Chapter 7
Frida rushes up to me, throwing her arms around me. Still shaken up by what happened she mutters, “Thank you.”
Wrapping my arms around her, I reply, “You never have to thank me for doing what’s right, and you can always count on me being there to protect you.”
“And nothing will happen to you either, Serafine, as long as I’m here,” Fenrir replies.
Pulling back she gives me a smile.
“That’s enough for today, meet back here tomorrow and we will continue where we left off,” Achilles shouts.
With that, all of us leave and head off to get some food. I can see that Frida is still shaken by what happened, so I sit with her to calm her down.
We talk for a while and then head back to our rooms. Just before we go to our separate quarters, I grab her and embrace her, holding her close.
“I will never let anything happen to you if I can prevent it,” I whisper to her. Sighing, she nods, giving me a small smile, then we go our separate ways.
We train for weeks like this, slowly getting stronger, faster, and better and transforming at will.
One day in the middle of our training, off in the distance, the sound of trumpets rings out.
Everyone immediately freezes and looks toward Achilles.
Without hesitation, he remarks in a cold, stern voice, “You know what to do.”
Confused, I turn toward Frida and before I can speak she locks eyes with me.
“We are under attack,” she says with a hint of excitement in her voice. My thoughts start racing and suddenly I feel a firm hand on my shoulder. It’s Achilles.
“Don’t freak out on me now, rook, after what you have displayed these past weeks, you’re more than ready for this,” he reassures me.
Giving him a quick nod, I follow the others out of the arena, through the halls and into the armory.
Stepping through the threshold, I’m blown away by the variety of weapons and armor from every century and country throughout history.
Grabbing my hand, Frida pulls me toward a section with silver armor lined with gold trim and with a wolf sigil on the chest piece.
“Here put this on. It will protect you and when you transform it will contour to your body. We don’t wear boots or greaves, unless they are a special kind, like what Lucius is putting on,” Frida informs me.
I look over to Lucius as he puts on his armor and what looks like greaves, but modified, so his hands are covered except his fingertips.
She continues to explain. “It is so when he shifts his claws are exposed and that set also is imbued to strengthen them to make the nails stronger than any metal.”
“These unique greaves not only allow me to use my claws, but fortify and lengthen them to be a more effective weapon in my half-shifted form,” Lucius shouts in our direction. He must be tired of hearing us talking about him.
After suiting up, all of us leave the armory, we continue down the hall and we reach what looks like a portal. Without hesitation the others jump in with Achilles leading the way.
“Let’s go together,” Frida says with the confidence coming back in her voice, as she grabs my hand.
We step through the portal and the only way I can describe the feeling is its like being microwaved. My skin feels like it’s on fire, but I’m freezing on the inside too. Weird.
Immediately I recognize where I’m at. That wasteland littered with all those deformed skeletons.
Purgatory.
Stepping into the field, I’m surrounded by tens of thousands of armor clad angels all staring stoically toward the jagged obsidian mountains and the gate to Hell.
A blood curdling cry comes from the gate and what seems like an endless horde of monstrous, fanged, winged, and grotesque creatures pour out.
Amidst the horde emerges a monstrous three headed dog looking thing that seems to stand about twenty feet tall.
Its thick ashy white fur is all matted with the blood and entrails of the damned.
With eyes burning a deep red that seems to pierce the soul and is spewing what looks like black ooze from all three of its maws.
Astride the creature is a demon with dragon-like wings and talons wearing heavy hellish battle armor, covered in spikes and spines which have human skulls impaled on them.
As soon as I made eye contact I knew that I had to do everything in my power to completely and utterly destroy this thing.
“Evander, let me out, we need to kill all of them. We need to kill them now,” Fenrir shouts, scratching for control.
Calm down, Fenrir, we will do this, but we will do it together.
As Fenrir settles down a little, behind me a familiar voice mutters, “That’s Mammon, one of Lucifer’s generals and I see he brought a Cerberus with him.”
Looking back I notice Uriel stepped onto the battlefield. My first instinct is to hit him for what he did to Frida, but then reality smacks me in the face as he draws his sword from its gleaming hilt and it bursts into a blue flame as he commands the angels to advance.
With that command the garrison marches toward Hell’s gate and the endless horde of demons.
