Lola took three or four quick steps backward to give herself some space and as soon as she did, that chilling, icy sensation erupted across her back again. It was so intense, so vivid, she couldn’t ignore it.

Without thinking, she thrust her sword directly behind her as hard as she could. She immediately felt it sink into something soft but also unyielding. The hilt started to twist in her hands as whatever she just stabbed tried to keep moving. She glanced over her shoulder and wasn’t at all surprised to find a ghoul, its jaws clicking and its teeth gnashing as it tried to bite at her. Then it raised its talon-claws to swipe them at her, hoping to wound her. She let out a screaming cry, gripped the hilt even tighter, and then twisted as savagely as she could. The ghoul shrieked loudly in her ear as its guts were ripped apart. Lola yanked the blade back out in a sharp jerk, spun around, and then stabbed the thing right in the head. Its eyes widened in shock and its shrieking abruptly cut off.

She slid her blade out of its skull and turned back around quickly to address the other two ghouls coming for her. Faintly, she heard its body fall to the ground and realized in the back of her mind that she had just ended a life. The life of a monster, true, but still a life.

She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that and she didn’t have time to really consider its ramifications anyway.

The other ghouls came at her at the same time, talon-claws slashing across the air. She danced out of the way or deflected each strike easily. There was no real effort on either ghoul’s part to actually come at her with some sort of thinking process other than brute force. Within minutes, it became abundantly clear that wouldn’t be enough. She cut them both down in short order, but not before taking a cut to one of her shoulders and the upper thigh of her right leg. She wasn’t too worried about them though. Both stung painfully but she was pretty sure they were shallow and would heal on their own.

She stared at the bodies of the ghouls she killed for a second, taking in all that death she caused, and then turned to see if Russel needed help.

Three ghouls were on him. One had sunk its talon-claw into his upper back and hung on like a man clinging to a bucking bull. It slashed continuously at Russel but it couldn't get a good enough hold to do any fatal damage. Another one kept trying to race inside his guard to open his stomach with a wide slash. The last one was currently being held aloft by the throat. Its sludgey, black blood oozed out between Russel’s fingers. There was a grimace of pain on his face but the anger flashing in his eyes overrode whatever pain he felt.

“Russel!” she shouted.

He jerked toward her and a look of confusion crossed his face when he glanced down and saw the dead ghouls. That was quickly followed by a look of relief.

As soon as he realized she was fine, his body started to change again. More wolf-like features emerged. His muscles swelled. Fangs popped out of his mouth. His claws lengthened even more. With a howl, he crushed the throat of the ghoul he held on to and then slammed it unforgivingly into the ground. Bones popped and cracked with the force of the impact. The ghoul didn’t get back up and, from what Lola could tell, stopped breathing too. Then Russel reached behind him, snagged the ghoul on his back by the top of its head, and repeated the process, slamming that one into the ground as well. Its head was simply crushed to pulp. The talon-claw it had impaled into Russel’s back snapped off toward the tip when it was yanked off.

The last one, realizing that it was now alone, decided that its best course of action was to run away. It slipped out of Russel’s grasp and ran as fast as it could back into the deeper forest. Russel reached over his shoulder, grabbed hold of the broken off bit of talon-claw, and yanked it out. Then he took careful aim and threw the piece as fast as he could. It tumbled end over end through the air until it slammed into the back of the ghoul’s head.

It fell to the ground in a lifeless heap.

He gave a satisfied nod of his head as Lola came up to him.

“Nicely d…” he tried to say. Before he could get it all the way out, his body went weak and he fell to the ground.

His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and everything went dark.