Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) (7 page)

Rule Number Two: Don’t swing first, but make sure you swing last,
his father’s voice sang in his mind, like a preacher.

So many voices.
 

But the distant echo of his father brought him back to the riverbed, near the reeds taller than his ten year old frame, stronger too. Father wrestled a worm onto a fishing hook, making a show of how harshly he’d speared the insect, making sure the punch of metal into wormy flesh coincided with
swing last.

“I wish it were that easy,” Storm said.

And Frank wheeled around to see the razor-sharp point of a blade running from the flesh of the red-headed woman in Storm’s arms. His fingers curled around the girl’s hands which curled around the hilt, directing the movement like a demented puppeteer.

Frank backed away, but the blade followed until the harsh wooden walls pressed against his back and the blade dug into the wrinkled flesh of his neck, right above the healing cut of his own doing. And when the blade met his skin, a voice shrieked in his head, one he’d not heard yet, but he recognized as pure evil.

“Now, the way I see it,” Storm said, eyes narrowed at the tip of the blade disappearing into the folds of Frank’s neck, “You owe me for the stress you put me under for no apparent reason other than the fact that you didn’t like my looks. Which, I guess, is typical from an old asshole like yourself, but what can I do? I think it’s time you pay your dues. And if you obey, and help me get out of here alive, I’ll spare your life.”

Frank tried to talk. But his muscles had froze, fearing that one wrong syllable would cause his Adam’s apple to bob up and he’d choke on a pool of his own blood.

“I think you and I could make a great team. We both have a common interest, and if we get my friend some help here, we might even be the Three Musketeers 2.0.” Storm paused, regarded Frank carefully, then: “I told you my name, now what’s yours?”

“Frank King,” he answered, but that was all he could say as he nodded, his father’s voice ringing in the back of his mind:
 

Rule Number Three: Don’t be a cocky asshole, or you’ll die.

C
HAPTER
9

Sahara didn’t have much time, if any at all. Harold could feel her heartbeat slowing as he cradled her against his chest. For such a petite girl she must’ve weighed close to two hundred pounds, yet he didn’t know whether that had to do with the fact she was a Protector of the Realms, or the fact she had what must’ve been about a hundred pounds worth of Demon venom coursing through her body.

All Harold knew for sure was that he needed to get her help, and she needed that help fast. The Vampires may not have liked him, but Sahara was an old friend — and he felt his face flushing thinking about it — to Roman; an old flame perhaps. She’d never revealed any details, but there was evidence enough. When Roman was alive, Harold could’ve gotten high on the hormones leaking off of their skin, like they were bugs and mating season was nigh.

Bleh,
he thought, shuddering.

Sahara had been the woman of his dreams and without her, he didn’t know where he’d be — dead, probably. She was there when he needed her, and in the past few days that was a lot. They had been fast friends, and — he hoped — slow lovers. Now she needed him, and he wasn’t going to let some grumpy, older and much uglier version of Legolas stand in his way.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?

Besides, that crossbow seemed to come in handy against the Demons. If there were anymore outside of the throne room, Frank could cut a path, and Harold could find the Vampires. One of them would be sure to help, wouldn’t they?

Outside of the room, past the crumpled iron door and the sea of black blood, a smell of death hung in the air like the smell of a dying fire. The decay of venom-induced corpses would probably never leave Harold’s nostrils, sadly, and he accepted that. A torch flickered at the end of the hallway, near the steps, wooden and intricately carved by the Keebler Elves, at least Harold made himself think that to lighten the dark storm brewing in the recesses of his mind. A mind balancing on a high wire ten feet above a volcano with one foot and no safety net below; a mind threatened by the venom.

But no, Harold wouldn’t —
couldn’t
— let it take him. The thoughts, the dark thoughts. The death, the power. Oh Dark One, the power.

Where you belong, Harry.

Come home.

No.

He wouldn’t. He was a Protector, even if his Deathblade was gone, and the Wolves were dead inside of his mind, decaying, with the maggots devouring their flesh, laying their eggs in their dying warmth. Protectors persevered, and Harold was sick of giving up. Marcy had been right back at her apartment complex when the rage boiled inside of him and he nearly killed her model boyfriend. She had told him how he’d been a failure, and he’d been blinded by the fact that time had been in his favor. His acting career would take off one day, right? He’d get out of the city and into a mansion in the mountains. Parties every night. The booze would flow like the blood of the dead ones strewn in the hall he walked through on his way to the steps, with Sahara cradled in his arms, her death blade extended, and Frank ahead of him, sights aimed down.