Mammon lets out a deafening battle cry and the demonic army floods toward us. Anxiety builds rapidly in me and as I step forward Achilles stops me.
“Don’t rush in just yet. We aren’t here for the lesser demons or even the soldier demons. Our fight is with Mammon and his pet,” he says.
Understanding this, I hold back as the angels clash with the demons. Screams ring out in all directions as swords cling, spears shatter, axes cleave, and arrows fly, leveling thousands of demons in an instant.
Following that first volley the demons push forward violently, ripping angels limb from limb.
Shredding them with claws, fangs, axes, swords, and bludgeoning them with maces. Neither side is giving an inch as hundreds are beheaded, disemboweled, and left crawling on the ground crying in pain.
I avert my gaze to Achilles. “I can’t just stand here and do nothing while they are getting slaughtered,” I shout.
As if on cue the ground starts to tremble. Quickly looking back, the Cerberus is bounding through the horde with devastating force. I watch as it cuts a line straight through our ranks with ease and nothing the angels do seem to phase it at all.
Mammon draws his ax and with a single swing completely cuts multiple angels clean in half.
The difference here is that unlike the other angels that are killed, these ones shrivel up into husks, almost as if they were instantly mummified.
“That’s why I told you to wait. What you just saw from Mammon’s weapon is the reason we didn’t rush in.
If you get killed by his ax you don’t just die.
Your soul gets absorbed and fed to Mammon, making him stronger.
I understand your frustration with waiting, but you need to be aware of what exactly you are going up against,” he replies.
“That doesn’t change a damn thing, we need to get into the fight and I’m not waiting any longer. If you want to stop me then you are going to have to kill me,” I bark back just before willing myself to transform.
But unlike before it doesn’t happen slowly. With all the anger and anxiety that has built it seems to happen almost instantly.
Without hesitating I make a bee-line straight for Mammon, since he is the biggest threat on the battlefield. Fenrir is driving me even harder to kill him than when I first transformed and killed that soldier demon.
“Evander, wait up, you’re not going to have all the fun by yourself now,” I hear as I notice Frida in the midst of her shift, running next to me.
“Fenrir, I’ve longed to be in battle with you again,” Serafine says, causing Fenrir to push even harder.
“Yea, it’s not everyday that we get to go all out and truly and fully unleash ourselves.”
I hear Lucius as I see him coming up on my left, but he is only half transformed just like Frida was when we fought in the arena.
Out of nowhere something flies past all three of us. Looking up in its direction I notice that it’s Achilles and Perseus, in their pure Lycan form, rushing toward the enemy at a blinding pace.
They reach the horde first and begin decimating demons with ease. They are tearing through them with such simplicity that it’s almost like there isn’t anything there to stop them.
It’s only seconds between when they reached the frontline and when we did and they have already killed hundreds. Only leaving parts of them strewn about; an arm here, a wing there, blood and guts everywhere.
Finally catching up to them I dig my claws into the first demon that I see and it is almost euphoric. Feeling the warm blood run down my claws, matting into my fur as I force my claws deeper into its chest, grasping its heart and ripping it free.
Throwing it aside, I push through their ranks, severing another’s head with a single swipe.
As I advance forward slashing, tearing, severing, dismembering. I hear a voice.
“Looks like you’re starting to enjoy yourself,” Frida says in a playful tone. I glance over my shoulder at her as she rips a lesser demon in half with a grin on her beautiful wolf face, now that she has fully transformed.
“It looks like I’m not the only one,” I reply back as I bite through one’s throat and the taste of its metallic and sulfuric blood floods my mouth, trickling down my maw and throat.
A shout rings out and I know that voice. Looking over in the direction of the voice, I see Perseus in the mouth of the Cerberus.
As it bites down crushing his chest and tearing into his flesh, he lets out a gurgled cry.
Achilles bolts away from Mammon, turning his attention to the Cerberus. He swiftly reaches it and hits it with so much force in the head that its bottom jaw gets torn completely off from one of its heads and Perseus falls free, hitting the ground hard.
With that I rush to aid Achilles. Frida and Lucius take off toward Mammon, reaching him before Frida, Lucius expertly dodges his ax, while landing significant blows. Lucius gets distracted for a split second by the sound of Perseus writhing in pain and Mammon exploits this slight error.