Chapter 60

-Chase-

When I laid my eyes on Killian, I was immediately filled with rage. My need to burn him to dust nearly suffocated me, but somehow I managed to contain myself. His life was not mine to take.

Hearing my Dante eased up my burning anger. That magnificent beast was even angrier than I was. I’d never seen him so angry before. I’d never heard him growl that loud before. He was attacking the cage with his full might, not backing down even for a second. The cage muffled the worst of the sounds, but even then, my ears hurt as his sharp claws clashed against the metal.

I was honestly surprised the cage could still hold him.

And I was disappointed that Killian didn’t even try to attack Roe and me during our little chat. Pathetic. To think that this man was the reason we’d spent so long hiding… To think he had killed me.

I got bored with him, so I walked to Dante’s cage and opened the door for him. He was wearing a ridiculous collar. I felt flutters in my stomach when he stepped out in his full glory and stopped to stare at me. I wasn’t afraid. That was my baby, after all. Our eyes met for a short moment, and he took in my scent. Somehow, I knew I was fine.

He was angry as hell, but his rage was not aimed at me.

I smiled when he turned to look at Killian. I watched with pride when my beast ran after him without giving it a second thought. I was sad when they ran out to the hallway and the doors flew back shut and I couldn’t see the moment my love finally got his revenge.

At least I could hear it.

As the growls and the screams quieted down, I turned to look at Roe.

“I wished it would take longer than that,” I sighed.

“We can’t always have everything,” he said sympathetically. “At least Dante seems happy.”

“Yes, he does,” I smiled at him and walked to the door.

I pushed it open, revealing a big, bloody mess in the middle of the hallway, and Dante licking his lips. He noticed me right away and turned to face me, lowering his head and letting out a growl.

“Is my baby still mad?” I cooed as I walked closer. “I know, I know… This place sucks.”

He took a step closer to me, keeping his eyes on mine. Roe stayed behind, ready to teleport us both out of here if Dante was still hungry for more, but the beast seemed content. For a rage machine.

“If Ben is right, you should be turning back to human now,” I said quietly – Killian was definitely missing a heart. Among other things.

Dante took another step towards me, sniffing the air. He seemed confused.

“Baby?”

He suddenly let out a painful growl, his entire body tensing up. A few seconds later, his transformation started. It sounded so painful…

“So Ben was right,” Roe muttered.

“It doesn’t matter. He needs the cure,” I said as I watched my love grow smaller.

He was thrashing around so much I didn’t dare to go too close, but as soon as his claws vanished, I hurried to his aid. He fell unconscious when he was more human than a beast, and I sat down to pull him into my arms.

“Those bastards…” I hissed when I saw countless wounds on his half-naked body.

We hadn’t seen any scientists around… They must’ve escaped. That was my new mission. I’d hunt them down and make them all suffer.

“I’ll go check how things are going elsewhere,” Roe said, and vanished.

Dante’s transformation was complete. I took the collar off him, tossing it aside, and watched him closely, especially his wounds. They weren’t healing… I was once again suffocating in my rage. His body had just recovered! He had been able to heal fast, but it was now ruined! Again!

I wanted to go find them all, but I needed to stay here. I needed to calm down. I hugged him carefully, trying to focus on having him back in my arms. I would never let anyone take him away from me again. I now had the power to protect him from anything. No one would ever be able to steal my magic from me, either.

I’d kill anyone and everyone who dared to touch him…

“Bad news,” Roe spoke, appearing next to us. “The rassawolves are still going strong, and one of them is stalling the evacuation. Our people and the victims are pinned in the laboratory and the enemy is getting through.”

I wanted to tell him to deal with it and leave me alone with Dante, but my love would want me to help them. He’d want to be there to help the other victims.

“Can you take Dante away from here?” I asked.

“I can,” he nodded.

“Take him to Njizrski. Make sure he’s safe,” I said, giving my unconscious lover to him.

My heart quivered in pain when they disappeared. I couldn’t stand being away from Dante even for a second, but I needed to fulfill his will. I’d save these people for him.

“Right – where the fuck do I need to go?” I asked, looking left and right in the hallway.

Since there was only the altar and Dante’s cage on the left, I started running to the other end. I needed to find the person who was controlling the rassawolves.

“Roe? I need Arthyzn. He knows what the handler looks like.”

“Give me a second…”

“Sure, it’s not like our entire army isn’t about to lose their lives.”

“Less sass, please. I’m carrying your boyfriend.”

“Don’t you dare drop him,” I hissed.

I reached the end of the hallway and hurried through the door, ready to burn everyone and everything in another hallway behind it, but it was empty. This whole place seemed empty. There weren’t any windows, so I wasn’t sure if I was underground or above the surface, but it did look like I was far away from the actual battle. I could only hear explosions, nothing else.

