All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [73]
A breeze rocked the gym. Fiona clutched onto the chain and felt her stomach in her throat.
She looked down, for a moment not being able to see Eliot . . . then she found him. Tiny and playing and still there.
But she saw something else that made her heart skip a beat: the missing half of Team White Knight. They were on the ground and moving toward her bother.
In a flash, she understood. Their strategy was to send one half up—fast sprinters—and let one half lag behind to slow down the opposition. And right now, the most vulnerable target was her trouble-magnet of a brother.
They were going to clobber him.
“Eliot!” she yelled.
Her voice was lost in the breeze. Eliot kept his head down, playing.
“I see them, too,” Mitch said, his normally reassuring tone heavy with concern. “There’s no way to get to him in time.”
The Knights moved carefully . . . probably because they knew magic when they heard it and didn’t want to give Eliot a chance to turn on them.
Amanda just sat there, listening. Utterly useless.
Fiona’s anger came. It spilled through her blood, molten and pulsing and erupting along every nerve.
She turned to Mitch. “Get to the flag. You can’t follow the way I’m going.”
Fiona stretched the rubber band on her wrist and sliced through the wire cage.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she jumped—free fall for a heartbeat—then impacted on the platform below.
The wood splintered and cracked. Pain exploded along her shins, and her shirt ripped.
These distractions were quickly blotted out by her swelling anger.
Her father’s words echoed in her mind once more: “Within you burns the fury of all the Hells, unquenchable and unstoppable.”
She flipped around to the underside of the platform, grabbed the supporting pole, and slid thirty feet down. She landed so hard, her sneakers made craters.
She stalked onto the field.
“Hey!” Fiona shouted at two closest Knights, a boy and a girl.
They turned, shock on their faces; then the boy regained his wits and spoke to the girl. It was Tamara from the locker room. She smiled and moved to Fiona while the boy continued toward Eliot.
Amanda heard Fiona’s shout, however. She glanced about wildly, now seeing the danger: three White Knight boys had her and Eliot surrounded. She screamed.
That scream broke Eliot out of his trance. He looked up, turned all around, taking in the three boys closing in. He hesitated; his fingers twitched.
Meanwhile, Tamara blocked Fiona’s path and set one hand on the ground. The grass where she touched turned gray and crumpled to dust—a circle of death that spread outward.
Around Fiona, however, the yellowed grass greened, wiggled, bursting forth with life, and growing in thick tangles about her feet.
She took one step, but the grass snaked and laced about her, holding fast.
Tamara laughed.
Fiona knelt to cut the offending runners, but as soon as she did, shoots gripped her thigh, pulled the one hand she’d set onto the ground, holding it.
She tugged. The grass ripped out . . . but immediately grew new, stronger roots.
Tendrils wormed along her wrist and up to her elbow. She yanked as hard as she could, but she felt the anger slipping from her . . . becoming panic, hot in her throat.
Fiona glanced up. The three boys were almost on Eliot.
Eliot flicked his fingers over his violin, and a dissonant chord distorted the air between him and the closest boy—throwing the boy backwards as if he’d been swatted with a giant invisible hand.
But that’s all the chance the other two needed to rush in.
One tackled Eliot; the other kicked Lady Dawn from his grasp.
Tamara walked near Fiona. As she did so, the grass pulled harder, pulled her closer to the ground, and twined about her neck. Tamara was going to make her eat dirt . . . or strangle her.21
“Remember, little dung scarab,” Tamara said, “in gym class, we can use any means to stop our opponents—even if that means killing them. Bet you wish you had that Infernal with you now.”
She was bluffing. Had to be.
Try as she might, though, Fiona couldn’t summon her hate again; it was like