I found them in an alley after I heard a screeching vehicle grinding across stone and brick. The squeal peeled out into the city sky, alerting me to their presence. I took off as soon as I heard it, but not before I heard someone scream out for Bartley. I was on top of some very tall buildings, leaping across streets high in the sky.

The closer I got, the more I started feeling a literal shaking in the area. It was like a vibration in the air, invading everything that fell inside its range. It was power… the gypsies were the only ones I could think of that could be doing it… maybe Annabelle. It felt like it was everywhere. I didn’t understand how humans across the city couldn’t feel it, they had to.

Once I hit the roofs closer to where the noises were coming from in the dead of night, I could see other creatures lurking above the alleyway, looking down at a possible meal. These beasts were not human, not even in the slightest. If they were at one point, it was a very, very, very long time past. These beasts were light brown at one point but had been overtaken with a pale hue, making their leathery skin look sickly and weak. Thinly growing, long white hair crept out from the spine of all of the beasts at random spots along their backs. They stood on all fours like dogs but were the size of a grown man. Their faces were stretched and elongated towards the bottom jaw forming a massive underbite with jagged, brutal teeth. Slobber, and who knows what other fluid dripped from their mouths as they sucked in the scents of the those they hunted below. There were about six of these disgusting creatures randomly spaced on both sides of the alley, waiting to strike. Vicious snarls and grunts escaped their throats as they gazed upon their prey below. They were going to kill and eat them all. I had never seen nor read of anything like this in any of the bestiaries. Nobody below saw what roamed the rooftops as chaos unfolded on the street. Primal death snarled and paced above, waiting for some kind of signal to attack. They looked wild, yet they seemed coordinated by something unseen. It was like they were all connected to a much smarter and controlled being. I felt like if they were let loose on their own, they would be nothing more than rampaging animals out for blood.

Down below, I saw her dark hair falling down one side of her chest. I could hear her heart fluttering a hundred miles an hour in the panic of what was going on, but her movements were calm and slow. Autumn was safe. She was behind concrete cover and actively tuning in her scope to fire towards a flurry of action at the far end of the alley. Carter and Wayland shot quickly towards the fighting between all of the supernatural creatures. Autumn’s shots were slower, and more carefully thought out. Every seven to ten seconds, Autumn would pop off a silenced round that would fly between Jane and Alex to hit Peter in his failing body. I did a headcount of all the people I saw hiding behind cover. However, I soon saw two bodies lying on the pavement. It was Zeke… and Bartley.

I could sense it. The same scent that I knew all too well. They were gone. This thought sent me into a pulsing rage to move forward and protect the Chasses… to not let whatever happened to them, happen to my friends. My mind was in a rush as I witnessed everything before me. However, in the back of my mind… I was just happy that it wasn’t any of the Chasses I was so close to now. I hated myself for the thought like it was a sign of more of my humanity leaving me… but it was true, and I couldn’t help it.

Martin and Alex were flaying the gypsy alive as they flailed and fought against the Grimwood man’s surprising physical strength. He seemed to grow stronger the more his eyes burned with that eerie green force. He was a mystery, and he could probably do a lot more things that would surprise us all just as much as the brute force inside of his lanky frame.

Jane prowled around the carnage like a predator savoring her prey's final moments. The storm of claws and blood raged before her, but she moved with cold, calculated intent. Each step was measured, her eyes narrowing with ruthless focus. When she saw an opening, she didn’t just dive in… she tore into Peter with a savage force that ripped him away from the vampires, his body helpless under her brutal assault. Her claws shredded through him like he was nothing, her dominance unmistakable. The raw, animalistic power surging from her was impressive, eclipsing anything I had ever witnessed in her kind. Near the full moon, Jane wasn’t just powerful, she was a force of nature. Her movements were precise, deadly, and each strike proved that she had mastered the wolf. Compared to the other Alpha I met, Darry, who had always seemed like a reckless brute, Jane was the embodiment of control and violence, a predator reigning supreme in her element.

