My elbows pressed into the hard workbench down in the basement of the Chasse house. I was cleaning weapons for them, preparing for the imminent battle. They didn’t know when it would come, but I did. Annabelle had told me that we had a week from the moment she informed me in the graveyard. I wanted to tell them so badly, but I worried that if I did, I would mess up something in the flow of choices that Annabelle had seen play out, effectively changing the path we were on. Every decision I made since then scared the shit out of me. I couldn't lose any of them.

  As I cleaned multiple weapons, Autumn and Eleanor were training against each other on the wrestling mats. They both had on padded gloves and headgear as they fought hand-to-hand in the training dungeon beneath the house. Frank and Carter were lifting weights in the corner, clanging and banging plates around as they worked to strengthen their bodies. Allen and Eloise had made it over with Jane. The two young werewolves were at the soundproof range below the house, shooting a variety of weapons. Allen was teaching Eloise how to shoot like he had been taught as he grew up. She seemed to catch on fast; her enhanced senses allowed her to focus and move beyond the means of mortal men and women.

  Everyone was training and planning, but I was just waiting. I sat at the lone workbench, cleaning and oiling weapons one by one, like a shadow in the lower-lit region of the basement armory. I know they all eyed me intently as I worked silently. They knew I didn’t need to train like them, but I’d help them in any way I could.

  I wondered when it would happen. When would I get the call to meet Annabelle? I was nervous for the moment we lost our fortune teller, and the family wouldn’t be able to see the danger coming before they stumbled upon it. I hoped that Shelta would pick up that ability with practice… but who would teach her?

  Frank joked with me from time to time as everyone else trained, trying to lighten the mood. “You want to hit these weights, Sam? You might want to get a little stronger,” Frank laughed. Frank amused himself down there, trying not to think about all the loss for a while.

  After the evening had passed and everyone was leaving, Autumn and I finished the night with a couple of drinks in the kitchen. She was drinking her mother's red wine while I drank the yellow dust from Martin’s.

  I was taking in every aspect of her; the hair so dark that it bordered on black, her lean build, and her beautiful face that looked at me with care. She was dressed in her workout leggings and a loose-fitting shirt. She was still damp with sweat from the intensive training they had all been undergoing every night since the funerals. I wanted her to be able to stay with me forever. I didn’t want to outlive her one day. I wish she could stay with me through my time as the monster. But… she was only human… and I was not.

  “Should we be worried?” Autumn asked hesitantly through her sips. I could tell she wanted to ask me something since the moment at the graveyard, but she knew not to pry if Annabelle hadn’t told her something; it was for a reason.

  I shook my head, “No. I know what’s going to happen.”

  She took a deep breath, calmed by my answer.

  “I trust you, Sam,” Autumn spoke sincerely. “I just worry about what Peter can do, and if he’ll still be blocking Annabelle’s vision.”

  “Annabelle told me she can see Peter better now, but that’s not what I’m relying on,” I told her bluntly.

  “What do you mean?” Autumn asked as she took another drink to calm her mind.

  “It’s hard for me to explain, but I know that the next time I fight Peter, it will be the last,” I explained. “I’ve been feeling it ever since the funerals. It’s like I can feel his end coming. Now that I know he’s the one behind it all, Allen, Zeke, Bartley, and who knows what else, I can feel he’s hiding from me. It’s almost like the crows,” I explained my thoughts from the last few days.

  “Like the crows that showed you who killed Calvin?” Autumn asked.

  “Yeah. I think what I’ve been feeling lately when I think about Peter is the darkness in his actions. Even though he is still out of reach from the being in the fields, I feel him. Well…” I corrected, “The thing inside of me feels him. It’s like a sense inside of the monster that I haven’t felt before. I think it awoke when he stole their lives in the alley that night.”

  Autumn looked concerned for me. I wondered if she was afraid that the longer she knew me, the more she’d see me turning into the monster that hid below. Knowing Autumn, she wasn’t thinking anything of that sort, but I always went to darker places than she did.

