The Death Dealers. Oh yes, a beautiful title indeed one that was absolutely stolen. But really, who was going to complain? It wasn't as if there was a polite line of vampires waiting to file an intellectual property claim. Names, like power, belonged to those strong enough to take them.
And these Death Dealers were not vampires.
They were made of werewolves. This were warriors and beings of fang and fury who had sworn themselves, body and soul, to Michael. They were his sword against the forces that sought to chain him. His hounds against the abyss. His executioners.
Because how could they not be? This was the same lord who had dragged them from extinction that threatened their pack, who had torn salvation from the jaws of annihilation and placed it into their bloodstained hands. To watch another entity attempt to enslave such a being and to bind him was unthinkable.
Unforgivable.
Their purpose was singular: death. Death to the Infernal creatures of the abyss and what humans, in their ignorance, simply called Hell.
Michael had told them the truth. That something ancient and obscene lurked beneath reality. That it sent demons of twisted and stitched-together souls to possess the living, to hollow them out and wear them like skins.
That this thing dared to call itself a king.
Arcadius, the so-called Lord of Hell.
How audacious. How laughably arrogant, to believe he could rival the one who walked the path of absolute perfection. The one who breathed peace into the restless dead. The one who delivered salvation to those who sought it and annihilation to those who did not.
Such arrogance deserved only one answer.
Fire.
Flashback: Late Seventeenth Century – The Carpathian Mountains
Long before oaths were sworn in blood and flame, before the Death Dealers had a name, the Carpathian Mountains engulfed entire villages beneath pine, ice, and silence.
Homes stood abandoned and the Church bells rang to no one.
Footprints led into forests and never returned.
The people whispered of beasts that walked like men, of screams that split the night when the moon rose full and merciless. Fear metastasized into hysteria, and hysteria into cruelty.
Humans did what humans always did when they did not understand. They burned forests to ash. They hanged suspects in the village square along with their families, just to be safe.
They salted the earth where blood soaked too deeply, as if the soil itself were cursed.
But the truth was far crueler than any story. These were not killers by choice. They were werewolves without control. Men, Women and children.
Their transformations were not gifts but a curse. Bones shattered and reset, their muscles tore itself from sinew. Minds fractured under agony so intense it erased reason entirely. Each full moon brought then nothing but excruciating pain and suffering.
They did not revel in the change as even they feared it.
And because of that fear, because suspicion spread like rot Hadrian, the pack's alpha, knew one truth above all others:
If they stayed, they would be wiped out.
So they ran not out of savagery but out of survival. The Habsburg soldiers followed, armed with silver weapons, convinced they carried divine justice. It was almost amusing because silver did nothing to them.
That amusement ended quickly when the priests declared them abominations and ordered a change to the weapons they used, an addition to slay the beasts. Wolfsbane.
The first spear coated in it dropped a father mid-stride. The second killed a child who had barely survived her first transformation. By the third full moon since the priests new order, Hadrian understood something terrible.
This was no longer a hunt but an extermination.
The feeling of desperation ate at him and Hadrian did what pride alone would have forbidden. He sought the witches who lived at the fringes of the mountains.
He knelt before them and offered them gold, blood and even his own life, if that was the price.
But the witches did not even pretend to consider it. They told him the curse was Nature's will.
That was when the one who delivered them to salvation came.
They called him the Benefactor.
He arrived as nothing more than a boy alone and unarmed, walking into the Carpathian Mountains. He should have died within the days of the mountain as most humans could not endure the extreme conditions out this far. Instead, he lived and he made his way to them. Not once did he call them beasts. Not once did he lift a weapon or whisper a prayer against them.
He simply watched them. Night after night and beneath the night of a merciless moon, he watched their bodies break. He saw bones tear themselves apart, heard screams that shredded the throat raw, witnessed minds fracture under pain that no living thing should endure. And through it all, the boy's expression never changed or did it? If it did then it was almost… amused.
That look alone nearly got him killed.
The wolves bristled at it, hackles raised and they bared their at him. Hadrian, their alpha, watched the boy with growing suspicion. Amusement became insult. Insult became danger. Hadrian thought the boy was mocking them, measuring them, perhaps even marking their location to sell to soldiers and priests.
But the boy never left.
Three cycles of the moon came and passed. With three full transformations.
