Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) (17 page)

Nothing like being surrounded by a bunch of people dressed in robes and wearing the skulls of some giant bird to get the fear rolling.

He leaned over to Sahara and started to whisper, but the sound of drums, deep bass-heavy drums beat his voice back down his throat.

A man stood on a platform that rose from the cobblestone flooring. Torches burned on the walls, one near each of the man’s shoulders. He cleared his throat, although he had the crowd’s full attention. His beak swiveled, surveying his audience, and when he did, Harold saw the two black feathers, the size of human forearm bones stuck into the sides of the skull, where the man’s ears might’ve been. But Harold knew very well that his ears might not be there at all, might not even be human. Harold wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d seen more surprising stuff. Demons, Vampires, Corpse-Witches, Squeebs, and so on. Now he could add a vulture cult to the list.

“We are gathered here today — ”

Great a funeral,
Harold thought, even stifled a chuckle because, how much more depressing could his life get? He’d been with a Witch that had the ability to travel through time, could probably go anywhere, but chose to attend some cultish funeral instead of the Dawn of Man or something much cooler.

Sahara nudged him with her elbow, and turned her mask in his direction. He could see those bright irises burning through the eyeholes. And he practically melted, thankful that the three of them hung towards the back of the group, near a couple giant stone pillars because he felt his knees weaken. God, how could a woman do that with just her eyes, in a horrendous bird skull no less?

“— to discuss the dark dreams, we’ve been having,” the man continued.

The crowd collectively shifted like a class of fifth graders in sex ed class.

“Yes, yes, I know how horrible they’ve been, but I believe these are an oncoming sign.”

“For what?” someone barked, not giving the man much time to finish.

The speaker held up a hand to the crowd. “Please, Oliver, let me speak.”

“We don’t have time for talk. I’ve seen the darkness — the Shadows are closing in around our Realms. Each passing moment we spend standing with our mouths hung open, the Shadows get closer.”

Two people in front of Harold turned to each other and whispered in hissing voices, nodding, nearly scraping beaks. The hiss swept over the crowd.

“Oliver’s right!” a woman said.

“Let me speak!” the man on the platform shouted. “Quiet. You will obey me.” He spoke with a force that tightened Harold’s chest, made him never want to speak again.

The whispers died on the spot. Quiet. So silent, Harold worried they’d hear his heartbeat racing. Sahara’s hand found his and gripped it tight as if to say everything would be alright, then let go. Her skin was warm still, but not as hot as it’d been when the venom nearly consumed her. He found his own skin prickling as he longed for that smoothness again.

“A Prophecy came to me last night,” the man went on. “Our Savior’s arrival is near, and in a thousand years, he shall arrive, wielding the sword of Wolves.”

“No,” Oliver cried. “No, the savior died in the pits of Hell!”

The crowd stomped their right feet twice in unison, and raised their hands above their heads to make an “O” as they shouted, “Orkane!” Harold and Sahara were the only ones who had not participated, and again he was thankful they hung in the back.

But Roberta had participated, he saw her jerk out of the corner of his eyes, despite most of his peripheral being cut off by the metallic skull over his face.

The man on the platform laughed then, and shook his head, the feathers flowing with the movement. “No, no, you are wrong, Oliver. You and I worship false Gods. It is time we opened our eyes. Orkane was not our Savior. He could not wield the blade. His cunning and bravery took him a long way, but he could not complete the task. Open your eyes!” The man turned and punched the wall with a bare fist. One of the torches fell from its holder, and made blackness dance along the room. The two people directly in front of Harold shuffled back a few paces in an attempt to dodge the man’s rage.

“We are Protectors. It is up to us to protect these Realms. The Mortals rely on us and yet, up here we rabble and bicker with each other like children! You must listen to me.”

Oliver turned to the crowd, threw his arms up as if he were a referee calling a touchdown. “Fine! We shall let the Wizard speak his insanity.” He turned back towards the man on the stone platform. “Go on, Felix. Speak your blasphemy.”

Harold’s heart nearly shot out of his throat. The dreams came back in one big rush. His father, the tasks at hand, then the horrible images of the Wizard dying on the pavement with Charlie and Beth standing over him. He started to walk forward, almost absentmindedly. Soon, he parted the two Protectors that had stood in front of him, and made his way towards the front of the crowd.

