Page 137 of Love, Nemesis
Something deep inside reacted to these new stakes. His humanity sank farther back, considering the threats at hand. The world through the eyes of a Strike was different; everything in life appeared connected with waves of push, pull, and release. The powerful influx of information made Strike like himself much more inclined to function off of pure instinct.
Instinct, as it was at the moment, made him want to engage in the mounting conflict. Watching as Ana circled, he knew she wasn’t ignorant to the impulses of the Strike.
The shell.The words rode through Ana’s focus as he watched her. She was asking for the shell, a last request perhaps, before the violence started.
Twenty-three minutes. The thought flickered through Ana’s head as if by accident, and then she struck again. He countered, and she fought back, moving with his weight and pulling him back into the mist. Ivan grabbed him there, a violent arrest that he felt in his bones, but he curled his body around the shell as Amiel rolled again through the smoke.
Madness swam through his veins like adrenaline, begging to be released.
Dark soldiers took shape through the surrounding mist—products of Ivan and the others’ power, no doubt. Ana was waiting in that darkness, waiting to provoke him again, but her figure blended in with the dark hulls of soldiers carrying swords, knives, and rifles.
To push back, he’d have to use his abilities as a Strike, which could very well mean him losing sight of why he was fighting in the first place. He was a Strike of Amiel’s breed, as much as he hated to admit it, one of brutality over sophistication.
He was inclined to get caught up in the chaos. Testing his power against the others had an appeal to it he couldn’t deny.
Lethe heard Ana run up behind him, the mist of the other Strike with her.
He turned just in time, intercepting the blow, and this time, returning it.
Twenty-two minutes.
He heard from her thoughts. He could only imagine it was her deadline for getting the shell. No doubt when that time was up, Chronos would deactivate, and the rules of the game would change again. She was trying to restrict the use of Chronos, but in activating it, she now protected the capital from consequence.
Something in his mind clicked like a trigger.
Permission. At last, permission to do what he wanted, and it intoxicated his blood with a cold and inexplicable power.
Manaj had given him rules, but those rules wouldn’t govern him now.
This was the battlefield.
He now had twenty-two minutes of complete and utter freedom.
Chapter 27: The Battle
Twenty-two minutes.
The reminder echoed through Ana’s mind as a violent blast threw her back into the ground. She rolled repeatedly, not having expected such a sudden and intense reaction. It was as if an invisible force had just peeled the Strike’s shielding mist away and hit her hard across the entire front surface of her body.
A blast of air pushed past her, forcing the black mist back over her like a tidal wave at full force.
She coughed, unable to see Lethe or hear Ivan’s words as she looked up above the layer of mist. A wave of heat followed from Lethe’s direction. Intense and undulating pulses caused areas of mist around her to burst into small flames, seared back like the edges of paper as Lethe stood back up. The burning winds stirred, and the temperature of it almost seemed to give it friction as it pushed against her face and hands, gusts blowing the mist and fire around her into small, dark twisters.
Ana waded through the stirring mist as she saw Lethe rise from darkness, ash clearing away from him as his shoulders rolled back, his back facing her. He looked over his shoulder and his eyes ignited with amber.
She knew this signified the start of the real battle. Ivan’s mist curled and billowed as if dazed somehow from the blast. And then suddenly it concentrated into spears and twisted, spiraling down toward Lethe like strokes of lightning and then exploding on impact.
Ana shielded her face as the mist of dark figures coiled and twisted inside, taking distinct shapes as they churned across the valley.
Twenty minutes. That was how long it would be before Chronos withdrew from the Capital. This time when she’d activated it, she’d ensured the time was much more dense, preventing anything—even a Strike—from breaking into it. The cost, however, would be great, as Chronos drained the lifespan of the State citizens linked to it.
Collectively, twenty minutes at such density would cost fifteen lives—years peeled off of multiple citizens. No one would die, but lifespans would be shortened. It was a wager she had to make, but she couldn’t risk drawing this out any longer.
Debris exploded past her as the battlefield broke with the repercussions of multiple impacts. As a gust of wind cleared the additional mist from the valley, what remained was a picture deserving of both awe and horror.
The field was full of fighting things—creatures, machines, men, and women of different eras and ages and weapons, brought to life by the powers of Madness and each fighting either Lethe or the other Strike’s battle. They didn’t fight through the fog of war. They fought with it.
So, this was a battle between Strike?