And every time the wolves lost themselves to the curse, some of them tried to tear the boy apart. They lunged and chased the boy through the forest. They struck with claws that could rip steel but for some reason they could never touched him.
He would be there one heartbeat, close enough to smell then gone the next, that had raised their suspicions and many thought of him a witch which in a way was true but they didn't know that. It felt less like he was dodging them and more like reality simply moved him out of the way.
And then he did the unthinkable. On the fourth full moon, when the pack was still transformed, the boy walked straight toward Hadrian.
Red glowing eyes locked onto their alpha.
The alpha growled, as his muscles coiled and tightened ready to strike.
"I could help you," the boy said calmly for the first time since coming to them he spoke, his voice carrying through snarls and snapping jaws. "Take the pain away. Take the need to transform against your will under the light of the moon."
The great wolf took a step back and the boy smiled.
"My name is Michael." He knelt then, lowering himself until he was level with the alpha's head, meeting Hadrian's gaze without fear, without dominance and with only certainty.
"So," Michael asked softly, "are you interested?"
Desperation makes believers of us all.
Hadrian had accepted the offer. They expected rituals after that. An alter of a sort to be used and maybe even sacrifices. Circles of blood and chanting beneath the night or something like that. That was how witches typically cast most of their spells afterall.
Instead, the boy bit them.
That alone had bred into the skepticism that followed. Hope was dangerous, it had killed too many of them already. There was nothing left to do but wait for the next full moon and see whether they had been fooled by a child with impossible tricks.
When the moon rose again, they felt the usual pull and drag beneath the skin. Panic flared until minutes passed. Then an hour. Then two. Then three.
Their bodies trembled with the tension racing through their muscles, instincts screaming for release… but the transformation never came.
They did not break or lose themselves. For the first time since the curse had taken hold, they remained whole under the light of a full moon.
Joy detonated through the pack. Some wept openly while looking up at the moon, great werewolves collapsing into the snow.
Some fell to their knees as the tension finally left their body.
Fifty people stood within the mountains with joy racing through their being. Men, women and children.
Fifty were now granted control over their own bodies. When the joy and excitement finally faded, every eye turned to Hadrian.
The alpha stepped forward and knelt. Shock rippled through the pack. Hadrian, who had never bowed to anything, lowered himself before the boy without hesitation. One by one, the others followed. Not because they were commanded to.
But because debt demanded it.
"You have given us control," their alpha said, voice thick with reverence, "Tell us how to repay it."
The Benefactor, Michael studied them in silence. His gaze was calm and yet his eyes were already looking beyond the mountains. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a quiet certainty that weighed heavier than any command.
"There are things in this world," Michael said, "that believe themselves untouchable." He turned slightly, as if addressing something only he could see. "A monarch of his own delusion. One who feels entitled to that which is most precious to all who draw breath, their souls." His tone hardened. "He creates creatures that prey on the weak, not out of necessity, but ambition. He seeks to build a force so vast that resistance becomes meaningless."
Michael exhaled slowly and looked back at them, red eyes settling on every face in the pack.
"That opposition," he said simply, "is me."
He turned away and began to walk, already dismissing the matter as if the path were inevitable. "I deal with such beings," he continued, "and I maintain the balance as best I can. I ensure that eternal souls are not consumed by him, that they may find true peace after death."
That was when Hadrian spoke again. "Then let us be the ones you send."
Michael stopped.
He looked back at the alpha, studying him anew. "Are you certain?" he asked. "If you follow me, most of you will die." A voice rose from the pack without hesitation. "Then we die a noble death, my lord."
Others echoed the sentiment, one after another, until it became unanimous. Hadrian smiled, pride and resolve shining in his eyes.
"Well," the alpha said, "the people have spoken."
Michael laughed a sound of genuine amusement and approval. "Yes, Hadrian," he said. "Yes, they have."
Thus, they were named.
The Death Dealers, the executioners of those who threatened the balance, hunters of entities that sought nothing but chaos upon the supernatural world. Blessed with immortality, they became disciplined, relentless and precise. They hunted vampires who slaughtered without restraint. They tore through Infernals dragged screaming from the depths of Hell.
They did not revel in death for It was their duty.
And across the centuries their numbers grew drastically, they culled abominations and shielded the supernatural world from the reach of Arcadius. They stood as the unseen blade, the final judgment, the quiet guardians of balance.
Until now.