He tried to hold back the fear, take a deep breath, even swallow the accumulation of spit drowning his teeth, but he couldn’t. So he just closed his eyes.
“Look at me,” Sahara demanded. “I’m going to count to five and if you don’t tell me — kablam!”
He didn’t open his eyes until she shook him, but it was then when he noticed the black goop around the barrel of the handgun. The hint of orange plastic that showed through the crappy paint job. And he started laughing. Worse she could do was put his eye out at this range, maybe give him a bright red welt that’d just be lost with the rest of his crimson skin.
“Think this is funny? You druggies, all the same,” she said.
Slink growled like a motorcycle at his feet — probably the only real threat to him.
Harold began to unwind from her embrace, sliding sideways against the concrete. She didn’t struggle, followed his line of sight to the orange paint and sighed hard.
“Okay, fine. It’s not a real gun. But it hurts, trust me.”
“I do, but take a look at me, sweetheart, I think I’m a little beyond hurt. Half my body is burned and I’m up walking around. A BB gun would do nothing but tickle me at this point.”
He turned his back on her, ignoring the revving growls of Slink and the girl’s chirping voice and started to walk, soles of his sand-logged boots knocking the pavement.
“Wait! C’mon!” The girl’s own choppy steps caught up to him. Her breath right in his ear.
He stopped, looked back, tilting his head, thinking about not saying anything at all. But he couldn’t resist. “I may look crazy, but I’m not crazy enough to think there’s such things as Wizards and Demons and things that go bump in the night!”
The girl didn’t say anything in return, and Harold found his blood boiling. Was he crazy? Or was she? Instead, she stood there, Slink sniffing around their feet, wind blowing her curly copper-colored hair in all directions. She took a hard swallow, the muscles in her throat bobbing up and down. Her eyes narrowed, focused on Harold’s face, making him squirm in uncomfortableness.
She was not a big girl by any means. Average to maybe a bit malnourished. She certainly didn’t look like she could harm Harold, much less a fly, but when she swung the BB gun at him and he felt it wasn’t made out of plastic like he originally thought — instead, die cast metal — he knew his initial impressions of this girl were wrong.
The world darkened again for the eighth time that day. His body lost all form, and he crumbled to the pavement. The last thing he saw before total blackness was Slink’s forked tongue poking out of his warty lips and licking him into oblivion.
Oh, so wrong.
CHAPTER 5
The throbbing in his hand acted like a makeshift alarm clock. He had never felt pain like it, at least not while he was conscious. He couldn’t remember how it felt to be zapped with Spellfire, as Sahara had put it because the pain was probably so severe that he had passed out. Even though, he thought this fabled Spellfire to actually just be regular old American Fire.
His head throbbed too. From the BB gun, no doubt. He just hoped it hadn’t popped any of those nasty blisters on his face, or — god forbid — somehow made him uglier.
Either the room was dark or Harold was being swept by an oncoming concussion. A few minutes passed in silence, and his eyes adjusted. Wherever he was, was not the home of a rich person. Certainly not Bel-Air. The stench, chipping wall paint, ceiling stains, and sirens whooping outside of the window gave off more of a West Philadelphia vibe. And West Philadelphia did not ring any bells. He couldn’t quite remember his hometown, only had snippets of large, looming buildings, like giants pointing to the sky, and the traffic and the car horns, the asshole-ish people. Some city that ended in ‘Ville.’
He could hear his heartbeat thumping in his ears and the way it pulsed went along beautifully with the sirens. He found himself singing jumbled lyrics that absolutely made no sense whatsoever, but veered off into a forced, butchered version of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song. Anything to pass the time.
What he was waiting for, he didn’t know.
He sat in a wooden chair, hands tied behind his back, something wrapped around his left one, the one that throbbed, tugging at the skin underneath. The chair squeaked as he tried wiggling his way out of it. He wiggled for about thirty seconds before the chair gave and the mud-colored Persian rug met his face. He howled at that, the weight of his body and the chair pressing down on his mangled wrists. Muted pain.
From this angle, nose pressed against the rug, he caught a whiff of rancid urine and saw, directly in his line of sight, a stack of comic books in a basket underneath an end table next to a puke-green couch. There was Batman, Superman, Martian Manhunter, some Doctor Strange and Constantine, all in pristine condition, wrapped in plastic. The Batman and Superman comics looked especially old — the style, not the condition — and if they were originals, he bet they were worth a pretty penny. They just wasted away for God knows how long underneath the end table. He chuckled at the thought of staring potentially at a million bucks, possibly more.
The sound of footsteps cut him off.
