All That Lives Must Die

Dante Scalagari.

Mr. Ma observed as well, impassive, arms folded over his chest.

Fiona just wanted to leave.

She glanced back at the Paxington helicopter perched on the roof. It had whisked them from the landing pad behind the Ludus Magnus over the Pacific-then the turbines had kicked in and blasted them through the sound barrier.

They’d flown south at that terrific speed, so Fiona guessed they were somewhere near the equator from the position and strength of the sun overhead.

. . Sunlight that clashed with the chilling events in the streets.

The boys whispered about how the soldiers covered each other with overlapping patterns of fire. There was a nervous edge their voices. They were worried, too-for the people down there or for themselves, she wasn’t sure.

Mr. Ma had briefed them on the flight. They were to observe a coup d’etat, the beginnings of a democratic revolution. If, he had stressed, none of the heroes of the revolucion got greedy and seized the dictatorship for themselves. It would be a chance for them to watch urban combat tactics, and to witness the rarer occurrence of ideologies clashing on a battlefield.

Fiona didn’t understand that last part. All she saw were people getting pushed around.

“This situation has similarities to the battle of Ultima Thule,” Mr. Ma said. “Instead of Immortals and Infernals, however, there are many lightly armed rebels fighting a lesser number of soldiers who are better trained and armed.”

On the street, a squad of soldiers shoved a family out of their apartment building. There were older men and women and a dozen children-all so scared, they stumbled and huddled together for support.

This wasn’t even close to Ultima Thule. The few armed nonmilitary men she’d spotted had been running away. Meanwhile, the soldiers had automatic weapons and an armored tank on the corner. Similarities? Mr. Ma was crazy.

He was stone-faced, though, and his dark eyes were as unreadable as two blank blackboards.

Fiona felt sick.

She didn’t trust him. With six upperclassman boys here (charming Dante Scalagari or not), well outside the watchful eye of Miss Westin and the regulations of Paxington, Mr. Ma could do. . she wasn’t sure. . something awful to her. . or, at least, try to.

Fiona took two steps away, and only then did she return her attention to the street (still keeping Mr. Ma in her peripheral vision).

The soldiers herded the civilians from the apartment building toward another group. They made them stand against a wall and turn around.

The people weren’t fighting back. How could they? There were kids in the line of fire.

But then again. . there were little kids there. How could they not fight?

“W-what are they going to do?” Fiona whispered. Her knees shook. She locked them, forcing them to still.

“What do you think they’re going to do?” Mr. Ma replied without glancing at her. “What would you do if you had your enemies helpless before you?”

Fiona sure wouldn’t line helpless people against a wall and threaten to execute them.

“We have to do something.”

“Yes,” Mr. Ma said. “We watch and learn what we can. But only that.”

“What!” She turned. “Why?”

The boys in her class stepped back, astonished that Fiona had questioned Mr. Ma. Dante nodded, apparently sharing her sentiments, although not daring to offer an opinion.

Mr. Ma twitched a single eyebrow. “This is a League matter, Miss Post,” he said. “Paxington’s charter states we must preserve our neutrality among the Immortals, Infernals, and mortal magical families. Staff and students are not allowed to interfere. . regardless of how much we wish.”

“The League’s doing this?” Fiona asked, but more to herself than to Mr. Ma.

She was part of the League of Immortals-but only because the Council had decreed it so-not that she actually worked with them. They never even told her what they did. She chewed her lower lip. She wasn’t sure why they’d do this, but if they had a reason for a civil war here, the League was capable of making it happen, she bet. . and make it appear as a military coup.

Mr. Ma looked back to the courtyard and continued his vigil.

Uncertain what else to do, Fiona turned and watched, too.

A mother and her child sneaked away from the others. They made a run for the church at the opposite side of the courtyard. Several others rushed though its doors, too, seeking refuge.

“This is no Ultima Thule,” Fiona declared. She heard the rising indignation in her voice and couldn’t stop it. “Those people will be slaughtered. Is that what you wanted to teach us today?”

Mr. Ma gripped the metal railing on the edge of the rooftop so tight, it creaked. “Perhaps,” he said.

Fiona’s jaw clenched. “I’m going down there and stopping them.”

“I have told you,” Mr. Ma said with strained patience, “I cannot permit school staff or students to-”

Fiona shrugged out to her Paxington jacket. “Then I’m ditching.”

Without waiting for him to tell her to stop, or some acknowledgment that she was doing the right thing from Dante or any of the other boys-Fiona jumped over the railing onto a fire escape.

She padded down and around the ladders and landings. . pausing on the last.

She’d need a weapon. She unzipped her book bag.

What was she was doing?

She should have thought this through. These weren’t shadow creatures or Paxington students with swords. They were men with guns that could kill her before she got close to them.

Her hand closed about her wooden yo-yo. What good was that going to do?

She had to do something, though. What was the point of being a real goddess-of everything she’d learned at Paxington-all that training in gym class, if she couldn’t put it to use?

She touched cold metal and jerked her hand from the book bag.

Her father’s gift, the slightly rusted steel bracelet, had wrapped itself about her wrist. The bracelet had unclasped and grown to a heavy chain before, its links tapering to razor edges. . it had lengthened a dozen feet and whipped through a Parisian lamppost.

It was magic. An Infernal thing. A thing to cut.

And precisely what she needed.

Okay. Mr. Ma was training them to fight. So she’d fight.

She squeezed the metal. It warmed, squirmed, and heated. . just like her blood.

Infernal or Immortal rage, that didn’t matter, and it didn’t matter that the anger was the only emotion that seemed to come easily to her these days. Right now, she was going to use it to do some good.

Fiona slid down the last ladder and strode across the courtyard. She walked straight toward a soldier who watched the church. He shielded his eyes to see through its stained glass windows, raised his Kalashnikov machine gun, and shot at the shadows.

Part of Fiona knew not to be afraid. She was half goddess, and half. . whatever her father was.

But she was afraid.

She was still the same old Fiona Post.

And yet, there was something else in her: a fighter. Something extraordinary. She clung to that-and strode forward to find which Fiona she would become.

She uncoiled the length of chain now in her hand and loosed a slur that would have never qualified for a round of vocabulary insult with Eliot. “Hey!” she called out. “Perro que come excremento!”[56]

The soldier wheeled.

Fiona lashed her chain at him.

Before the chain struck, however, he shot her.