Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) (25 page)

He knew what was to come next.

And it did.

Chet’s eyes kicked back to life. Shadows swam in his pupils.

“Come home, Harry!”
he shouted, but not in his voice. The old man’s body lurched forward. And Harold thrust the blade out.

Right in the heart with a sickening pop and a dying wheeze from the darkness.

Harold shuddered again, looked towards the horizon, in the direction of West Springs Cemetery. There the Portal would be, as would Charlie.

So would Harold’s revenge.

He followed the road, ratty trench coat billowing out behind him. And Harold Storm prepared to die.

C
HAPTER
35

Frank had told the two women the name of the cemetery in a dreadful voice. The type of voice he’d expect any sane person to use had they just been face to face with their dead child.

“West Springs Cemetery,” he had said. “They are opening the Gate.”

“We must go,” Sahara said.

“I’ll need a crossbow.”

“I have what you need,” Roberta had said.

Now him and Sahara ran up the cracked sidewalk — freshly cracked, Frank could tell — with a new crossbow clutched tight in his hand, and Sahara’s Deathblade out.

The world had certainly gone to Hell, and it had begun in Gloomsville. One look around told him that. But his idea of Hell had become different as he looked up towards the fiery sky, where the Gates stood like a vengeful God watching over his people, and the rickety wooden steps swayed high above. Beyond those metal bars were the twisted black branches like the snakes the Witch had removed from his body.
The Shadows,
that phantom voice whispered. The voice of his father, of the Dark One, of Charlie.

“Blood has been spilt,” Sahara yelled in front of him. “They are fighting. Time is running out!”

He looked away, found something else almost as unsettling, perhaps more when he turned the corner of a battered street. He saw a decapitated monster, like a bigger version of the ones he’d come to the Lake with, laying belly up with streams of blackness running all over it. Two arms were in odd positions next to it like broken clock hands. And the blood — there was so much of it.

A fight had happened here.

Hell had happened here,
he thought.

On the opposite side of the street, smeared on the faded bricks was a bright crimson stain stretching the length of the wall as if a menstruating snail had climbed up it. Whatever it was —
man,
Frank thought — had been covered by a very beat up city bus. Crumpled with glass and metal and blood everywhere.

A dead old man sat propped against it, a fresh wound bleeding on his chest.

Sahara had stopped to look around the sight, said the place opposite the blood wall, where the Demon had died, was a bar Harold had frequented, a place where he had some emotional ties — alcohol was something Frank thought perfectly okay to have emotional ties to; he’d certainly drink to that.

But now Sahara stood in front of the corpse, her back to Frank, head craned downwards. She must’ve not seen it. And Frank didn’t blame her — the whole block was like a war zone.

He looked too, and for a passing moment, he pictured a young boy of just seventeen, eager to follow in his father’s footsteps. The dark magic — nothing new. He’d seen Night Witches do much worse with skeleton bones, broadcast things that brought Frank to the brink of insanity. Besides, the Shadows that had inhabited his mind made the corpse against the bus look like a Halloween decoration.

He walked towards Sahara, thinking about anything but those Shadows. She shook, just trembled slightly as if the air were a little frigid and not at all on fire like the sky had told them it was.

“That the bartender?” Frank asked.

“I-I think so,” she answered. “He was infected. Look at the stab wound. It was Harold.” She choked back tears.

“Well, what’s the problem?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. Seeing a woman who’d been so brave look so defeated crushed him. There were footsteps leading off towards the direction of the Gates. He sighed, then said: “Look there’s two sets. Your Protector is alive.”

“And so is your Shadow Eater,” she answered.

“No, don’t call him that. He probably likes that name. He’s an asshole, plain and simple. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Sahara smiled a little, but it disappeared when she looked back to the corpse. “It’s not a good sign,” she said, pointing. “The Prophecy calls it the Skeleton Hour. And I-I don’t know how long it’s been here. We could be too late. The Gates could be closed.”

“Spare me your prophecies, and give me his head.”

“Then you better listen up. Because once they go through, then Charlie won’t need the other key to open up Satan’s cell. He’ll have the blood of
Electus,
of Harold. And if the Prophecy holds true, and so far all the stars seemed to be aligning, then we’re fucked.”

