by J Gaines
“Impressive. But it’s only delayed the inevitable.” As he spoke his last word, a mechanical, sliding noise caused them all to turn towards the opening door. Jasmine was inside the room and pulled John to his feet before turning and helping him outside. She was covered in blood but seemed unhurt, and Amias realised the man with her was Victor. He glanced at Amias as he took Max by the arm and also pulled him away. As Kaden screamed in rage, Jasmine ran back towards them. She was a few steps from the door when Xavier targeted the control panel for the door on Kaden’s desk. He fired the last of the gun’s magazine into it, and the door slid shut. Jasmine placed her hands on it but this time he didn’t hear her call. He smiled at her before turning to his enemy, as Xavier and Andre flanked him.
Amias cracked his neck. “Now you’re going to see what’s inevitable.”
Chapter 30
As Amias faced Kaden, Andre and Xavier slowly took their positions to surround him. He didn’t turn to them but instead kept his eyes on Kaden’s. He stayed tall, his head raised high and his sword held downwards. Any fear he’d felt was forgotten; he knew it was his destiny to stand in this moment.
“This is it, Amias. There’s no escape for either of us, and no chance of interruptions. Once this room is sealed, it can’t be accessed.”
Amias’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I wouldn’t leave if I could.”
Kaden smiled, and looked him up and down. “I must admit, there’s something different about you. For the first time I don’t sense conflict in you. Was it our mother who helped you find your purpose?” He pointed his sword at Amias and snarled. “Did she tell you to come for me?”
“She hoped that, even at the end, we wouldn’t have to face each other. She hoped that if there was any good in you, it would become clear to you there’s another way.”
“What other way, brother?” Kaden snapped angrily. “To live in the belief that we should serve the cattle you call humans? To hide ourselves away and protect people who have hunted and exploited us?”
Amias shook his head sadly. “We are human, Kaden.”
“No, Amias. We are something much better. Even now, despite your wounds, you can feel a strength inside you that is preparing you for battle. It’s in your blood, your organs and in your mind. We are the stronger race, and we can take this world for ourselves if only people like John would reach out and take it. Humans are ordinary, they have nothing that can prepare them to stand against us.”
“I have realised something, Kaden, and my mother helped me to see it. What I have makes me strong, but it is also what makes me human. It’s what gave me the first-strength so young, which you tried so desperately to understand. It’s what helped me survive you a year ago, and what allows me to stand here before you now. It’s a love I can never escape, it’s in my blood, my organs, and my mind. For all time, people without our abilities have shown love and compassion so powerful that it’s led them to perform miraculous, amazing feats. It’s helped them right wrongs and protect the weak, and it’s given them the ability to change the world. It’s a power, Kaden, which even the most normal human can possess and display. And yet it’s something that you will never master.”
Kaden spat onto the floor. “How I would have loved to look our mother in the eye and know who she was before I ran my sword through her heart.”
Amias raised his sword and drew it across his face. “I’m ready.”
Kaden, Xavier and Andre all approached him at once, and as their swords met, they clashed together for a moment in a crash of steel as Amias held the three of them. In the next instant, the sound of their blades meeting became a crescendo as Amias parried away multiple attacks. He blocked and deflected their attacks with lightning speed as his attackers increased the ferocity of their strikes and he tried his best to turn to the reinforced glass window to protect his back. He was forced to clasp his sword with two hands, but he found his body was giving him the strength he needed to ignore his pain, meeting each strike with a block as strong as the attack. Amias had become perpetual movement, and as he spun and jumped, he put his trust in the instincts he’d ignored until now. He finally realised that, in the moments of clarity he’d experienced since beginning his tutorship with Virgil, this moment was what he’d prepared for. The duals with John flashed through his mind, along with memories of being locked in the chest by Virgil. He remembered his first-strength suddenly, the door of his foster-father’s house closing and shutting Blaise behind it, and he felt the feelings he’d searched for at those times return to him. Strengthening him, readying him, leading him. He saw the next strike before it happened, and then the next, and as the four blades whistled around him for the first time he felt total control. Even Kaden’s attacks were unable to turn him from his flow.
He turned his attention to Andre, who was wielding two blades. As he met Amias’s challenge he increased the intensity of his attack, losing control for a moment, which cost him his footing. Amias was on him instantly, sweeping his legs with his sword, disarming him of one of his swords as he fell, and cutting him across the chest as he lay on his back and screamed in pain and frustration. There wasn’t time for Amias to keep his focus on Andre, as Xavier suddenly thrust his long straight blade towards his throat. He turned just in time, and the flat of the blade rested against his Adam’s apple and just below his chin. He looked at Xavier who smiled at him as he spun, shifting the position of his swords slightly in his hands, knocking Xavier’s sword away with Andre’s blade and bringing his mother’s sword around to inflict a cut across his stomach. Xavier stumbled back in shock, and Kaden and Amias stopped as they faced each other.
