Charlie’s eyes began to glaze over. The pain shot through him like a blade stabbing at an already opened wound.
“So what do you say, Charlie? How about I take over you like you tried to take over me?”
There was no talking anymore, just the sound of popping, crisping organs as Charlie’s insides burned in million degree heat.
“Nothing?” the Dark One shouted over the sounds. “Oh well, so be it! I’ll take it as a yes.”
And Charlie’s mind ripped apart into tiny fragments. They roasted, burnt up to ash, then caught in the storm cloud’s violent wind, carried out over the dead land.
Charlie was gone.
The black cloud was gone.
And the Dark One took a step in his new body, feeling wobbly and off. But he smiled. It was almost a spitting image of the man he’d looked like in the prison box, though he would never know it. Then he entered the tower, hellbent on reclaiming his throne once and for all.
CHAPTER 38
They travelled almost nonstop since they had left the stronghold. Harold had remained true to his word. He had not talked or put up a fight. The only times he made any noise at all were when he had to take a piss, and all he would do then was tap Octavius on the shoulder and tilt his head off to the side.
Octavius would go with him, his back never completely turned to Harold, and Harold would do his business. They had fed him old meat that was chewy and full of salt, definitely not of the Mortal Realm. They had gave him water that tasted like fire and was somehow as cold as the landscape. He took them reluctantly, knowing he needed to eat and drink.
And Harold didn’t have much of a plan. He figured he’d fight when the time was right, but time was funny down here as he was so apt at thinking, and the time to fight seemed like it might never be right. He was outnumbered two to one, and Octavius had Harold’s sword in a scabbard made of the same black metal that was the same metal the gloves were made of. He couldn’t fight them without the sword. They would gut him and drag him bleeding to the slaughterhouse like a pig.
He was alone.
No Wolves.
He was doomed.
But at least Boris and Frank were safe for the time being; at least Sahara was safe on the Earth Realm, too. She was no dummy, either. She would not have followed him here, and when the Mortal Realm crumbled, she would find refuge with the Witch. That was enough to comfort him, to make him smile when the Eaters’ backs were turned.
“Do you see it?” Beth said. She walked in front of him, Octavius walked behind him. They both kept their sheathed Hellblades in hand even though they didn’t need to.
She pointed to the horizon.
Harold had to squint to see much of anything. It was all black. There were heavy clouds gushing purple lightning, but that’s all he saw.
“Rain?” Harold said. “Looks like rain.”
“Such a wise-ass,” Octavius said. “She’s talking of the tower.”
Beth cackled. “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the place where he will die.”
Octavius returned the laughter.
“That is, if you’re lucky enough to just die, but I don’t think that’ll be the case. I think he’ll throw you into the Black Pits. That seems much more fitting.” She smiled her shark-like smile.
CHAPTER 39
Sahara couldn’t keep up with Felix; he moved with the grace and will of a much younger man, and she was tired and hungry, but most of all she was scared.
She first heard the low rumbling growls when they reached a clearing in the trees. The land was slightly sloped, and the trees looked to be one touch away from crumbling.
Felix stopped abruptly, Sahara catching up to him.
“Hear that?” he asked in a whisper.
She didn’t at first, had to really focus and ignore the grumbling in her stomach and the whistling in her breath. Then the sound washed over her, hit her head on with all the subtlety of a semi-truck. The noise reminded her of Slink, the Hellhound she’d left behind on earth. He was a small thing, but he could bite and roar like a lion, especially when it came to food. He had once gotten a piece of her pizza when she wasn’t looking, and knowing that type of food — anything but garbage, really — was bad for him, she tried to yank it away. Each time she got close to him, his growls revved up. And if she touched him…oh, boy, there would’ve went a finger.
That was what the sound reminded her of now. Each step she took forward, the growls revved their engines.
Felix put a finger to his lip, and walked on.