The girls, too. He’d have any girl he wanted. And his bank account — would never have to worry about money again.

Right?

Wrong.

Though Marcy had been right.

Frank sucked in a deep, shaky breath in front of him. Harold could smell the fear rolling off of the man — and the doubt.

Harold’s time would never come because Time didn’t care about someone’s goals and dreams. That bitch never stopped; the clocks continued to tick and tock; the world still spun. Yeah, even if you never achieved your dreams, Time would never relent.

Harold’s time was now, and it had took him awhile to accept that, but it was true. Time wouldn’t wait for him to seize the moment. He — they — had a chance to make a difference in this horrible world, and he meant to do so. Demons and Vampires and Shadow Eaters be damned.

“You can get that damn Demon blade off of my back,” Frank said in a whisper.

“No way, buddy. I don’t control it anyway. It’s not mine.”

“You should’ve just left the Demon bitch to die.”

Harold thrust the blade forward, jamming the tip against Frank’s jacket. The blade looked as bad as Sahara, but the point was still deathly sharp. So naturally, the jean jacket ripped like tissue paper, and Frank jolted forward, turning around with his bow raised and a dark fire in his eyes.

Harold let the blade fall.

Those eyes.

He had seen those eyes before, but where?

The two Mortals stared at each other. Harold’s guard lowered, transfixed on the black pools — black as…
the Shadow Eaters, yes.

He’d all but tried to block out Charlie and Beth’s eyes, tried to think of it as a really vivid and horrendous night terror. But seeing Frank’s had brought the feeling of dread, those black snakes squirming in his gut, back to the forefront of his mind.

Not far away, a beast roared, and not in his head. Harold’s heart leapt into his throat. The flesh that had been untouched by the Spellfire — which was not much — raised into bumps.

And Frank blinked; to Harold, it seemed to be in slow motion. When his eyes showed again, the darkness vanished, replaced by an electric blue heavy with the images only a man like Frank could’ve seen.

Harold shook his head, had he imagined it? Had his own venom given him a filter where he only saw the world in the light of malice? He didn’t know for sure, but he knew Sahara’s breathing began to get wildly erratic, her heartbeat slower.

But Frank spun around with that same young man’s grace, raised the crossbow with smoothness.

“This way is a dead end unless you wanna use your Demon speech to tell that asshole out there to let us walk free.”

“I’m not a Demon. How many times do I have to tell you that?” Harold said.

“I won’t believe you until I see you bleed. There was a lot of black blood back in that room, Storm.”

Harold tried to keep his face as blank as possible, but the muscles in his jaw twitched. Because his blood wouldn’t be the same color as Frank’s. Black had become the new red. He breathed a sigh of relief realizing where his left hand, punctured by one of those arrows, had been — safely nestled under Sahara’s legs. And the adrenaline had taken the pain, though he knew he’d feel it the minute he was safe.

Harold just shrugged Frank’s remark off and spun back towards the throne room, more worried about a pissed-off Demon than an old man with a crossbow. There had to be another way out.

But when he spun around, a wave of black venom roared through the corridor, and he stopped, nearly dropping Sahara.

“Go, Storm.”

The pounds from the stairs grew closer. Talons clicked on the wooden steps. A roar echoed down through the darkness, but the wave choked out the sound of both that and Frank’s voice; it made both of them a slight whisper.

Harold couldn’t do much of anything.

He felt a push at his back, the cool metal of the crossbow stinging his exposed skin, nudging him forward. His neck slowly spun around, a look of defeat written all over his face.

The beast’s horns emerged first, its bulk second, larger than any thing — or animal for that matter — Harold had ever seen. Scaly skin shined like it had rolled in ink. But Harold knew better — that wasn’t ink; it was blood.
 

The blood of friends and enemies.

C
HAPTER
10

Frank’s arrows whistled by Harold’s head as he backed away from the steps. Yet Harold stood frozen, Sahara feeling like a pillow in his arms.

