Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) (24 page)

Harold swung the blade.

Clunk.

Like a plastic fork against metal. The beast barely noticed, only let out a slight roar, before bringing Harold up to his mouth.

Below him, Charlie laughed like a mental patient.

Harold swung again. This time, spearing the Demon’s coiled finger.

A louder roar.

Grip loosened.

Laughter died.

That rotten breath smacked him in the face. The humid fog wrapped around his burnt flesh. Harold coughed, turned his face away, but it had engulfed him like the Spellfire had done almost in that exact same spot.

The beast’s tongue rolled out of its mouth, black and slick — a Demonic equivalent to a celebrity red carpet. And Harold was the star of the show.

He pulled the blade free.

Soon he couldn’t see anything besides the dank cave of the creature’s mouth, couldn’t hear Charlie’s raucous laughter. No ruined bar. No ruined Gloomsville. Only the teeth like a cave’s stalactites.

Reynold’s blood still swam between its bottom teeth, much smaller but still nearly as big as Harold’s torso.

The fear was getting to him, now.

“Let the Shadows take you, Harold!” Charlie shouted, but it sounded like a whisper. He was surprised he could hear it at all over the pounding blood in his ears.

Spit splattered him.

“No!” Harold shouted. He hung by the creature’s lips, could see into its glassy, black eyes, could see the way it wanted to devour him. In the reflection, a beaten Chet swung like a pendulum from the wire. Harold’s blood felt electric through his veins.

“Are you sure, Harold?”

He didn’t answer, instead bucked, tried to break free, but like a Chinese finger-trap, squirming had made the beast clutch him tighter.

“Only when you accept them, Harold, only when you let the Shadows squeeze your windpipe, and you take your last breath…only then will you be free!”

A conflict raged inside of his chest. Black against the light. Evil versus the Protector in him.

He was
Electus
. His father had told him so, had told him things were going to get a Hell of a lot darker before they got better. But somehow, he didn’t believe. Not when he was just inches away from French-kissing a Demon to his death.

“So be it,” Charlie said, then to the creature: “Now, boy!”

The jaws unhinged; that tongue flopped out farther. A pool of saliva bathed Harold. Hands were slick, grip slipped. The sword fell with a gust of the creature’s breath, bounced from off of its chin.
 

Harold reached out for it, barely snagged it, but he did, only he grabbed it the wrong way.

Metal edges bit into his flesh. Black and red blood — more black than red, it seemed — oozed from the wounds.

Then someone turned off the lights. Harold was in the beast’s mouth. The jaws began to fall — a sound like a creaking door and a rumbling engine. He was wedged between teeth, the blade slipping from his own blood, from the hot saliva.

Purchase. Solid grip. The Wolf-fur hilt firmly in his hand.

The roof of the mouth came down, and he raised his hands up, the weightless blade rising with him. And the sword speared the beast’s ridgy insides. A beautiful violet glow, like summer lavenders, bloomed from the dark cave.

Harold slid out, tumbled down the beast’s scaly arms. He hit the bus, all breath knocked out of him.

The Demon thrashed. Shrieked. Cried out like a dying animal. A river of black blood flowed from between his bared teeth. Elbows struck the building next to Chet’s ruined bar; bricks cascaded down like dominoes, one by one.

Harold turned his head, now looking at the glittering road; his eyes followed the dulled yellowed line. Two black boots crowded in, heels on the edge of the road stripe.

Charlie stood over him.

“Enough! You big baby!” he said. “Enough! Enough! Enough!” He stomped his feet onto the ground. Slicked-back hair fell over his forehead into his eyes.

Harold saw the black tube hooked on his belt under his flopping shirt.

Where had Orkane’s sword gone?
 

He turned his head, ribs stabbing with the movement, neck creaked.

The blade laid in a stream of the black blood a few feet away. He reached for it.

“No!” Charlie screamed again. The heel of his boot came down on Harold’s fingers. The glass and rubble wasn’t the only thing to crunch.

Harold howled, but not like a Wolf, not like
his
Wolves
.
Without the sword, without the Deathblade, they would always be gone. He knew. And that had hurt worse than Harold’s entire body, crushed fingers, and broken ribs.

Charlie grabbed him by the back of the trench coat, ripped him up, and threw him into the bus. The sword’s silver was beginning to be completely buried in the Demon’s running blood.

