Chapter 57: Mind Your Language

The girlish young man was, of course, Lysander—ranked near the top of the Raging Gale's young-generation bloodborn.

He'd barely escaped Moon Coffee's back kitchen and paid a real price doing it; burning with rage at that very moment, who should he run into but Nathan.

Lysander had seen Nathan's photo, so he recognized at a glance the guy responsible for his misery. Nathan, of course, had no idea he had a grudge with this man—still less could he imagine that the man would pin every bit of his bad luck on him.

Lysander pressed his lips thin and ground out through his teeth: "Damn the Concord—laying a Boundless Barrier over Lombard Row and crushing my strength to ten percent. Fine, a Boundless Barrier—but these damn bloodborn went and rigged an illusion warding array on top, so I never even noticed my strength dropping. If not for that, how would I have disgraced myself this badly? Ambushed by a girl? Even the Goliath Bloodborn Ape stolen? This pack of the Concord lowlifes—lapdogs of humanity—aren't fit to be beings as great as bloodborn."

He fixed his stare on Nathan and said, in a voice barely above hearing: "I was going to go hunt down those two degenerates for revenge—and here you are, delivering yourself. As the saying goes: you're digging your own grave. Off Lombard Row, my strength is back. Once I've flayed you alive and made you scream every kind of scream, then you'll know what Lysander is capable of."

While Lysander was muttering to himself, Nathan was nearly out of the station. Lysander spat, his frame swelling violently, and both claws raked down at Nathan's shoulders.

After a month-plus of Sebastian's special training and real combat in the Hourbound Grove, certain reactions in Nathan had become pure instinct. He didn't dodge, didn't turn—made no motion at all—as his body quietly shifted. Lysander's claws came down and slid through him with zero resistance; the target going solid-to-void under him wrecked his balance, and he nearly face-planted.

Nathan had no idea why Lysander had ambushed him—he didn't know this model young talent of the Raging Gale from Adam. But the endless blood-and-thunder he'd been through had forged his mindset: once combat mode kicked in, every stray thought was swept out. No time for whys—only kill the opponent first.

Nathan whipped a backhand elbow, the high-frequency electromagnetic blade-force spraying from the elbow point, sweeping across Lysander's chest—land that one solid and this counted-strong young-generation fighter would have been gutted on the spot.

Rattled as he was, Lysander was still among the generation's finest: vitae condensed into a cyan-light dome, and he took the blow head-on.

Back at full strength, Lysander's confidence was through the roof. Sure, the shield was an improvised job holding maybe thirty percent of its power—but still, no way some freshly awakened runt was breaking it. Absolutely sure of his defense, he'd lined up six or seven counters, all set to flip the fight in one strike and take Nathan alive.

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Nathan didn't know who Lysander was. That high-frequency electromagnetic blade-force punched through the man's body-shielding vitae with ridiculous ease, and Nathan thought: "This guy's way weaker than Sebastian, and that shield isn't fit to stand next to the Hundred-Refined Ironweave Grub's—an absolute pushover!"

Lysander, cycling a small fraction of his bond-power, was just launching his counter when he discovered, horrified, that his shield had been run clean through, and yanked his bond-power back in a panic. Two reversals of true aether in a row, and at the worst possible moment his bloodways crossed—the counterattack died halfway out, unlaunchable, and he could only watch, wide-eyed, as one blow from Nathan punched through his chest.

The strike landed, and Nathan's combat instincts detonated: no change of move, he simply slammed his whole body in, switching power as he went and driving the Adamantine Body.

war-beasts or no, Nathan's strongest combat skills were still the Ennead Crucible–driven the Adamantine Body and the Quakefist Strike—and the Adamantine Body especially had reached the ninth layer, his body harder than any alloy steel Earth's best human technology could forge. The collision hurled Lysander tens of meters through the air—on a rapid convergence course with a subway train tearing in at full speed.

Nathan had already calculated the angle and bearing when he struck. He was dead certain that this blow would knock this inexplicable ambusher onto the incoming train and shatter him to pieces.

But as Lysander's body closed on the train, a force gave a light tug and he hung in midair, spun a few lazy, uncanny circles in the void, and settled to the ground. The collision had left him a wreck—who knew how many bones cracked—but he kept his life.

Nearly flattened by the train, Lysander's temper detonated into a torrent of abuse: "You little bastard—you nearly killed me! Up yours!"

The subway doors opened and a rather rakish man came out, cigar clamped in his teeth. He raised a hand and gave a pat—Lysander dropped to the ground—and the man said with a sleazy drawl: "Told you ages ago: show people a little more care, mind your language, and the world turns wonderful. But no, you never listen—so now you've eaten it big, huh? And here I am wiping your backside for you again..."

Lysander, humiliated and furious, roared: "Karsten! I don't need your lectures. Without you, I'd have handled this just fine!"

Nathan gave a small start—never expecting Lysander to have backup—and turned and ran without a thought. Battle-hardened he might be, but he was no blood-lusting brawler who had to fight every opponent to the death for the fun of it. He was a peace-loving kid: enemy gets reinforcements, and "discretion is the better part of valor" was the perfectly natural reflex.

Karsten shook his head and sighed: "Mr. Nathan! Why run? Headquarters has already approved your contract and ordered Lysander to keep his hands off. I'm here in good faith—we will honor our agreement."

As if Nathan would believe them. In the space of those few sentences, he'd already cleared the subway station—to run faster, he'd gone full black light, phasing through walls and rooms, and in a heartbeat he was kilometers gone.

Only after putting Lombard Row behind him did Nathan slip into an unwatched corner and regain human form. He still hadn't worked out what had actually happened; with both Lucan's and Wren's phones unreachable, he strongly suspected it was tied to the ambush on him.

Nathan thought darkly: "Is some terrorist outfit out to wreck my deal with the Raging Gale? Did they grab Lucan and Wren? But what's Wren got to do with any of it—she was just delivering Goldspear Thistle for me. Unless... these people were after me all along?"

Hot-blooded hero type or not, the thought that Wren might be dragged into his mess gnawed at him—he'd feel he'd wronged the girl, and there was no way he could just run off and call it settled.

He was equally certain he didn't have the chops to single-handedly challenge enemies of unknown origin, unknown hideout, unknown numbers—so heading back to Elderrow to alert Wren's parents and request some backup struck him as the far sounder play.