  “When I see him again, I’m going to kill him. There will be no coming back from it this time,” I knew it for sure, even though I was still unsure of how it would happen.

  Autumn didn’t doubt me or ask how I’d do it. She knew I believed every word I spoke to her in the kitchen, and I could see that the dark entity that resided behind me still scared her more than she’d ever tell me.

  Autumn looked around cautiously before speaking, “I think now is the time, Sam.”

  I looked up, puzzled, “What do you mean?”

  She nodded towards the back patio.

  I felt my heart beat harder for a few beats, and then it slowed. One of the few times in this second life, I was nervous.

  I nodded, “Okay.”

  I followed Autumn closely out of the back door and onto the darkened covered table. Autumn flipped a little switch that lit up the awning above us. I walked to the same side of the table as her, and she sat down. I took a seat right beside her, but turned my chair to look straight at her. This was it. This was the moment I figured out how much Autumn would be a part of my life.

  “I’ve thought a lot about what I needed to say to you.” She took another settling breath, “Honestly, I’ve been too scared to say it to you.”

  “Before you say anything,” I offered, “let me tell you something first. I told this to your parents when they first found me at the safehouse. I told them this, and I meant it. It applies to you, too.” I soaked in her presence, her scent, the feeling I got while I was around her, just in case it was the last time we were this close. “I don’t know what I am, and I don’t know what all I might have to do one day. I do know that I want to be with you and your family. I will stay as long as you want me around. But if you, or Carter, or Eleanor want me gone; if it gets to be too much, I will leave. No questions asked, I will disappear from your lives if that is what you want.”

  She nodded, not expecting that from me. I think I threw off her momentum.

  “Um... okay.” Autumn nodded as she gathered herself once again. “Look, I don’t want you to leave. I want you here with us. I was going through a lot after you left, trying to figure out what I still felt for you and what it meant. I was scared of what I felt before, knowing you are what you are, but…” She looked down as she spoke. “I don’t care anymore. After Uncle Zeke… and Bartley… that could be me tomorrow. That could be any of us… even you. That thing could give you a vision and send you off again. I might wake up tomorrow, and you’d be gone.”

  I could tell she was spilling her guts even though she wasn’t sure that everyone else would be on board. In this moment, she didn’t care.

  “I still don’t know what will happen in the future, but I’m not going to make myself miss out on the things here today…”

  Autumn tilted her wine up and finished the rest, set her glass down on the patio table, and then stood up. She stepped over to my chair and sat with me, on my right leg. I leaned back to give her room there with me. She leaned against my chest and buried her face into my shoulder. For a second, I thought she was smelling me, but she was just breathing slowly, taking it all in.

  “I don’t know what this thing is inside of you, but I feel like I know you,” Autumn said to me quietly. “It does scare me, I’ll be honest, but I know you’re in control. You won’t hurt us… I know you won’t!” she said it like it was a fact.

  I hoped she would never be wrong about that.

  She put her face into mine and started kissing me, slowly at first. It was like she was testing the waters again, trying to remember what this was like before. But then she slowly started grabbing and squeezing my neck and arms, pulling herself as close to me as possible in that chair in the backyard. I knew I didn’t necessarily need air to live, but I was starting to get worried for her. She didn’t let up for so long that once she did come up for air, I almost thought her lips would be blue.

  We stayed locked in that heated exchange for a while. It was just us out in the dark of the night behind her house. No one was there to interrupt us. I finally felt… close to her again. It was the closeness that I missed so much from my life before. To feel someone else care and yearn for you in the same way you did for them.

  I finally had one of the things I wanted for so long.

  After a few more drinks, we found our way back inside and upstairs. Autumn needed to hit the shower. She said she was still “sweaty and gross” from the intense sparring with her mother. I didn’t mind anything about her at the present moment.

  Carter and Eleanor were still down in the basement doing things, and my hearing wouldn’t fail me, so I followed Autumn upstairs. I was taking in every moment I could with her. I wanted to remember everything about my time with her… while it lasted. The few minutes I spent alone with Autumn outside were intoxicating. I never wanted it to end.