“You have been busy, Amias.” Kaden’s eyes narrowed, and he smiled. “But enough play.” He stepped forward and his sword became a blur in his hands as he approached. Amias was forced to jump a strike at his legs, flipping backwards and narrowly avoiding a cut across his neck. Xavier and Andre joined the fray again with a shout and Amias could feel the renewed efforts from all three of them. He allowed the energy that filled his body to lead him and released the power he had left inside him. For a moment, his three attackers turned to defence and as he leapt into the air, he brought his swords down and met all three of their blades. They stood, straining against each other.
*
Jasmine watched the fight through the glass door helplessly. When it had shut again with Amias locked inside, they’d tried their best to reopen it, and when that was unsuccessful, they’d tried to force their way in. She punched on the door in anger as the fires that had begun to engulf the room grew closer. As her despair grew, so did the heat from the flames, and she watched the sweat from her fist slide down the window and begin to dissipate. Somebody was calling her name, but she ignored them. The only person she wanted to call her name couldn’t be heard, and if he couldn’t withstand the odds against him, she couldn’t speak the words that he so desperately needed to hear. She touched the back of her head with her fingertips and looked at the oily blood on them. The giddiness had stopped, but there was still a dull pain that radiated through her mind, trying its best to interrupt thoughts that had been asleep for so long. Tears sprang into her eyes, and she wiped them away with a warm hand. She couldn’t let him die here, not now that she remembered why it was so important that he lived. An unwanted hand clasped her shoulder; she clenched her jaw and turned to see Max. He was alone and was holding a rifle as he looked anxiously around at the flames.
“Jasmine! Victor says this place is going to go up in flames.” He glanced through the door at Amias. “He says we need to get out. I said I’d bring you with me.”
Jasmine turned back to the glass. “If anybody can get out of this, it’s Amias. He’ll make it, I know he will.”
There was a small explosion, and the flames roared for a few moments. Max watched them and then turned to Jasmine anxiously. “They’ve taken John out. He didn’t want to go either; Victor had to knock him unconscious.” Jasmine tu
rned to him again, and he stepped back and held his hands up. “I wasn’t saying that’s what I was going to try and do.” He stood silently for a few moments. “This isn’t what Amias would want you to do, he’d want you to live, Jasmine. You know that.”
As Max spoke Amias’s name, suddenly she felt sick and clutched her stomach. Amias was fighting hard, and she saw there was something different about him. He seemed to stand taller than she’d noticed before; his curly hair glistened with sweat and his t-shirt was ripped and bloodied, but he looked stronger than ever. More memories crashed into her mind, and she almost fell to her knees as the pain and realisation of an incredibly strong love flowed through her. How could she have forgotten? Suddenly gunshots rose above the flames and destruction around her, and Max pulled her downwards. She struggled against him and heard him return fire. Somebody was shooting at them, but she didn’t care, she needed to get inside. She needed to tell him.
*
He could feel Kaden was holding back, but the others were becoming frustrated, and as he turned and rolled across the table, he felt Xavier and Andre break free of their unified attack to pursue him. He landed lightly on his feet and awaited them, raising both of his swords to block Andre as he leapt from the table and brought his blade down like an axe towards his head. Xavier ran to join him as Amias crossed his swords, knocking Andre’s away and disarming him. He then kicked Andre backwards and immediately spun to kick Xavier in the head, twirling away and then coming to a stop as he watched them pick themselves up, nursing the new cuts he’d given them. Andre picked up his sword and put his bloody fingers to his lips; he snarled as Kaden joined them.
“Well done, Amias.” Kaden clapped mockingly. “You truly are my blood.” He scowled at Xavier and Andre, and they readied themselves once more. “But you are not my equal.” The instant Kaden had finished his sentence, he rushed at Amias and launched into a ferocious onslaught of strikes with his sword. Amias was pushed back and stumbled as Xavier and Andre joined him, lashing out with their blades and unleashing their final assault. The four of them became a blur of swords as Amias ducked and weaved, using his two weapons to block the mercilessly incessant flow of metal that came within inches of finishing him. As he was forced away from the table, the only object in the room that could offer him the chance of some respite, he knew he was being led to his death. He looked into Kaden’s unforgiving black eyes, and saw he didn’t have long. As he gritted his teeth and held onto his flow, for a moment he thought he could hear whispers, the words of his teachers pushing him on, asking him not to give up yet. As a picture of his mother flashed into his mind, Andre’s sword was knocked from his grasp and clattered across the floor. He sensed a death blow was inevitable and brought his blade down to block both Xavier and Andre’s opportunist thrusts. His defence was successful for a moment, and as he held their swords locked, he knew he was too late to avoid Kaden’s rising blade. He did the only thing he could to save his life, turning his body sideways into a pirouette. As he twisted away he felt an agonising pain rip across his torso and fell onto his knees with his back to the three men. The blood was already seeping through the slash in his t-shirt and he let the tatters of what was left fall to the floor. He could see the dressing that Sophia had applied was now soaked with blood. Next to it, and his other wounds and scars, was a large cut that ran from his belly button diagonally up to his shoulder. He fingered the blood as he rested on his sword and pushed himself up, turning to face Kaden.