“Hello?” he said, once the steps stopped. The pores of his skin tried to release nervous sweat. Then, craning his neck, Persian rug rubbing up against his tender skin, he saw the girl standing in the doorway to the kitchen and it all came roaring back to him. Somehow, despite all she had done — Slink attacking him, her unkind words, bashing his head in with a BB gun, and tying him up — he thought she looked gorgeous, especially standing there with the low light of the setting sun streaming in from the kitchen window which kissed her already sun-kissed skin. If he was standing, and she hadn’t been a total bitch to him, he probably would’ve collapsed due to melting kneecaps.
“Look pretty comfortable,” she said, crossing her arms. “Sorry I had to do that to you, but you just don’t get how important that key is.”
“I told you a million times, I don’t have that key.”
She bent down, grabbed the back of the chair and lifted him up, breath never wavering, face never scrunching up in struggle. A shard of fear knifed through his stomach. She was definitely not what she seemed. Harold had the bump on his forehead to prove it. Now she sat across from him on the couch, chin resting on one hand, the other tucked under her thigh.
“Hand hurt?” she asked.
Harold ground his back molars. “What the Hell did you do to me?” he hissed.
“Well nothing besides proving to myself that you have the key.”
“Had the key,” he said.
“No, you still have it.”
His heart dropped, thinking she might’ve went through his pockets, might’ve gotten ahold of the picture of Marcy and burned it just for the Hell of it. His arms flexed instinctively going for his pockets, but the rope around his wrists and the back of the chair crushed those dreams.
“I didn’t touch your picture, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Harold exhaled sharply through his nostrils, not speaking, only staring at his beautiful captor.
“Who is she? Wife? Secret crush or something like that?”
He still didn’t answer.
“She’s pretty, you know. Good catch. Too bad you look like this now.” A smirk struck her face. She chewed her lip, waiting for a reaction, but Harold offered her none. If he wasn’t tied he no doubt would’ve given her one, or at least thought about it. She was a girl after all and his mom brought him up right.
“It’s a shame that she’s going to have to die now.”
Then, like a supernova, Harold gave the reaction she waited for. He lunged forward, left hand surged with a boiling pain. Rage filled his vision with fire.
“Good, good,” Sahara said. “You may have a chance, yet.” She paused, a hint of a sharp smile blooming on her lips. “Say the words. I know you feel them. Let the key speak for you.”
“Fuck off. There, is that good?” Harold said, a spray of spit leaving hi
s mouth on each accentuated syllable.
“Say them,” she repeated.
“Screw — ”
“Don’t resist,” she said.
“You — ” Then, the muscles in his throat convulsed. His vocal chords twanged, and words he’d never spoken or even heard before left his lips, stinging when they left his tongue.
“Circumventa Lupis!”
A glint of silver tore through Harold’s flesh. His left forearm popped. He heard the skin tear like a thin piece of paper. Bone white extended from the wound, found its way into Harold’s left hand. He held what seemed to be the hilt to a great sword, which exploded out next — gunmetal gray. A cross-guard hovered above his closed fingers and the sword’s edge was sharp enough that it threatened to carve out his retinas had he looked at it long enough. An orange glow illuminated the room, spilled out from the wound that manifested on his forearm. Any other time he would’ve shrieked in pain, but he didn’t. Because the only thing on his mind was revenge. Pain answered with pain, and directed towards Sahara.
He swung.
But Sahara shot up lightning fast, manifesting her own sword, bringing it up to her face to block the blow.
The blades clashed with the sound of metallic thunder.
He gasped when he realized what he did, withdrew his blade, the one that appeared seemingly out of nowhere and stumbled over the broken chair.
His face glistened with sweat, chest heaved with heavy breaths. “What in the f — ”
Then the sword vanished in a burst of razorblades, cutting him while cutting his voice off. Pain blazed white-hot for a few seconds, threatening another fainting spell, but he held on strong and soon it was nothing but a dull throb through his left arm. He looked down, the last tattered bandages hanging from the now normal left hand.
“Yeah, figured that was going to happen,” Sahara said. She sounded far away to Harold, like an echo from the opposite end of a long corridor.
Looking down at his hand, Harold felt his spine stiffen. The thrum inside his burned cranium beat like a jackhammer. What is happening to me? he thought. All of a sudden he felt cold. Ice cold.
Sahara stood up, offered him a hand, but he balked away from it. That same hand brought a sword out on its own no less than thirty seconds ago. Honestly, he was afraid to touch it, afraid of what might happen if he did. Not just to her, but to him.
“Marcy…is she dead? Going to die?” Harold said, through quivering lips.
“No. No, she won’t. She’s safe. I just needed something to get you ready, something to stimulate the power.”
“Like I’m a lab rat?”
