Arisen Fury

Running

Griffen

I went to check on everyone since I couldn't sleep. I couldn't find Avery in his room. Finley wasn't his, nor was he in Rory's room with her. I located all three of them in Kage's bed, snuggled together in a pile. Rory was half on Fin and half on Kage, and Avery was curdled against Kage. It looked like both Avery and Roary were subconsciously fighting over Kage.

I had sat down in Kage's office chair to think about how I had planned to get to know Rory. She saved Finley and is uniting my team. I guess I fell asleep because when I wake up, my smartwatch says it's six in the morning. I stretch, glancing at the four of them before I leave. Finley is big spooning Rory, who is doing the same to Kage, and he is big spooning Avery. I snapped a picture just like I had when I came in.

I exit, pondering what it is about that woman that draws us to her like some unforeseen magnetic pull. She is always in my dreams, saving one another before sacrificing ourselves, so one will live. It's a vicious cycle that started before humanity was formed when the world belonged to fantastical creatures and the deities who explored it. I just wish I could remember who I was. Hades is the callsign Ryder Fuchs-Jamison had given me the day we met, however, that's not who I was in any past life.

Last night I dreamed of darkness. It's that very darkness that all creatures were birthed from. I was lonely until my wife came into being. The Greeks called her a Titan and later the mother of witches. We had seven sons whom we loved fiercely. These sons were known to the human species as the seven sins unleashed upon the world by Pandora, according to the Greeks. I predated even them, worshipped throughout Mesopotamia when Akkadians ruled the lands. It wasn't a box that imprisoned my sons for attempting to free me, but a cage next to mine. My powers were feared by others, so I was locked away in a Hell realm. I wish I could recall the name that was whispered. Because my wife attempted to free me with the wife of our sons, we were all cursed into a cycle of rebirth. We had killed too many denizens attempting to escape, so that was our punishment. Live. Find each other to love, if we can. Die horrible deaths at early ages.

"Never the mother or crone, but always the maiden. So shall you never be a father again," says an unearthly voice echoing around in my skull as I run. It's a curse. I think perhaps in my first life I was cursed, and I'm still cursed to this day. I can't have children thanks to a bomb that saw those removed along with my leg.

I never would have made it out of that enemy camp without them, and it cost us when a bomb exploded. Duncan lost an arm, Kage had shrapnel embedded in his upper torso and burns, and Avery died from the poison that seeped into his skin from broken bottles and coated weapons along with flash burns. Ajax, Booker, and Finley didn't serve with us. Finley was always following us around. Ajax and Booker were added to our team by Leo Wulf, the former leader of the Dire Wolves mercenary guild. He and his team taught us our skills. We worked for the younger Death Kings thanks to Kage, finding out about the job from his cousin Ali Jamison. The Death Kings retired the Dire Wolves by buying their security company. This gave them a chance to train their replacements, us. Ryder dubbed us the Furies, his weapons of vengeance and justice.

Now, though, we are busy cleaning up Duncan's mess. In his quest for developing super soldiers for the US Military, he has created monsters that Kage has taken to calling Vampuries while Duncan refers to them as Inferuries. The Undead Corp works for me. I can't help but feel that soon we will be in a war of our own making to save humanity without them knowing. We did not know of the supernatural realm, like most mortals. Our eyes have been opened and there is no going back to be oblivious that other beings exist alongside humankind. I've seen them with my own eyes now.

"Reaper," I hear a voice hiss as I pass. I pause, looking back to see a tall man who looks like Storm Benson, but with darker, red-tinted skin kissed by the sun and tattoos on his neck and arms that look Mayan or Aztec in design with gold discs hanging from his ears. He cocks his head as if listening to some unforeseen entity. He looks at me with a rictus.