All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [114]
“I’ll go first,” he said.
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Be quick about it.” He nodded to another sequence of platforms. Three from Team Wolf jumped along them, moving to catch up, Donald van Wyck in the lead.
Eliot bolted off their platform—fast, before he lost his nerve.
The platform shot backwards as he pushed off.
What an idiot! Newton’s third law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
He bounced onto the edge of the next platform, half on, half off.
Luckily it had swung toward him . . . or he would have missed.
As he pulled himself up, Jeremy landed next to him. He didn’t help Eliot, but kept running, jumped off, and landed on the next platform.
This left Eliot behind on a crazily gyrating platform.
Not nice. But it was an effective tactic.
By the time he got to his feet, Jeremy was two jumps ahead, and the three Team Wolf interceptors were halfway to Eliot.
Eliot had to figure how to move fast, or he’d get taken out.
But everything moved—this way and that, up and down, ropes and platforms and chains. It seemed like the entire jungle gym was alive.
Eliot heard it, too. The squeaks and groans and clinkings and rattles . . . they sang to him. Each motion, the vibrating ropes, the pendulum arcs . . . those were beats, plucked notes, all combining into the phrases of a chaotic clash of noise. A symphony.
The gym was an instrument. Not one that Eliot could play by himself, but he could play a part like one person in a larger orchestra.
His body moved in time to this motion, and in response the platform under him synched and swung harmoniously.
He jumped—the action timed at the precise moment dictated by the gym’s song—landed perfectly on the next platform—jumped easily to the next, and again, until he had covered half the distance along the platforms.
Team Wolf was right behind him, however.
He ignored their curses and threats and kept moving.
They’d catch up; he was dead unless he did something. But without Lady Dawn, what could he do? Fight three against one? Robert had taught him that even fighting two on one, no matter how good you thought you were, was a bad idea.
Eliot landed on the last platform—one bolted to massive timbers that went all the way to the ground and was rock solid.
A curve of chain-link fencing arced up from this. Jeremy had already scrambled partway up. It was loose and swayed, however, so Jeremy’s progress was slow.
But he was ahead of Eliot, and that was the only thing that mattered.
The three boys from Team Wolf, led by Donald van Wyck, were one jump away.
Something thudded softly next to Eliot—he turned.
Jezebel. Beautiful, radiant, and utterly unperturbed.
Eliot froze, shocked speechless at her sudden appearance.
This seemed to please her because a slightest smile flickered on her lips.
She had landed so quietly and with such grace that it almost seemed as if she had stepped down, instead of—Eliot glanced overhead three stories—made a jump that would have broken an ordinary person’s legs.
“This fight is my job,” she told him.
The Team Wolf boys hesitated at the sight of her. They whispered to one another.
“No way,” Eliot said. “I’m staying with you. Like in the alley.”
“One day you will no longer be a fool,” she muttered. “I hope I live to see it.” She turned to him, glowering. “I have no wish to lose another match. Go and win it. Win it for me, if you need a reason.”
Jezebel touched his arm. A simple thing, but to Eliot it was electric. It was like they were back in Del Sombra, that he was just normal, nerdy Eliot, and she was sweet, mortal Julie Marks.
She withdrew and was hard, cruel Jezebel again. She turned to Team Wolf. “Or stay,” she hissed. “I shall not be responsible.”
Although it went against every instinct, Eliot climbed the chain link. He’d trust Fiona’s plan . . . and Jezebel’s ability to take care of herself.
The Team Wolf boys jumped, landed on the platform, and circled her.
Eliot scampered up to Jeremy, who flashed him a look of annoyance.
“Come on,” Eliot urged. “We’re almost