“Let’s go,” Frank said.

“Maybe you should stay back. A Mortal exposed to the Gates could be too much. Your head could ex — ”

He cut her off. “Spare me, woman. I am coming and that is final.”

Her mouth tightened and she nodded.

They ran, following the footsteps like eager detectives, their eyes cast down, too afraid to meet the steps and the black Gate.

C
HAPTER
36

West Springs Cemetery smelled of death. Rotting corpses. Petrified skeletons. Embalming fluid. Scorched earth.

No pleasant smells of flowers, or lush grass, cool air.

Just death.

Frank found it quite fitting, but much more unnerving. They passed through the stone archway — the fence completely obliterated, making for easy passage — and Frank pointed out the dark figures near the top of the steps, near the Gate. He wouldn’t have saw them had their metal swords not glinted as it caught the sky’s reflection. Frank could hear the men grunting — could he call them men? — and their blades bashing each other. One staggered, higher than the other, obviously wounded.

“Okay, we need a plan,” Sahara said, but her voice faded as Frank ran like the man he was twenty or so years ago. He tasted blood — that black blood — in the back of his throat. His heart sped up as he took the stairs.

Each step creaked under his mass, but he didn’t slow down.

He glanced over his shoulder, saw Sahara making her way up much slower, more meticulous. He ran for what seemed like forever before he heard their voices.

“Don’t, Storm!” the one with the dark eyes shouted. “You’re making a big mistake.”

Frank could hardly raise his crossbow. It was the nightmare all over again. His back shivered as he thought of his dead son, glowing white, reached a hand out towards him. A lump formed in his throat, and his first thought were the Shadows, not completely out of his system and that maybe this was all a dream; the second thought was cancer.

Harold Storm was just as Frank vaguely remembered him: burned to all Hell and thin, yet wiry strong. A few new features had sprung up on the Protector’s face too — pain, obvious pain, maybe even hatred, especially in the burnt man’s eyes.

The Protector raised his sword, swung down with the force of a guillotine. Charlie blocked it, but the force was enough to knock him on his back. He held his blade out in front of him, a blade that came out of the very skin of his left arm. He took to crawling up the steps like a drunk man too scared to turn and face them head on, too afraid he’d end up on his ass back at the landing.

The stairway swayed with a horrible gust of wind. Thunder cracked. Frank could barely draw a breath, but he found himself raising his crossbow higher, more confident, and aimed it right at the Shadow Eater’s heart.

“Stop!” Sahara yelled from below him.
 

She sounded far away.

“You killed my son,” Frank whispered. Metal touched his finger, and he squeezed. An arrow twanged out, and though he’d been shaking a little bit — and he’d hardly ever shook when Hunting — the shot stayed true to course, blazing fast towards the Eater’s heart.

Charlie swiped down as nonchalantly as if he were swatting away a bug. Metal tip met metal blade, and Charlie’s eyes turned towards the shooter.

“You killed my son!” Frank bellowed, voice not even close to being lost with the wind. Another arrow made its way into the crossbow and he fired.

On target. Perfect accuracy.

Blocked.

“Your arrows won’t work on me. Damn fool,” Charlie said.

Harold turned then too. His teeth were bared —
somehow looked more like a wolf than a man,
Frank thought, such a stupid thought. His eyes filled with fire as he stared down the old man holding a crossbow, then looked past him, toward his fellow Realm Protector.

“What are you d — ”

Charlie’s leg swept down the steps, cracking Harold’s knee, causing it to buckle in at a horrible angle. He fell, caught himself on a rotten piece of handrail, which crumbled at his touch.

The Shadow Eater stood up, giggling, a big shit-eating grin on his face. He jumped up the last five or so steps, landing before the Gate. “Maybe next time,” he said. It could’ve been to both Harold Storm and Frank King, neither of them truly knew, but both growled.
 

Charlie slid between the closing gates.

Harold stood up as fast as his bum knee would let him, practically crawled up the last seven steps. He hunched before the Gate, used his burnt hands to pull himself up.

Frank could see them fading, could feel the steps shifting beneath his feet. Sahara’s hand was on his back, steadying him.