Just as Sahara was about to follow him, a blur of gray flashed across the path between the two Realm Protectors. Her blade came out in a flash, but she was too late. Something large and shaggy hit her full force. She fell over, her blade retracting in a subconscious way of protecting herself from an accidental stabbing.
A maw of long, yellow teeth snapped at her face. The growls were almost barks now. Her arms were up, blocking the beast’s weight with her forearms. It was enough to stop it from tearing her throat out — somehow, she knew that was exactly where it was going — but she wouldn’t be able to handle it much longer.
The stink of death was hot on its breath. She saw blood dripping from the fangs. Two black eyes, white and gray fur, paws trying to claw at her face. A smell of dirt and earth.
It was a wolf.
Somehow, a pack of wolves had found their way into Hell.
There was madness everywhere, she thought.
And with that, she realized she couldn’t die now. She was too close to the end to just give up and die. She swung up her knee. It smacked into the beast’s belly, causing it to yip and yowl. But not causing it to get off of her. If anything, it seemed to anger it more.
A claw was digging into her collarbone; she could feel the bone bending beneath the weight of the wolf.
“Felix,” she wheezed. “A little help.”
He didn’t help, nor did he say anything. Not even a scream or a grunt.
A trickle of hot blood steamed in the chilly air. Her blood.
The wolf seemed to go crazier at the sight of it against the paleness of her skin, and it looked right into her eyes as if sizing her up, and when their eyes met, Sahara was reminded of something…or someone.
She was reminded of Harold. Of the shiny, new sword she’d last seen him carrying in replacement for the key he’d sacrificed. It was the sword of Orkane, and the pommel was of a creature which looked nearly exactly like the creature wanting her blood.
It was a Wolf. Harold’s Wolf
Of course, Harold’s way of calling upon his key had been a wolf. It had to be. He was a descendant of Orkane, like his father before him…Felix.
She understood now, understood why the Wizard was not struggling or casting a spell which fractured the ground. It was because he was in control, unlike Sahara. She was like a flailing woman in quicksand. The more she struggled the deeper she’d sink and the sooner her lungs would fill with death.
She went slack in an instant. So fast, in fact, the wolf had not known what she was doing. It had startled it.
The Wolf got off of her, and she slid herself out from beneath it.
“I am Sahara. We are on the same side,” she said.
It tilted its head at her, eyes fiery, but the mouth now closed.
She could see Felix now. He was on his knees, his head bowed and his hands up as if to signify he would be no trouble. Five Wolves surrounded him, their hackles raised, mouth dribbling bloody slobber. The biggest, however, was the one Sahara had had the pleasure of trying to fight off.
She followed Felix’s lead, the Wolf still looking at her inquisitively.
“We are not your enemy,” Felix said.
“We want what you want,” Sahara echoed.
The Wolf sat back on its haunches. Its mouth parted, revealing those nasty teeth. “And what is that?” it said in a voice of steel that Sahara and Felix only heard through their heads, not their ears. It was some form of
telepathy, some connection only the Realm Protectors and the beasts that gave them their power shared.
“Justice,” Sahara said.
All six of the Wolves tilted their heads up to the black sky and howled like their lives depended on it.
CHAPTER 40
Frank woke up with a pain in his neck that pulsed all the way to his skull. He was having trouble remembering where he was, or why he was in a room surrounded with death and destruction and blood.
“Fuck me,” he said, rubbing the red marks around his neck.
He heard something on the other side of the room, and instantly his hand went to his back where the crossbow would typically be hanging. It was not there. It was somewhere else, and he knew he’d have trouble finding it while not giving whatever was making that terrible noise an idea that he was still alive.
It sounded like a dying engine mixed with the tweets of a baby bird. A noise both oddly sweet and equally terrifying.
Frank’s first thought was that it was a Shadow Eater. He scanned the room for the weapon. All he saw was a ruined wall, flipped bed, black blood. Outside, the darkness was nearly complete, only lit by a smoldering fire on part of a column which had come tumbling down in the explosion.