It shrieked again.

Charlie narrowed his eyes, craned his head towards the Demon. In a flash, the Deathblade shot out from his wrist, bones snapped. The blade glowed with an evil that matched the color of the Demon’s blood. And he darted towards the beast. In just a few steps, he climbed its body, swung the Deathblade, let loose three quick cuts.

The Demon’s shrieks grew worse as its arms fell off, spewing the life from jagged nubs. Until the third cut hit home, and the beast’s head tumbled off, rocking the foundation of the entire globe. Harold had to look away. It was too gruesome. Wet and gross. A Demonic volcano blast of venom.

Charlie walked back to him. The Deathblade protruded from his arm, dripping black. To Harold, it had looked so wrong, so alien. That was his, should’ve been in his arm, that bone hilt in his hand.

Orkane’s sword was nice, but it was not his. He was not Orkane, and holding it had felt like wearing a stranger’s shoes with the insoles already molded to the previous owner’s feet. Prophecies or not.

“Gotta do everything myself,” Charlie said.

Harold snarled at the abomination standing before him.

“Like it?” he asked, motioning to the metal. “It fits just like a glove.”

“How?” Harold asked. “You’re not a Protector. Only the Protectors can wield the key.”

Charlie clucked his tongue. “Ah, ah, ah, you don’t know me, Harold Storm. You don’t know my past lives. The Realms are funny things. Rules are meant to be broken. Power corrupts. Once upon a time, I had fancied the sword you wield now, but life does not alway go as planned. Luckily, there are ways around death. Luckily, I had discovered those ways.”

“Oliver,” Harold said, picturing the tall Protector vanish when he touched the sword a thousand years ago in a past that never was.

Charlie nodded. “You aren’t as dumb as you look. And neither is Roberta. I sure did respect that hideous woman.”

Harold ground his teeth, his body going numb. “Kill me if you’re gonna kill me. No more cat and mouse bullshit. But leave Chet out of this. It is not his war, he takes no part in standing in your way.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Charlie asked. He turned his back to Harold. “No, the barkeep plays no part, but he certainly makes great bait, does he not. The Skeleton Hour is upon us, and I needed the blood of a loved one. So in a way, Mr. Chet is very integral to my success — to my Master’s success.”
 

Harold studied the Shadow Eater’s back, and for a moment, thought of taking a swing at him, then reconsidered.

Two swords beat zero every time.

“I don’t know what I intend to do with you, Harold Storm. You can be one of us; you can be powerful. We could rule the Realms. The Shadows are in you. I know you feel them. The black snakes. The darkness.”

“It’s trash. My body rejects it.”

“But your mind doesn’t. Why else would you be here?”

Harold paused, thinking of Chet. How he’d seen him in that vision, dying, suffering.

“The visions, Storm.” The smile disappeared. “They are powerful things. You see things you’re not meant to see, things that can help you, help others, or things that can kill you.” He lingered on the world
kill
for a moment.

“Chet,” Harold said under his breath. Then louder: “That’s not him?”

“Chet? I know not of Chet.”

“Liar!”

Chet still hung from the cables, but his body began to deteriorate; the skin melted off.

Charlie’s lips curled; he batted an eye. “The old man didn’t even offer me one of ‘those big motherfuckers’ you two are so keen about sharing.” Charlie burst out in laughter. “Such a cute inside joke,” he said.

Harold lunged forward despite the pain.

He was met with the point of a blade that was once his.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Charlie said, pointing towards the electrical wire, “Play nice, or I will kill him.”

Harold’s teeth ground together. He would’ve sacrificed his own heart if he could have a chance at cutting Charlie’s throat.

“See, it’s not so bad if you embrace the Shadows. Let them take hold. Let them out, Harry. Hate me. C’mon, really hate me.”

Something squirmed in his stomach.

He felt them coming up his throat, heard them hiss, heard them whisper. His eyes began to bulge.

Charlie actually took a step back, his eyes wider, mouth opening, letting out a slight gasp, but looking pleased, like how Victor Frankenstein must’ve looked when his monster rose from the table.

Harold looked down, saw the black snakes exploding from his wrists. Thick and darker than any forest. He screamed. His blood boiled. Red fought the black. Oxygen burned.

What was he becoming?

The Wolves howled.
 

But were they real?

