annoyance-and then she smiled at Ms. DuPreé and whirled back to the dressing rooms.

  Ms. DuPreé gave him a gentle push forward.

  Eliot moved, although his legs now seemed to be glued to the floor. It took all his strength to walk to the curtain, and then push through. . where he froze.

  The three thousand people who had been applauding before looked expectantly at him. There was a polite smattering of claps.

  Which stopped as Eliot continued to stand there.

  Like a complete dork.

  What was he doing? Sure he could play. If you needed the dead conjured, gravity warped, or a legion of Napoléon-era soldiers to blow something up-then he was your guy.

  But play for people? Be entertaining? Move them? No way.

  He wasn’t like Sarah. She had a gift with people (even if she was really cruel when you got her alone). That was real talent.

  And before her, David Kaleb had wowed the crowd with his silver horn flashing like a mirror under the lights; the audience had gotten to their feet and danced even!

  Sarah and David had had fun with it. Music used to be something Eliot had fun with, too. Now, though, it was a constant struggle to do better, to control the wild magic in him and Lady Dawn.

  And why in the world had Ms. DuPreé made him go last?

  The people in the audience whispered as he stood there. Some got up and left.

  Eliot watched them and narrowed his eyes.

  No one walked out on him-not before they’d heard him, at least.

  He marched out front and center on the stage.

  There was more polite, encouraging applause.

  But there ended his bravery. .

  And Eliot was stuck again-in front of all those people-them waiting for him to impress them-and him unable to move. So he did the only thing he could. Stall.

  He fiddled with the knobs on the lower edge of his new Lady Dawn guitar. He then checked the cable plugged into her socket-a cord that ran backstage but actually connected to nothing. It was just for looks.

  By adjusting the dials, flicking a switch or two, his new guitar could sound like an ordinary unpowered instrument one moment, then blast out amplified noise with reverberating electronic feedback the next. . all without having anything plugged in anywhere. Flip another switch, twist a dial, and the guitar echoed with the deepest bass notes.

  He played it almost as well as he did the violin. It was like switching between writing in cursive script to block letters. It was something he could do without thinking about it.

  His fingers drifted to the steel strings and twitched over them.

  Faint sound pulsed. Pure and simple.

  He’d start there.

  He played the “Mortal’s Coil” nursery rhyme-straight up, one note after another, just like the first time he’d heard Louis play in that Del Sombra alley.

  He kept his eyes on the strings, focused, and shifted notes up and down the scale. He made the sweetest sound, and there was a slight echo. . as if there were another guitar accompanying him.

  Eliot looked up.

  The audience nodded and moved to the rhythm. They weren’t exactly captivated as they had been with Sarah or David, but that was okay. He didn’t entirely suck.

  Now he had to up the stakes-get these people really excited. Like Ms. DuPreé had been trying to teach them: put his soul into his music.

  But why?

  He stopped. Right in the middle of the song. His hair fell into his face.

  Why was he doing this? Really? He didn’t want to be here. He’d never wanted to impress anyone with his music.

  He slammed his hand across the guitar stings. The sound that came out was odd and dissonant and abrupt.

  The audience jumped.

  It startled him, too.

  He hadn’t known he could do that-scare people. Without magic.

  Maybe that was the best magic of all. .

  He played-and didn’t even think about it-just moved fingers over strings. It was classical, a bit like Mozart. It reminded him of the way he felt the first day at Paxington, at least, the way he thought it was supposed to have been: learning about mythology and his family, surrounded by books and other students just as smart and dedicated.

  That music was too predictable for his mood, though. . and it seemed like a lie to force himself to play it that way.

  Eliot flipped a switch and the sound looped. He riffed over the piece, shifting to bass notes.

  He picked up the pace and his music felt like all the fighting that went on at Paxington-the duels and the team battles in gym class.

  It was rock and roll (one of several terms he had studied in class last week) and he made Lady Dawn snarl.