A passing thought flew into my mind. I wondered if the werewolves that kept the beast under control actually grew in power further than those that let it run wild. Jane was the polar opposite of Darry when it came to unleashing the wolf. However, she was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, and Darry had a whole pack that fell to me. I think if I went toe to toe with Jane right now… she’d at least give me more of a fight before I ended her.

Peter was thrown from Jane's grasp before he could get the upper hand during her surprise attack. His bloody and beaten body looked like it was nearing its end, but his strange grin only grew creepier. He wasn’t going to stop. He was nowhere near his end, he just couldn’t match the ferocity of the Chasse family’s inhuman friends. He couldn’t get a moment of freedom as he was passed between the monstrosities.

First, I’d kill these monsters on top of the roofs, then, if Peter was still standing, I would end him… no matter what Jon said. I couldn’t let anyone else fall tonight.

I moved in absolute silence, my breath steady, my heartbeat eerily calm. There was no need for the transformation. Not for this. The rooftop beasts would fall first, but Peter had to see me, human and unrelenting when I ended him. I wanted him to know exactly who had come for him… again. As I sprinted through the shadows, my hand reached into the void, the unseen realm where my blade rested. It wasn’t just a weapon, it was something darker, something beyond this world. When my fingers closed around its hilt, the air around me seemed to still, as if this natural world recoiled from its presence.

The moment the blade crossed into the physical world, I felt it… an unnatural surge of power flooding my veins, tightening my muscles, sharpening every thought and sense. The blade thrummed with an otherworldly power, one that resonated with my very core. It whispered through me, a connection deeper than any beast or primal rage. The creature inside me, normally straining against its cage, was calm, almost reverent. It didn’t claw for release. Instead, it fed me its power willingly, content to watch as I moved with this murderous darkness in my grip. It was clear; this weapon was far more than some shape-changing tool. Jon, the real Jon, had said it was more symbolic… but I felt raw uninhibited power in its form. It was an extension of something otherworldly, and through it, I would carve my way to Peter.

I stuck the blade into the first two creatures before any of the other nasty four-legged monsters turned their enhanced ears. Unsurprisingly, they both fell over, legs locked out straight as the long-carved steel severed away parts of their brains. For anyone else, this probably wouldn’t work, but I put enough strength behind my attacks that it was like being hit by a knife-wielding school bus.

The third one heard the sound of the first two’s death throws after my blade carved a tunnel through their heads. So, the third jumped at me as soon as it saw my hooded form approaching. I caught it by the throat and slammed its chest cavity into a small pipe that extended out of the roof by my feet. It whimpered and growled as the pain tore its mind from the hunt. I knew this much attention would alert those below to my presence, but that was okay. I lifted my leg up and stomped down on its head. Blood and meat spit out in all directions as its skull became flattened, expelling whatever this thing called a brain. The gore was piling up on the roof. A stray thought came, hoping that these things would burn off in the sun, like vampires. If not… someone was going to have a bad time.

The rest fell like mosquitos in a bug zapper. They flocked directly to the thing that was made to kill them. The last beast was more evasive, attempting to jump down into the street below where all of my friends fought for survival against the dark gypsy. The leathery-skinned creature jumped out into the middle of the gap as it descended to its prey. It looked like it was aiming for a fire escape that was hung from the side of the building. Not on my watch.

I threw myself at it so hard without thinking that I instantly regretted it. I immediately saw where I was headed, and it didn’t look pleasant. I collided with the fiend as it gnashed its mandible full of broken teeth at me in an attempt to defend itself. When we met, I plunged the knife into the beast’s heart with merciless precision. But, our trajectories were different after we collided. I knocked it off course as I rocketed by its nasty body.

This ugly motherfucker came down in between the hunters and the monsters fighting Peter, separating the two companies in abrupt carnage. It was like a bomb went off. The beast splattered across the ground with a wet and snapping thud. Its bones shattered from the sudden stop of the significant plummet, the blood spraying out in all directions like a bursting water balloon. I, however, hit the opposite building like a meteor, breaking through brick and entering the structure. The impact of the fall on my hardened skull sent my brain on vacation. My vision and hearing were gone for a moment. My head felt like it was going to explode. I laid still for a moment, trying to maintain my composure after cratering the solid wall with my dense mass. I was made of much tougher stuff than the creature I splattered, and I knew I’d be fine. After a moment, my body regained its movement and control. I looked up from the rubble of the third story where I ended up, seeing a beaten and bloody Peter looking straight at me with a grin. He knew it was me… he was looking straight up to the building at me. But, I felt myself being pinned to the ground by an unseen force. Did he expect me to show up? Did he let me wake up? How was this happening?

