by Eric Nylund
Fiona rolled her eyes. “Do we really need to go through this? We have a new jungle gym to figure out before the match starts.”
Mitch shrugged. “We lost the first time because we had no leadership.”
“We could pick a captain randomly,” Eliot suggested. “Roll dice. That’d be fair.”
Sarah scoffed. “We choose based on qualifications. I suggest the Lady Jezebel. She is the strongest amongst us, no?”
“Not today.” Jezebel rubbed her elbow. She cast a warning glance at them all. “There’s been. . trouble at home.”
“Trouble” like the war she’d mentioned before between her clan and Mephistopheles? How did the Infernal even get to Paxington from Hell with a war going on? Certainly not the way she and Eliot had: the Gates of Perdition and the Elysium Fields-it would take her half the day to get to school.
Fiona almost asked how hurt she was, and if she was up for gym today-then stopped. It was probably an act to get Eliot’s sympathy. That’d be a very Infernal thing to do.
“I suggest Fiona,” Jezebel said.
Fiona blinked, surprised. “What? Me? Why?”
Jezebel assessed her in a slightly less than condescending manner. “You are now the strongest here. You think clearly in battle. And there is no fear in your heart.”
“She gets my vote,” Eliot chimed in.
Eliot and Fiona hadn’t been on the best of terms lately, so for him to so openly support her (even though being Captain was the last thing Fiona wanted) meant a lot to her.
“Mine, too!” Amanda added.
“I agree,” Mitch said. “Fiona can think on her feet.”
“Why not?” Robert added, and kicked the sod.
Fiona wanted to say thanks to Robert, but things had been so strange between them lately. So awkward. She simply nodded at him, unable to say anything.
With a sigh, Jeremy said, “Very well, Fiona it be for this match. But should we lose, we revisit who’s Captain.”
Fiona held up her hands. “Hey, I didn’t say I wanted to be Captain.”
Eliot pointed to the top of the gym structure. “Has anyone noticed those?”
Two flags had unfurled on opposite top corners of the jungle gym. One was their golden scarab on a black background. The other was white with a red leaping wolf.
“Team Wolf,” Jezebel whispered.
“That be trouble,” Jeremy added. “Wolf won their last match with very aggressive tactics. Some say they cheat.”
“We’ve taken the liberty of learning a bit about the other teams,” Sarah said. “Wolf wastes no time eliminating their weakest opponents.” She cast a quick look at Amanda and Eliot, then to Fiona and said, “And immediately target their enemy’s Captain.”
Fiona was about to protest again that she wasn’t Captain-but then something clicked in the social order on the field. They all looked at her expectantly, like she was supposed to come up with some winning strategy on the spot.
“There be one more wee thing,” Jeremy said. “Wolf may have a grudge to settle with Scarab.”
“Why would anyone have a grudge against us?” Fiona asked.
Team Wolf strode onto the field and she had her answer.
The student leading them was tall and pale, and his dark hair fell at an angle over his eyes. . the same person Jeremy had challenged that first day in class: Donald van Wyck. His nose was slightly crooked from where it’d been broken. He smiled a predatory grin as he saw Jeremy and the rest of them.
And more trouble: The others in Team Wolf were tall, lean, and looked like they could run circles around them.
Except one boy. He was smaller and had a long scar on his face. This was the student she’d seen duel by the fountain on the first day of school. Fiona recalled how he had won and twisted the rapier that had skewered his enemy’s hand. . and had enjoyed it.
“So what’s the plan?” Robert whispered. “You’ve got maybe thirty seconds before Mr. Ma gets out here.”
Fiona struggled with the notion of her being Captain. She could argue the point and waste their time-or she could lead. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted to do ever since she’d seen the Battle at Ultima Thule?
Her mind embraced the problem: a team of superior opponents and a new and dangerous terrain. Her hands flexed. She could almost feel it under her fingertips: the weave of a tapestry.
Scarab had one advantage: No one knew who their Captain was.
If Sarah’s data was right, Wolf had one potential disadvantage, too: they predictably went after weak members of the opposing team.
