Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) (22 page)

“He’s up?” Sahara said. “You’re tougher than I thought.”

“How do you feel?” the old woman said. She still looked as horrific as she had when he’d met her on the beach, but for some reason, she wasn’t the embodiment of evil the Shadows had made her out to be.

He tried to get up, the pain in his ribs searing, burning. The old woman —
Roberta, was her name,
he thought — raised a hand, then gently touched his shoulder, guiding him back down onto the cold metal table he had woken up on.

The Shadows disappeared. Above him, a rickety light fixture swung low. The air was musty and dank, but somehow fresh. He could taste the sawdust, like a newly constructed home. Blinking a few times, letting it all settle in, he looked around. Wherever he was, was a lot nicer than the restaurant. The place was almost elaborate compared to that shithole. But how had he gotten there? And why did his body ache so much?

Not listening to Roberta, he pushed himself up. Pain struck him like a lightning bolt, but he powered through it. There was something he was supposed to do, a mission, a goal, then he could rest. But what in the holy Hell was it?

His hands skittered across the edges of the metal, looking for some purchase, and not finding any. But what he did find, nearly made him fall over in fear — something black, slimy, ropy, yet strong like a jungle vine. And Frank was not normally one to be scared. He had killed the nastiest of…Demons.

Demons, why was he remembering Demons?

Because you are one of us,
a voice whispered in his head.

He screamed, letting go, rolling off of the table and onto the hard floor.

“Yeah, gross, huh?” Sahara asked. The redheaded woman who’d possessed a power Frank did not totally comprehend stood over him, extended a hand down to help him up.

He recoiled yet didn’t know why. It was just a regular hand.

“That stuff was squirming all through you. Thank Roberta here. She’s a master surgeon. Plus she had some practice on me.” The redhead rolled her sleeve up to reveal a faded red line running up her arm.

Roberta shook her head, face twisted up into a grimace that somehow made her pallid flesh look better. “Do not speak of that. I did what I had to do. Sometimes the venom just acts on its own accord.”

Frank stood now, legs wobbly, head fuzzy. He shook, caught eyes with the fresh wounds running down the lengths of his bare arms. His shirt was off, too. How had he not noticed it until now?

One of his father’s rules flashed in his mind again. But he’d forgotten the number, and actually, most of the rule, just knew it consisted of always being aware of your surroundings or some shit like that. He didn’t care, honestly. That ship had sailed a long time ago.

All he’d cared about at the moment was that hauntingly pained face that had floated in the Shadows, the skin paler than the corpse that stood over him, the eyes deader than the black ropes that coiled near the table.

His son’s face. Travis King. Dead. Murdered. Skewered by a blade. Deathly black to match the dark figure’s eyes.

“What happened to my arms?” he asked, voice gruff.

“We had to get the Shadows out of you somehow,” Sahara said.

“Shadows?”

“You were quite a handful before you were drained of the venom,” Roberta said, nodding with squinted eyes.

“Sorry,” he said. He looked to the snakes or the Shadows, whatever was in his body, almost transfixed, almost hearing those familiar faint whispers.

“Yeah, murder was on your mind. You should’ve heard the things you were muttering in between screams. It was something straight out of a Stephen King novel. Any relation?” Sahara asked.

Frank shook his head. “What was I muttering?”

“Just the usual kill, kill, kill, murder, murder, murder garbage a man with violent tendencies and possessed by an even more violent Hellspawn would say.” She shrugged. “Nothing I haven’t heard before. You probably won’t remember it. Not unless you swallow those snakes again, but the Squeebs have already laid claim to that idea.”

“Why me? Why help me?”

“Easy,” Roberta said. Her back was turned to him and she fiddled with a meat cleaver that looked older than Frank and dripped with a thick, black sludge. “You have seen things that I have not.”

“Like what?”

“You tell me,” she answered.

Frank took a deep breath. The strength in his legs had begun to come back slightly, and the clouds in his head were starting to clear, the sun poking through the grayness. Still, he had not remembered much. Just feelings, really. Dark, sinister feelings he was not proud to have felt. How would his father react had he still been alive and found out that his son had bent to the will of the very evil that generations of the King family had vowed to slay?