Felix took off his mask, stared into the sea of people with the intensity of a man who might’ve been able to shoot laser beams from his eyes. He looked much, much younger, but still wizened. His hair wasn’t a shock of greasy white. It was more like a shiny silver that matched the robe, and the wrinkles on his face were present, but not the deep fault lines they’d been in the parking lot across the street from Chet’s bar.

“The Savior from my dreams,” Felix said, after clearing his throat, “will look as if they’d come from the pits of Hell. A Demon with burnt flesh, with yellow and red eyes.”

Harold locked his hands together behind his back so the robe would cover his flesh, his burns. For a moment, Felix and him caught eyes, but it was just a passing glance that Harold thought went on longer than it actually had.

“Dreams mean nothing,” Oliver mumbled next to Harold. And Harold snorted because he wished that were the case.

Felix’s eyes drifted towards the tall man, and ignored him. “We will fight the Hell Realm for nearly a thousand years before the Savior emerges. And they will be thrown into the middle of the war, torn apart by the Shadows.”

“A thousand years is a long time,” a woman said near the platform. “Must we worry our minds with such trivial thoughts?”

Felix smiled, looked to the woman, whose brown hair spilled out of the vulture mask like a silk waterfall.

“Yes, my love,” he said, “we must. Because as we speak, the powers below are recovering, growing stronger. They gear up for one last fight.”

“That’s no different than they always do,” Oliver said. “But the Hellions are lost without their Master. The Dark One rots inside of a cage and we live in peace.”

“You as well as the rest of us know that will not last. The Dark One is a sinister beast, and if he continues to live on then there is always a risk.”

“But we cannot kill him,” the woman said.

Felix blinked slowly, bowed his head. “I know, that is why you must listen to me. Only the Savior can —
Electus
.” He stepped down from the platform, reached a hand up towards the woman’s mask, and pulled it off gently.

She didn’t stop him, only looked at him with pure affection, soft eyes and a softer smile on her face. He cupped her chin in his hand.

“Because he will be our son,” Felix said.

The smile disappeared from the woman’s face as she stepped back. Her eyes narrowed, then her hands went to her stomach. “Our son?” she whispered.

Felix nodded.

Harold gulped. It was him in the womb of the woman. That was his mom. His head started to pulse.

Time felt like it exploded.

 
The voice in his head was distant, but he heard it, despite it sounding like a choppy, long-distance phone call.

You don’t belong there, Harold Storm. Come join your true family.

His vision started to prickle with stars. He gasped hard, but it was lost amongst the worried chattering from the crowd, chattering that sounded as if the group had begun to question the sanity of their leader, just as Harold had begun to question his own sanity.

He was lost in a world of Shadows and silver robes and horrendous vulture masks.

C
HAPTER
25

Sahara knelt next to him, jerking his shoulders. “Harold? Harold?” she said, voice a thunderous echo that shattered his eardrums.

Something was happening to him. He was being torn apart.

He blinked, took a few deep breaths, trying to let the pain pass over him. When he registered what he saw, he nearly passed out again.

The crowd all had their eyes focused on him. The torch had gone out on the floor completely now, and the vast room was only lit by the few left on the wall. Shadows ate up the rest.

They all looked at him with a burning intensity. If concern was written on their faces, he couldn’t tell because it was hidden underneath the masks.

But none of them blinked. None of them even moved.

Except for Roberta in the back, who shook with eyes jammed shut, wrinkles oozing from the eyeholes of the mask, arms out to her side as if trying to prevent invisible walls from crushing her.

“You gotta get up, Harold. Right now. She can’t hold it much longer.”

“What is she holding?” he asked.

“Time,” Sahara answered as nonchalantly as if she were telling him what the weather was like.

“Time?”

“Yes,” she gripped him, yanked him up.

“You’ve seen yourself in the womb and now time is breaking because of it.”

But Harold knew that was only half of the reason; the Shadows, both all around him and inside of his head, were.

Come home, Harold Storm.