“Roe, I need you to teleport me to the right place,” I said.

“I’m looking for Arthyzn. Can you give me a minute?” He sounded annoyed.

I sighed and hurried through the hallway. I found an elevator at the end of it, behind a corner. The elevator had several buttons, and apparently I was on the bottom floor, so I pressed the rest of the buttons. The elevator started rising slowly, stopping on each floor. I didn’t see anything interesting, not until I stopped at the second to last one, and Eru was behind it.

“Hey girl, sorry for vanishing like that,” I said when she stepped in, the elevator creaking a little under her weight.

She licked my hand and let out a short purr.

“Found them,” Roe suddenly whispered in my head.

“Good – teleport us there,” I said.

“They’re coming your way – just take the elevator to the top floor.”

The doors closed, and I felt excited. I was so ready to end this all.

“Wait… They?” I repeated.

“Donovan is chasing him.”

“Oh.”

The doors opened again, and another silent hallway opened up in front of us. We stepped out and waited. It wasn’t that big of a hallway. Only a few doors here and there.

“Let’s go,” Roe said, suddenly standing next to me.

I followed him to the other end, and through a set of massive doors. We’d reached another big hall. A hangar, but a different one. There were cars and bikes parked on both sides, dead soldiers lying around, and a burning wreck of even bigger doors at the other end, revealing a ramp big enough for tanks. Now I could hear the battle, so I assumed we were above the ground, or at least close to it.

Eru suddenly let out a low growl, fixating her eyes on the ramp. Her fur was standing up.

“I think there’s a rassawolf around,” I murmured to Roe.

“I think so too,” he replied, summoning a massive black spear out of nowhere, giving it to me.

“I’m not going to hurt the wolf,” I told him.

“You still might want to protect yourself – that should withstand their bites.”

I took the spear. Its weight was almost comforting. Njizrski iron again. Roe conjured one for himself too, and suddenly, we could hear loud shouts and growling coming from the other end.

“Definitely a rassawolf,” Roe muttered. “We can’t let them get past this point.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a bunch of portals a few floors below us. I don’t want to take the risk of losing our target now,” he explained hastily.

“Agreed,” I said sternly. “This needs to end now.”

We listened in silence to the approaching noises. When Eru started growling quietly, I took a better hold on my spear. They were almost here. The yells and shouts were coming closer and closer, and suddenly, we saw an older man running down the ramp. At first, I thought he was running for his life.

“Get them, girl!” he shouted and chuckled as he continued his way towards us.

He didn’t seem afraid.

“That must be him,” Roe muttered and stepped forward.

The man was too busy watching his step to notice us at first. He was breathing heavily, but he seemed to be in high spirits. He was having fun. He was still snickering when he finally spotted us and stopped.

“Oh, the demons! Lara! Come here!” he shouted, peering over his shoulder, and the almost white rassawolf came running down the ramp, the ground shaking under her weight. “Let’s see if you guys are so tough as my grandson thinks you are.”

“Don’t you mean your dead grandson?” I asked in a mocking tone.

“You should be dead too, mister warlock,” he said. “I was wondering where he left, but no matter. Death is only an illusion, am I right?”

I had to stare at him for a brief second. That was all he had to say about his grandson’s death?

“None of us are immortal,” Roe snorted at him.

“Perhaps,” the man said. “But some are harder to kill than others. And I have an army of necromancers by my side.”

The rassawolf stopped next to the man and laid her dark eyes on us. For a brief second, I imagined Dante in her place, and I shivered in anger. Killian had tried to tame him.

“If you do revive Killian, I’ll just kill him again – and this time, I’ll make sure he suffers,” I told the man.

“So it was you who killed him?”

“Do you care?” I asked, since he clearly didn’t.

“He’s a good sport – a bit naïve, but he’s still young.”

“Was,” I corrected.

“Details, details,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Graham!“

The man sprung around to see Donovan walk down the ramp alone. He had a long sword in his hand and a hateful expression on his face.

“Son,” the old man said, his cheerful expression changing into an annoyed one. “Lara? I told you to kill him.”

The rassawolf grouched a little and let out a whine. Oh, how I hated to see such a magnificent creature cover next to such a pathetic man.

“She can’t kill me,” Donovan said, raising his sword. “You will never get rid of me, not as long as you’re still making these monsters!”

“Yes, yes,” Graham snorted, rolling his eyes. “You need a new hobby, son.”

Even from the distance, I could see Donovan’s nostrils flare. His anger reached all the way to us.

“Your confidence will be the end of you,” he spat at his father.

As their bickering continued, more people arrived at the hangar. Mom and Dad were among them, and so were their demons. They all looked pretty ruffled up, and Paraz had a big wound on his chest, but at least they were still alive and standing.

