Shadow Guardians: The Beast
Chapter 24

Etheria watched the chapel where Katherine was held from a hilltop. Green grassland rose and fell while olive-green clusters of trees dotted the landscape. The chapel was in a clearing in the trees just a while outside the small town of Sleepy Hollow. Perhaps once, it would have been akin to a sanctuary amidst the pureness of nature. Now it was nothing but a pit of evil.

She could not enter. There was not a speck of clear window that would allow a wave of light on which she could travel to enter the building. She sensed that Katherine’s life force was fading. The cost of energy needed to clean her soul and filter out the memories of the gatekeeper was a high price to pay for a neron who was already so weak.

But this had to be done to give them the edge they needed in the war. She had to go through this, and Etheria had been guarding her every step of the way, except now she couldn’t get to her. This was not her realm. But she had been tasked with protecting the key for this part of her journey. The demons believed that they had turned her, which was an advantage for the moment. They wouldn’t harm her.

Etheria knew her male would come for her. She waited for Magnus to open the chapel to her. No doubt he would dematerialize into the building so that the doors could stay closed and the sun could remain outside. She knew, however, that he would eventually have no choice but to let her in. She had been given a vision of what was to be.

She sensed his presence approaching and nearly stumbled back at the chaotic energy inside him. It came over her like a wave of heat—all that anger. It warped the atmosphere around him.

Etheria lifted her face to the sky. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Not a cloud in sight. She prayed that all would be as it should be.

By the time the corvette came to a screeching halt in front of the chapel, Magnus was beyond higher reasoning. He was an animal inside a human body. The last part of driving was subconscious habit. The only reason he had not transformed yet was because he had to be in human form to dematerialize.

He was vaguely aware of a black vehicle approaching behind him as he dissipated into mist and rematerialized inside the building in a flash of white light. Muscles bulged, bones broke and thickened, skin stretched and hardened to scales, and a muzzle and canines extended.

The ritual chanting inside the building abruptly ceased as the beast transformed before Alejandro’s very eyes. This, abomination, that had come to take away his master’s treasure. Behind him was the obsidian cell, a great, hollow block of the crystal, a gift from Xolvaak specifically for the purpose of containing the neron. Around it, the floor had been painted with blood that had been ritualistically drained from the virgin women’s veins, who were chained by their hands and feet to wooden Xs. His children had bathed themselves in its purity, their pale faces tinted a beautiful red beneath their robes.

They were armed with guns, blades, and arrows according to the master’s instructions. Weapons were no match for the beast, no doubt, but death was not an end. It was only the beginning. Their souls would be taken by the Lord to feed his power. Yes, it was a good thing that they had been cleansed by the blood of the innocent.

Two other warriors entered through the doors, closing them quickly behind them. They were foul creatures who could not stand the light.

The beast roared furiously. Then it leapt at the pews, destroying everything in its wake. Wood turned over and snapped apart, gunshots sounded throughout the acoustic chapel, and the blades of his children sliced into its flesh as some of their bullets ricocheted off the creature’s scales. But the beast would not yield. The other two warriors went at his children with blades and guns of their own. They gave as good as they got, and as light flashed through the air and the ash of his fallen children rained through the chapel, the warriors took and fought through gunshots and gashes by the blades of his kin. Chaos reigned in the house of the Lord, and he reveled in it as he watched through Alejandro’s eyes. Let them fight, and believe they have the upper hand.

It was awe-inspiring, really.

At one moment, the beast stared him right in the eye. He smiled at the thing.

“She is ours, creature. A gift from my lord,”

A red current of hatred emanated from the creature, and Alejandro felt the influence of his master leave him for an instant as the beast held his gaze. He watched the glowing teal of its eyes vanish with horror as the whole eye turned a vicious red. Then the creature spoke merely two words, its voice so deep and distorted that he could barely make them out.

She’smine.

Alejandro raised his hands in the air and started chanting in an ancient language, praying to his lord to send more children to protect his church.

And he did. A wave of demons clawed their way out of the floorboards, some appearing out of thin air through portals.

The beast let out a deafening roar and surged toward Alejandro, its powerful legs propelling it forward. He was slammed to the ground and mauled apart by dreadful canines.

The demon spawn was relentless. Z and Draven looked like hell. Z had two flesh bullet wounds, one in his arm and the other in his leg. He had five stab wounds that he was focusing on closing up.

Draven had three gunshot wounds, one in his chest, missed the heart, that he was pushing out. He’d also been sliced up like a fucking Thanksgiving turkey.

The beast had as many beneath his scales, but he was too jacked up to care. He had the priest in his jaws and was thrashing him around in the air like the piece of dead meat he was.

Demons screeched, talons scratching over wooden floors, stalking their way toward the brothers in all directions.

Through a bullet hole in the windows, a ray of sunshine penetrated in a long wave of light. It brightened until it became blinding, forcing everyone to look away or shut their eyes.

Etheria materialized inside the chapel. She hummed a song that shook the foundations of the building in tandem with the roars of the beast. The glass windows shattered, and light bathed the chapel. Zachiel and Draven scrambled to cover.

Demons screamed as they incinerated. The beast jumped onto the obsidian cell and pummeled it with fierce strength as he let out piercing howls of desperation. He jumped off and rammed into it, even as the sun burned through his scales and into his skin. Zachiel and Draven could do nought but watch.

Etheria hovered behind him and extended her wings fully, so they would shield him from the sun. His power was fading fast. She started humming a specific note in resonance with the crystal. It started cracking enough for him to break through. The cell broke apart just as the beast transformed back into Magnus.

Through insane agony, as his bones were still knitting together, he crawled on his forearms towards Katherine, who lay unmoving on the floor feet from him. For the first time in centuries, his goal was more important than the pain. He crawled to her until his face was above her. With excruciating effort, he sat up with her in his arms, cradling her.

“Katherine, wake up... wake up... please...”

He lightly patted her cheek, only to receive no reaction. She was ghostly pale and ice cold. And there was a faint heartbeat with lengthy spaces between beats.

“Please, my meeran... I can’t lose you...” He felt the warmth of tears running down the sensitive skin of his cheeks. He let out a loud wail of sorrow that echoed in the acoustic building.

He reached for a piece of broken glass on the floor and brought it to the vein in his neck. He was already in excruciating pain, he barely felt the cut. With a grunt, he lifted her head and angled her face so her mouth was over his vein, forcing his limbs to work despite their weakness.

“Please...” he begged, sobbing and rocking with her, feeling as if his ribcage had been broken open and his heart had been yanked out and stomped on.