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

by Spencer DeVeau

  It wasn’t until one of the monsters lifted up their head, dirty-black horns sprouting from their skull like thick antennas, and it sniffed deeply that Frank felt like he’d made a big mistake coming down the tunnel.

  The Demon grunted and turned. A liquid shined against his mouth, hung from its chin in clumps, thick strings, the color lost in the darkness.

  Frank sensed what it was, and when the Demon opened its mouth, it was all but confirmed. Red stained its already yellow-stained teeth.

  Part of Frank was already running back the way he came, away from the chaos, away from the likes of these creatures.

  But most of him stood proudly, and he found himself hopping over the guardrail, feet landing with a heavy thud. He strode over to the Demon who stared at him with slitted eyes, a soft red glow between the leathery skin of its lids. The other went on eating, like nothing had happened. Frank heard the squelching, saw the twitch of the soles of whoever its victim was. That white check mark swooshed back and forth with the person’s soft whimpers.

  “Demon,” Frank said.

  The one paying attention squared up, straightened itself. Frank came up to about chest level on the thing. It was large in height and in width, about the same as a pickup truck. A wonder how the thing had even fit into the tunnel with all the cars. But one was thrown up against the wall, and as Frank’s eyes adjusted, he could see an entire row had been cleared that lead out to the city.

  The thing could’ve squashed him with as little effort as Frank could’ve squashed a mosquito that had landed on his arm.

  “Frank King,” the Demon said in a deep, thrumming voice. Frank heard it in perfect English, though the way the creature’s lips had moved told Frank they spoke with a black tongue from the depths of Hell. At least that’s what he thought. He’d not been totally sure if there was such a thing. His area of expertise had stopped when his arrow buried in whatever he was hunting.

  The other Demon turned, covered in even more blood. “Mortal!” he shouted and lunged at Frank.

  Frank didn’t even flinch, but the other Demon held out a thick, tree-trunk arm to hold his partner back. And Frank was bathed with the sour stench of flesh and death.

  “Frank King,” the other Demon said, his eyes opening wide, pupils flaming red.

  “We have heard much about you. The whispers tell us we are to help you in slaying a Protector. The one without his blade. My name is Caskan, my friend is Drak. We are now your humble servants.”

  Frank smiled wide. “Pleased to meet you.” He extended a hand, but the Demons just looked at it, and he pulled it back, stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans.

  The Shadows had guided him there. There was no talk of it in his head…yet it just felt so right. If Harold Storm was the Protector the voices feared, Frank King would need all the help he could get.

  CHAPTER 29

  For once, access to the city was not easy. From the Lake called Shallows, he had to travel east. He would’ve preferred the tunnels — Guesser, maybe even Rubin — but they were choked with a wave of abandoned cars. He’d come this far, and the Liberty Bridge was near.

  The entrance to the bridge had also been full of destruction, but easier to maneuver through without a roof over his head, or the darkness. He had the red sky to help guide him, as weird as it felt. It would get him to Chet’s just about an hour slower. Maybe more with all the cars.

  He made it through some thirty minutes later — thirty minutes filled with eerie silence and hot wind. The city was one he’d never laid eyes on. A lump had formed in his throat then, one he couldn’t swallow. Skyscrapers burned bright with chunks missing from their structures. The road was cracked, leaving a black lightning bolt zagging through the asphalt. One foot stood on each side, his eyes traced the line for as far as he could see or at least until the road ended at the base of a once large and elaborate fountain, no longer spewing water and half crushed into rubble. He thought it was the McCamp Library, where he’d once gone to do his taxes for free, but it looked so alien and ruined, that he squinted and shook his head. That couldn’t be it.

  And where were all the people? Where was the noise? The bustling city sounds?

  The city had never been this void of conversation since its construction, since it was nothing but a forest of thick trees. Though faintly, he could hear a car alarm chirping in the distance, and the lick and split of flames consuming a nearby structure, but somehow, the black clouds that hung above the city, above him, did well enough to muffle most of it, and ash fell like depressing snow.

