All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [98]
Mitch stepped next to Fiona, touched her lightly on the shoulder, and whispered, “Don’t move. You hit that Infernal with a rock . . . maybe they can interact with us.”
She raised her jawbone visor and stared at Fiona and Mitch, Eliot and Jezebel. Really seeing them.
To witness her mother like this. . . . Not Audrey Post, but Atropos, a primitive goddess, fighting, full of life and battle lust. It was so unlike the stately woman she thought she knew, and yet so like her mother, all her iron will and inner strength.
Fiona reached out—stopped.
Her mother’s eyes hardened into a cold deadly glare.
Mr. Ma stepped in front of Fiona.
The connection broke.
Audrey shook her head as if clearing a dream and returned to her sister’s side. They joined Uncle Aaron and other Immortals that formed a phalanx against a single Infernal, the mechanical man with bladed arms.
Mr. Ma gave Fiona a look that promised a long lecture about following the meaning of his instructions.
“Observe,” he said, nodding toward the regrouped Immortals. “They work collectively against a superior foe. Alone, the Infernal—even though it has more power—cannot penetrate the formation. This is the one of the key philosophical difference between them.”
The battle slowed.
The Infernals retreated back to their hellhole.
Heroes gathered wounded comrades and limped toward the hills.
Fiona felt the dream begin to fade, the ancient memories submerging into shadow and silence.
“I lost Zeus and Satan,” Eliot said, looking around. “Mr. Ma, you said they died? Where are their bodies? Satan should have left a big smoking crater.”
Mr. Ma cast his gaze about. “Indeed. Not this time . . .” His voice trailed off as he pondered. “Come.” He indicated they follow him deeper into the fog.
Fiona would have given anything to see Zeus one more time. She’d look up everything there was on him in her books tonight. How had one Immortal ever led the League when the modern Council of Seven Elders could barely decide anything?
Things were different back then—that’s why. Even Dallas had been a real warrior.
Mr. Ma found Zeus’s broken chariot: coils and copper-wound armatures still arcing and smoldering. There were great gashes in the earth, and blood—splashes of crimson and tar-black ooze everywhere.
But no trace of either Satan or Zeus.
“History tells us they did die,” Mr. Ma whispered. “At this very spot.” He knelt and touched the earth and blood. “And yet so much is different—more real—in this version of the dream.” He looked at Fiona and Eliot. “I wonder . . .”
He stood.
“The demonstration is over.” Mr. Ma strode back toward the hill and the circle of stones.
The fog cleared, and overhead it was a sunny California afternoon again.
“You will each write a three-thousand-word paper,” Mr. Ma told them, “comparing and contrasting the fighting and philosophical styles of the two sides. Due Wednesday.”
They’d just relived one of the most important battles ever . . . and he was assigning homework? Fiona wanted to do something significant: wage a battle, lead an army, change the world, be a real goddess.
Fiona kicked the dirt in a futile act of rebellion.
Mitch trotted alongside her. “I sketched their formations,” he said. “You want to hang out after school? Have some coffee and compare notes?”
Fiona’s thoughts completely derailed. She almost tripped. “Coffee?”
“Sure.” Mitch smiled his reassuring smile that made Fiona feel like she’d known him forever. A smile that could even make her forget she was mad.
She glanced at the hilltop where Robert was, and that ruined her mood again. He wasn’t going to ask her out for coffee any time soon. Things were so different now between them.
Her analysis of how she was so not like the ancient gods would have to wait. So would obsessing about how she and Robert could fit together with the League always between them.
The real world had to take priority, and right now that meant homework . . . and maybe being friends with Mitch.
“I’d love coffee,” she said.
27
A WRONG TURN
Eliot and the rest of Team Scarab got on the bus