Frank crept up, hoping that his old bones wouldn’t pop and give him away. They didn’t, and what he saw didn’t frighten him as much as it unnerved him.
It was Boris. He was covered in green liquid. He held a furry creature Frank dimly recognized as Spider. Her arms had been sliced in half. Her eyes fluttered open and closed, dark yellow set against a backdrop of black glass. A clear liquid almost like tears flowed from the corners of those eyes.
Boris sniffled and sobbed as he rocked back and forth, her bulbous head with hair like tangled ropes in his lap. “Doomed,” he said. “Doomed.”
Spider was not alive, her eyes only fluttered with the movement of Boris’ nervous rocking.
Frank slowly walked closer to the creature. He wasn’t so bad after all. He’d helped smash his way into the room to save Harold and had even fought his best against the Shadow Eaters. And that was okay in Frank’s book. Hell, it might’ve even been honorable.
“Hey, pal,” Frank said in a voice that was meant to be soothing. “Hey, pal, come on away from her.”
Boris looked up to Frank with eyes that screamed pain. “She killed her. The pale woman with the dark eyes. She did it for fun.”
“I know, Boris,” Frank said, “I know.” Then, after a moment of silent sobbing, Frank said again, “Where’s Harold? What did they do with Harold?”
Boris didn’t answer.
“Boris…” Frank said again, but the creature was lost in his own world of pain and darkness. He rested his head on Spider’s, tears dripping from his face onto hers.
“She saved me,” he said. “When I was lost and running from the gangs that used to run this city, she saved me. She trusted me, and I trusted her. She trusted us all. Aqua, the Knight, me, and Hue, the fella I killed. She trusted us and now she’s dead because of the trust.”
Frank shook his head, looked Boris right in the eyes, and said, “No. It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault.”
Boris blinked slowly, blinked away more tears. He took a deep breath. “Aqua did it. She turned on us, and now Spider’s soul is being devoured by who knows what.” He stifled another sob, then looked at Frank. “They took Harold. They didn’t kill him. That woman, the one called Beth, was going to kill you and me, but he made a deal with them to leave us alone.”
“What was it?”
“He promised to not put up a fight. He promised to go to their Master willingly. He promised to…die.”
“He ain’t gonna die. Not if I can help it.”
Boris shuddered again as he brought Spider’s head closer to his chest, hugging her in a kind of horrific embrace. “Very well,” he said. “Be on your way. Leave me be. I’ll rot here among my sins.”
Frank reached down, his blood pumping warmly through his veins, spurring his every action, and slapped the little creature. Slapped him hard.
Boris’ whole head spun halfway around. Then, after a moment, he looked back at Frank with wide, shocked eyes. “Uh…ow!” he said. “What was that for?”
Frank smiled. “Way I see it, if you’re gonna be my partner, you can’t act like a little bitch.”
Boris set Spider’s head down gently and stood up, his horse legs almost buckling with the movement. He was less than half the size of Frank, but that didn’t stop him from putting his shoulders back, his chest out, and holding his chin high as he said, “You know what, Mortal? I’m sick of your abuse. Ever since we’ve met you’ve had it out for me. Even after I saved your hide from those skeletons, even after I gave you warmth with my magic, even after I brought you to a safe place and got you fed and a little bit of rest. I’m sick of being treated like I’m some kind of no-good freak.”
The rock around his neck pulsed.
Frank’s smile vanished. The glowing rock meant the fire was not far off. He wasn’t sure what the creature was capable of — whether or not he truly had murder in his heart — and he didn’t want to find out.
“Yeah, wiped that smile clean off your face, huh, Frank?” Boris said.
Frank kept his features calm, tried not to show the flash of fear that rocked him. “That’s more like it, bud,” he said.
“Like what? What are you on about?” His eyes blazed now, hands starting to shake. Heat and smoke came off of the creature in waves.