Then, I focused and realized that the blade in my hand was… immobilizing me. It was the power from… him. He was keeping me in place. Keeping me from doing anything else. This was his lesson…

The impact of the drop snapped everyone's attention to their surroundings, watching and waiting for what came next.

A door on the side of the building exploded from its frame. The metal slab ricocheted into the bricks on the other side of the street. More of those sickly four-legged monsters poured out from the ground level of the building. They had to have come from the caves. There must have been another hole that connected this building to the dark cavernous tunnels that stretched across the city like a massive ant colony. These beasts had to have come from below since I had never seen or heard of them before. They were hidden in the darkness of the damp earth, where the most monstrous of the supernatural hid from the civilized world.

Jane and Martin looked like they had Peter under control, basically kicking him while he was down to keep him there. At the first moment of these new creatures' arrival, Alex moved to them so fast that none of the hunters probably saw her. She moved in an instant to fight off this pack of five big-jawed devils.

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I heard you coming!” She mocked the disgusting animals. She was ready for the fight.

All I could do was stay there, pinned to the floor of the building, watching what I could still see, and listening to what I could not. I don’t think any of them knew I was there. They must have thought I was another creature that fell from the roof like the one they saw explode.

The hunters never moved. They all stayed behind their cover, firing their silenced rounds into the alley between the bodies of their supernatural friends when they had the chance. I saw a glimpse of blonde hair sitting completely still behind the concrete barricade. Kayla was there in person, but her mind was somewhere else. She looked defeated. I didn’t need to think about it any longer. I knew what she was thinking. Her father was gone… and she didn’t know what to do.

“None of them touch the hunters!” Martin ordered Alex with his bloodred eyes glowing. He was destroying Peter, taking turns with Jane as they beat him mercilessly.

“Obviously,” Alex scoffed.

Then, Alex ripped into the pack with no second thoughts. Alex moved faster than Martin could, appearing and disappearing between the four-legged threats as she slaughtered them all. She was quick and explosive, going for fatal blows with every attack. I was fast myself, but I had a slower acceleration than this red-haired monster did. She flung the beasts into walls and ripped their flesh open to spill the innards and blood to the pavement below.

The hunters fired more silenced rounds into the beasts as they left our grasps, never letting them catch a break from the pain and torture of the multifaceted assault. None of them ever had a chance.

Peter, however, kept getting up. He looked defeated every time Jane or Martin would overshadow his power and make his face taste concrete. Yet, he always returned to smile through his teeth as he rose to his feet.

“This is senseless,” Peter laughed through the blood and spit from his mouth. “You cannot kill me!” His laughs were maniacal and confident. “You may have me beat now, but I will come back stronger. No matter how long it takes, I will become strong enough to claim you all!”

Footsteps were approaching behind Martin and Jane as they decimated the continuously healing evil in front of them. Alex had her hands on the jaws of her last beast, ripping its mouth open as wide as its anatomy allowed, then ripping past its limits. She tore its head in half as she broke through its internal structures. The sickly monstrosity fell limp with a dying squeal as its mouth and throat were torn apart like thin cloth.

I looked back to the feet, worried a hunter was getting too far from cover. The face I saw was unexpected. Shelta walked straight into the fray like she was untouchable. Her short dark hair hung at her shoulders, framing her enraged face in a portrait of anger… and revenge.

“Why did you do that?” Shelta spoke slowly, barely able to get the words out through the rage. Her speech to Peter was hard to describe given the situation, but I think she was in shock.

“Come now… let’s just end this so I can come back,” Peter coughed from the ground as Jane kicked in his ribs. “Oh, Annabelle…” Peter teased like he was looking for a hiding child playing hide and seek, “Just come out, and we can end all this. I will take you before I leave your family alone.” Peter's words were heinous and unfaltering… but they seemed true.