“I pity you, Amias,” Kaden sneered. “Even now, at the end, you delude yourself into thinking there’s some hope you’ll survive. I can see it in your eyes. It was there when I first met you and it’s still there now.” He laughed cruelly. “Hope!? There is no hope for you.” He turned to Xavier and Andre. “Finish him.”
They approached him slowly, and as they raised their swords for the final kill they smiled. Amias lowered his head, accepting what was to come and waiting. The two men, now on either side of him, raised their swords. What was to come flashed through his mind, but this time it was too fast to make sense of; he was lost, and in a moment he would be dead. He closed his eyes and let his instincts guide his control. He raised the sword in his right hand as Andre brought his weapon down and across his neck and shoulders, blocking it. As Xavier thrust at his unprotected body, he caught the blade and changed its direction, wincing at the pain as it sliced through his palm. Amias opened his eyes to see the blank stare of Andre, with Xavier’s blade protruding from his chest. Xavier was still holding the hilt and looking at where his sword point had finished as Amias spun and sliced his head from his shoulders. Andre’s body dropped to the floor at the same time as Xavier’s head, followed soon after by his body. Amias looked at their dead bodies before raising his sword and crouching into a fighting stance. He raised his eyes to Kaden and extended his hand, curling his fingers and beckoning him forward.
Chapter 31
As Jasmine pulled herself back to the door, Max grabbed her jacket and dragged her roughly backwards behind a desk as another hail of bullets burst through the flames. He returned fire and shook his head, shouting over the sound of burning metal.
“You’re going to get us both killed, Jasmine. There’s nothing we can do for Amias now. I’m sorry but he’s on his own.” He fired into the smoke and fire again, and then checked his weapon as he wiped his brow. “I’m almost out. We’re going to need to try and fight our way free very soon. If we stay here we’ll be shot or blown up. That tank’s about to blow.” As if in answer, there was a loud creak and another small explosion.
Jasmine was aware Max was talking but she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. She watched the door, trying to catch a glimpse of Amias from their hiding place. Her stomach twisted in torment as she thought of what she could lose. For a long time, she’d believed she had nothing to live for, but since he’d come into her life things had changed. A spark had been lit that had burned slowly, until now – now there had been an explosion which had changed everything. She turned to Max and mouthed words which didn’t come out. She clenched her fists around his arm and tried again.
“I have to speak to him, Max.”
Max turned and looked at her. “I don’t know how we can.” He swallowed hard and looked at the room that was now Amias’s prison. “I haven’t known Amias long, but in the time I’ve known him, I’ve seen how he looks at you, and how he believes in you. Anything you have to tell him he already knows.”
She shook her head and felt tears well up in her eyes and roll down her cheeks.
*
Still holding his sword, Kaden removed his jacket and tie, and threw them onto the floor. He then unfastened the sleeves of his white shirt and rolled them back. Amias remained still, watching his twin brother as he walked slowly around him. He nodded respectfully as he stepped over Xavier’s head.
“This is the way it should be.” He pointed his blade at Amias. “Just you and me. The way it was when we were born.”
Amias followed Kaden’s movements intently, not allowing him out of his line of sight. “But it wasn’t just us. It never was. Our mother and father were there.”
Kaden pushed his hair back and fastened it in a ponytail behind his head. “And how long was that for?” He continued to step deliberately around Amias. “I saw Jasmine’s still alive, for now. You must be desperate to see her.”
“There’s nowhere else I should be right now. We’ll finish this today.” A large explosion reverberated against the glass in the room, which they both ignored.
Kaden twisted Virgil’s sword through his fingers. “What was she like… our mother? Which of us was she like?”
“She was strong… but filled with regret.”
“That she abandoned us?”
“No. I think she regretted that she and our father were altéré. I think all they ever wanted was to live in peace.”
Kaden sneered. “She was like you, then. Weak.” Amias
didn’t reply but turned and began to mirror Kaden’s steps. A trail of blood followed him as it trickled onto the floor. He gripped his mother’s sword, squeezing the soft leather of the hilt into his palm. Kaden’s black eyes narrowed on Amias, and they stepped towards each other as Amias readied himself. In the moments that followed, the destiny he’d been pulled towards seemed to open into a black hole before him. All of his training had been for this moment, to get him where he needed to be, so he could do what was required of him. Virgil had helped him to master his fears, and control abilities that he wouldn’t understand until now. John had passed on his belief, so he couldn’t truly believe until this moment. And his mother had given him the strength at the last to accept what he’d always doubted, and that what was inside of him would forge his path to true deliverance.