“We could just let Donovan handle him,” Roe muttered.

“Don’t I get to kill anyone today?” I sighed.

“Enough!” Donovan suddenly yelled, taking several hasty steps towards Graham, holding his sword in front of him. “I’ve waited for this moment ever since you let Evelyn get killed by your monsters! Your legacy ends right here, right now!”

“Fine, Lara – kill him,” Graham said almost casually, and the wolf let out a massive growl before jumping at Donovan.

Donovan easily got out of her way and tried to attack Graham, but the wolf turned around fast, forcing him to face her instead.

“We could just burn Graham,” I suggested, but before Roe could reply to me, Donovan’s father turned to look at us – he clearly heard what I said. He grinned as he took something from his pocket.

And vanished.

Both Roe and I stepped forward, staring at the spot where he’d just stood.

“What? How?” I breathed out at the same time when Roe turned around to glare at the doors behind us.

“He has a teleporter – short distances! Find him! Don’t let him escape! I’ll hold this beast here!” Donovan yelled at us, dodging another attack from the beast.

“I swear to god, if you kill her–”

“Just go already!“

“Go Chase! We’ll stay here!” Mom shouted over the noise. “We need those rings!”

“I can feel where the portal took him,” Roe said, grabbing my arm and placing another hand on Eru’s neck.

A short swish later, we stood in the laboratory again. It warmed my heart to see it already burning, but the thick smoke stung my eyes and made it hard to breathe. The whole place was coming down any minute.

“There!” Roe said, pointing past the burning desks and equipment. I could see a hint of Graham’s legs vanishing behind the smoke.

We started running, avoiding the collapsing ceiling, and climbing over burning bodies. We had lost the sight of Graham, but there were only two hallways where he could’ve gone, and the one leading to the cages was empty.

Once we got out of the lab, the air got a little better to inhale, but the smoke was still everywhere. We had to waste our time going through the offices to see if he was hiding there. Even Eru couldn’t smell him, probably because of the smoke.

“Did we lose him?” I gasped.

The reply I got was another roar of an angry rassawolf somewhere just ahead of us.

“He must be there,” Roe said, and I agreed.

I had no idea what the room behind the last door used to be, since now it was littered with massive tunnels and abandoned drills. Some of them were on fire as well. We heard another roar coming from the tunnels.

“Must be there! He’s after the victims!” I said in worry.

“Last time I checked, our people were hiding there,” Roe said, pointing to a hallway that was still relatively intact.

“Go check – I’ll go after Graham,” I said, and ran into one of the tunnels without waiting for his reply.

The tunnels all led back to our portal, so it didn’t matter if I chose the right one. It took Roe only a few seconds to join me.

“Empty – they must’ve found a way to escape,” he informed me.

“Then Graham is after them,” I said grimly. “We need to stop him.”

Eru growled as an agreement. The further we got, the more noises we could hear. It was clear the battle was continuing up ahead. There were humans, too, by the sound of machine guns.

“If the enemy gets to the portal…” I muttered.

“They won’t,” Roe said, but even he didn’t seem to believe it.

There was a loud explosion up ahead, shaking the ground so hard I nearly lost my balance – it was hard enough to run with hooves on loose rocks as it was. I could only hope the explosion was caused by us, not our enemy. The tunnels were pretty sturdy, but we still had to be careful not to get hit by falling stones.

The rassawolf growled again… We had to be very close now. The tunnels had to end soon.

And indeed, after one last curve, I could see the backs of our enemy as they were trying to push forward. Roe and I quickly dealt with a lot of them by setting the whole tunnel on fire. Their screams were music to my ears, but the rassawolf clearly wasn’t in our tunnel.

We pushed past the screaming people, pushing them rolling down into the tunnels. The entrance was right in front of us, and we could see people fighting. No one stopped us when we climbed out, and the first thing we saw was the rassawolf causing mayhem. I could hear Graham laughing and cheering her on, but I couldn’t spot him.

“They got rid of our protections,” Roe murmured.

“Doesn’t matter – we need to find Graham!”

“The portal is gone too,” he continued, without caring about what I just said.

“We need to find that bastard!” I yelled at him.

It was pure chaos out here. I tried to see Graham, but… The portal was indeed gone, the surrounding forest was on fire, both armies were spread out everywhere… And the humans… I wasn’t a squirmish person, but when a man without half of his head ran past me, still screaming and firing at everything that moved…

“We’re fighting zombies,” I breathed out when I understood what the necromancers had done. “They’re reviving them as zombies, Roe!”

“I know! We need to stop this madness!” he yelled back at me.

The humans had to be in a lot of pain…

Eru suddenly drew my attention by growling loudly and jumping forward. She looked back at me, telling me to follow her. I didn’t hesitate a second. Roe followed us in a hurry as we started making our way towards the base – or the crumbling pile of stones it had been turned into.