  He dialed up the feedback and sound tore through the air.

  Head down, he focused on the notes, no magic, no ghosts or chorus of kids singing along. He was alone and that suited him fine.

  He even tuned out the audience. He didn’t look. He didn’t care.

  Lady Dawn heated under his hands, her wood flashed like liquid fire, and her strings felt sharp as if he were pushing her past her engineered limits.

  He shifted back and forth between styles that he’d just discovered-mariachi to bluegrass-classical Chopin to jazz to the ancient ballads of Charlemagne and then with a long slow grinding changeover, he beat out some heavy metal.

  He wasn’t playing to do anything. No miracles. No life-or-death situations that he had to save himself from.

  He wasn’t playing for anyone, either. Not to impress Julie, or Jezebel, or Ms. DuPreé.

  He just played.

  Music-for the thrill.

  Because he wanted it.

  Lady Dawn resonated and flexed under his hands, soaking up all his anger and frustration and power, amplifying it. . and wanting more.

  He blasted out the last power chord, flourished with the phrase of a little lullaby, and stilled her strings.

  He was bored with this. . and done.

  He finally looked up.

  Not a single person in the audience moved. They sat and stared openmouthed.

  Far away, dogs barked and howled and a dozen car alarms warbled.

  Eliot didn’t care what any of them thought. He turned and started to walk backstage.

  Ms. DuPreé waited in the wings; Sarah had come out to listen to him as well, and both their eyes were wide at his audacity.

  They hadn’t liked it? Maybe Ms. DuPreé would kick him out of her class. It seemed so silly and trivial now to play for her approval.

  Eliot had almost reached the curtain’s edge when the applause came-waves of it along with wild cheering and calls for more.

  He turned. Every single person in the audience was on their feet, clapping and waving their lighters in the air.

  They’d loved his music and him.

  And none of it mattered to Eliot.

  He went to Ms. DuPreé and Sarah. The applause behind him intensified. The look on Ms. DuPreé’s face shifted, and her mouth snapped shut. She wasn’t astonished anymore; the narrowing of her eyes signaled something closer to disapproval. It was hard to tell.

  Sarah’s mouth, however, remained dropped. Then she blinked and shouted to him over the applause, “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Do me a favor?” he shouted back.

  “Anything!” She seemed out of breath.

  “Borrow your phone?”

  Sarah frowned, like this wasn’t what she’d wanted him to say, but nonetheless, she turned and rummage through her backpack. She handed Eliot her phone.

  Eliot dialed, held the speaker to his head, and stuck his finger in the other ear.

  There was a connection. The person on the other end picked up on the first ring. “Yeah?”

  “Robert?” Eliot yelled as loud as he could.

  “Geez
,” Robert said. “I can barely hear you. Speak up.”

  Eliot ended the called and texted Robert instead: need 2 get out of here. give me a ride?

  send gps, Robert texted back. ill get u-where 2?

  anywhere, Eliot thumbed. just need to ride.

  59 PRACTICE DOESN’T MAKE PERFECT

  Fiona crackled her knuckles and stretched. Team Scarab had the gym for an hour of practice, drills, and figuring out the new course. It was a golden opportunity and couldn’t be wasted.

  She squinted though the hazy morning air at the new eight-story obstacle course. There were coils of razor wire and nozzles that belched frozen carbon dioxide. Chain-link ramps swayed in the breeze. Two new top levels rippled, swathed in plastic, and had OFF-LIMITS signs all over them. Inside workers hammered and sparked with arc welders. More surprises courtesy of Mr. Ma.

  But the course wasn’t the only thing they had to figure out. They had to fight and win now against the grade curve, too.

  Not only had Team Soaring Eagle been disbanded because of their disastrous accident. . but Team Red Dragon, too; they’d been declared ineligible because they had too many injured players-and their remaining members had been picked up by other teams down a person or two.

  The problem was that these two disbanded teams got removed from the ranks. All the other teams slid down-without moving the cutoff point for failing.

