Page 107 of Love, Nemesis
Give me your pain,it said,Let me have your revenge. Its requests now aligned more with his desires as if The Eating Ocean could see him with all the clarity of divine insight.
Lethe stumbled back against one of the walls.
“How do you expect this to end, Lethe? You can’t kill me!” Ivan appeared again, feet away from him. All of the guards fell around Ivan’s feet, dolls emptied of their handler.
Lethe charged him again and they collided. Ivan blocked his first attack, and Lethe retaliated with his cherry knife, cutting a mark across his collar bone.
Ivan recoiled. Lethe struck again, reminding himself to lean on the power of the knife.
He cut Ivan’s shoulder. Ivan struck out again. Lethe accepted the blow to his chest, using the opportunity to drive the knife into Ivan’s stomach.
Ivan doubled over and then dragged Lethe onto the ground, flipping his back against the stone with black nails, like steel, hooked into his chest. Lethe coughed against the wound in his chest, still holding his knife. He felt the blood pooling over the hilt of his dagger. He stopped pushing up against Ivan, allowing the Strike’s talons to sink into his chest. Blood poured into his lungs, but he used the proximity to slam the knife deeper into the Strike.
He choked and saw the smile on Ivan’s face.
“Let go,” Ivan whispered.
Adrenaline and exhaustion tugged back and forth. Lethe’s vision blurred.
Lethe withdrew the knife as if in surrender, and in a final moment, slammed it through the second oil canister on his belt, drew it between them, and pulled back the lighter.
It hissed but refused to light against the blood that coated it in his grip.
Lethe’s hand moved shakily to the back of Ivan’s collar as the man’s talons cracked his chest.
Lethe pulled the lighter back again.
A metallic click sounded. It lit.
Ivan’s expression faltered.
An Atlas activated. The device whirred, trapping Ivan’s body.
Ivan attempted to withdraw, but the radius of the Atlas slowed him down. He reached a hand into the orb as if to close the wound over his chest and withdraw the dagger, but his hand was caught in the orb, pinned by time.
In those extended moments, Lethe watched the fear wrestle into Ivan’s face at the realization that time had finally found him, neutralizing Madness in his system, making him mortal again.
Lethe’s head tilted to the side to see Cal standing at the edge of the room, feet spread apart, shaking. Ivan’s arm stretched his claws deeper into Lethe’s chest, drawing his eyes back to the Strike’s face as he cried out in pain. The Strike’s talons prepared to deal the final blow, as if to rip out Lethe’s heart.
Ivan’s eyes emptied, and his grip loosened.
Cal ran forward, yanking Lethe’s lighter free from the Atlas’s time and tossing it. It exploded around them and ignited the room.
Cal released his Atlas, shaking wildly as he fumbled after it.
Lethe rolled Ivan’s body off him and then fell back, eyes to the ceiling. He closed his eyes, resisting the urge to cough. The smell of oil was thick in the air. When he opened them again, he saw his fellow Riders, standing in a circle around him.
They all stood in the surrounding fire that hadn’t existed a moment ago, watching him wordlessly. Among them, again, he saw himself.
He closed his eyes again, waiting for them to ferry him off. The Eating Ocean chided, like a droning in the back of his skull.
“Lethe!” Cal cried, “We have to get out! Get up!”
Drapery fell down from the ceiling in ashes, and a hanging chandelier crashed into the stone. Lethe hadn’t realized how much the fire had spread during their fight.
Cal called louder, trying to fight through the heat, but the smoke thickened, black and boiling as it filled the room.
Beads of blood shivered on Lethe’s forearm as his body convulsed with the subtle tremors of adrenaline. The flames crackled, hissed, and barked, and he noted a sense of panic in Cal’s next cries. Through a fog, he slowly turned his head, watching as a flaming piece of debris fell and hit Cal hard on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground.
