Spiritus Animalis (Empath #2) ✔️

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The sun began to set causing the entirety of the forest to get dark, nocturnal animals came out from their hiding places and filling the forest with nature. Mammon stood in the same spot for the last few hours, and it was beginning to get on his last nerves. His servants should have been there by now. So, they'd better have gotten the tears of misery otherwise he was going to throw a fit. His brother was waiting for him and if he didn't come through the next thing that he'd be stuck doing back in hell would be the stupid crossroads deals again. Crossroad deals were great and all but the limit of how long a soul had to remain on earth was beyond boring. While it would have been a month on earth, in hell that was like seventy years.

It didn't matter behind the reason for Peter's change of heart, his soul would still be hell's. Thoughts played around in his mind as he thought about the million different ideas to torture someone. Most souls who were tortured in hell were honestly ghastlier than he even thought. Mammon checked his wristwatch only to find that they were ten minutes late.

"Where the devil are they?" Mammon said to no one in particular.

Suddenly, fire emerged from the ground, growing in height. Mammon stepped back as the fire passed him and straight into a nearby bush. The bush ignited and flames grew larger from it. The demon sighed. Here we go again. He thought.

"Mammon!" a voice boomed. It was as smooth as butter. "What is taking so long? The ritual should have been done by now! I should have been on that surface!"

"Sorry brother," Mammon responded. His voice was calm. "It seems that my people are taking forever,"

"Well, you better talk to your people!" Lucifer exclaimed. "I must get topside! There are some things I must take care of in that world, amongst world domination, but if you can't do it, maybe I should find someone else?"

"No! Sir, hold on!" Mammon's eyes widened. "They will be here! Don't worry by midnight tonight you will be back,"

"Good! Now get to it, and if I don't get topside," Lucifer threatened.

Mammon flinched. He nodded as Lucifer huffed and the fire around the bush died down. The demon sighed. This was probably going to be the hardest thing for him to do. It meant that he couldn't screw up if he did then that would make things worse. Not long after Lucifer left, did Mammon hear feet scrambling through the forest toward the ritual site. Mammon turned toward the sound as two out of three of his people had burst through the thicket. Jennifer and Adam were there but Alex was nowhere to be found.

"Where have you three been? And where's Alex?" Mammon demanded.

"We were chased by Abigail and Peter," Jennifer responded. "Thank you for your concern. As for Alex, we bumped into each other on the way, he said that he was going to come back with tears of misery,"

At least that part wasn't too bad. Mammon almost believed that Alex was going to turn against him too. That Abigail girl was going to become a threat if she kept messing with his servants.

"Did you at least get the grace of an angel?" he asked.

Adam smirked. Reaching into his now dirt covered black shirt, he pulled out a necklace with a vial attached to it and inside Mammon could see that the glowing liquid had indeed been an angels grace.

"Good now let's get started while we wait for Alex," Mammon ordered.

Peter and Abigail raced back to the cabin, the place where they'd set up camp in case demons or the servants hurt anyone else. They were exhausted. Peter's hair had a stick in it where he'd been thrown from his original spot, Abigail's hair looked like a bird's nest, and they weren't even able to get Ezra's grace back. Peter's face had gone red as he felt bad about not being able to return Ezra's grace but there was nothing more they could do. He glanced at Abigail, the twenty-two-year-old also looked exhausted from the amount of chasing they'd done. Even so, Peter was so close to defeating Adam. It'd been years since the last time he tried to fight his ex-friend.

When Peter first joined the Servants of Evil, he never knew much about fighting or how to summon some mystical weapon. Hell, he struggled to even do the spells currently. The day he first joined was the same day he turned eighteen.

Peter lived in Virginia with his parents, being an only child, there wasn't much for him to do. Especially when he noticed things that were out of the ordinary. He couldn't tell the difference between a spirit and a human being. It was early spring, and the flowers were blooming even the trees were. Their leaves a bright green, growing better under the bright hot sun. He'd shouldered his blue backpack which held his books for school and raced down the sidewalk and across the street from his high school. Everything was going well for him; he'd often kept to himself as he waited across the streets for the cars to stop. His neighbor greeted him with the biggest smile on his old wrinkly face. Peter chuckled and waved at his neighbor.

Once the cars quit moving, Peter darted across the street. He'd arrived at school just in time. The first bell rang signaling for students to leave and go to their assigned classes. That day he went about his business when he noticed a group of students whom he'd never seen before standing all dressed in black with makeup. He didn't exactly think much about it as his focus was to get to class on time.

"Strange people, aren't they?" Someone said behind him. He jumped and turned to find another student talking to him.

The student had green eyes and dirty blonde hair. Just like the other students he'd never seen the guy before. Eventually he came to learn that it was Ezra, his guardian angel.

Fast-forward to his eighteenth birthday, he and Ezra had just gotten into a huge fight and neither of them wanted to say anything to the other. Despite Ezra's warnings, Peter still caught up with the servants. That day he joined the cult, he hadn't been expecting Adam, the ringleader of the group to teach him how to fight. While they were simply going to train with regular weapons, it was only practice. The real weapons involved tapping into his soul.

That day, Adam was mopping the floor with him. They were practicing with Bo staffs, so it made things hard. Peter had never used a Bo staff before which made things difficult. Adam constantly knocked him onto the floor and nearly caused him to go to the hospital.

Still, at that point, there was no going back. At least that's what he thought.

"Peter!" Abigail exclaimed.

Peter snapped out of his thoughts and realized they'd stop walking.

"Are you okay?" Abigail asked. "You look like you were remembering something,"

"I'm fine," Peter responded. "At least we're almost back home,"

Abigail shrugged. They came to a dirt path and followed it until eventually they came across their cabin. The sun was completely set and from where they stood, Althea had turned on the lights and smoke was coming from the chimney. The two walked down the small incline and made their way to the front door. The door opened right before either one of them could put their hands on the door, Althea had opened it. She didn't look happy, she looked as if she was ready to cry at any moment. Peter could see the tears brimming the corner of her eyes and he wanted so badly to wrap his arms around her and keep her safe.

Of course, even though Peter wanted to do that, he didn't think it would be proper as it seemed like she was the type of person who didn't want someone to worry about her.

"It took you guys long enough," she said. "What happened?"

"Althea," Abigail said. "We have bad news,"