  I waited in her bedroom while she cleaned up. I was hyper-aware of the noises coming from the bathroom upstairs. I thought I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, so I ghosted out of her room like a shadow. I zipped around the corner lightly, stopping in Carter's empty office. I began looking at the books on the shelf.

  Eleanor appeared behind me with a smile on her face and a stack of blankets in her hands.

  “Carter and I weren’t sure if you’d stay the night, but we have stuff for you just in case,” she offered me the blankets.

  “Thank you, but I don’t have to. I can make it back to the safe house,” I didn’t want to intrude. I also didn’t want to make it awkward for anyone if they began to realize how close Autumn and I were getting with each other. At that point, no one had seen us yet.

  “Sam,” Eleanor chuckled to herself. “We know you don’t need to sleep, but we’d like you to stay here. It would make us feel better, knowing you're alright. It would make me feel better knowing we had you in the house with us, at least until Peter is gone,” she admitted.

  I nodded, thankful that they wanted me around this close. I took the blankets from her and followed her lead out of the office. We walked down the hallway to the room closest to the stairs. Eleanor opened it up and led me into it. When she flipped the lights on, I realized that this was Allen’s old room. His old pictures and memories were all over the place.

  “We can’t have you on the guest side like before. Kayla and Arthur are taking up that space, but Allen won’t mind sharing his room with you.”

  “Thank you, Eleanor. It means a lot,” I told her.

  “Make yourself at home, Sam. I don’t think you will, but if you need anything, don’t hesitate to go downstairs and get whatever you want from the kitchen. Carter and I are pretty beat, so we’re about to hit the hay.”

  “Okay, sounds good. Thanks again, Eleanor.”

  She reached around me, hugging me again, “We should be the ones thanking you.”

  I pulled the door shut behind Eleanor and turned out the lights. I had no intention of sleeping. I wouldn’t be able to, not with the threat of Peter still out there. I’d stay awake while they all slept through the night.

  I heard Autumn finish in the shower and head back to her room. She must have realized I was gone instantly, since I wasn’t where she left me. I heard her get dressed in different clothes before hopping into her bed and shutting her lamp off.

  Carter set the alarm and closed up the house before he joined Eleanor in their room. I never heard a peep out of Kayla or Arthur on their side. The house was silent.

  Shortly after I heard Carter and Eleanor’s heart rates drop as they fell unconscious, I heard Autumn. She was talking to me.

  “Sam…” she said quietly in her room, “come here.”

  I felt my heart jump into overdrive. She knew I could hear her from where I was.

  I moved slowly and quietly out from Allen’s room across the far side of the upstairs floor plan from Autumn’s parents’ room. I monitored their pulses closely, making sure they were not waking as I snuck around their house.

  I opened and rushed through a small gap in Autumn’s door before closing it in dead silence. I was in her room with her, alone and out of sight from everyone else.

  I turned to see Autumn sitting up in her bed, staring at me. She was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, sitting on top of her blankets. Her dark hair was still wet and strongly scented from her shower. She didn’t say anything as I walked over to her quietly.

  When I got to her, she looked up at me for a second before she grabbed my hand and silently pulled me into her bed. She lay back as she pulled me on top of her. She started kissing me aggressively, like she was out in the backyard. I didn’t stop her. I had always wanted this.

  After a few minutes of things getting heavier in the seclusion of her room, she pushed my jacket from my shoulders. That was the first thing that started pulling me from the moment. The old fears I used to have about this presented themselves again. I tried to stop thinking about them, but other things added as we kept going.

  The next thing that stirred my fears was when she slipped her shorts off. Alarms were going off in my mind. I had to stop her. There was too much I didn’t know. But it was hard to pull myself away from her.

  The final straw was when she took off her shirt, and she was only in her underwear. We were still on top of her blankets, but I could feel her legs pushing down the blankets beneath us so she could get us under them. I had to stop our progress; I couldn’t go through with it. What would it do to her?

  “Wait,” I said a little too loudly as I pulled away from her. I stood up from the bed as she lay there on top of the ruffled blankets in nothing but her underwear.