Not good, he thought. Not good at all. And being around the redheaded woman with an unnatural aura about her as well as the dead woman who looked more like a Witch than anything resembling a human being, did not do well to quell that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. But he couldn’t run, couldn’t fight. There was something wrong. And he hated it.

“I-I don’t know what I saw. I don’t remember.”

“That can be fixed,” Sahara said.

The two women exchanged very different smiles; Frank’s eyes widened at the contrast between the two.

“Yes, there is some in the closet,” Roberta said.

“Some of what?” Frank grumbled.

He stood a little straighter. Maybe he could fight after all. But he was always reluctant to hit a woman, even if she was a Witch. And the way the redhead carried herself told him she didn’t like to fuck around. She’d gut you at the very first moment she had reason to.

“My crossbow,” he said. “Where’s my crossbow?”

Roberta raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t come with a crossbow. Did he, Sahara?”

“No, just a shotgun, a pistol, and two Demonic assholes,” Sahara said before going around the corner. Frank could hear her ruffling through glass bottles. They clinked, hissed, threatened to shatter. He peeked around the corner, saw a wall like a winery, except there were not wine bottles filling each holder. Wispy clouds of different colored smoke danced in each one instead. They seemed to whisper too, calling his name, crying out for him.
 

For help.

He shook his head, looked back at the corpse, who had a smug smile on her face.
 

“You hear them, don’t you?” Roberta asked.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he grumbled. His arms really burned and he could hear it in his voice.

“I bet you have, Frank King. You’re almost a Protector yourself…in a way.”

“I don’t know what the Hell you’re on about, woman, but I’m no hero.”

She nodded. “Not yet,” she said.

Sahara came around the corner holding a vial of purple liquid, more solid than he’d originally thought. “Here, drink this,” she said.
 

“No,” he answered with a tone of finality.

“Yes,” she said, thrusting the vial towards him, almost right in his face. “Because Travis, the name you muttered over and over needs you to.”

“How do you know about Travis?”

“I don’t, but from what you babbled on about, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. And I can practically smell the revenge all over you.”

He said nothing, stayed silent because he’d felt embarrassed. What else could he have said while under whatever they had done to him? He didn’t want to know. It was almost the equivalent of being too deep in his cups, spouting off dark secrets to an equally drunk stranger.

“And I know who you want,” she said. “The black eyes. The horrible breath. Business suit. Slicked-back hair.”

Frank’s stomach wrenched, as if the snakes had still been inside of him.

“His names is Charlie.”

Charlie.
The name had rung a bell, but he couldn’t put a face to it. It was like speaking of a long-lost friend.

“He’s the lowest form of scum. And I know him almost too well,” Sahara continued.

“You’re a friend?” he asked, feeling his muscles flex, but with it came the burning pain from freshly closed wounds.

Sahara snorted, which broke into a full, hearty laughter. She pushed her sleeve up on her other arm, revealing more scars, faded scars. Frank sensed the power there, but forgot once he saw the dull lines. Scars from many years ago. Scars that would never heal beyond what they looked like now. Gruesome and unsettling.

“What kinda friend would do that?” she asked.

“So what? I drink this and — ”

“We see what you saw. Know what you know. It gives a small chance to help our friend and hopefully get you your revenge.”

“I thought you were a Protector or whatever the Hell you called it,” Frank said. “Revenge ain’t protecting.”

Sahara smiled slyly.

Roberta nodded in agreement. “The loss of your own child is one instance where I encourage revenge,” she said. “And if you tell us what you saw — better yet, you show us — then I can guarantee revenge.”

He snatched the vial, oddly cold in his fist, as if it should’ve been frozen or at least frosty. But it wasn’t and the freezing temperature bit into the palm of his hand, which made up his decision to down the purple goo. He’d never pass on a drink that had a little bit of a sting to it.

It had hit him instantly. The world spun; the women’s faces faded and fizzled like the static of a dead television channel. He saw it all. The type of thing he had been in the short span of time the venom had completely consumed him. How he was when the Shadows choked his brain, controlled his body like a puppet master controlling a dummy.

The murder. The blood.

The Shadows.