“Move, Storm!” Frank bellowed.

Another arrow twanged, this one ruffling Sahara’s hair like a small breeze.

“Move! Move!”

But Harold couldn’t. His options were drown or get eaten, or drop Sahara and try to swim through the roaring wave of black venom. He wasn’t a good swimmer, and no way in Hell would he drop Sahara, which also meant that he couldn’t fight either.
 

The Demon didn’t care about those things; neither did the wave.

An arrow struck the Demon in the thigh, and the beast’s knee buckled. Rippling skin and jagged bones jutting out from beneath it.

“Goddamn it, Storm, drop the girl and fight. I can’t hold him off myself.”

The wave had slowed down, suspended in mid-air like a paused movie. Maybe he wouldn’t drown after all.

In all the chaos, Harold breathed a sigh of relief, then the Demon roared again; a sound the clearheaded Harold heard with all too much intensity. He felt the hot breath of the damn thing right near the back of his neck. The poor hat on his head — rippled and torn all over, speared by an arrow, and not even two days old — blew wildly down the hallway as if Harold got caught in the middle of a tornado.

Frank’s crossbow clattered off of the floor, and he screamed. The Demon held him with one hand like a giant playing with an action figure and he brought the man up to his bared teeth, jaws opening wider than the mouth of a tunnel. The fangs dripped with black venom; sour breath destroyed the earthy scent of the Tree; and Frank looked into the blackness like a man sick of life and ready for death.

Harold watched with wide open eyes, until the beast grunted. And the noise smacked Harold in the face with sensibility. He didn’t know what to do. Frank was halfway in the beast’s maw, kicking and fighting, but he could see the fight dying within him, like a man giving up.
 

He cradled Sahara like a sick child. He had no Deathblade. No Wolves. No strength. No back up. A head full of venom, himself. And the old man
had
tried to kill him, actually. They weren’t exactly friends. Plus the eyes — those black eyes. It had just been a minute, but surely Harold wasn’t crazy, was he? He’d seen it.

And now, he was given a choice, and as the horrible breath of the monster filled the hall, and the sounds from the black wave of venom clashed behind him, the right choice became clearer.

He ran, maneuvering by the distracted Demon.

His feet bounded up the three flights of stairs to a room he faintly remembered, that might’ve been the room he had first entered when Sahara could still stand on her own. There they had waited for someone to direct them to the King. But now the room’s walls dripped with black ichor, like drying motor oil, and the smell reminded Harold of his Grandfather’s funeral. That sickening sweet smell of death and flowers. Earth and decay.

His head whirled.

He heard the Demon shriek, before Frank’s faint voice escaped from three levels below, yelling: “
No!”
 

Harold shook it off. The man would’ve killed him as soon as he had the chance anyway, he tried to tell himself. Frank was a loose cannon. A man thirsty for revenge. Quick to pull the trigger on whomever he could place blame on.
 

And Harold could find his own way — after all, he wasn’t the old Harold anymore, right? He was the new lean, mean, burnt machine that destroyed the supernatural for shits and giggles.

The new Harold wouldn’t leave a man to his death,
that black voice inside of his head hissed.
But the Harold we want would. I am oh so proud of you.

The magic door, the one that had glowed orange and amber when Sahara pushed it open was ripped away. And in the trunk of the great tree stood a gaping hole. Fractures and splinters edged the outline. Black lines of death ran up the bark like cancer.

Outside, the piny scent of the forest became the smell of an upturned graveyard. Half a Vampire laid in a pool of blood at his feet. An arm here, an arm there. A crumpled Demon corpse hung from a broken tree. The dark outlines of birds pecked away at the scaly flesh. Harold cringed at the sight. He hoped it wouldn’t lead to a full scale plague somewhere down the road.

Further on, John sat against a tree, looking peaceful until Harold got closer and saw the gash in his neck, and the glassy-eyed, dead look on his face. On the other side, a hand poked from a pile of splintered wood. The nails were painted a bubble-gum pink and alternating black. Harold’s stomach roiled. It was Cinder — or at least part of Cinder. He didn’t have the courage to keep going. Didn’t want to see anymore destruction. After all, Harold Storm was the cause. There was no denying that. They wanted him, and they wanted Sahara.