  “What is it? Do you not want to…” She was confused and a little embarrassed.

  I breathed long and slow, trying to calm myself down, “It’s not that I don’t, I just… I don’t know what it would mean. I don’t know what it could do… to you.”

  Autumn looked sharply at me in the dark, trying to understand my words. Then she got what I meant. “You think you might hurt me?”

  “Not physically,” I assured her. “But I don’t know what I have in me. Just being with me… in that way, could hurt you.”

  She was very amused, “It’s sweet of you to worry so much about me, but is that all you’re worried about?”

  “That’s all? Yeah, that’s all I’m worried about,” I said, unsure of why she didn’t seem so concerned. “Just infecting you with some kind of… whatever… doesn’t sound appealing in my mind.”

  “Okay,” she said, understanding, “come back and I’ll explain.” She patted the bed beside her, wanting me back in the closeness of our moment. Her deep brown eyes seemed calm and not ferociously intent on ripping my clothes off.

  I sat back on the bed and lay down to match her position. We both lay beside each other on our sides, looking face to face on her pillows as we spoke about it. She had pulled the blankets over herself to cover her exposed skin so we could talk more seriously. She could tell this was something I had thought a lot about.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Okay, so I’ve had this conversation before with Jane, and even Frank. I wondered about these kinds of things after you left, once I knew you were something else. They were both worried when they were younger that somehow Jane would pass some kind of weird werewolf disease, or whatever, to Frank. But thanks to her rapidly healing cells, her body is too strong for things like that. You heal fast, right?” she asked me in the dark.

  “Yeah,” I responded.

  “Your body is in a constant state of looking for damage to repair. It doesn’t matter if it is physical trauma, a foreign substance, or whatever. The things you’re worried about, things that can have serious long-term effects on humans, have no real place in the supernatural world.”

  Shockingly, it made sense, but I didn’t want to just take her word on it here and now when all I wanted to do was agree and fall into my baser instincts. I still had questions, and she could tell as I sat quietly beside her on her bed for a few moments.

  “If it makes you feel any better, I ran tests on your blood before,” she admitted sheepishly, pulling her blankets up a little to hide her face.

  “You did? When? How?” I asked, smiling at her feigned innocence.

  “Biology major, remember. After I accidentally shot you in the chest with that arrow, I took it from the street that night and brought it home. I ran tests on it, and it looks and acts completely human. Until you introduce something foreign into it, then it does what most other supernatural blood does. It almost acts like soap.”

  “Soap?” I asked, confused.

  “Like soap. Have you ever put dish soap in water with other things? The soap pushes things away from itself in the water. That’s what your blood does under a microscope, it really doesn’t let anything get in and stay. If something does manage to linger in your blood, it gets destroyed by your cells pretty quickly.”

  “So… I don’t have anything that would hurt you then?”

  “No,” Autumn assured.

  “As far as anyone would be able to tell, if they had a sample of your blood, you are completely human. Well,” she admitted, “you’d be a human in perfect physical health.”

  I nodded, accepting and believing her words. Autumn had already researched this part of our relationship, even after I was gone. I was glad she looked into my blood. That made me feel much more relieved.

  “Okay,” I said, letting my stress fall away.

  Autumn took that as the play button to continue what was happening, “Okay?”

  She reached out from under her blankets and pulled me under them. In only moments, we returned to just how hot and heavy things were before, only this time, I didn’t stop her. I was with her in the darkness of her quiet room, nothing to stand between us anymore. We were together, and there was nothing that would separate me from her moving forward. I wouldn’t ever second-guess my place with her. Not unless she told me herself that she wanted me to leave.

  It was about midnight, and Autumn’s room was pitch black except for the hint of moonlight that crept through the fabric of the closed curtains. I almost fell asleep right there with her under her sheets. I was so content there with her. I hadn’t been that close with anyone since Vicky. That was the first time I had been with anyone since becoming the monster.