“If you’re gonna join me, if you’re gonna be my partner, I can’t have you sniveling around.”
“I’m not joining you,” Boris spat. He turned away, looking back at Spider’s corpse and Aqua’s smoking clothes. “I’m done.”
“Boris, you can’t be done. If you’re done then the Renegades are done, isn’t that right? If you’re done, then a bitch like Beth and her Shadow Eaters will destroy more and more. You don’t want that. I don’t want that.”
Boris looked down, his mind somewhere else, it seemed.
“And you want to save the Realms, don’t you?” Frank asked.
He raised his gaze. Frank almost stepped back when he saw the look on his face. The creature’s teeth were bared, sharp and dangerous — the teeth of a baby shark, of something with the potential to grow up and wreak havoc.
“This isn’t about saving the Realms anymore,” Boris said, his nostrils flaring, eyes harsh and piercing. “It’s about revenge.”
CHAPTER 41
Harold was not doing too well. As he got closer and closer to the tower that seemed to stretch eternities into the sky, the sounds of the Wolves grew dimmer.
He was only left with his thoughts, and he hated that. These thoughts were of the typical Harold variety — of anger, of his low self-esteem, of his failures.
The path they walked on was beaten and worn, yet tufts of dying grass had grown over the wheel ruts. He pictured this to be some great road where the servants of the Dark One traveled many miles to give him gifts long ago.
His plan of escaping got further away with each step he took toward the Dark One. The Shadow Eaters did not eat, they did not sleep, and very sparingly they drank much of anything at all. Although, from time to time, Harold noticed Octavius taking long draughts from a flask he kept tucked away in his breast pocket. Beth did not — at least not that he’d seen.
His plan was to steal back his sword during one of these periods of rest.
“Sleep,” Beth had told him the first dark night they’d stopped. She had taken the cuffs off of him. “He won’t want a weakling. He’ll want you at least at half-strength. Not that you stand a chance or anything.” Then she cackled.
As much as Harold had wanted to sleep that first night near an outcropping of dark rocks, he couldn’t. Not because his life depended on it, but because he did not trust these Shadow Eaters. So he faked it, and when he turned to try to get his sword back, which was in a sheath made of the same black material the gloves were ma
de of, he was greeted with both of their smiling faces. Their eyes were not bloodshot, there were no bags beneath them, they never yawned.
“We don’t sleep,” Beth said, and she cackled again.
Harold did after that, though it was not good sleep, and he dreamed that night or day or whatever it was in Hell of a child killed in the womb, of him drowning in a river of blood, and Sahara’s corpse.
He did not dream of Wolves.
Now, they’d been walking for what seemed like hours before they’d stopped to rest again. Harold’s posture had stooped to the point of him resembling an old man. His feet ached. His head pounded. He accepted the rocky ground with as much happiness as a king sized mattress, and the sleep took him.
He had given up on his plan, had accepted the death.
But tonight Harold Storm dreamt of the Wolves.
They were padding through a forest, their legs pumping fast. He was one of them, but he was not the leader. They were on some kind of gradual decline, no way they could’ve ran this fast on their own, zigzagging in and out of stumps and rocks half-buried in the ground. They moved like lightning.
He could smell something. It smelled of sweat and death and rot. But that just spurred them on faster. The leader of the pack, the Alpha, was well ahead — a blur through the dead and dying trees, kicking up a dark cloud of dust. The others followed without question. There were six in total, but there was also another smell lingering in the air, this one not of death or rot or even fear. This one smelled like strawberries and power and confidence. Confidence because…
A flash of red moved in front of him. A large Wolf with fur the color of moonlight and winter’s ice moved faster than the rest. On his back he carried something…someone.
Sahara.
He awoke with a kick to the ribs.
Octavius stood above him, hand on the hilt of his Hellblade, ready to draw it at the slightest sign of Harold’s resistance. He would get no chance. Harold would remain true to his word.
Deathbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 3) Page 18
