MORTAL COILS (50 page)

His
face was rugged and chiseled. His mustache drooped over either cheek. Despite
his country-western attire, Fiona still thought he looked as if he should be
leading a Mongol-horde charge on horseback.

He’d
never blink.

Well,
neither would she. She had looked into the infinite eyes of a crocodile who had
called itself justifiably “the eater of death.” After that, Aaron couldn’t
scare her.

“I
have come to help you, child,” he growled. “Check your adolescent attitude.”

“Help?”
she said, unsure.

“Had
I known you had a shotgun on the first trial, I would have made sure you knew
how to use it.”

Fiona
stiffened. “I could have used it if I had needed to. And how do you know that I
don’t know how to shoot a gun?”

“The
way you stand,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “It is obvious that you have
spirit. Equally obvious that you have never spilled blood.”

She
set her hands on her hips.

It
was true. She’d never fought, not even wrestled with Eliot, whom she could have
trounced. The only thing that had come close was Mike’s recent escalation of
his standard sexual harassment . . . a problem that had taken care of itself.

Fiona
dropped her arms. “So you’re going to show me how to fight?”

The
corners of Uncle Aaron’s eyes crinkled. Fiona guessed this was the closest
thing that passed for a laugh with him.

“I
have come to see if your abilities match that attitude. If they do, I may be
able to show you something.”

“Eliot’s
across the street. I’ll get him.”

Aaron
held up a huge hand. “No.”

“What
do you mean no? You just said you came to help.”

“You
are the warrior.” Aaron glanced down the alley to the Pink Rabbit. “Your
brother is a poet.”

“That’s
unfair. Sure, he’s a little short for fifteen, but he deserves a chance to
learn how to defend himself, too.”

“So
loyal. I see now why some on the Council fear you two together.” Aaron held his
hands out in a “peace” gesture. “But you misunderstand me. With his music,
Eliot is already armed. I only wish to make you his equal.”

Eliot
had done some amazing things with that violin—even his knowing how to play the
thing defied logic. Still, Fiona didn’t like Uncle Aaron’s offer. She and Eliot
were stronger together, just as Cee had told them. This felt like a trick to
split them apart.

“Forget
it. If Eliot’s not part of—”

Aaron
knelt and unrolled a bundle that had been in the shadows. Metal glinted.

Fiona
stepped closer and knelt. “What’s this?”

“Our
instruments.”

In
orderly rows on a black cloth were knives and swords, spears and clubs, pistols
and shotguns and rifles, shuriken and darts, even a set of brass knuckles—every
handheld weapon ever devised to slice, chop, crush, or otherwise hurt another
living creature.

The
array of razor edges and spikes and polished wooden handles fascinated Fiona.
She saw her face reflected in a hundred surfaces.

“Do
you feel it?” Aaron whispered. “The gravity they possess?”

Fiona
moved her hand closer, not touching any of the weapons because she was a little
scared, but drawn to them nonetheless. Is this what Eliot had felt the first
time he’d seen his violin?

One
weapon looked out of place: a wooden yo-yo. It was a little larger than a
normal one—but still a toy. She remembered reading something about Polynesian
tribes using them to crush heads with deadly accuracy.40

At
the end of the cloth Fiona spotted the spike she had pulled out of Souhk. “That
was yours?”

“It
moves very fast for a lizard. I missed its thick skull, impaled the shoulder.”
Aaron pushed back his sleeve, revealing a saw-toothed scar on his arm. “In
return, it gave me this.”

Fiona
marveled that Souhk hadn’t completely severed his arm.

“You
got away?”

Aaron’s
eyebrows rippled with amusement. “Not exactly. The lizard was the one to first
show its tail.”

Fiona
plucked nervously at the rubber band she wore today on her wrist. How could one
man, even one such as Uncle Aaron, beat a two-ton crocodile? And yet, he had
nearly killed Souhk with that spike. Whoever could do something like that had
to be more than a man.

Aaron
asked, “Why didn’t you kill the beast? You had a chance. And your life and your
brother’s hung in the balance.”

She
shrugged. “I couldn’t.”

It
wasn’t right that they’d tried to make her and Eliot kill. Her anger rekindled,
but not as hot as it had been earlier. This anger was ice-cold.

“Making
it an ally took a hundred times more courage than using a shotgun,” Aaron said.

40.
While true that Filipino tribesmen were seen using yo-yo-like devices as
weapons in the sixteenth century, the documentation of this coincided with the
development of the modern yo-yo in Europe and is therefore suspect. Modern
records have been discovered of one Hernandez del Moro, a toy manufacturer,
traveling to the Philippines in the 1930s and subsequently credited with all
photographic anthropological “evidence,” which happened to be used in an
advertising campaign for his company’s ZIPP-brand yo-yo. Gods of the First and
Twenty-first Century, Volume 6: Modern Myths, 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).