“Move, you two. We must test the Prophecy. No more time to dilly-daddle.”

Harold stood on wobbly legs, but he stood nonetheless. And Roberta exhaled a great gust of breath as she let her arms fall to her sides. That familiar crack rushed Harold’s eardrums, causing him to grit his teeth.

But the crowd no longer stared at him. They had shifted their gazes back to Felix and the woman in a fraction of a second. A couple shook their heads. Must’ve sensed the lingering effects of Roberta’s magic.

“Felix is correct,” Roberta shouted from the back of the room.

“Thank you, Roberta,” Felix answered. A smile flashed inside the forest of facial hair that hung from his chin.

“He is here, now,” she said, walking towards Harold. “
Electus
— he is among us as we speak.”

“Enough!” Oliver said. “Enough of this nonsense. We must band together and fight now if we are to survive. Not wait on this mystical chosen one.”

“I can prove it,” Roberta said.

Oliver crossed his arms, cocked his head. “How?”

“Yes, Roberta, how?” Felix echoed, voice a mix of shaky uncertainty and fear.

“Harold, take off your mask,” she said, “and step onto the platform.”

The fear seized him like he were being called to the front of a classroom for sleeping during a lesson. He hesitated, visibly shook.

“We have no time, Harold.” And she stepped closer to him, gripped the mask, slipping it off and letting it clatter on the cobblestone with a bone-shattering noise.

“Demon!” Oliver shouted as the crowd around him took a few steps back, all except him, who drew his Deathblade in a flash. His was curvy and smooth, shined like a newly minted coin.

Roberta jumped in front of him.

“No! Stay back. I can prove to you that he is the one,” the Witch said. And she turned and looked to Harold with eyes that said
I hope,
before the look vanished. “Only
Electus
can wield the sword of Orkane without the consequences.”

But Harold had no idea what the crazy old Witch talked about. He knew he should’ve never trusted a nightmare, should’ve never chased his dreams. Had he been on a stage, he imagined a spotlight would’ve burned his flesh even more.

He swallowed hard, felt all of their eyes on him. Felt the tension of the crowd.

Felix watched as if he knew what was going on, despite nobody knowing. Not even Roberta.

“Show him the sword,” Roberta said.

Felix shifted uncomfortably. “Roberta, you know what could happen if I unlock it.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He is the real deal.
”

“No, I-I’m not — ” Harold began to say before Roberta pushed him towards the platform with more strength than any Witch had the right to possess.

He looked over his shoulder, saw the vultures staring at him as if he were roadkill on a scorching highway, ready to feast on his failures.

Felix shifted away from the woman’s embrace, whose eyes began to water. He gave her hand a caress before walking towards Harold.

“Well, son — should I say son?” A sarcastic smile curled up on his face.

Harold couldn’t speak. The last time he’d seen Felix alive he’d been suffering at the hands of Charlie and Beth, and then his subsequent visits were no less grim. Demons clawing at him on a beach, and then dark dreams full of deflated hope. This was his father standing in front of him. His real father. Somehow. Some way.

But the smirk on Felix’s face said he’d be gutting Harold if this spectacular show turned out to be a failure.

Harold just stood still, hoping he wouldn’t have to fight his father. Life was not
Star Wars
, no matter how much he wished it was. It was much worse. Full of terrible things.

Felix went to the wall, placed a hand on the stone. And his hands started to glow with an orange fire like Sahara’s had at the Great Vampire Tree. The stones shifted. Rock grinded against rock as bits of rubble fell to the cobblestones. A cavern emerged, deep and horribly black. From way in the back something else began to glow with an emerald light, but as the light buzzed, Harold saw the emerald turn to a sickly green, like oozing snot.

The crowd behind him dared not to breathe.

His heartbeat pumped black venom all throughout, and that voice went wild. The Shadows twirled inside of his mind.

You’re almost there, Harold Storm. Take the sword and strike them all down. End it before it can start.

Harold stared into the green light as if he were at the end of a very long hallway. But as his mind adjusted he realized it wasn’t far away at all. It happened to be a mere five feet in front of him, and from it a fire raged, bathing his skin in warmth, almost causing the dehydrated flesh to sweat.