  It was very different, almost overwhelming, how much more my senses picked up in the heated moments with her. Her smell, her breath against my skin, her heart beating, even the pulse of blood beneath her skin, anywhere I was touching her. I could feel it all like never before. Everything was magnified for me now. It was a whole new experience, one that I wasn’t sure you could ever get used to. I couldn’t quiet my mind after what had just happened, even in the silence after Autumn fell asleep. Even though Autumn’s rhythmic breathing lulled me into a trancelike state, I could never let my guard down.

  I had to be on high alert with the threat of Peter still looming in the shadows. I would stay alert every second of every day until I drained the life from his body. I wouldn’t let him take another one of my friends. It didn’t matter what Annabelle saw or predicted; she couldn’t see me, and none of them knew the lengths I would go to protect them all. I would become a monster more vicious than any that opposed us if it meant saving their lives. In the darkness of the house, I was their silent protector. I was the Chasse's monster.

  Then I heard voices down the hall. A phone vibrated on a nightstand in Carter and Eleanor’s room. Voices grumbled through the walls and into my ears. Carter was speaking with Martin. I couldn’t tell what exactly was being said through the one-sided conversation, but I knew it was serious. I slipped out of bed with Autumn and silently melded through the shadows out of her room, through the hall, and back into Allen’s bedroom. It was like I never left.

  In only a minute or two after I closed the door, Carter was bounding down the hall to my door. I beat him to the knob and pulled it open.

  “What is it?” I asked in the dark, to his surprised reaction.

  “Martin… he said he thinks he’s seen Peter. He said outside of his bar, just standing in the parking lot,” Carter informed.

  “What is he doing? What’s he waiting for?” I asked in a rush.

  “He doesn’t know, it’s like he’s waiting for Martin to come out, but the bar is packed with people. Martin’s afraid he’ll kill innocent people if he confronts him,” Carter informed.

  I waited for nothing. I saw this as my chance to kill Peter and end this for good. I didn’t care what Annabelle saw; I knew where he was, and I would kill him again. Whether this would be the final death or not, I was unsure, but it would at least by us more time if he did come back.

  I could hear Autumn’s unconscious breathing through the hall. Eleanor was getting dressed quickly and coming out to meet us in the hall. I decided I’d leave quickly. If I could end this without their involvement… I would. I couldn’t risk them… I couldn’t risk Autumn, not after everything I knew I had with her now.

  “I’m going,” I told him. “You all need to stay here. Lock this place down with whatever warding, alarms, whatever. Just keep everyone in. I’ll end this… tonight,” I told Carter before I became an intangible shadow, disappearing into the darkness of the house, and then leaving through the back door, bolting to the tree line.

  In only about ten minutes, I was already standing in the parking lot of Martin’s vampire bar. I was hesitant to leave the Chasse house, even though I knew Peter’s location. But the opportunity to end the life-sucking gypsy’s existence was too great a chance to pass up.

  Once the gravel crunched beneath my feet, in between the cars of the busy nightlife, I saw the same black suit he always wore. I stayed among the shadows as I approached, since it didn’t seem like he knew I was there. I was curious why he came to Martin. Why hadn’t he come to anyone else… what did he hope to gain from the elder vampire? Then, I saw another head pop out of the shadows that surprised me even more than Peter's.

  A head of silver hair flashed onto the scene. He moved faster than any of the other vampires in our circle of supernatural friends, yet he was not totally unfamiliar. Charles, Martin’s creator, stood across a small space in the parking lot from the Grimwood man.

  “Well, isn’t this a surprise! They finally sent someone to figure out what’s been going wrong with the sacrifices,” Peter laughed.

  “Yes, they have, son.” Charles looked behind him swiftly to call forth two other beings from the shadows. “I would much rather prefer to keep these innocents out of what comes next,” Charles motioned over towards his oldest friend’s establishment as his cohorts joined him.

  Two others appeared from behind Charles, a man and a woman dressed in black clothing, stopping directly beside him. As soon as they appeared in sight, I knew what this was. This was a hunting party, a band of three, so-called immortals, sent up from the pits just like when they came for me.

  “This is not good news for you,” Charles admitted to Peter.