There were bodies. A field of bones. Trees that gnarled and zigged and zagged like harsh, Demonic corners. They reached out for his throat, meant to shove their branches down his esophagus until he couldn’t breathe.

They called for him. Told him to climb those wooden steps at the base of an unmarked grave. As he got closer, the heat was almost unbearable.

But he pushed on.

No. Don’t go. Remember the rules.
It was his father’s pleading voice, distant and frightened. But he went on anyway.

Near the top, a silhouette stood like Praying Mantis.

Closer still, the wood creaking, his heart thumping.

He reached behind his back, felt the welcoming butt of a crossbow, that familiar heavy weight.

“He begged me not to cut him down,” the Shadow said. “Actually cried for his daddy. I did you a favor, really. The world is better place with one less crybaby.”

Frank loaded the bow, ran a finger over the tip of the arrow to make sure it was still sharp, then winced when the tip had drawn blood.

That’ll do just fine. Right in the bastards throat. Make him choke on his own blood,
he thought.

“He pissed his pants too. You should’ve been there, Franky.” The Shadow laughed.

Frank trucked on. The heat grew hotter. Sweat had beaded on his forehead, started to roll down the back of his neck. He gripped the handle so tight, he heard it creak beneath the force of his strength.

“But his soul wasn’t too tasty. Believe me, I’ve had better. Oh, I’ve had so much better.”

The darkness disappeared. He saw the man’s face — those pointy cheekbones, the pale flesh, slicked-back, greasy hair. A face that craved blood.

Not today,
he thought, now three steps away from the Shadow’s level, near the Gates. He risked a glance over the side where the guardrail was as rickety and shoddy as the steps were, and the breath whooshed right out of him. They were hundreds — no, thousands — of feet in the air, swaying back and forth. He could see the burning city below him. The cars and the people, like microscopic ants, moving fast, zigging and zagging like the trees beyond the metal bars.

Frank took a deep breath, tried to steady himself. And when he did, muscle memory took over. The crossbow raised, his eye looked down the sight, breathing sped up — short and rapid. Bony fingers tickled the trigger. The aim was right on the dark man’s chest, right where that heart would’ve pumped black venom.

The metal squeaked as the Gate opened, which quickly turned into a full on screech, like a bat straight from Hell. Frank involuntarily brought up his hands to cover his ears.

“Not so fast,” the Shadowy man said — Charlie, Frank knew him as Charlie.

The Gate continued to open inwardly, and the silhouette stepped out of the way. Along with the screams and shrieks and wicked laughter, Frank heard something out of place. A low hum like a fluorescent light fixture in an empty hallway.

A figure stepped through, wrapped in a warm, yellow glow, as if they were from the very surface of the sun. But beautiful to look upon despite the brightness. Something out of a painter’s mind. Perfect. Serene. Angelic.

A stark contrast.

Frank’s jaw dropped open.

“Dad,” a young man said — one who had only been a boy a mere six months ago.

Frank couldn’t help it. The tears exploded from his eyes, rolled down his cheeks and hung from his chin.

“Travis?” he said, but the words were barely a whisper. Everything had gone quiet, or at least to Frank it had. No more screams; no more pain; no more humming.

He took a soft step up, then another. Charlie, now a Shadow, on his side, his hands wrapped tight around the rusty bars. But he stood as still as a black statue, and Frank all but pushed him to the back of his mind.

Travis stood in front of him. Perfect just how he remembered, so young and fresh-looking, not burdened by the kills or the responsibility — the weight of being a Hunter and pleasing his father. Frank had not wanted Travis to follow in his footsteps, had wanted him to grow up as normal as possible. But the kid couldn’t help it, he wanted to be just like his old man. He had too much of that hotheaded King blood coursing through his veins, and look where that got him, look where it had gotten Frank and Frank’s father, and his grandfather. Nowhere good. Thousands of feet in the air staring into a type of darkness he didn’t fully understand.

“Father, come home. Come be with me. I miss you. We’re all here — me and Grandpa George.” He stuck a glowing hand out, and Frank couldn’t resist. He dropped his crossbow, heard it thump the loose wooden boards and clatter down the steps until the noises were nothing but faint echoes.