All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [203]
A loss for Falcon was no big deal. A little wounded pride. They were still at the top of the rankings.
But for Team Scarab, a loss bumped them below the passing/failing cut off.
She turned to the teammates. Robert glared after Mr. Ma. Eliot shook his head and wandered back to the locker room. Amanda slumped to the ground. Mitch ignored them, and kept helping some of his still-groggy classmates. Jeremy and Sarah crossed their arms and looked at Fiona as if this were her fault.
It was. She was their team captain, after all. It had been her decision to save lives instead of going for some stupid flag.
And what if she had gone for the flag? She’d bet Team Falcon would have died . . . and that gas would have ignited and blown them all to smithereens.
There had to have been a way to win, though.
Or did there? What if Mr. Ma was just trying to kill them?
There was only one thing she knew for sure: They had to win the next match, or they would flunk out of Paxington.
54. Sulfur (aka brimstone) is often cited in relationship to evil within the Bible, and it is implied that Hell smells of brimstone (hence “fire and brimstone” sermons). In fact, sulfur is odorless. Its characteristic smell comes from hydrogen sulfide (the odor of untreated sewage, and flatulence [along with sulfur-containing mercaptans]) or sulfur dioxide (from burnt matches). Early Chinese doctors used sulfur for medicinal purposes (WARNING: See toxicity tables in Appendix), and gunpowder was likely discovered by Taoist monk-alchemists searching for the elixir of immortality. The fifteenth-century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus believed sulfur embodied the soul (along with the emotions and desires). Primer of Alchemical Elements: Truth and Myth, Dr. Kensington Park, Paxington Press LLC.
SECTION
VI
DITCHING
58
PERFORMANCE
Eliot stood on the sidelines. He was scared. There was no shame to admit that . . . not under these circumstances.
He’d faced Lords from Hell, stood up to a gigantic crocodile, the Hordes of Darkness, and a mother who was Death incarnate, and put up with a sister whose abrasive personality was probably what she used to cut through high-carbon steel.
This was different.
This was a live audience.
Eliot had watched the other students go first. It had all been arranged by Ms. DuPreé. One by one, they were supposed to go onstage between sets at the Monterey Jazz Festival . . . in front of people who knew music and had just listened to professional signers, jazz quartets, and the most inspirational folk singers that Eliot had ever heard.
Eliot reread the program clutched in his sweaty hands: “Hear California’s finest young musicians sing and play their souls out for you!”
Eliot hoped that was a metaphor. Although given the way things worked at Paxington, he wasn’t taking anything for granted.
“Practicing alone is one thing, playing for your classmates another,” Ms. DuPreé had told them on the bus ride out. “But when you stand in front of a real audience—you’re going to sink or fly, baby.”
So here Eliot was: On a sunny day in the wings of the open-air theater, waiting to go on next—just him, about a billion stage lights . . . and three thousand people in the audience.
Ms. DuPreé stood next to him and listened, as entranced as he, to Sarah Covington onstage, singing what she’d described as a “torch song.”
Sarah wore a dress as red as her hair. The fabric was tight and sparkled. A bass and piano accompanied her as she lamented about a man who had treated her so badly, but he could make her shiver with pleasure, and how she still loved him.
It was sad. It felt real to Eliot, as if Sarah had been through it all and still wanted to love this guy—even if it was a doomed relationship.
She held one last long note, reached out to the audience, and hung her head.
The crowd gave her a thunderous round of applause. Many stood.
When she looked up,