Werewolf Apocalypse: Rise of the Lycans

The Cathedral

I could hear the cold and synthetic voices of the Synod tactical squad echoing through the arch: "Flanking left. Deploy silver flash-grates. Do not damage the Priestly specimen."

I was now a specimen.

"Leo..." Clara gasped. "It's... it's peaking... the sky..."

I looked up through a rusty iron ventilation shaft twenty feet above. The storm clouds had split cleanly open and high above the burning city, the Harvest Blood Moon hung like a severed, hemorrhaging eye, pouring a deep, suffocating crimson glare down through every crack in the earth.

The fever in her blood answered it instantly and Clara let out a wet, strangled choke as black, hardened talons burst from her fingertips for a third time, slicing straight through the sleeve of my jacket. She grabbed my neck and tightened her grip like a hydraulic vise, her fangs lengthening against her lower lip.

"Not now!" I roared, my voice breaking. "Clara, hold on for two more minutes! JUST TWO MINUTES!"

I didn't slap my palm on her face this time, I couldn't afford to burn her into unconsciousness. Instead, I drove my boots through the deep mud, turning a sharp corner where the ancient 19th-century brickwork abruptly ended, giving way to rough-hewn, 4th-century bedrock.

The stench of stagnant sewage vanished and was instantly replaced by the heavy, suffocating scent of dried myrrh, old iron, and raw ozone.

I could see the cathedral gates, it was illuminated by a faint, eerie blue luminescence similar to the one on my arm.

The gate was a huge double portal forged from black meteoric iron, set directly into the subterranean cliffside below St. Jude's foundation. It was covered in sweeping, hand-carved Sun-Crests exactly like the same ancient sigil branded into my blistered palm.

A heavy concussion grenade detonated fifty yards behind us in the conduit and the shockwave threw me forward and slammed my knees into the wet stone steps leading up to the iron gates. I skidded across the floor, and clutched Clara against my chest as shards of stone rained down around us.

"Incursion team, move in!" a vampire commander barked from the darkness of the conduit and footsteps rushed forward.

I scrambled up the steps on my hands and knees, dragging Clara behind me. She was whimpering, her spine arching in violent, unnatural angles as her human mind fought a losing war against the beast taking over her body.

"The altar..." I choked out as I reached the iron gates. "How do I open it?!"

There was no lock and no handle, it was just a smooth, circular indentation in the center of the iron doors, directly under a carved sunburst.

Behind us, three officers rounded the conduit corner with their silver-plated rifles raised and laser dots locked straight onto my spine. "Drop the female and step away from the gate!"

I turned around without looking at them, raised my raw, blistered right palm, and slammed the glowing Sun-Crest directly into the circular recess of the black door with a loud THUM!

The bedrock beneath our feet shuddered and a blinding, golden-white shockwave erupted from my hand, rippling outward across the iron surface. The carved sigils lit up like liquid fire, and a sound like grinding thunder filled the cavern as the ancient mechanisms inside the stone released.

The heavy iron doors swung inward and broke a seal that had been closed for six centuries, the force of the blast blew the three vampire officers backward into the flooded conduit, shattering their tactical visors from the light. We weren't touched, and even though I didn't know why, I was grateful.

I didn't wait to see if they got up, I grabbed Clara, threw her over my shoulder, and lunged through the threshold as the doors began to groan closed behind us.

The inner chamber which I assumed was the First Altar, was a massive, vaulted stone sanctuary hidden directly beneath the cathedral's crypts. In the center of the room was a circular basin filled with glowing, crystal-clear water that hummed with a soft, electric vibration, that was carved from a single piece of white marble. Above it, an open stone shaft ran three hundred feet straight up to the sky, aiming directly at the Blood Moon like a telescope.

Immediately we got in, the heavy iron gates sealed shut behind us, locking out the vampires, the wolves, and the city above.

I collapsed beside the marble altar and dumped Clara onto the smooth stone floor.

The red moonlight poured down through the vertical shaft and hit her body, sending her into an explosive and total transformation.

What was left of her clothes tore along the seams as her bone structure began to expand again with sickening, violent snaps. She let out a full, guttural wolf's roar, rolled over, and pinned me to the floor. Her massive, clawed hand crushed my collarbone, and her large jaws opened and made to bite my face.

With the last frame of strength left in my body, I reached up with my glowing, blood-soaked right hand, locked my fingers around her throat, and dragged both of our bodies sideways, plunging us headfirst into the sacred waters of the First Altar.

The moment my symbol made contact with the altar's basin, the water turned into a blinding column of white-hot fire.

The white light didn't only illuminate the water, it also tore through it like liquid electricity, boiling the frigid pool into a roaring, blinding vortex.

My lungs burned so bad from being packed with the sacred water so that I couldn't breath. The water tasted like copper, ozone, and melted snow, but I refused to let go. I locked my left arm around Clara’s waist and held my right hand tighter around the base of her throat, forcing her writhing, half-monstrous body down into the depths of the basin.

She thrashed with terrifying strength, but it was useless, because I was determined and somehow, the power of the sigil was coursing through the entirety of my body. Her black talons ripped through my denim jacket and sliced four deep, agonizing marks across my ribs. Blood poured into the glowing water around us, turning the blinding white light into a pulsing, angry rose-pink.