Pure, unadulterated rage flowed through Nemesis’s body with the speed and energy of lightning. The raw power of it felt good, but not nearly as good as the rush she would feel when she took vengeance for the crimes committed against her. She learned that, when she had awakened. She had been struck first by the knowledge that she had been violated, her very flesh stolen from her. And then she had sensed the cries of hundreds of living things inside the building. While she had managed to exact vengeance on one of the creatures that had sprung from her body, she had also destroyed the building and those in it who had been guilty—of what, she did not know. Still, she had felt empowered when they were dead.
While the world around her cried out for vengeance, nothing called to her as loudly as the two remaining creatures. She recognized part of herself in her opponent, but she felt no kinship with it. The creature was a corruption. An abomination. And it needed to be destroyed. Not only because she had been wronged, but because its eradication would feel so right.
She craved it.
Hungered for it.
And yet, there was something else tugging at her thoughts, quietly whispering for her attention. Something familiar was nearby. Something...missing. And welcome.
The gentle tug pulled her attention upward, to a strange diamond-shaped object hovering above her. She had no memory of it. No knowledge about why such a thing would feel familiar. So she ignored it...too late.
Her opponent recovered from the blow that had sent it tumbling through the city. With impressive agility, it rolled back to its many feet, leaped up and clung to the side of the building. Its eight eyes glared at Nemesis with hunger of their own, but a different kind of hunger. If Nemesis fell today, she’d be eaten. But she felt no fear, only surprise as the creature sprang forward, limbs outstretched and open, tail pulled back and poised to strike.
The creature landed on Nemesis’s chest, its eight arms wrapped around her, its bladed talons slipping past armor and into her thick, black skin. Nemesis roared, but her voice was cut short when the creature’s mandibles bit into her neck. Bright blue bolts of electricity sparked in the air, coursing through her body, paralyzing her as the long tail stabbed toward her side.
But then, like Nemesis, the creature went rigid for a moment, as though struck by the same paralyzing energy. The blue arcs stopped, and Nemesis quickly regained her senses. She took hold of the long tail, stopped just feet from her side, and yanked. The eight blade-tipped limbs slurped from her back, and the creature came free, suddenly back to life and thrashing. Nemesis spun, swinging her enemy out, into and through a building.
As the building toppled, Nemesis released the creature, sending it sprawling into yet another building. The creature’s back impacted the tall structure, holding it in place for a moment, before gravity pulled it out. The creature fell, landed on its feet, and charged.
But its aim was off. It ran sideways, stumbling about.
Injured, Nemesis realized, and her body flowed with energy once more, vengeance and the rush it brought within her grasp. She tilted her head back and roared into the sky.
30
Holy shit, Lilly thought as she watched Nemesis throw the Tsuchi through one building and into another. Joliet didn’t like it when she swore, but she let the curse words fly in her thoughts. How could she not? Uncle Jon used them so often, and so creatively. He’d exposed her to the wonders of colorful language.
Obsidian, on the other hand, had no filter. The man was a few feet below and ahead of her. His voice was caught by the wind and dragged out as he soared on his open wingsuit, shouting a single word for a hundred feet, “Fuuuuuck!”
Despite his evident fear, Obsidian angled himself toward the back of Nemesis’s head. It was a much smaller landing zone than the Tsuchi’s back, but the dark skin up there wasn’t armored. It would be a softer landing, and the bacteria bomb would work faster, too. Of course, if Nemesis made any sudden movements, they could be cleaved in two by one of the massive blade-like plates protruding from either side of her back, or they might roll off the side of her head, into one of the spikes, or they might follow countless other paths to doom.
Of all the potential for error, there was one problem Lilly had to overcome in the next few seconds—she had already used her chute. She had a secondary, but it was just your run of the mill parachute, not a rapid-deploy chute. In the time it took her parachute to expand, she’d hit the ground, or Nemesis. And even her physical abilities couldn’t overcome terminal velocity.