Fiona had studied every battle from Agincourt to Waterloo, thanks to Audrey and Cee’s homeschooling. She knew about passive lures and overlapping fire-and something more than tactics whirled inside her. . as if she had done this a thousand times before.
A plan crystallized in her mind.
She motioned them closer, and they huddled together. “Okay, this is it. Just listen. We don’t have time to argue. Mitch, Jezebel, Amanda, and Robert go high as fast as you can. You might get lucky and find a quick way to our flag. If you do-go for it. Four is a win.”
Fiona didn’t explain that their real purpose was to move Amanda along and keep her safe. While she’d be an obvious target, Wolf wouldn’t go after one so well protected.
She turned to Jezebel and told her, “Keep on eye on the rest of us. Drop back when trouble starts, and stop as many Wolves as you can.”
Jezebel tilted her head. “A pleasure.”
“Our second unit will be Jeremy and Eliot.”
They both recoiled and looked at each other with disdain.
“Don’t complain,” Fiona told them. “Just pick any path. And Eliot, don’t play your violin. I need you to keep moving fast.”
Fiona knew that Wolf would go after their other obvious weak target: Eliot. And with Jeremy being marked for revenge, it was a safe bet that they’d draw three, maybe more, of the Wolves. . which was precisely what she wanted.
They were bait.
Fiona loathed using Eliot as bait, but it was the best plan. Besides, she was going to be there, too.
“Sarah and I will be the third unit,” she told them. “We’ll circle around, and when Wolf comes, we’ll close ranks. Jezebel has our backs.” Fiona chewed over the irony of trusting her and continued. “That gives us three going straight for the goal, a sizable rear defensive force”-she looked at Jeremy, Eliot, Sarah, and Jezebel-“and one of us should be able to break out and get to the flag for the win.”
That was it: the best, most flexible thing she could come up with on the spot.
Her team digested the strategy.
Mitch grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. Amanda swallowed, looked frightened, but nonetheless nodded. Robert scanned the jungle gym, looking for a route to the top.
“Bloody hell,” Jeremy said with a sigh, and then added, “okay, we’ll give it go.”
Mr. Ma walked onto the field and blew his whistle. “Teams, make two lines!” he shouted. “Prepare to start.”
“We can do this,” she told them.
They lined up.
Eliot moved close to her. The look in his eyes was pure concentration. Fiona had seen him like this before-in that alley as he fought a hundred shadows, and when he had faced the Infernal Lord of All That Flies, Beelzebub.
He looked like a hero.
31. WHAT MATTERED TO ELIOT
Eliot set his pack down on the sidelines.
Inside was Lady Dawn. Fiona was right-speed would be the key to winning this match. Playing a violin while balancing on some platform didn’t make a lot of sense.
As he let go of the pack, though, his hand twinged. He tried to will the pain away, telling himself that he’d be close to his violin soon. It ebbed, not entirely subsiding, though.
He ran back to Team Scarab.
Mr. Ma gave him a look, communicating volumes of irritation.
Jeremy muttered, “Try to keep up with me, Post.”
“Just worry about yourse
lf,” Eliot snapped back.
He had confidence, thanks to Robert. Training every day after school had more benefits than new muscles and learning how to throw a punch. Sure, Eliot did know how to hit and kick and stand without getting knocked down-but there was a lot more to fighting. Mainly not being scared.
He glanced at Team Wolf. A rough bunch. Mean and lean, and that near-albino Donald van Wyck snapped his teeth at them like they were fresh meat.
Whatever. Psyching the other side out was obviously part of this game, too.
He smiled back. . and Van Wyck’s grin faded.
Mr. Ma raised his starting pistol and fired.
They ran.
Robert, Mitch, Jezebel, and even Amanda sprinted ahead of everyone else.
Sarah and Fiona circled to his left, clambering up a cargo net.
They were bit too far away for comfort, but Eliot trusted Fiona. She’d get to him quickly, when he needed help.
