All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [87]
They pushed her down. One boy grabbed her bag and scattered vegetables across the sidewalk, stomping on tomatoes, laughing.
Fiona was horrified.
Dallas came to Fiona’s side.
“We have to do something,” Fiona told her.
“Why?” Dallas said. “I told you those boys wouldn’t bother us.”
“But that old woman . . .”
“She will be fine,” Dallas reassured her, and gently tugged on her arm. “It’s just a few tomatoes.”
Fiona pulled away.
Her anger kindled. It had been banked and ready to be blown into a full raging inferno . . . and this time Fiona welcomed it.
She was mad.
She’d been mad for a while, and it was time she admitted it. She was mad that Team Scarab had lost their first match. Mad at her brother for always getting into trouble. Mad at Amanda for being sad, pathetic, and looking better than her in her dress. And most of all mad at Aunt Dallas for wasting her time and not doing anything to help that old woman.
“Is this what the League does?” Fiona whispered. “Let people get hurt . . . while they shop?”
Dallas gave her a look as if to say she should grow up. “My sweet, the ‘people’ always get hurt, and they never appreciate help. There is nothing that can be done for them.”
“Yes, there is.”
Fiona stalked out of the shop.
Only distantly did she realize she must look ridiculous in this wispy little dress and in her bare feet. The cool night air whipped about her. She crunched over broken glass, and it didn’t hurt.
The boys hadn’t seen her—they still taunted the old woman while she wept on the ground.
“Hey!” Fiona yelled.
Fiona shoved the limo out of her way. It had to weigh two tons, but it felt like cardboard.
The boys turned, shocked to see her push aside a car, more shocked to see the look of pure hatred in her eyes.
“You want to fight a woman? Try me.”
In her hand, she clutched the slightly rusted chain Louis had given her. One moment, it had been on her wrist, an ordinary bracelet; the next, a real chain—six feet long and heavy. It scraped and sparked along the ground, every link twisted to lie flat, angled to a fine sharpened edge—the entire length feeling like an extension of her arm.
She hadn’t recalled unclasping the thing, but there it was. It felt like it had always been there, too: a part of her.
Fiona whipped the chain around her once—and then lashed it toward the lamppost.
It wrapped around the sculpted wrought iron.
She glared at the boys, who, astonished and openmouthed and frozen, could only stare back.
She imagined her chain wrapped about their necks—and then yanked.
The metal cleanly severed.
The light went dark. The lamppost twisted and fell into the street with a deafening wrench.
The gang of boys stood for a heartbeat . . . then ran—almost knocking each other over to get away from her.
Fiona smiled. That had felt good. Not just saving the old woman from further indignity, but the primeval urge to cut something, too. To tear and rip and rend; she felt it surge and sing through her blood. She wanted more.
The old woman got shakily to her feet. Her eyes were wide and dark, like some deer about to be eaten, as she stared at Fiona . . . like she was looking into the face of Death.
She backed away, then turned and ran, crossing herself, whimpering . . . leaving her groceries scattered on the street.
Aunt Dallas, Madame Cobweb, and Amanda stood behind Fiona in the doorway of the shop.
“That was the most amazingly cool thing I’ve ever seen!” Amanda cried, clapping her hands.
“That’s what you could have done,” Fiona told Dallas.
Dallas sighed and shook her head, but nonetheless looked the tiniest bit impressed. “Just like your mother,” she whispered.
Fiona stood taller. Dallas’s words—obviously not a compliment—for some reason made Fiona feel better than any new clothes ever could.
25. “Art of the Air.” Translated from French. Also a play on words, as often pronounced as “Art Dare” in English. —Editor.
SECTION
III
ADVERSARIES
24
FIRST STEP ON A CROOKED PATH
Eliot walked