All That Lives Must Die

Robert shook his head. He pulled out a gun from the holster in the small of his back. He pointed his eyes and the up and down the lobby.

Eliot nodded, hung back, and slung Lady Dawn over his shoulder. . fingers just over her strings.

Robert checked one end of the lobby, then came back and motioned Eliot to follow.

Eliot took one last glance outside. He didn’t see any pursuing soldiers.

He and Robert entered an abandoned courtroom. They crept past rows of seats, flags and official seals, and through the curtain behind the raised judge’s bench.

They found an office with walls of legal books. There was a mahogany desk upon which sat a drained bottle with hand-painted gold leaves embellishing a label that proclaimed: TEQUILA.

Robert nodded toward stairs that led up. A second bottle lay on the steps, liquor spilled, smelling smoky and pungent.

Uncle Henry had to be up there, or someone, at least, who had his car. Either way, there were answers, and maybe a way out of sunny, festive Costa Esmeralda.

They climbed up. Robert swept his aim as the stairs angled back and forth.

Two more flights. This reminded Eliot of the obstacle course in gym, and adrenaline surged though his blood and his fingertips lit upon Lady Dawn’s strings. The barest subsonic resonant thrum came in response to his feather touch. The paint on the walls crackled.

Robert looked at him, but said nothing.

They eased along the last steps to a glass door, pausing to let their eyes adjust to the sunlight.

On the other side was a garden of palm trees, cacti, and bromeliads with flowers like fanged mouths. There was a table with shade umbrella, and lounging there with his back to them was Uncle Henry in his white suit (his jacket off) and straw hat, shot glass tilted in his hand, its contents dribbling down his arm.

Robert eased open the door, scanned the garden right to left.

There was no one else there, but he didn’t lower his aim.

Eliot didn’t understand. It was Uncle Henry. He tapped Robert and gave him a What are you doing? look.

Robert shrugged him off and shot back a glare that could have given Fiona a run for her money in the withering-flesh department.

Without turning, Uncle Henry said, “Robert’s quite right to be wary, Eliot. This is a war, after all.” He gave a dramatic wave that sloshed out the remains of the tequila. “Dangerous elements loose in the streets. .” He reached for the bottle and knocked it over. “Can’t even trust one’s liquor to stand still at such times.”

Robert sighed, clicked on his gun’s safety, and lowered it.

They went to Henry. Eliot plucked up the bottle and set it right.

“You’re drunk,” Robert said.

“I certainly hope so. Otherwise a perfect waste of several bottles of Tequila Casa Noble Extra Anejo.”

Eliot surveyed the city from behind the glass walls. Tanks and Humvees rolled into the city center where he and Robert had stopped. There were more people in the streets, and more soldiers shoving them around, and one thing he hadn’t seen on the far side of the city’s center square: an older section with a cobblestone courtyard and church that looked like it could have been built by the original Spanish missionaries. Dozens of people streamed toward the church, taking shelter within-scared people, crying people, children, and women carrying bundled babies.

Eliot set a hand on the glass, wanting to help them.

“You said this was going to be a party. .,” Robert told Henry, stabbing at him with a finger.

“Did I?” Henry crinkled his brow. “Oh, perhaps I did at that.” He frowned. “Really, Robert, you know better than to take me literally. This is more of a wake for a friend, actually.”

Eliot turned. “Why is the League doing this? Why are you letting them?”

It was just a guess the League was involved-but a darned good guess in Eliot’s estimation. All the organized violence. Uncle Henry here, doing. . whatever he was doing.

“I had not the time or the strength to stop them,” Henry whispered. “They’re right, of course: Balboa must go. But you’re right, too, Eliot; there were other ways for those with patience.” He shook his head. “And I have so few friends left. Even if the Colonel had all those nasty habits-suppression of free speech-communism-a taste for women a tad too young.”

Henry took a deep breath and continued. “Alas, he committed the one unpardonable sin: not following the exact letter of the League’s bidding.”

He studied his empty shot glass, surprised it was no longer full. “And communism-ha! — that has never worked among mortals. Even among the Immortals-Zeus and his ‘fair’ autocracy. . what a farce. Only the Bright Ones ever came close.”[55]

Robert’s eyes widened with realization. “Balboa has one of your cars.”

“Yes,” Henry said with a sigh. “The 1970 Shelby. So naturally, the League sent me here to prevent him from spiriting away.”

“That’s why the bike didn’t work,” Robert muttered to Eliot. “Henry’s blocking.”

Eliot didn’t understand completely, but he did enough to know they’d be stuck here until Uncle Henry let them go.

“If this is a League-sponsored revolution,” Eliot asked, “why use the military? Why not just let people vote?”

Uncle Henry wobbled to his feet and joined Eliot by the glass wall. “I do love you, child, and your idealism. It is one of the few fragile joys left to me.”

“You could’ve taken Balboa out neat and easy,” Robert spat out. “The only problem is, it might’ve left tracks-and the League couldn’t have that. Nothing covers tracks like a little blood, huh, Mr. Mimes?”

Uncle Henry sobered. “Yes. And even better than a little is a lot. I do wish there was a way to stop this, but set in motion, these things take on a life of their own, I’m afraid.”

Eliot didn’t know what to think. He detected no lie in Uncle Henry’s words. And he did indeed look remorseful (or maybe he was just drunk like Robert said). Still, this situation seemed utterly wrong.

“Look here,” Uncle Henry said, and fished a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket. It was a stamp, triangle shaped, with a pineapple printed on it. He ran a finger over its perforated edges. “Every conflict between two forces has three outcomes. One side can win. Or the other side can.”

He placed the stamp in Eliot’s hand and closed his fingers over it.

“What’s the third option?” Eliot asked.

“Haven’t a clue,” Henry replied. “But I do know there’s always a third option. People just never seem interested in looking long enough to find it.”

Eliot didn’t understand. . but his hand closed about the stamp. He’d keep it.

He turned and watched as soldiers moved toward the church. One of them shot at a shadow moving behind a stained glass window. Rainbow fragments littered the ground, out of place in this city of gray.

Eliot stomach twisted. He turned Robert. “I have to get down there and stop them. They’re going to kill those people!”

Robert pressed his lips into a single white line. Through gritted teeth, he told Henry, “Unblock my bike, man. We can save them.”

Uncle Henry hesitated and then, “I cannot. I want to, but the League would know.” Henry then cocked his head and looked at the courtyard. “How refreshingly unexpected!”

Eliot stared unbelieving as a single person strode into the courtyard-blocking the soldiers’ advance on the church.

It was Fiona.

61 WHAT LITTLE GIRLS ARE MADE OF

Fiona stood on a rooftop and watched soldiers in the courtyard below. They went from building to building, searching, pulling people out into the street. It was awful.

Behind her stood six boys from the Force of Arms class, wide-eyed, also watching with fascination. Among them was also the upperclassman who had given her a tour the first day at Paxington, the handsomely chiseled