Tame them, Harold Storm. You can. They will let you. Lead the Shadows.

His father?

He willed his mind back to the now, not letting it fall into the abyss.

“No!” Charlie shouted. “You can’t — ”

A snake whipped past his face, slicing his pale skin, burning him. The flesh smoked, smelled like a barbecue. A vibrant red line settled across his cheek.

Come home, Harry. Come home. Let them take you,
that Shadowy voice said.

The orange sky — the fire — opened up. A whirlpool of dark and evil colors swirled above. Harold saw the black gates, tall and looming. They opened. Now he could see stairs, old wooden steps, stretching far up into the Heavens.

“No!” Charlie shouted. “No!”

The Shadows had clouded his vision, but something glinted silver and white. Orkane’s sword flew to his hands from the maws of the snakes that rippled out of his limbs — the darkness that had been buried in his mind, his body, and his soul.
 

The blade felt so heavy, so solid, so real.

Electus,
a thousand voices whispered.

He wasted no time. Sliced at the black rope hanging from his right wrist, then the left.

Charlie scrabbled on the pavement, venom pooling around him, washing over his white hands, staining his shirt and pants, shining on his boots.

“You weren’t supposed to do that,” he said. “You were supposed to let it take you. You were supposed to come home!”

The Shadows coiled around his feet. He felt empty — clear mind, lighter soul.

Charlie stood now, Deathblade out, almost completely covered with venom. His right hand found the hilt of the other blade on his belt — the Hellblade — and he drew it, blacker metal shimmered, sucked the orange light from the sky into its void.

Their blades met.

Charlie came at him viciously, like a hungry wolf. But Harold possessed the real Wolves — the only ones that mattered — and he answered each hit, then swung his own, driving Charlie back. Each time the steel kissed, Charlie’s face grew more desperate.
 

Harold moved with grace, almost felt no pain. He imagined he might’ve looked like a crazed murderer. It was enough to scare a Shadow Eater from Hell, so he must’ve been doing something right.

Charlie opened his mouth to speak — probably another witty remark — but Harold swung with a force he had not known he possessed, and it shut the Eater up fast, knocked him back, stumbling.

Harold advanced.

Charlie’s blades withdrew. And with one last look of sheer surprise, and perhaps a hint of defeat, he turned and ran towards the Gate — the Portal — that they couldn’t see, but Harold knew was there. In the cemetery. West Springs Cemetery.

He could’ve ran him down. Hell, he wanted to, but that time would come, because now, Chet wiggled above him.

With one throw of Orkane’s sword, the wire snapped. Harold caught Chet cleanly. It wasn’t hard, considering how little the man had felt. He had all but withered away, might’ve weighed eighty pounds.

Chet coughed up a stream of blood.

Water brewed in Harold’s eyes, distorting the mayhem all around the two men. A river of black venom drained off of the road into the sewers. The air buzzed electric.

He laid the sword at his side in a stretch of unblemished pavement.

“Here,” Harold said, setting Chet up against the underside of the bus, and wiping away the thick, red blood with the sleeve of his coat.

“H-Harry, I knew you’d come.” The old man’s voice was strained, almost a whisper.

“You don’t have to talk, Chet.”

Harold’s eyes went down to the bartender’s stomach where a gash the size of fist leaked blackness, soaked through the cotton, stuck to the man’s flabby gut.

“I-I feel like I’ve known you for years, Harry.”

“Me too, Chet.”

“I’ve been in this business for damn n-near f-forty years and you’ve b-b-been my best customer…m-m-more importantly, a f-friend. A b-best friend,” Chet said.

“I know, Chet, I know.” He placed a hand on the old man’s wrist, felt the skin blazing hot, felt it wiggle beneath him.

“Your damn dog was smarter than me. Hightailed it r-right outta here. Smart, l-like his owner. You are gonna do just fine, Harry, just fine.” A slow smile grew on the old man’s wrinkled features, showing teeth lined with black. He looked off into the sky. “Man, I hope they serve beer in Hell.”

Harold chuckled — an odd sound in the eerie quiet.

“N-Now go s-s-save the world,” Chet said. His breathing stopped then, eyes held wide open.

Harold sobbed, his body convulsed, and he slammed a fist into the road. Before he picked Orkane’s sword back up, he gave Chet’s hand one last squeeze and stood up.