She breathed heavy.

Harold turned back towards them, placed a foot in the shrinking opening.

“Harold, don’t,” Sahara said. “It’s a trap. Come home, we can get him together. There’ll be another time!”

Harold Storm shook his head. “No. There won’t be. And I am
Electus
. This has to end now — I
have
to end this now.”
 

The sword hand went first and soon the Gate, the black branches, and the screams had swallowed up the Protector.

Frank didn’t think, didn’t hesitate — didn’t have to — just followed, revenge bubbling scalding hot on his mind.
 

He broke through the threshold, barely squeezing in.

And as he passed through, he heard the Gate slam shut. Then Sahara’s muffled screams, quiet pleas for Harold to come back, for them both to come back, becoming warbled until he heard nothing at all.

Just stared into blackness — complete empty blackness. He reached out in front of him, felt ruined skin — Storm.

He’d be alright. They’d end this together, Frank thought.

Then a dark voice, one much worse than anything inside of his head, spoke: “Welcome home,” it said.

C
HAPTER
37

Sahara didn’t know how she ever made it back to the beach. Her heart had been broken; all hope had entirely popped like a swollen balloon.

But she did, somehow she did.

The sky was pitch black now. She knew what would happen next: The End of All Realms, just as the Prophecy had hinted at.

Roberta sat on the front patio of the old restaurant she used as a hideout. The Squeebs moved around like worker bees, packing and moving boxes full of glass vials, brooms, petrified toads, and bats and mice. Roberta was leaving; she had the ability to do so, and Sahara didn’t blame her for it.

The Realms were fucked. Royally fucked.

“Even the best of us fail sometimes,” the Witch said. She had a cup in her hand. It smelled of alcohol.

Somewhere, off in the distance, in the pitch-black sky, a creature shrieked. A victory cry, Sahara supposed. Not long now before the diseases of Hell run rampant through the globe like the Black Plague. Then it would ascend to the Cloudless Realm, and the other Realms beyond that.

As soon as Satan walked among them again. As soon as they sacrificed Harold Storm, that horribly burnt Protector.
 

My horribly burnt Protector,
she thought.

“It will be okay,” Roberta said.

“None of us fail as hard as I have. There’s never that much on the line. Not like today.”

“In your line of work, yes,” she said. She sucked mostly bubbles through the straw of her drink. Raised her glass up and shook it, loose flesh swaying with her. A Squeeb came over and poured her another. Straight bourbon: the only stuff strong enough to give the dead Witch a buzz.

“My line of work no longer matters,” Sahara said, plopping down in the sand at the Witch’s feet.

“You can come with me,” Roberta said. “We can live forever, see the Realms rebuilt after the Dark One’s reign is over.”

Sahara thought of Harold, how he must feel in the blackness, the torture chambers of the Shadow Eaters. It would be nothing physical. All be in his mind. And he was not ready for that. Hell, she had not been ready for
that
. Nearly drove her to the brink of suicide, of giving up.

She would’ve gave up, too, had her burnt Protector not broken through the door. She smiled, thinking of him standing in the middle of the coliseum, never giving up, fighting until he dropped.

Sahara stood, placed a hand on the Witch’s cold, clammy hands. “No,” she said. “I can’t go with you. I have to go get him.”

“There is no way back in, not unless one of them open it from the inside — an impossible task. And face it, my dear, they are long gone by now.”

Sahara’s mouth turned into a thin line.

He never gave up,
she thought.

A great bolt of lightning struck the toxic lake, tossing waves up like a miniature tsunami. The lightning had not flashed, had not glowed at all, or the darkness on the building, on the old Witch’s face would have danced. They were bolts from the pits of Hell, black bolts with only one intent: to kill.

“I’ll find a way,” she said, confident, trying to ignore how everything around her had begun to crumble.

Roberta clucked her tongue, shook her head with a loose, drunken smile on her face. “No, no, my dear.”

“I seem to remember a certain Witch telling me a long time ago that nothing was impossible.” She paused, measuring her words carefully. “And Harold Storm never gave up on me. He’d come for me again if he could; he’d save me.”