  This morning when Fiona checked the roster, Team Scarab was now well below that cut.

  She turned to face and rally her team. . at least, the half of her team that was here.

  Robert, Jeremy, and Amanda sat on the bleachers.

  Amanda scanned a moldy book called The Non-Illusion of Law as she weaved her hair into a braid.

  Jeremy peered into a little book, jotting the occasional note.

  “We have to win the next match,” she told them. “Let’s get up there and practice.”

  “We’re going to practice without everyone?” Amanda asked. “Let’s compare notes on Miss Westin’s last lecture instead. I’m not getting this whole ‘dharma’ thing.”

  “What do you want us to do, Fiona?” Robert said, and picked at a crack in the wood. “Run a few laps?”

  Fiona frowned and crossed her arms.

  Eliot and Sarah were on a field trip for their music class. She didn’t blame them; they had to keep their grades up. It still irked her, though, knowing they were off having fun while the rest of them had to work.

  Jezebel was still missing. Six weeks and she hadn’t even shown up at Paxington. Was she dead on some battlefield in Hell? They might be permanently down one team member.

  And Mitch? He was missing, too.

  “Did you try Master Stephenson’s cell phone?” Jeremy asked without looking up from his notebook.

  “Twice,” Fiona said. “No answer. Just a text.”

  He’d sent her a text message a few hours ago:

  FIONA

  I’LL BE LATE FOR PRACTICE. START W/O ME.

  FAMILY STUFF TO DEAL WITH.

  COFFEE LATER? A WALK?

  MITCH

  When she’d tried to call, she got the “subscriber out of service area” message. And when she texted back, there’d been no response.

  Mitch had never missed a practice. It worried her. This “family stuff” he had to deal with. . was that the same problem he’d hinted at over winter break?

  Whatever the reasons for their missing teammates, Fiona got why no one wanted to practice: They needed one another.

  Without Sarah here for Jeremy to boss around and show off in front of, he seemed more lazy than usual (if that were possible). Fiona made a mental note to ask Sarah later if they were first cousins or more distantly related. He was from the nineteenth century; Sarah from the twenty-first. Their relationship had to be. . complicated.

  And without Mitch, Robert seemed more rude than usual (which was not so hard for her to imagine). It was as if he acted civil these days only with Mitch around. What was up with that? Some too-cool alpha male thing? She doubted she’d ever understand the boy psyche.

  Fiona had to do something to motivate her team, though.

  “We should look at the new parts of the course,” she said, “see if we can figure out what tricks Mr. Ma has planned.”

  “Wouldn’t that be breaking your sacred rules?” Robert said, arching one eyebrow.

  “They’re not my rules,” she replied. “They are the rules-and those signs up there just say ‘off-limits,’ not ‘don’t peek.’ Besides, I’m willing to test the boundaries of the rules if it means saving the necks of my teammates.”

  Amanda shook out her hair and closed her book. “Sure-let’s go,” she murmured. “I can’t wait to see if we’re going to get frozen solid next time or chopped into bits.”

  Jeremy smirked. “A tad dark for you, lass, no?”

  Amanda turned and held Jeremy’s gaze until he looked away.

  Robert jumped off the bleacher suddenly, startled, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his phone.

  “You brought that to practice?” Fiona asked.

  Robert shrugged. “I have people that need to get ahold of me.”

  Fiona didn’t like that. Who needed to stay in touch with Robert so desperately that he couldn’t leave his phone in his locker for one hour? Was he still spying for Uncle Henry? Or maybe it was as simple as him having other friends she didn’t know about. Perhaps a girlfriend? Well, he was certainly entitled to have a life outside school-the only reason it irritated her was that it was cutting into their practice time.

  Robert pressed the phone to his ear.

  Amanda moved closer to Robert. “Is it Mitch?”

  Robert held up a finger and shook his head. “Geez,” he said into the phone. “I can barely hear you. Speak up.”

