All That Lives Must Die

strings, instinctively plunking the notes that cleared the atmosphere.

Fiona started to say something, but her mouth stayed open, gaping, as she stared past Eliot.

He turned and saw what had shut his sister up.

Where the bridge he’d just destroyed had been, a thin line appeared in the chasm. It was spiderweb fine, but it thickened and buds appeared that turned into chain links-then another line stretched next to it, and strands of metal wove between them.

Like the Gates of Perdition that had sealed after Fiona had cut into them, this bridge was growing back.

The damned across the chasm cheered and jeered.

“We can’t fight,” Mr. Welmann said. “No matter how strong you kids think you are, they’ll always be more of them to fight.” He nodded toward the other suspension bridge that led to the Blasted Lands. “We go that way. Fast.”

Without any argument, they raced for that bridge, their only escape.

A cluster of the working damned gathered at the bridge, all crowding to get on the thing and get away, too.

Robert sprinted ahead. He plowed into them, knocking six over with one blow, and clearing a path for him and the others to run ahead.

Eliot and Mr. Welmann jogged onto the bridge after him. Amanda was right after them. Fiona lingered, and came last.

And Eliot knew why.

As they tromped off the bridge and onto the next mesa, Fiona turned and severed the chains.

It fell into the lava.

If it was like the other bridge, though, it’d grow back. Destroying it would buy them only a minute or so.

The working damned here scattered, abandoning their rocks. Eliot jumped onto a boulder and looked around. Five bridges radiated off this plateau, connecting to others. . only now, from every direction, the angry damned came. So many, he couldn’t count them. They flowed across the land. The only thing preventing the damned from quickly overwhelming them were the bridges-they let them across only a few at a time.

If Eliot and the others didn’t get out of here, they’d have no choice: they’d have to fight and fight-and against a few hundred. . maybe even against the first thousand, they’d win.

But after an hour of battling, he and Fiona, Robert and Amanda would falter. They’d need food and water and sleep.

There was one way, though. One bridge clear for now. It led to another plateau, which in turn had a single bridge to the Plains of Ash.

“There’s a way out of lava fields,” Eliot told them, jumping down. “I can get us onto solid ground.”

Robert had his brass knuckles on one hand, held his Glock in the other. “How many are coming?” he asked.

“All of them,” Eliot replied.

“Just run,” Fiona told everyone. “There’s no time left to think this through.”

So Eliot ran. He ran before the fear could catch him and stop him cold.

But as he and the others got onto the bridge, he couldn’t stop thinking that this plan didn’t make any sense.

So what if they got onto the plains? That eliminated the danger of them falling into lava, but if they wouldn’t stop the bridges from reforming, and it wouldn’t stop the damned from pursing them. How long could they all run?

At the midpoint of the bridge, Amanda halted.

Eliot turned and grabbed her hand. “It’s okay,” he said, not at all convinced of this. “Don’t be afraid.”

But as he saw the look on Amanda’s face, he knew the word afraid didn’t apply.

At least to her.

Amanda’s lips pursed together and trembled with emotion. Her eyes still smoldered with fascination- for real. They glowed and flickered with mirage heat.

Amanda dropped his hand.

“I can stop them,” she said. “You go on.”

“What?. .” Fiona almost ran into her-and halted, seeing her burning eyes, too. She stepped around her next to Eliot.

“You have to go.” Amanda’s hands gripped either side of the chain railing. Where they touched the iron it heated. . dull red. . orange. . and then yellow and smoldering.

“I can’t hold it in much longer,” Amanda said, struggling to get her words out. “It’s this place. It’s so hot. And their anger. I can feel it all burning.”

Eliot reached out to touch her, but the heat was too great.

The heat. The fire. Eliot had seen one person with this power before. And so had Amanda.

“Perry Millhouse?” Eliot asked. “He did this to you?”

Tears welled in the corners of Amanda’s blazing eyes, but they didn’t get the chance to spill upon her cheeks; instead, they sizzled and steamed away.

Robert and Mr. Welmann came back to see what the trouble was, stopping, astonished at the sight of her.

“I can’t even tell you,” Amanda whimpered. “It hurts to even think about him. But after you saved me, everything changed. That night I had to get the heat out. I let it go. I had to. . and I burned everything-my house- my dog-my parents. . none of them survived.”

She looked away, unable to meet their horrified gazes.

Eliot felt sick, but everything made sense about Amanda now. Perry Millhouse had had something planned for her all along. Maybe he’d wanted to pass his power on to another generation, or maybe it was some revenge thing aimed at the League-but whatever his reason, the Immortal fire of Prometheus pulsed through Amanda Lane.

And when Eliot and Fiona had rescued her, taken her home, no one understood the power inside her. Uncle Henry and the others in the League of Immortals must’ve felt sorry for her and sent her to Paxington.

All those little fires on the obstacle course and when the dorms had burned over semester break: that had been Amanda.

She looked back at them, her eyes slits into a blazing furnace.

“I can’t hold it much longer,” she whispered. “And that’s okay. Whatever’s inside me, it’s never done me any good, but now, I can at least save my friends.”

Amanda inhaled sharply and winced.

“Don’t,” Robert told her. “Even if you melt the bridge, it’ll just come back.”

“You’re so noble, Robert,” she said, her voice stronger than Eliot had ever heard. “How I wish you were my hero.” She didn’t look at Robert, though, as she said this, rather her gaze firmly fixed on Eliot. “Don’t worry. I will stop them.”

The metal bars under Eliot’s feet got too hot to stand on. He took two steps back.

“There has to be another way,” Eliot told her. “Just give us some time to think.”

Her hair lifted, charged with static electricity, turning to dull red and then orange. The metal she touched heated to white and sagged. “There’s no time for me,” she said.

Amanda Lane turned and walked back they way they’d come.

Flames licked her legs and arms and spiraled about her in jets of gold and green plasma. The heat from her body was tremendous.

Eliot and the others jumped back.

The army of the damned reached the edge of the plateau and streamed onto the bridge. . pausing at the sight of her.

“Amanda!” Eliot called.

She kept walking, the air about her wavering, her footprints melting metal.

“We’ve got to move.” Mr. Welmann pointed down.

The lava in the chasm boiled and churned. Geysers showered molten rock into the air. Waves rebounded and crashed against the plateaus, crumbling their bases.