All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [96]
Electricity chained along the length of metal.
A flash. The air cracked. Lightning leaped from the lance’s tip and struck Satan.
The monster writhed in agony, dropped its pitchfork, and fell to its knees.
But then the lightning diminished and sputtered and died.
Satan was smaller now, perhaps only three times the size of an ordinary man. The warrior in the chariot barked orders, and Uncle Aaron and soldiers ran forward.
Satan looked up, smiling, and from his knees jumped upon them.
The monster ripped limbs from men and tossed broken bodies about like toys.
Uncle Aaron deflected claw and lashing tail and bat wing with his sword, but even he was driven back.
The man in the chariot fired his weapon once more, but the charge was a fraction of the original blast, and it only momentarily slowed Satan . . . before the monster turned and came for him.
The charioteer snapped the reins, and his warhorses galloped forward. He swerved at the last moment and jumped from the chariot—
—as it crashed headlong into Satan.
The electrical apparatus exploded in a cloud of sparks and arcs and gears and coils and chariot wheels, and left a cloud of dust, obscuring all. Four horses emerged unscathed and bolted across the field.
The charioteer, spear held before him, moved forward into the cloud.
“What’s going on?” Fiona cried. “I can’t see any more.”
“Something I have never seen,” Mr. Ma remarked as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “The angle is different this time. This is when Zeus and Satan met in deadly combat. Later, leaderless, both sides were too disorganized to continue their war. It was the single most important factor responsible for their neutrality treaty.”
“Wait,” Eliot said. “You’re telling us those two are going to die? I mean, they did die?”
Fiona had been so engrossed, she hadn’t even noticed Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab pressed close around her.
Mr. Ma nodded as he squinted into the rising clouds of dust on the battlefield. “Observe how both sides now engage.”
Infernals clambered or flew over the bulk of the writhing Leviathan, and attacked the army of Immortals.
Dozens of heroes enveloped Infernals, but the fallen angels were too powerful and they killed many, leaving a trail of broken and wounded gods and goddesses.
Across the field, one group of Immortals rallied. Aunt Dallas led them, a golden sword in each hand, fending off a giantess Infernal with flaming hair and dripping poison from her claws.
The warriors at Dallas’s side fell one by one, but she fought on, determined and fearless.
This was not the Dallas that Fiona knew—not the shoe-shopping, care-about-nothing socialite. This was Dallas the goddess.
More wind and dust whipped across the field, and Fiona couldn’t see her anymore.
“Curious . . . ,” Mr. Ma remarked. “This is not like the other times.”
“I have to know what’s going on,” Fiona whispered. She moved toward the ring of weeping stones.
Mr. Ma set a hand on her arm. His flesh was immovable iron, and he checked her motion.
Fiona turned to him. Mr. Ma’s eyes were unyielding—but so were hers. In her veins raced the blood of the Immortals. She felt ten feet tall. She felt a sense of pride and purpose that she had never before experienced.
“I have to go to them,” she whispered. “And I will.” Her gaze dropped to his hand.
Mr. Ma looked about . . . perhaps to see where Miss Westin was, but not seeing her anywhere, he sighed and released Fiona.
Did he know what she was? Surely the teachers at Paxington had to know that she and Eliot were half Immortal. He had to know that it was her family out on that battlefield.
“Very well,” he said. “I, too, wish to see what is happening. We shall investigate this anomaly together. You will stay behind at all times . . . or I can and will carry you back here, child. You understand?”
She nodded.
They started down the hill.
“Hey!” Eliot said, trotting after them. “If you’re going, so am I.”
“I will accompany you as well,” Jezebel declared, stepping forward.
“I’ll go, too, if that’s okay.” Mitch flipped over a new page in his sketchbook.