  “For me… no no no?” Peter spoke cockily before laughing in the parking lot. His shrill laughter filled the air as his confidence overflowed. “Please, the pits aren’t what they once were. You think I learned all this on my own? You’re not the only one with contacts in ancient places. There is a change coming down below, but you won’t see it,” Peter spat to the elder being as his devilish grin grew wider with pride. “I’ll take you now and add you to my collection.”

  The other two beings beside Charles sped forward in a rush. One almost disappeared as he moved, slipping out of the physical realm in a ghostlike form. The ghost man rushed forward through the expanse. He slashed at Peter with almost invisible claws, sending the Grimwood tumbling through the parking lot. The parked cars were low but decent cover from the fighting that was taking place.

  The second one was a woman, and she met the flailing Peter with a smashing knee into the pavement. I could hear the ribs and sternum turning to fine dust beneath her strength. She looked utterly human, with no claws, fangs, or any other discernible monstrous features, yet her strength was off the charts. The effects of her movements on the pavement were visible. Her leaps and lunges at the Grimwood left cracks and chips of material where she put her pressure.

  They were both quick, attacking and retreating to Charles as soon as they moved on Peter. I think they knew not to let him get his hands on them. They were smart because if he did, he might be able to pull their lives from them.

  They had beaten and positioned him in a location that would take more effort to see what was going on. I watched as they strategically moved the fight to a less visible area.

  “Don’t you see,” Charles asked Peter, “it is fruitless. You cannot escape us, and you cannot win. Do you think you are the first to reach this level of necromancy? We know what you can do, and we know who your master is,” Charles informed the blood-spitting Peter.

  Peter smiled with blood in his teeth, “I don’t think so. I’m learning from someone special. Someone far away, in a land of blood and flames.” Peter laughed at his description. He said it mockingly like he was reciting a poem.

  Charles shook his head, “Then, you are beyond reason, and there is no benefit in returning you to the pits. You’ll die here!” Charles’ words were rigid and unbending. His word was law.

  The two moved in again at their leaders’ words, one phasing like a wraith and the other leaping through the air. What they did to Peter was hard to put into words. The woman brutalized him beyond recognition while the wraithlike being shredded and flayed him in ways that I never could have replicated. The ghostly being had precision unlike anything I had seen before in this dark world. He moved in and out of physical objects, intangible, and out of sync with this world. This went on for about five minutes of agonizing torture for Peter. However, the man just kept smiling and laughing. Nothing they could do to him would ever wipe that grin from his face. It was like he knew something the rest of them didn’t.

  I heard tires rolling up to Martin’s place, and then I heard feet leaving the front door of the bar. Martin walked out to meet Carter, Eleanor, and Autumn, only about forty yards from Peter Grimwood. The Chasses exited the Suburban, armed to the teeth in the middle of the late night.

  What the fuck were they doing? Why would they come and risk themselves? I told Carter before I left that I’d handle it, and for them to just stay away! Why were they here?

  They all paced around the corner to meet Charles, who was just as surprised to see them as they were of him.

  As Charles turned to see his vampiric spawn walking towards him with his family, I stepped out of the shadows to end Peter and the threat he posed to the ones I cared about. Everything that happened next happened in an instant.

  I connected eyes with Autumn first, and I could tell she saw the rage in my blackened eyes. Then, Eleanor and Carter saw me crossing the distance as fast as I could without transforming. I must have had the same dread on my face as I did in my mind at the thought of what could happen. Then, Peter had a surge of power that flung his attackers from him and stood him back to his feet, fully healed of his injuries. Peter looked directly at me… I think he was… waiting for me.

  “There you are, Sam. I’ve been expecting you,” Peter spoke as blood-red flames began to envelop his entire body. It looked like they burned him alive right in front of all of us. The fire consumed his entirety until all that was seen was blazing red flames.

  Everyone was in shock and confusion as the gypsy seemed to burn away in front of us. In a matter of only a few seconds, Peter’s entire form had vanished along with the red flames. I stopped in my tracks, heart pounding with fear for my friends… and for Autumn. What did he just do?