Jeremy took the lead and Eliot followed him to a wooden ladder. It was a good choice, because it was a straight shot halfway up through the jungle gym. . but the end dangled three body lengths over their heads.
“What’re you doing?” Eliot asked, panting. “We-can’t-reach that.”
Jeremy’s hands moved fast, fluid motions like the sleight of hand Louis had made with his three playing cards-then he pulled a hemp rope. . from nothing.
Eliot blinked as he remembered the Covingtons were conjurers.[30]
Jeremy threw the rope and it swished over the lowest ladder rung, lashed about, and knotted itself with a bowline. Jeremy flicked it once and the rope knotted for climbing as well.
“Hurry,” Eliot whispered.
Jeremy scrambled up the rope.
Two remaining members of Team Wolf spotted Eliot and ran toward him.
He went up the rope while Jeremy was still on, and sent the line spinning.
His progress wasn’t great, but he got up out of the reach of the boy and girl from Team Wolf just as they got to the rope.
They started up after him.
Fiona and Sarah, however, had circled around to intercept them.
Eliot focused on climbing. He couldn’t stop and help. As much as he wanted to fight (for the first time in his life) and test himself, that wasn’t his job. He was supposed to draw as many of Team Wolf away as possible, let the rear defenders take them out. . and if he got the chance, get to the flag.
He grasped the lowest ladder rung and scrambled up to the top.
Jeremy gave him a hand onto a platform connected by four chains.
It swayed and tilted. Eliot grabbed one of the chains for balance. He looked down.
Sarah had conjured a web of ropes spread between her and the other students. Fiona grasped handfuls of the lines. Where strands wrapped about beams, they severed, collapsing in a heap before the other students, blocking them.
“That way.” Jeremy pointed to a series of platforms similarly hung by chains.
Each was an easy jump, no more that a body length apart. Landing would be tricky. Those platforms would swing all over the place.
Eliot glanced up, but saw no sign of Robert or the others.
A quick glance down; he couldn’t see Fiona or Sarah, either. . but he did notice then that he was three stories up. A chill ran along his spine, and he got angry at himself for it, and stepped forward.
“I’ll go first,” he said.
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Be quick about it.” He nodded to another sequence of platforms. Three from Team Wolf jumped along them, moving to catch up, Donald van Wyck in the lead.
Eliot bolted off their platform-fast, before he lost his nerve.
The platform shot backwards as he pushed off.
What an idiot! Newton’s third law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
He bounced onto the edge of the next platform, half on, half off.
Luckily it had swung toward him. . or he would have missed.
As he pulled himself up, Jeremy landed next to him. He didn’t help Eliot, but kept running, jumped off, and landed on the next platform.
This left Eliot behind on a crazily gyrating platform.
Not nice. But it was an effective tactic.
By the time he got to his feet, Jeremy was two jumps ahead, and the three Team Wolf interceptors were halfway to Eliot.
Eliot had to figure how to move fast, or he’d get taken out.
But everything moved-this way and that, up and down, ropes and platforms and chains. It seemed like the entire jungle gym was alive.
Eliot heard it, too. The squeaks and groans and clinkings and rattles. . they sang to him. Each motion, the vibrating ropes, the pendulum arcs. . those were beats, plucked notes, all combining into the phrases of a chaotic clash of noise. A symphony.
The gym was an instrument. Not one that Eliot could play by himself, but he could play a part like one person in a larger orchestra.
His body moved in time to this motion, and in response the platform under him synched and swung harmoniously.
He jumped-the action timed at the precise moment dictated by the gym’s song-landed perfectly on the next platform-jumped easily to the next, and again, until he had covered half the distance along the platforms.
Team Wolf was right behind him, however.
He ignored their curses and threats and kept moving.
They’d catch up; he was dead unless he did something. But without Lady Dawn, what could he do? Fight three against one? Robert had taught him that even fighting two on one, no matter how good you thought you were, was a bad idea.
Eliot landed on the last platform-one bolted to massive timbers that went all the way to the ground and was rock solid.