  He then looked at the phone’s screen, started to close it, then paused. “Not Mitch,” he told them. Robert texted whoever it was, waited, texted again-then snapped the phone shut.

  He looked at Fiona and pursed his lips. “I’ve got to go. Sorry.”

  “What!” Fiona said. “We’ve got the course for thirty more minutes. You can’t leave.”

  Robert squinted at her, and his face flushed. In a low voice, he said, “I don’t work for the League anymore. You can’t order me around.”

  It felt like he’d slapped her in the face.

  She wasn’t ordering anyone around. She was just trying to win-so they could all graduate.

  But before she could say any of this, Robert walked away.

  She watched him go. Furious. Helpless.

  Jeremy came to her side. “Let him go, lassie. There be no point in practicing today with so many missing, anyway.”

  He stood so close, Fiona felt his body heat, too near for comfort. She took a step away.

  “Whatever. .,” she muttered, trying as hard as she could to sound like she didn’t care.

  “It only goes to show how unreliable some members of this team are.” Jeremy tapped his notebook. “I’ve been so bold as to prepare a list of suitable alternatives.”

  “Alternates?” Amanda jumped up and came over. One of her tiny hands had balled into a fist. “You can’t just kick people off the team.”

  “Don’t interrupt me,” Jeremy told her.

  Fiona made a calm down gesture at Amanda. “It’s okay,” she said. “I think I know what he means. Planning ahead, right?”

  Something had happened to Amanda over the break. She would’ve never stood up to Jeremy Covington like that before. Was it that dorm fire Fiona had heard about? Three people got hurt. Maybe Amanda had rescued them, and that had boosted her self-esteem. Fiona should’ve hung out with her more to find out. . but oddly, Amanda hadn’t even tried to speak with her since the start of the new semester.

  “Precisely,” Jeremy replied. “Planning ahead. What shall we do if our esteemed Infernal teammate never returns? Or Mitch? What if he has met some unpleasant fate? Or Robert. . what if he just rides off one day?”

&n
bsp; Now it was Fiona’s turn to glower at him. Mitch had not met some unpleasant fate. And Robert wouldn’t just ride off and leave them. But he did have a point about Jezebel.

  Jeremy leaned closer and his silky blond hair fell into his face in a distractingly attractive way. He touched one finger to his lips, trying to hide the smile growing there. “Just in case. .,” he whispered.

  Fiona glanced at his notebook and the list of names in neat calligraphy.

  “We should start talking to some of the other students,” she said. “The ones on teams down two or three members already-before someone else snaps up the best of them.”

  “Aye,” Jeremy said. “That be where my expertise is pure gold. I’ll be able to sort through the chaff for ye.”

  Amanda gave a dismissive snort.

  Fiona agreed with her assessment-at least that Jeremy was a relic, rude, chauvinistic-but she also saw the truth of the situation. The maneuvering for replacements, the politics of picking new teams; Mr. Ma had to have known this would happen in the later half of the year. She saw that this was part of gym class, too. Fiona had to learn how to recruit and, at the same time, stop other teams from getting her best players.

  She imagined this process only accelerated as finals drew near. For most Paxington students, their loyalties would dissolve the instant they thought they were on a losing team.

  “We’ll have to act quick,” Fiona whispered, more to herself than Jeremy. She was about to ask him what he had planned when she spotted someone on the far side of the field.

  Mr. Ma emerged from the locker room. He wasn’t in his usual Paxington sweats. Today he wore camouflage fatigues, a khaki shirt, black combat boots, and a red beret. He looked all business, grim, and his dark eyes fixed upon her.

  “Miss Post,” he said, as if her name were an accusation.

  “We were just going to start,” she said, feeling suddenly guilty about not being on the gym.

  But she stopped herself, disgusted at feeling so weak-when she’d done absolutely nothing wrong. Fiona stood straight and told him: “We’re just about to figure out the best strategy to get to the very top of the new course.”