  “Autumn,” I called out from across the distance. “What are you doing here?” I asked in my stress.

  “We just…” Her face was locked in fear as she stared at me, her words totally cut from her mouth.

  What was she looking at? Why did she have that look in her eyes?

  “Let’s go somewhere that we can be alone,” Peter’s voice came from behind me.

  My body was already shifting and turning around to tear him in half, but it was too late. Whatever he had done with those flames had taken me by surprise. Those were Mucia’s flames, the blood-red hellfire that I had been cooked with before. How did Peter have that kind of power? Mucia was ancient and had lifetimes to learn. Peter was only a few years older than me. How did he tap into this power...?

  His pale, bony hand grabbed my arm, and I felt the flames wrap themselves around every inch of me. They swarmed me in an instant, blocking Autumn, Eleanor, and Carter from my view. All I could see and feel was the blinding heat of the hellfire… and then I was gone.

  Blinding light and fire ripped me to pieces as my body was pulled through the strange space. It was made of nothing but pure fire. My eyes saw only the most intense reds that made me feel like I was boiling in blood. I never felt the hand leave my arm as Peter pulled me through the foreign experience. His grip felt like it was made of molten steel.

  I felt the pressure that had been building in those few moments ease slightly before completely vanishing. We were at the end of the wormhole and were plopped out onto the coarse and charred ground of the alien land. My hands burned at the touch of the blackened earth, but I wasn’t sure if it was just from the scorching hellfire portal.

  I looked around shakily at my still-burning body, muscles and bones protruding from what remained of my human form. I was shocked by the instant damage and confused as I looked around. There was a ringing in my ears that was so loud I couldn’t think straight initially.

  “Damn. I was really hoping I could steal you,” Peter said almost to himself. “Welcome, my friend,” Peter greeted me from a few feet away, he and his suit were utterly unharmed by the hellfire. “Welcome to your end.”

  I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to stand as I growled, “Where are we?” Drool seeped through the cracks of my teeth as I willed my muscles with all of my might. They were burning and in searing pain, but I needed them. The pain was mind-numbing as it singed my cells.

  “This is where you will die. You are much too strong for me to kill, let alone siphon your life, it seems. Maybe once I steal the lives of all the ones you hold dear, then I’d have the strength to take you. However, it seems that won’t happen. I’ll just drop you off here to deal with the denizens of this world.” Peter smiled as he looked around the vast hellscape.

  My eyes were healing and blackening once I was out of the portal, allowing me to see the world around me better than before. The sky was black with smog, only lit up from the raging fires sporadically burning on the ground below. Small rocky crags and outcroppings raised the charred earth only slightly. I thought I saw a flicker of lightning spark across the smog… it was as crimson as the flames. This was not Earth; this was not the land of the living, nor was it the fields that my entity called home. This was another place entirely.

  As my ears healed back to functionality after being destroyed in the portal of hellfire, I heard the constant roar of the otherworldly flames that consumed everything across the land, as far as the eye could see. The fires would lick whatever organic matter they could find until it had reduced it to ash, and then it would move. It was almost like it was alive as it searched the land to find the nearest pile of meat. That’s when I realized there were bones everywhere.

  My form was almost fully healed in that other world when I saw how many dead bodies lay around me. The closer I examined the carnage, the quicker I realized that these were not human bodies; these were the bodies of beasts. These monsters looked like they were never human at all. These things were born here, living and dying inside of this alternate dimension. Jagged and charred horns and teeth protruded from massive skulls, and claws lay slick with blood like they had just been used to carve up the other creatures before they had fallen. Their bodies were thick and dense on a squatty frame. They looked like they walked on their back legs, but the longer, thicker arms made me think they roamed around like apes on their protruding knuckles. Their hides were almost as charred and tough as the rocks beneath us, taking on a reddish-black hue. They were all as large as I remembered Phineas to be in his fully transformed chimera state. Other than that size comparison, I had nothing to compare them to in my mind from anything I had ever seen or read about in the bestiaries.