A curve of chain-link fencing arced up from this. Jeremy had already scrambled partway up. It was loose and swayed, however, so Jeremy’s progress was slow.
But he was ahead of Eliot, and that was the only thing that mattered.
The three boys from Team Wolf, led by Donald van Wyck, were one jump away.
Something thudded softly next to Eliot-he turned.
Jezebel. Beautiful, radiant, and utterly unperturbed.
Eliot froze, shocked speechless at her sudden appearance.
This seemed to please her because a slightest smile flickered on her lips.
She had landed so quietly and with such grace that it almost seemed as if she had stepped down, instead of-Eliot glanced overhead three stories-made a jump that would have broken an ordinary person’s legs.
“This fight is my job,” she told him.
The Team Wolf boys hesitated at the sight of her. They whispered to one another.
“No way,” Eliot said. “I’m staying with you. Like in the alley.”
“One day you will no longer be a fool,” she muttered. “I hope I live to see it.” She turned to him, glowering. “I have no wish to lose another match. Go and win it. Win it for me, if you need a reason.”
Jezebel touched his arm. A simple thing, but to Eliot it was electric. It was like they were back in Del Sombra, that he was just normal, nerdy Eliot, and she was sweet, mortal Julie Marks.
She withdrew and was hard, cruel Jezebel again. She turned to Team Wolf. “Or stay,” she hissed. “I shall not be responsible.”
Although it went against every instinct, Eliot climbed the chain link. He’d trust Fiona’s plan. . and Jezebel’s ability to take care of herself.
The Team Wolf boys jumped, landed on the platform, and circled her.
Eliot scampered up to Jeremy, who flashed him a look of annoyance.
“Come on,” Eliot urged. “We’re almost to the top.”
The ribbon of chain link had been nailed to a wooden beam overhead. That beam, in turn, ran straight to a zigzag of stairs. . that would take them to the top, and Team Scarab’s flag.
Robert, Mitch, and Amanda, already limped up those stairs.
They were close to winning. Once they got to their flag, all it would take was either him or Jeremy
-it didn’t matter who-to get there as well.
That would make four. The match would end.
Maybe Eliot could stop this before anyone else got hurt.
He glanced down.
The Wolf boys had Jezebel surrounded. She held her hands up in a martial arts stance.
A thin fog blew in and vapors swirled around her.
The smallest Wolf boy (Eliot recognized him from the duel by the fountain) had a wooden club. He darted in, struck her leg-and danced out of her reach.
She fell to one knee, but didn’t cry out.
“Jezebel!” Eliot cried.
Another boy stepped closer, grabbed her injured shoulder.
Jezebel winced, shrugged off the boy’s hold, and backhanded him-off the platform.
She whirled toward Eliot. “Stick to the plan!” she shouted.
Van Wyck moved in-his hand ghostly insubstantial, the bones within visible, his motion trailing increasingly thick fog vapors.
Jezebel deftly avoided his grasp.
She shot Eliot a hate-filled glare. “Go!”
Nothing was worth this, Eliot decided-not winning-not even if it meant flunking out of gym class. Seeing Jezebel fight alone, already injured, he couldn’t stand it.
He started back.
The chain link that Eliot and Jeremy clung to, however, pinged, and the nails holding it to the beam popped out.
They plunged-jerked to a halt and dangled. . one corner tenuously secured by three nails in the beam overhead.
Eliot’s heart hammered in his throat, but still all he could think of was Jezebel.
He searched for her. The fog below, however, made it impossible to see the platform. He heard the Wolf boys moving, grunting; there was the cracking of wood.
There was no choice on which way to go for him, though; he was certain he wasn’t over the platform anymore. Eliot pulled himself up, hand over hand.
Jeremy hauled himself up, too. “I’ll be first to the flag,” Jeremy whispered.
Eliot straddled the beam and offered Jeremy his hand.
A curious look narrowed Jeremy’s eyes as he reached forward and clasped Eliot’s hand.
Eliot pulled.
Jeremy gripped the beam with his other hand and pulled himself up-yanking Eliot hard.