Page 89 of Alastair

“A soldier,” Mason said, cocking his gun. “World War II, if I had to guess. I recognize the uniform.”

More soldiers clawed their way up, some struggling more than others because of the frozen ground. Kyo chopped one in half with his katana while Galen tore its bony body apart with his hands. Lycus and the other wolves dove in to help.

I turned to Alastair. “Take your brothers and find Lucifer. We’ll take care of everything out here.”

“You heard Vepar.” Alastair sliced at a skeleton, shattering its bones without taking his eyes off me. It was… more arousing than it should have been. “Lucifer is expecting us. That means he has defenses in place should we storm the castle.”

“Go with them!” Michael called down to me, locked into combat with both Vepar and Purah. “That’s an order.” One of the very few times he’d ever given me one. “Make sure this ends tonight.”

Alastair used telepathy to tell his brothers the plan. Their mates joined us as we exited the trees and headed toward the castle. Clara came as well. We charged forward with determination. As Michael said… thishadto end tonight.

Sirena and Naida took down the enemy Nephilim who noticed us leave the woods and thought to give chase. We killed shades along the way who lunged from the darkness, their mouths gaping and full of razor-sharp teeth. Their bodies exploded upon their deaths, then turned to ash.

Sneaking in unnoticed was out of the question. Right as we neared the castle from the left side, cloaked figures appeared. Twelve in total. Their hoods were pulled up, concealing the upper half of their faces. Three women, the rest were men. I sensed they were human; however, magic ran through their veins.

“Sister,” one of the men spoke. He lowered his hood and focused on Clara. “You’re fighting on the wrong side of this war. We witches must join together.”

“We aren’t the same, dude.” Clara reached into her satchel and pulled out a round glass vial filled with a dark swirling liquid. “And I’m definitely not your sister. Move your ass, or get it blown up. Your choice.”

“Lucifer is the one true god,” another spoke, this one female. She didn’t lower her hood, but the area around her mouth was darkened, as if in the midst of decay. A sign that she hadn’t been born a witch. She was an ordinary human who’d immersed herself in the dark arts, an act that had the potential to rot someone from the inside out as their souls became stained. “We must bring his vision of a better world to fruition.”

“A better world for who?” Kallias asked. “From where I’m standing, he only brings pain and sorrow. I should know.”

“We’ve lived in the shadows for so long,” the first man said. “With the Morningstar’s rule, we’ll finally be free to live in the light and crush anyone who calls us monsters simply because we’re different.”

Clara winked at me and grabbed a second vial from her bag. “I got this handled, angel boy. Take them and go.”

“Like hell,” Castor protested. “We’re not leaving you.”

Above us came a heavy beating of wings before Sirena dropped from the sky, wielding a weapon that was a combination of an axe and a sword. “Do as she says. No harm will come to her. This I swear. Complete your mission.”

Clara threw the glass vial. It exploded as it hit the woman who had stepped forward, and she screamed as her already decaying flesh began to burn. Sirena decapitated the male witch before slicing a second in half after bringing her weapon back around. Blood splattered the snow.

“Come.” I grabbed Alastair’s arm and advanced toward the set of doors. More screaming sounded behind us as we burst through them and entered the castle.

A damp muskiness lingered in the air as we traveled down a corridor, our steps echoing off the stone walls. I could feel the life force of those around us, some of them angelic, others demonic. We would undoubtedly cross paths with them before reaching Lucifer.

As we turned a corner into a larger room, a dozen upper-level demons appeared. They stood in front of us, some human in appearance, like Phoenix, with the exception of tails and horns. Others looked reptilian, some like a saber-toothed tiger, and the last two stood at least ten feet tall with grayish flesh and bald heads.

“Still a traitor, I see,” one of the humanlike ones told Phoenix. “Is the Nephilim’s dick really that good that you’d abandon your own kind?”

Phoenix smirked. “You give me too much credit. It wouldn’t have taken much for me to abandon all of you, good dick or not. Which is amazing, by the way.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Galen growled and bolted toward them. He ripped one apart, then used a severed arm to hit another in the face.

More demons flooded into the room. Galen tore through them like they were made of paper. Castor and Kyo fought by his side while Kallias, Daman, and Warrin took on the two giants. Titan used his metal arm to punch one so hard it crushed the demon’s skull with a single blow.

Once the room was smeared with blood and littered with body parts—the latter thanks to Wrath—we continued through the castle.

“It’s like a video game,” Gray said, jogging beside Mason. “Gotta kill all the ads before we reach the final boss.”

“This way.” I motioned to a corridor to the left. Lucifer’s life force grew stronger as we neared a set of closed doors. Orange flickering light seeped from under the entryway. “He’s waiting beyond that door.”

Two demons teleported in front of us before we reached it, one bald and of a reptilian species and the other leopard-like with spiky green hair. When the bald one blinked, his eyes reminded me of a crocodile.

“Who are y’all supposed to be?” Castor asked. “Tweedledee and Tweedlefuck?”

“Good that you have a sense of humor, Nephilim,” the leopard demon said. “It will serve you well in hell once I send you there.”