“Move!” Shelta ordered Jane and Martin as she stepped up to the dark gypsy.

Jane and Martin let her through as Peter slumped on his knees, leaving himself wide open for the oncoming attack. He wasn’t afraid. He knew she was going to kill him… but he welcomed it.

“Can you kill me, Shelta?” Peter mocked her.

Shelta lifted her hands in front of her, focusing solely on Peter. She closed her eyes, and I started to feel more of the intense vibrations in the air like I had on the roofs. Her palms started shaking, not physically, but it was like the air around them was vibrating. Peter began to go into a state that looked like he was having a seizure, rolling around on the ground as he gasped to breathe.

She looked over at Bartley’s body for a moment, “I have to.” Her brother lay only feet behind her, motionless and cold. She had to be destroyed inside.

I looked around, hoping I’d see Jon standing somewhere in the shadows ready to tell me the secret of killing this unkillable gypsy, to let me go from this hold that the blade had on me. But he wasn’t there. He wasn't anywhere that I could see, but I didn’t need to see him, I would have felt him long before I made eye contact. “What do I do?” I asked Jon out loud, hoping that wherever he was, he could hear me. “I can’t do anything… what am I supposed to do?” I begged the powerful being for help. There was no answer… and it filled me with more rage as I flexed and strained against the dark power that was binding me.

Shelta seemed to be going through many things in her mind, that much was apparent.

Shelta twisted her hands with an angry expression, pulling from a more profound power within. Peter sat up as Shelta’s attack changed. His evil eyes widened at the feeling that was growing inside of him. He didn’t understand it initially, no one really did, but it only took a few seconds to fully develop into what it was.

The vibration lightened in the air but was replaced by a high-pitched sound that was similar to a dog whistle. I wasn’t sure if others could hear it or not.

Peter’s skin started smoking, pumping out fumes into the alley that could only be compared to burning hair, only stronger. His eyes were the first to go as the flames shot out of his skull, turning his organic material to ashes. His skin slowly bubbled and fell loose as the heat liquefied him from within. His skin started falling off of his frame in soggy clumps with blood and meat dripping from him as the event continued. His screams were sharp and bloodcurdling, but thankfully they ended quickly. I worried that someone too close to the location would hear him or any of the chaos that had already taken place. Surely the cops would be coming to check on the horrific noises that escaped the dark and isolated strip between buildings. Maybe the WIcklows had done something to the area to silence everything.

The moment I saw bone was when his body erupted into flames, shooting heat, and fire directly into the sky above. It only took about a minute, but all that was left of Peter was a pile of slop and goo that still boiled from the remnant heat. His bones looked like they were sinking in the substance but were actually melting away. His body was no more. If this didn’t kill him, and he somehow found a way back, I didn’t know what the fuck we would do. How could I kill someone beyond what just happened? I needed Jon to tell me what to do.

I had a quick realization about just how strong the Wicklow family could be. Shelta was their most potent in terms of raw power. What could they do when that raw power was trained and experienced from an older age? It was mind-boggling what they could accomplish. It reminded me of the thing from the storm that I encountered outside of the city… pure power.

After a few silent moments, they all slowly made their way to each other. No one said anything; they all just stayed silent as the family gathered Zeke and Bartley's bodies. I knew they had to get them out of there before anyone else arrived, cops or otherwise. Carter had to get them home to figure out what to do. I wasn’t sure what the appropriate course of action was in the hunter world when a family member died through supernatural means. It wasn’t like you could just file a police report, and everything would be hunky-dory. For everything to be legitimate in the real world, the authorities would have to be notified, the police would want a report, notifications would have to be made, and paperwork would have to be filled out. In the heat of the moment, I’m pretty sure I was the only one thinking of these things. Everyone else was in mourning.

Then, at that moment, I was released. The blade stopped emitting the restrictive power and let me go. The moment I felt released, the blade vanished from my grasp. IT was gone. Locked away in its otherworldly home where it rested… until I called for it again. But, after what just happened… I wasn’t sure when I would.