  He turned back towards the bridge. LIBERTY in big white letters stood on a green sign high above him. He leaned up against a rusty Mercury and thought he saw some drops of blood spattered on the back window, and he couldn’t help but look.

  Blood everywhere, but no body. And the smell that leaked from the cracked window was something straight from a morgue. A little green suction cup laid on the floor, like maybe the Mercury had been smuggling octopuses — or aliens.

  His heartbeat sped up.

  What the Hell was happening?

  Harold gripped the sword of Orkane’s hilt tighter, hoping to rouse the Wolves.

  No luck.

  He felt squeamish, like he’d just collapse and vomit onto the sidewalk like he had done so many times after a binge at Chet’s. But he didn’t.

  Using the blade as a walking stick, he propped himself up like an old man. What could Harold do? He couldn’t save the city any longer. It was beyond saving.

  Chet’s bar was a few blocks away. All he could do was hope he wasn’t too late. So he ran as fast as his wobbly legs would let him, rounding the corner of a deli, the plate glass windows shattered with glittering shards everywhere. He crunched the pieces into dust, kept running.

  Chet’s was closer now, could almost smell the biker gang’s body odor that had settled into the booth cushions, could almost hear that familiar buzz of neon, see the old bartender’s wrinkled face and young smile. Harold’s home away from home.

  Then he found out where all the people had gone. Most of them, at least.

  He stumbled upon a vast courtyard that once housed many colorful flowers and neatly trimmed bushes, a few pine trees here, an apple tree there, but now all that was left of the foliage were bones. Scorched wood, trees barren of all leaves and colors except for ashy grays and deep blacks.

  Harold’s mind went to the evil limbs which scrabbled at his throat in his dreams. But he blinked hard once, erasing that image. These were not them. No, these were just unlucky trees. The witnesses to the atrocities committed to the tens of people stacked at their base.

  Broken bodies. Blood. Limbs strewn throughout the charred grass. Harold couldn’t take it even with the sword giving him phantom strength in his hand. The courage deflated. He could’ve turned and ran, but instead, turned and vomited onto a trash can knocked on its side. He spilled his guts onto the trashcan’s spilled guts. How ironic, he thought when he was almost done.

  The smell didn’t help — rotting flesh, burnt bones, opened innards — but that wasn’t what had done it. It was the weight of the situation; how these people were real people. They had lives just as Harold had — dreams, ambitions, goals, families. They’d loved; they’d lost. They probably had a favorite food; a favorite movie. Memories, too — their first kiss; one Christmas where the family was whole and everyone got along perfectly, and the ham had tasted like it’d been cut from a pig straight from Heaven.

  Now all lost.

  Now gone.

  Not even given a proper burial, just thrown on the ground like balled up pieces of garbage.

  He clutched his stomach, the acid burning his nostrils, bile in the back of his throat. The vomit threatened to explode out of him again. But he held it down.

  Not today.

  Find your courage. Find the Pack, Harry, he thought.

  The hilt bit into his palm as he squeezed it tighter and used it to prop himself up once more. He walked towards the bodies, ruined nose
buried in the sleeve of his ratty trench coat.

  He didn’t know what he intended to do, not until he was three feet away from the faces. People he’d never seen before in his life. A woman wearing a business suit, a man with a ponytail and a peace sign embroidered in his jean jacket, a couple of teenagers who looked happy, like they were giggling about the newest high school rumors, even in death.

  He stood over them all, brought a hand up to his heart, felt it cracking and threatening to shatter. In all of those faces, he’d seen himself, and the ones he’d loved. Marcy, his mother, Chet, and Sahara, even Roberta.

  His jaw cracked as he flexed it.

  Chet’s was not far, and neither was the chaos.

  Harold Storm walked like a man on a mission.

  CHAPTER 30

  That dinky bar and grill cleverly named the Lake was still on the sandy edges of Lake Shallows. He’d remembered going there when he was a teenager, chasing around Becky Salmons and Karen Fritz with a wet towel, and the way the hostess looked at him and his group, like they were the lowest form of scum on the earth, and told them they weren’t welcome. A tourist spot didn’t need local kids running them out of business. But that’s not what did them in anyway.