The rassawolf was on our left, but Graham was nowhere to be seen. I assumed Eru had found his scent since she continued running past the beast without hesitation. We had nearly reached the walls when we heard the other beast roaring up ahead.

“She’s coming back up,” I said just before the beast came running up the ramp in the distance, followed by limping Donovan, who still had the strength to wave his sword around. I was worried for a second, but then my parents and Frank came out as well with their masters in tow. They were more than ruffled up now, though.

“Where is that son of a bitch!” Donovan yelled at us.

“He’s got to be somewhere here!” I yelled back at him.

A second later, the human zombies swarmed us. I tried not to look at them. I just burned them. My flames were so hot the bodies were turned to dust in seconds, leaving nothing for the necromancers to revive. A favor to our enemy, I suppose.

There were so many of them… Too many. It was nearly impossible to get closer to our allies, but little by little, foot by foot, we advanced.

We needed those rings. We needed to end this madness. This war between two immortal armies would never end if we couldn’t get rid of the mastermind. I wasn’t sure if even that could stop this, but that was a start.

Where was he? I tried to look around whenever I had a second to spare. I saw glimpses of the rassawolf, Lara, who was clearly getting annoyed by Donovan’s persistence. Paraz, Izha and Arthyzn tried to chain her up, but she easily snapped even their biggest chains in half. The second beast was just outside the walls, coming closer and closer…

Graham had to be here. Eru had lost his scent, but he had to be somewhere close by. He seemed like the guy who wanted to watch the battle. I could almost feel his evil eyes on me.

I swung my spear around, sending the zombies flying so I could see what was going on around us. I saw Lara… Something nudged in my memories. I saw the collar the beast was wearing.

Graham was controlling her with it.

“We need to break the collar,” I told Roe. “Then she’ll be their problem, too.”

“Sounds like suicide,” Roe said.

“You can teleport to her. Donovan is keeping her busy,” I said.

“I can try,” Roe said, and vanished.

The zombies were all over me again, but I could still see my master appearing next to Lara’s neck. I saw him jamming his spear right into the collar before she took a swipe at him. Roe managed to get the hell out of there just in time.

“I made a dent,” Roe told me. “I’ll try again.”

Donovan quickly picked up on what we were trying to do. He kept taunting the beast loudly, making sure her attention was on him, so Roe had the opportunity to try to break the collar. His spear broke after the third try, so I gave him mine and took his instead. I just needed to keep the zombies at bay.

After the fourth hit, I could see something fall off the collar. I was still holding on, but there was a big piece missing. I was about to start cheering, but when Roe went for the fifth hit, Graham appeared next to her.

“Nice try,” he chuckled.

“There you are!” Donovan growled even louder than the rassawolf, launching at his father without wasting a second, his sword aimed at his heart.

Graham disappeared with an amused smirk on his lips. Donovan landed right in front of Lara. In a blink of an eye, her teeth were around his torso. Donovan screamed when she shook her head and then threw him away like a ragdoll. He was already silent when he hit the ground.

Another Taylor gone, just like that. Stupid man. Such a stupid way to die.

But something else happened during those same seconds I’d been focused on Donovan. Roe wasn’t standing next to me anymore.

I heard another loud scream and turned to look up at the roof of the base above me.

“I was waiting for you to teleport so I could follow you,” Roe chuckled.

Graham didn’t reply to him. He was too busy dying. Roe had impaled him with his spear and was now dangling him in the air. Graham was holding onto the spear, blood gushing out of his mouth. Poor bastard was trying to get the spear out. He looked surprised.

Without saying another word, Roe moved back and slammed Graham at his feet, pulling the spear out of him just to thrust it back to him. I couldn’t see the old man anymore, but I knew he now had a big pole made of Njizrski iron through his skull.

The rassawolves stopped, shaking their heads in confusion. A few seconds later, their true natures started showing again, but now they didn’t care who they were attacking.

“Roe, better hurry up with the rings!” I yelled at him.

The zombies were still coming, and I had to give them my full attention. I burned as many as I could, feeling my energy draining fast. Eru did her best as well, but these zombies just wouldn’t give up.

But then the beasts turned their focus on them. I peered up and saw Roe with the rings, commanding the rassawolves. I shouted my orders to anyone who could hear me, telling them to retreat towards our portal. We needed to get the portal back so we could take the injured away. We also needed to start burning the zombies in masses without endangering our own people.

“Block them in this yard!” I shouted. “Don’t let them get out!”

It was a long, exhausting task. I lost track of time. I lost my voice as I kept yelling my orders. My entire body was in burning pain from injuries, but mainly because of how tired I was. But still, I was happy. We had already won.

We won.