All That Lives Must Die

A staccato burst: three rounds in her chest and gut.

The impact blasted her back; she spun and bounced and flipped and skidded along the cobblestones to a halt. . facefirst.

The pain was beyond anything she’d felt. It was lightning that flashed and unfurled from her belly button to sternum to her spine-bone shattering, organ shredding-it ricocheted teeth to toes.

She lay still. Dead.

Boots on cobblestones approached.

She had to be dead. . didn’t she? Of course.

So why then did she feel her heart thump-pumping, faster, until blood thundered through her veins?

She got up.

The man who’d shot her stood there, mouth open, blinking. He raised his Kalashnikov.

Fiona didn’t give him another chance. Chain wrapped about her fist, she slugged him.

His head snapped back, and he fell, and didn’t move.

Three holes smoldered in her shirt and skirt. Her belly was a solid bruise, but it was in one piece. . which was more than she could say about her uniform. Custom fit by Madame Cobweb-how was she going to replace it?

Heat surged through her and seared away the pain.

Six more soldiers saw her over their fallen comrade. They ran at her, yelling, and leveled their weapons.

She moved toward them.

They opened fire.

This time the bullets felt like wasp stings. They hurt. A lot.

But Fiona shrugged them off.

She whipped her chain around-it elongated, links clinking-and cut through black gun metal, wooden stocks. . fingers, and hands.

The soldiers screamed and writhed on the ground. The smell of their blood repelled her, and, at the same time, it was intoxicating.

When she’d cut Perry Millhouse in half, that had been a different Fiona Post. She’d actually mourned the death of that killer.

These men were murderers, too. They would have killed innocent people. Little kids.

The only thing she felt for them was contempt.

She stepped over them-left them crawling, in shock, bleeding-and strode toward the church.

Every soldier in the courtyard saw her now, though. There were two dozen of them. They screamed. Some made the sign of the cross. Others ran away.

Most opened fire.

They couldn’t touch her. She was no longer Fiona. No longer susceptible to mortal inconveniences like death. Power and hate pulsed through her every fiber-

A monstrous diesel engine coughed to life behind her.

Fiona froze. She’d forgotten one very important thing.

She whirled and her overblown ego deflated. . along with her sense of invulnerability.

The armored tank on the corner belched black smoke from a tailpipe. Treads chewed through cobblestones as it and its turret rotated and the main gun arced toward her.

Stupid. Stupid!

How could she have been so blatantly arrogant to turn her back on an armored tank?!

Three options flashed through her mind.

First, she could stand here like an idiot and get blown to bits (an option her body seemed to favor at the moment because her knees wouldn’t unlock). Not that it even had to hit her to kill; the overpressure blast from the cannon could do that without ever touching her.

Two, she could run. She was sure, though, all that would accomplish was to get her blown up a few paces from where she stood. Great.

Or three. . she could do what she came down here to do: fight.

Her body moved before she finished that last thought-as it had when she’d fought Mr. Ma. Her muscle and sinew knew more about saving itself apparently than her brain.

Fiona sprinted toward the tank. The chain played out through her grasp.

The turret locked on her dead center.

She jumped and flicked the chain forward. The slender bracelet that had loosely fit about her wrist was now five times her body length, each link as large as her fist, the edges razor sharp. It wrapped about the tank’s turret-whipped around and lashed twice about the main gun’s muzzle.

Fiona felt rapid pings through the metal in her grasp. . the shell clicking into the tank’s firing chamber.

She grasped the chain with both hands and pulled.

Infernal metal shrieked through hardened steel. The turret slid apart at an angle where it’d been severed; half the muzzle clattered to the ground.

The tank fired.

Turret cut in half, firing mechanisms no longer aligned, the shell exploded inside. . along with the rest of the tank’s munitions.

The air filled with firecracker flashes, each as bright as the sun.

Fiona only distantly registered this as she was hurled back, felt a thousand stings-and then a section of steel tread hit her.

There was blackness. . It was quiet. .

That was nice. Peaceful.

But then a ringing intruded on her rest, which started faint and then turned up to an ear-and then skull- splitting intensity.

She blinked. There was a dull blur. The sky? Clouds?

Yes; they were nice. Fluffy. That one looked like a hand. Those, a flock of white crows.

She rolled over. The courtyard where she and the tank had been a moment ago was a crater of smoldering bits of metal and shattered cobblestones.

Everything hurt. Fiona was cut and bleeding and a slash in her side bubbled as she tried to inhale. It felt as if she were drowning.

At least she stopped those creeps before they killed anyone. . except, maybe, her.

She laughed. That hurt, too.

She spotted three soldiers. They’d retreated into an alley and peered at her, astonished at what she had done. . and that she still moved. One held a radio, spoke into it, looking at her-then up at the sky-back and forth.

She didn’t want to die here. The anger that had made her so strong before, though, was nowhere to be found. All she felt was her pain and a bitter cold as shock set in.

She hallucinated that Eliot and Robert stood by her. Oh-how she wished that were true. She would have given anything for Robert to take her hand and help her up.

She got to her knees. Hallucinations or not-she wouldn’t lie here and bleed to death.

She had to defend herself. Or get back to Mr. Ma.

Or, if she couldn’t do that, she’d at least be on her feet if this was the end.

Dizzy, Fiona pushed on her knees and rose. She looked at the clouds again. A line in the sky flattened and arced toward the street.

That was a contrail made by jet engines. She squinted and saw a Korean-war era warplane: a MiG-15. They had two 23 mm cannon.

It was doing. . what was it called? A strafing run.

Funny how her last thoughts were from the old encyclopedia-loving Fiona Post. Maybe that’s what she truly was made of after all.

That was okay. She liked that Fiona Post.

She clutched the chain in her hands. She had no regrets about what she’d done. It had been the right thing- the only thing she could have done.