  These memories came in bits and pieces. Thoughts from another dimension, they seemed, and he tried to push them away, tried to let the Shadows consume him, but they wouldn’t.

  It had seemed like ages since the voices talked to him. He was doing alright on his own, but God, the loneliness inside of his skull began to take its toll. He would’ve done anything for the comfort of his dead father, or the snaky-voice of the Dark One.

  They refused to grant him that wish, no matter how many times he called upon them.

  Now he was stuck with the two Demons trailing him as they walked up the shifting sands, who might’ve sensed Frank was losing it. That caused his skin to prickle. They figure it out and he’s dinner for the two beasts.

  The Lake, bar and grill, matched the rest of the shitty tourist spot, which was more like a cemetery for dead fish and mutated birds. Mold grew up the sides of the building. Windows were cracked. There was a front door that hung on its hinges like a gimpy arm. And the smell was something out of Hell itself.

  He imagined what the hostess’s face would’ve looked like had she been manning the front entrance when he strolled up with two Demons on each shoulder instead of gals. She would’ve died right there on the spot, and Frank’s dates would’ve feasted on her body without hesitation.

  The trio came up upon a car parked crookedly, halfway on the sand and half on the dead grass near a derelict and rusted chain link fence. The car was a once nice black Audi. That foreign shit that Frank would’ve never been caught dead driving. No, American made was the stuff of his fancy. His old Ford popped into head, flaming and broken, almost as bad off as the little restaurant him and his group crested. He bet that Harold Storm drove that bastard with black shades over his mismatched eyes, blaring horrible pop music or that techno garbage that made Frank think about two robots having sex.

  God, he meant to make Harold Storm suffer. Or did he?

  Frank looked up, his boots skidded to a stop in the sand, and he brought up his left hand — now without any pain, for the Shadows had healed him — to shield his eyes from the fire in the sky. Two figures, black silhouettes of tall people, slunk near the patio of the restaurant.

  The Demons stopped behind him, large gusts of wind clobbered their nostrils as they sniffed into the air. Frank thought breathing that deep would’ve been enough to melt your insides with the toxic green gas that lingered, but nothing happened to them.

  “Food,” Drak said, before moving forward, nudging Frank out of the way.

  A low bellow broke from a silhouette: “FRENNNNN?” it said, more like a question.

  “NOOOO!” the other said, before turning and running.

  The Demons were too fast and pounced on the figures like lions on a gazelle. Frank picked up speed, too. He let go of the shotgun that hung from a strap over his shoulder, heart thudding, and ran towards the action.

  Dark thoughts intruded into his mind. What if that was Harold Storm? And the Demons, the two bumbling idiots only ever thinking with their stomachs, kill him? The Dark One would not be pleased at all. He might even kill Frank. And Frank didn’t want that. Death seemed unnatural now. It seemed like Frank had a purpose.

  “Wait!” he shouted.

  He was too late.

  A green creature bucked and swung its arms and legs in, while the other ran towards the water, Caskan hot on his heels.

  Frank couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d never seen something so…unnatural and he’d been to the pits of Hell in his mind a few times, had killed creatures of various levels of gross, but this — this mutant was the stuff of vomit-inducing nightmares.

  Eyes in the wrong places. Sticky and shiny, dripping with green mucus. Bumps and warts, and mismatched limbs.

  Drak squeezed his claws together in one last desperate attempt to quell the beast, and it worked. The mutant stopped kicking, only twitched. Its head hung at an odd angle and its eyes — three of them, by Frank’s count — stared blankly.

  “Okay, enough,” Frank said, “we are here not for food.”

  “You do not control us, Mortal,” Drak said. Saliva hung from his opened maw, and he pounced on the mutant’s soft flesh.

  Frank had to turn away. And when he had, his hands were not quick enough. Hands that normally were steady and gunslinger-like quick fumbled with the shotgun that hung over his shoulder.

  And the redheaded girl, now with eyes unclouded by darkness, a bright and burning brown, zeroed in on Frank’s own. Then her unnatural blade came swinging at his head like an axe toward a tree.

