All That Lives Must Die

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