All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [124]
Eliot stared at the place, revolted by the mess, the odor, and the devastation of the land . . . but trying nonetheless to see the good that Uncle Henry spoke of.
“Run it on behalf of the League,” Uncle Henry whispered. “Use its profits to buy a yacht or two—or reinvest the capital and transform it into whatever you desire.” He patted him on the shoulder. “I have faith in you.”
“Thanks . . . ,” Eliot reflexively said. Audrey had taught him to always thank everyone for everything, no matter if he wanted it or not. “I’m busy with school, though.”
“Oh, you don’t actually run it.” Uncle Henry laughed. “You have other people do that for you. You just make the big decisions.”
Eliot imagined himself sitting in a boardroom wearing a white suit and executives hanging on his every instruction.
Why not? Maybe he could turn this place into something better. Prove to the League that he was . . . what?
Responsible? Capable? One of them?
Like Fiona?
Something inside Eliot writhed and rebelled against this idea.
Eliot didn’t want to be molded into someone else’s notion of what they thought he should be.
He wanted . . . What? He wasn’t sure. But this factory wasn’t it.
And yet, he couldn’t just refuse and leave this place as it was. Uncle Henry was right on one count: It needed help.
“I appreciate the offer,” Eliot said, “but it’s not going to work for me.”
Uncle Henry’s face fell. “My boy, this corporation is worth a great deal. Millions . . . or billions . . . I forget.”
Money didn’t mean much to Eliot. When did he have time to spend money?
“I’m still saying no, Uncle Henry, but”—Eliot returned to the Rolls-Royce and got his backpack—“I think I can do something for you.”
“Oh?” Uncle Henry’s eyebrows quirked.
“Just come with me and listen.”
Eliot marched to the corner of the parking lot and mounted a sand dune to get a better view. The land was surrounded by a fringe of burning jungle. There were acres of plastic-lined pits holding pools of fluorescent lime and yellow chemicals. Eliot set one foot on a pipe that jutted from the earth and got his violin case.
He pulled out Lady Dawn and stroked her amber grain. “This time,” he whispered to her, “we work together.”
“Eliot?” Uncle Henry said, a slight unease creeping into his voice. “What are you doing?”
Eliot held his violin bow between Henry and himself, brandishing it like a conductor’s baton. “You said you wanted me to ‘step up to the plate’ and ‘knock it out of the park.’ That’s what I’m going to do.”
Eliot turned his back to him and focused.
He’d only been able to make little things happen on purpose: finding the crocodile, Sobek, in the sewers and Amanda Lane in that burning carnival—that dissonant chord he’d struck and sent a Team Knight student flying backwards.
The big things he’d done . . . summoning the dead, battling Beelzebub, and calling forth an army . . . those were from songs already written: “Mortal’s Coil,” “The Symphony of Existence,” and “The March of the Suicide Queen.”
He closed his eyes and set his bow to Lady Dawn’s strings. Under his fingertips, she pulsed.
For what he wanted to do now, Eliot would have to use bits and pieces of songs he knew, and invent new musical phrases as well.
He took a deep breath. He could do this.
First, the poisonous air, the layers and lakes of toxic chemicals—they had to go.
But not merely moved somewhere else. That would just poison another place. Eliot had to destroy the stuff . . . unmake it.
There was only one thing that would do: “The Symphony of Existence.” There was a bit toward the end about the death of the universe—where matter compressed and heated, atoms disassociated into mist and void.
It was powerful music to start with, perhaps too powerful.
Eliot banished that thought. There would be no room for doubt.
He played notes so