  He was almost too slow. The metal brushed his hair as he dropped into the sand. Hand tried finding the trigger of the shotgun, but the girl was faster. She cut down on him — three quick swings.

  The first two missed, but the second caught the tail of his shirt, ripping the fabric, and touching him with the metal. Not cold metal, but fiery warm. He screamed, eyes bulging.

  “Demons!” he shouted, towards Drak who was only a few feet away except too busy feasting on the mutant to realize what was happening. And when he had, he was too late.

  Frank writhed in the sand like a dying dog. That touch, that slight brush of metal on his skin had set his head to screaming. The Shadows — they burned with light. It started around the edges, white fire creeping towards the middle, threatening to burn the darkness away, to burn Frank’s heart away.

  Sand flew in all directions; the shotgun cartwheeled, landing a few feet away. His vision began to blur, from the dirt in his eyes or from the pain, he was unsure. But a solid thump next to his face momentarily took his mind away from the screaming whispers.

  It was Drak’s head, mouth covered in green slime, black blood dripping from his severed spinal cord, ripped and jagged like the sleeves of Frank’s bullet hole riddled shirt.

  He looked up, saw the redhead, her blade drawn high above her, veins popping from her forehead, from that perfectly smooth skin. Frank never thought such a beautiful creature would be his demise, and part of him was ready to accept it until the Shadows whispered.

  Kill her, Franky — that voice like his father. Kill her.

  He didn’t have much of a choice, didn’t look like he’d have much of a chance either. His hands went up blocking out the fiery sky, trying to block the impending hit.

  “I recognize you,” she said.

  Caskan. Where was Caskan? He risked a look. The Demon was way out in the black, sludgy water, chasing one of the mutants. How did Frank get stuck with such incompetent Demons? he wondered.

  “At the Vampire’s Haven,” she said. “You tried to kill us then, too.”

  “That was a different me,” he said.

  “I can tell,” she said, narrowing her eyes, looking directly into his. “You got it bad, my friend. I did too. It hurt, I know. All those vo
ices and the Shadows and the dark thoughts. It’s okay, we can fix you.”

  “We?” he asked. “You and Harold Storm?”

  “Not Storm. He’s not here.”

  Frank felt his lungs freeze up, unable to breathe. Not here? But he’d come all this way. He could already hear the wrath from the whispers in his head. The shotgun was nearly within arm’s reach, but the redheaded woman was a Realm Protector. She was not stupid.

  He tried anyway, reached for it with the speed of a snake attacking a mouse.

  Not quick enough.

  The blade came down, caught a chunk of his right hand. He screamed until his throat felt like it ripped. Looking down, he saw the flesh sizzle and pop, bubble with blackness then turn an odd shade of yellow-orange and disappear. The feeling left along with a sizable chunk of his palm.

  “Next time I’ll cut the whole arm off,” she said, a smile on her face.

  Frank laid on his stomach, sand filled his mouth as he screamed.

  “Think that’s bad? Imagine getting it right into the gut,” she said.

  “Sahara dear, what is all the commotion?” another woman said.

  Frank thought he might’ve been going crazy. Maybe delirium had begun to settle into his mind, but as he peeked up, the woman standing there, dressed in a black gown, looked as if she were a walking corpse. Nothing close to alive.

  “Oh, who is this?” she said, a rotten smile on her face.

  Frank felt a slight twinge of fear. The skin was dead, the body crippled and hunched, hands like curled-up, dead spiders, but those eyes. They were young and boundless. Immortal. Had seen so much. He knew. Somehow, he just knew.

  “Frank King,” the old woman said, answering her own question, nodding. “I have seen him. He is infected. The Dark One’s own puppet.”

  “I am my own man,” Frank said, defiance in his voice like a sulky teenager.

  Harold Storm was not his enemy; the redheaded Sahara was not his enemy; all of the supernatural beings and cops were not his enemies. No. this old woman — this old Witch — was his enemy. Just looking at her set the Shadows in his mind ablaze. Made him want to explode, to run, to hide, to scream and cry. And right then, he was in no position to do either.