1984 Perpetual War Novels & Stories

It was full of hate, and nothing at all like the kind, innocent man I’d briefly known. “What do you want from me?” I asked. “I can’t bring her back. I can’t take back what happened. I’m sorry you cared for her, but Helena and the Winter King are gone. The war is over. You have to accept that.” “The war is never over. It’s been here since the dawn of time and will continue into eternity; and I intend to finish what my forebears started.”

I fully-fledged ignored him for the whole month but that day luck was not on my side. The day when our Hate War officially started... ****Vote and Comment***

Faint whispers reached my ears, astonished, fearful questions. Finally, Jackson laughed, a deep, booming sound. "I know exactly what I want to do," he replied. You can't win, you know," I declared. "Don't you see? It ebbs and flows, but war makes the world turn. Even if the Iron War miraculously ends, it won't be long before some other battle begins." I smiled cooly, then delivered what I expected would be my final argument. "You can't end the war, you can only delay it."

War started now. ***

All the players in the future war are in place, the only thing missing from the volatile mix is a catalyst. I postulate for a moment that it should be called The Present War now. It’s been coming for so long it started to feel like we would never catch up with the future, yet here we are, on the cusp of our making, or demise. The elders, for all their wisdom, never saw the outcome. All we have been able to do is stack the odds in our favour, recruit the most powerful clans and covens, set wheels in motion that will roll steadily along, until they come up against this foretold resistance. ‘The long game’ means something different to an immortal, but the end game, that is what it’s all about.

Which meant the little rat I'd been feeding crumbs to inside Adrian DeLuca's organization had done exactly what I told him to do. I put the phone down again, this time more slowly. For weeks, I'd been playing the long game by feeding the mole just enough to keep him useful, but never enough to burn him. Some men think war is fought with gunfire. But they’re wrong. True war begins the second you decide you want it, and I'd decided a long time ago. And now the moment had come.

“Yeah, it’s this stupid Border Spell. I’m fine, the headache will dissipate.” Weston sighs. He always hates deploying spies over the border for this exact reason. “It’s far from a stupid spell. It has prevented countless wars over the years. Hell, it’s probably the only thing preventing Axel Brook from sending his army over here…” The Agent laughs, “I’d like to see him try. We have almost double their numbers.” Weston frowns, looking to his window, watching as a group of kids from the nearby school walks passed his line of sight.

The real war has begun. And this time, they're fighting an enemy that's had four centuries to perfect genocide. Victory never felt so far away.

"You have every right to be." That was not what I expected him to say. I kept my face still. "Talk… You have five minutes." He nodded once, like five minutes was perfectly reasonable for what he was about to propose. "I want to end the war." "You could end it today," I said. "Pull your armies back. Return the southern territories. Leave." "That is not the kind of ending that holds," he said. "You know that. I pull back, a new Alpha rises in ten years with a new appetite. Your grandchildren fight this same war. The ending I am proposing is permanent."

⸻ “…what do you want?” Finally. ⸻ I closed my eyes. ⸻ “Choose.” ⸻ A long pause followed. ⸻ “You have forty-eight hours,” I continued. “Call me back—and we end this peacefully.” ⸻ My tone hardened. ⸻ “Don’t call…” ⸻ I opened my eyes. ⸻ “And we go to war.” ⸻ Real war. ⸻ Not shadows. Not secrets. ⸻ The kind that burns countries to the ground.