  This must have been what the being, Jon, had mentioned before. He said that there were places I could be trapped, places I could be put where I wouldn’t die, but would remain until he could find me a way out. These were the beasts of one such world. Was I stuck? Could I get back and save my family? Could these things actually harm or kill me if they tried? I couldn’t let them, I had to save my friends.

  Peter was enjoying every second of my reaction to the sights before me. None of this looked like it surprised him. He had been there before. His guard seemed lowered, and that is when I turned on my heels and exploded towards him.

  “Not today, Sam,” Peter said as he sidestepped my approaching form and lashed my body with a red-hot brand of hellfire.

  I was thrown across the charred and jagged rocks beneath us, slicing and burning my flesh again. This place was dangerous and sturdy. The materials here were much more durable and sharper than the environment of the living world.

  “It’s too bad, really. I would have liked to take all that power for myself. Maybe if I’m lucky, I can still get the rest of the monsters you call friends. I am especially thrilled to take revenge on your two werewolf friends. They cost me a whole pack… I had plans for them. I used them much too often to just be snuffed out like that. Yet, ole’ Darry never stood a chance against you, did he?” Peter laughed darkly. “I guess you didn’t have the nerve to kill Allen and Eloise, huh? But I guess you came for them, didn’t you? I still can’t figure out how you found him. You wouldn’t tell me, would you?”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe the words he was speaking. How did he know that name?

  “Ah, yes, you see it now, don’t you?” Peter looked absolutely thrilled as I lay in the burning ash, connecting the dots in front of him. He was finally getting the big reveal for something he had kept hidden for so long. “Jimmy kept many things hidden from the pack, even from young Eloise. Darry didn’t need to know who Allen really was; he just needed to keep Allen broken and in the pack. You see, I cursed people for him whenever I needed them to grow stronger in numbers. I used Darry’s pack to kill my enemies back home. They were a convenient bunch; a little more subtlety would have been nice, but they were effective. They helped me grow as strong as I could before I realized that my true power lay in necromancy,” Peter laughed at me.

  I clawed my burning body up from the ground with blackened eyes and extended talons. His words angered and fueled me to struggle through the pain of the burns.

  “It is pretty poetic, is it not? The lone hunter from the Chasse family that survived his werewolf hunt was turned into the very same beast he hunted. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been waiting a long time to take credit for that one. As soon as I knew a Chasse that was connected with the Wicklows, and even the Talbots, was coming into my reach…” Peter’s eyes grew wide as he relived the excitement, “it was too good to believe. When I found Allen, I did to him just what we did to the Talbots all those years ago. He’ll pass that curse on to his children, and his children’s children just as the Talbots do.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” I snarled at him as my muscles began to flex and push against their natural limits. “I’m going to be the one you see when the lights finally go out, you mother fucker!” I was enraged at the situation.

  “I know you want to, and a part of me wants to let you do it again, only so I can see your face when I come back. However, I have a schedule to keep. My master will arrive here shortly, and he is very intent on meeting you, if you survive long enough. I may not be able to steal the life and power that lies inside of you, but he will take you in an instant,” Peter said coolly. “I wish it were me to do it, but I’ll settle for your friends… especially that Autumn! She looks strong…”

  I dove forward to wrap my hands around his throat. I inched closer and closer as I flew through the air, actually believing I caught him by surprise, but I was wrong. The hellfire wrapped him up in a pillar of flames. When I collided into the burning pillar, my body burst back into flames as it spat me out of the other side.

  The tower of fire vanished as soon as I hit the ground; the only fire left from it was burning away the outer layers of my flesh. Peter was gone, and I was alone in the burning world of corpses and darkness. Jon told me that he wouldn’t always be able to save me from things like this. Was this one of those times?

  I stood alone amongst the demonic-looking corpses and flames that consumed them. Peter was gone, probably back in the world of the living, tunneling through dimensional planes to return to the city of St. Louis. I, however, did not have that ability. If I was getting out of this place, it would be by my backer. If he could pull me from the top of the Lemp Brewery like he did, maybe he’d call me back to the Fields from this hell.