Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.56 - Ichabod 3

As if given a silent order, the other vampires scurried out of the room, leaving Ichabod alone with Amun-Kar. The air around them was heavy as the stones of the throne room.

Amun-Kar had known all along.

Ichabod stiffened, muscles taught beneath his suit. He'd gone to great lengths to keep his journey secret. He should've known better. Amun-Kar had known he was coming. The Blood of the Nile had the wealth of a thousand lifetimes and a network of spies that would shame empires. Of course he knew.

Amun-Kar's gaze narrowed on him, and something stirred in Ichabod. It might have been the somber guilt of a friend, or the shame of a small child, or the primal fear of a creature of the night unable to hide from a rising sun... Either way, Ichabod desperately wanted to be out of that gaze and sought to misdirect him.

"No wonder you're drunk," Ichabod replied, trying to keep his face straight and his voice nonchalant. "Three days of drinking—"

"Do not placate me like a lamb!" Amun-Kar snapped. The clack of his fangs echoed through Ichabod's chest and off of the stones. "I asked myself, why? Why would Ichabod come all this way? Why did he not send word? Why did he skulk through the light of day?

"And I knew. I knew. He either wants to conspire with me or he conspires against me. So tell me, old friend, which is it?"

Ichabod felt like he was two separate people.

In his mind, he reeled against what he was about to do. He'd spent years considering this path, months planning for it, and the last few days in silent atonement. And now that he was here, standing an arm's length away from Amun-Kar, Ichabod's turmoil renewed, like smoldering wood returning to flame. But that was his mind—

His body was already moving.

Ichabod struck. The motion was so fast it bordered on unconscious, as if his hand moved of its own accord. His palm was flat, claws aligned, like a cleaving broadsword. He aimed for the throat, meaning to sever Amun-Kar's head from his shoulders. Quick and clean—the only way to kill an elder.

But Amun-Kar was faster. He leaned back so that Ichabod's nails only slashed across the front of his throat.

The pair looked at each other for a long, long moment. That single attack had cut a gulf between them, as surely as if he'd aimed it downward and split the Earth open. Their pact was broken, and it would never be repaired.

Amun-Kar's neck had already healed—almost as fast as the strike itself. Not even a line of red was left to mark its passing.

Amun-Kar smiled as if he were about to say something. Instead, he lunged.

Two men who had been allies—even friends—for countless lifetimes, turned on one another. They cast aside what was left of their humanity and their dignity and descended into a savagery that few had ever witnessed and fewer still would ever attain.

For a few seconds, the throne room became a maelstrom.

Claws on their feet dug into the stone, giving leverage to their power. Their shoes shredded. The seams of Ichabod's sleeves tore. Each slash and bite echoed like the snap of a whip. They dodged only the most perilous strikes, both leaning on their godly regeneration, and the air was filled with a haze of dried blood and dull tearing of flesh. Even moving as little as they were, even without dodging, each step fell like thunder. Each change of direction gouged chunks out of the floor, and they moved so fast that those same chunks of stone drifted through the air like lazy flakes of snow.

Realization dawned on Ichabod like the inexorable rising of the sun—

He was not stronger than Amun-Kar. He was not faster. Ichabod would not win. Not like this.