“I’m
not a butcher,” she whispered. “Isn’t that your job? I mean, if we fail the
Council’s trials?”

Aaron
was silent a moment, then finally said, “Should you fail, the Council will
certainly destroy you.”

The
Council? Not him? Was it possible that Uncle Aaron, like Souhk, might be turned
from an enemy to . . . what had Souhk called it: temporary allies?

Aaron
got up and waved a hand over his arsenal. “Pick one that calls to you, child.
We will see what you know.”

Fiona
gazed over the weapons and felt a curious thrill . . . almost as if she were
looking into her box of chocolates, trying to decide which would taste best.

Something
nagged her about that: how many layers of chocolates had she eaten? Eight? A
dozen? Certainly more than had a right to be packed inside one box. She
shouldn’t question such a great gift. Still, Grandmother’s voice echoed in her
mind: Overly generous presents come with strings.

She’d
think about the chocolates later. She had to focus on other things.

Fiona
smoothed her hands over the weapons, and they came to rest on the handle of a
silver rapier. Its gold filigreed hilt was scratched and the jewels on the
pommel were chipped. It was nonetheless beautiful.

She
picked it up. It was light and responsive and, she believed, deadly.

She
liked it.

Fiona
turned and raised the tip at Uncle Aaron’s eyes.

Aaron
shook his head slightly. “Not for you.”

“I’ve
studied everything there is to know about swords. Prehistory flint knives—the
first bronze castings—modern Damascus steels—all of it.”

“You
talk too much. Choose another.”

What
Fiona hadn’t told him was that she’d written papers on Olympic fencing, Kendo,
and Miyamoto Musashi. All encyclopedic knowledge, true; but how different could
the theory of sword fighting be from its practical application?

She’d
give him a nick—just a touch—something to make him appreciate that she wasn’t
helpless.

She
lunged at Aaron.

His
movement was slight, but enough of a side step to let the rapier slide past his
elbow.

His
jacket billowed and Fiona got a glimpse of the man inside: solid slabs of
muscle that flexed and bulged.

Aaron
stepped in close—clamped her hand on the weapon’s ivory grip. With his other
hand he pulled the blade up and around, levering her arm over her head.

Her
shoulder joint strained . . . almost popping from the socket. Fiona grunted in
pain. Her face heated, embarrassed at how easily he had deflected her attack
and immobilized her. As if she were a child with a toy.

He
gave her arm a shove. Pain screamed down her stretched tendons, but she didn’t
cry out.

“Good,”
he whispered. “So you don’t do everything you’re told . . . like your mother.
But, I wonder, you do have her patience, too?”

He
released her, pulling free the rapier and setting it back in his collection.

Fiona
glared at him and rubbed her arm.

“Pick
another,” he said. “See if you can do better.”

Fiona
marched back to the weapons and reached for a snub-nosed pistol.

“No
guns,” he told her with an icy finality. “You will only hurt yourself.”

Fiona
hesitated. She wanted to grab it—just to worry Uncle Aaron. She’d never really
shoot him in a million years. She knew, though, that if she moved a hairbreadth
closer to the pistol’s grip, something bad would happen to her.

She
instead picked a pair of nunchaku: two black plastic bars joined by a length of
chain. Fiona had never studied the weapon, but its flexibility intrigued her.
Mainly, she didn’t want Aaron grabbing her hand again and completely nullifying
her attack.

She
picked it up and experimentally spun one of the handles, increasing its
momentum until it was a blur.

“Better,”
Aaron remarked, “but still not for you.”

She
considered attacking him anyway—a quick burst of speed and a flick of the wrist
would send the handle at his head. But the pain in her shoulder reminded her
how fast Aaron was.

She
sighed and set the nunchaku back.

Maybe
there wasn’t a weapon for her. Maybe she wasn’t really a warrior as Aaron
thought, but just fighting because she had been thrust into an impossible,
dangerous situation.

Didn’t
warriors want to fight? All Fiona wanted to do was stay alive.

Overhead
she heard wings flapping. A flock of crows, actually called a “murder” of
crows, flew past and landed on the power lines on Vine Street.

She
returned her gaze to the weapons, and her eye lit upon the wooden yo-yo.
Something about it fascinated her, even more than the nunchaku. There was
certainly nothing more flexible in Aaron’s arsenal.

She
didn’t make a move for it, though. She wouldn’t give Aaron a chance to tell her
no. She’d plan what to do first, then just do it. Maybe this time surprise him.

Fiona
took a deep breath—grasped the string and flung the heavy wooden part at
Aaron’s head.

He
ducked.

She
registered a flicker of astonishment in his eyes as she whipped the yo-yo
around and back in a fast-spinning arc, building momentum.

Aaron
backed off two steps, crashing into the Dumpster, denting it.

Fiona
followed him, changed the angle of the whirling weapon, and sent it whipping at
his head.

Aaron
rolled to one side—drew a short sword from his jacket. He lashed out.