I wasn’t being pinned down anymore, but I didn’t get up. I didn’t know what I could do for them. There they all were, in another crisis and I was nowhere to be seen. If I had made it sooner… I could have stopped all of this… right? Jon said we were on a path… and that people would die. As I lay there, in silence, I was happy it was Bartley and Zeke. I didn’t want to admit it out loud… but I was so thankful that it wasn’t Autumn… Eleanor, Carter… all of them. I could hear Frank and Jane speaking quietly as they cleaned up and cleared out of the area. It was so good to hear them talking, still alive. I couldn’t show myself to them… I was too ashamed that I didn’t do anything to help… and even more ashamed that I didn’t necessarily feel bad about Zeke or Bartley. I actually felt relief. What did that make me? I just hoped that, whatever Jon referred to, it was over. No one else would die… Yet, I felt something inside me that feared it wasn't over.

Frank was a saint, breaking away from the pack to retrieve Patrick and his vehicle. He was near, but not directly in the fighting. I'm not sure what they were doing, but it seemed like part of their plan. I also wasn’t sure what he knew had happened. I didn’t hear Frank tell the youngest Wicklow what exactly had happened as I continued to lay in silence like a corpse. Annabelle met them and took Patrick someplace else. Annabelle had been like a wraith, present but untouchable during the entire event. After seeing her son taken the way he was, she knew she had to protect her grandson from seeing the site down in that alley. Frank returned with the Chasse's black SUV. The family collected their dead still silent as humanly possible. Quiet tears streamed down most of the women’s faces, while all the men had hardened looks fixed across their eyes to keep the emotions at bay. They couldn’t break, not yet; when they found a moment alone, I knew they would.

I peeked out from the cracked debris to Autumn, who was keeping Kayla in a tight embrace. The blonde Chasse was shaking her shoulders through hard, emotional tears of pain. I couldn’t’ t see Kayla’s face, but I could see Autumn’s. She had a fog of sadness over her, with her brow furrowed into a struggle to maintain her composure. Her dark eyes screamed out in silence, but she had to be there for her family. She couldn’t break down. She looked like she wanted to say something to her cousin, but she couldn’t speak the words. She didn’t want to break the silence they all shared in the alley.

If Autumn knew I was there… I knew what she’d ask me. I could already hear the words in her mind. Everyone would have the same question. Where were you, Sam? What can you do? Can you bring them back? I couldn’t… and I didn’t want to hear them ask and have to deny them in such a time of grief.

As they all retrieved their fallen family, crying silently in the darkness of the night, I just stayed there, silently lying on the third floor under crumbled bricks. I was a monster, covered in blood and unable to be a part of what was happening to them. I felt like an outsider again. I looked over to Jane, who nodded silently to Frank with an understanding look. She, too, wanted to go into the gathering family for Frank, yet she was bloodier than I was. We weren’t like the ones we cared for… we were beasts, no matter how much we wanted to be human. There was an undeniable part of all of us monsters there on that street that would never change. Even with our best intentions… we used our bare hands to drag the insides out of things. We had urges, needs, and desires that were not human; and in some ways we could never truly relate to those still living in the world of pure humanity.

The monsters all stayed clear of the humans, and the hunters had their brief moment before they placed the bodies into the vehicles. They all faded into their cars and dispersed from the carnage-stained area.

Alex, Martin, and Jane would be the cleanup crew. They’d get all of the bodies to where they needed to go before the civilized world discovered them. It hadn’t been this bad since Eleanor had been ripped from them. Only, this time I couldn’t do anything for them. The entity had ensured that.

I didn’t even want to face Martin, Jane, or Alex. There would be questions. Things I didn’t want to talk about, not with any of them. I felt further from them all… everyone. My time with the being, and all he shared with me, made me start to feel a new weight to my situation. I started feeling something different than I had ever felt before. Almost… a detachment from this world. A feeling of inescapable certainty, that what I was turned out to be something far more darker and connected with the supernatural world… no the whole world than I thought. I had a lot to learn, but I felt the ramifications of what was coming already.

So, for the time being, I stayed away. I didn’t even help with the bodies. As Jane and Martin drug bodies around, and Alex stepped inside the building… I slipped away quietly… a ghost in the night.