“Something like that,” she said, smiling.
Harold pushed himself up and turned to a thin wooden door, claw marks at about knee height, probably from Slink. He put his hand on the handle, ready to turn it and leave this chapter of his life before it could even start. But it was locked. He shook the knob violently, rattling what he thought was the whole east side of the building.
“Not worth the effort, Storm. Ever try getting out of a Spell-locked room? Not gonna happen, at least not until I get some answers.” She paused, flashing him big brown eyes, then: “Don’t you want answers, too? How you got burned, why you don’t remember anything?”
He glanced down at his hand. “What am I?” he asked.
“That’s what we’re gonna find out. Just give me a chance.”
“I’m like the Hulk and Wolverine’s retarded love child.”
Sahara smiled a flawless white smile. “Comic fan?”
He shrugged. “Spare getting to know me. I don’t care, and you don’t care. I just want to go see my fiancé.”
“You will, but what I need to know is much bigger than love…or whatever creepy obsession you got going on with Margie.”
“Marcy,” he corrected.
She waved a hand at him, then took a few steps to the side, scaled a bookshelf full of leather-bound tomes, knocking a few stray paperbacks to the floor until she pulled a purple vial of liquid free and hopped down.
“Here,” she said, looking down at the vial, “drink this and you’ll remember it all.”
Harold snorted. “Seriously? You think I’m gonna trust you? My mom told me never to take things from strangers. This is the type of crap that has me waking up tomorrow in a bath tub full of ice, one kidney short of being a full human.”
“You can’t possibly think you’re still a human?”
Harold didn’t answer, just eyed her.
“With the things you’ve seen? Mortals don’t comprehend that stuff, Storm. Not unless the supernaturals want you to, and that’s a rarity, only the baddest of the bad do that. Thankfully, Felix and I make sure we keep the baddest of the bad contained.”
“What like superheroes or some garbage?” he muttered, shaking his head.
She tilted back, laughing loud enough for the noise to bounce off of the walls. “We’re way beyond superheroes — we’re Protectors, and now you’re one too.”
CHAPTER 6
“A Protector? I’m a freak. Don’t sugarcoat it,” Harold said. He held the vial of purple liquid, except it looked more like goop from this angle. Nothing edible.
“Drink it,” Sahara said.
“Not a snowball’s chance in Hell.”
“Funny that you mention Hell. Common misconception about the temperature. We’ll save that for another time, but you want out of here, then you drink the potion. Deal? Then you can go see your precious Margie.”
“Marcy,” he corrected again. “What’ll happen when I drink it?”
She smiled. “Don’t get to thinking that it’ll heal you or some fairy tale crap like that. You got burned by a Spell. Really, you shouldn’t even be alive. And if it wasn’t for the key inside of you, then you wouldn’t be. So there’s not much coming back from something like that.”
What little hope that had blossomed in Harold’s chest was plucked away. He sat down on the couch, still clutching the vial.
“What if I don’t want to be a Protector?” he asked, not making eye contact with the girl who’d kidnapped him.
“At this point, you don’t have much of a choice. At least not until Felix comes back. Could be seconds, could be centuries.”
Harold shook his head, then watched the purple stuff flutter inside of the glass.
“Once you give up that key that’s inside you, you most likely give up your life. Felix saved you. I just need to find out why.” She motioned to the vial. “That’s the answer.”
“Will it hurt me?”
She exhaled a large breath. “Jesus, ever heard that curiosity killed the cat?”
Harold rolled his eyes. “Put yourself in my shoes.”
“They wouldn’t fit,” she said with a grin. “But if you don’t shut your mouth then I’m gonna be curiosity and you’re gonna be the cat.”
The two stared each other down.
“You’re the fish out of water, Harold. I’m the hand that’ll throw you back, but you gotta cooperate.”
“Enough of the god-awful metaphors, please,” he said. He was never a guy who couldn’t hold his drink. When Marcy had gotten pregnant, there were no celebrations. At least, not in his head. He had gone down to his favorite watering hole, the name slipping his mind, and the bartender, an old man with a story written in the deep lines of his face and the scars on his arms, fixed him up with a bottle of whiskey, and kept him company while Harold drowned the few brain cells he had left. Chet, he thought his name to be. Maybe Bobby. Didn’t matter, wasn’t important. What was important was that Harold was not a sissy when it came to drinking. And he wouldn’t let some girl dictate what he did or didn’t do. If he was going to down the vial, it was on his own terms.
“Ever think really hard?” Sahara asked. Her hands were still on her hip, one foot out in front of the other. “Like maybe in a college math class or something. You look at the equation and stare and stare until the lines on the page become three-dimensional. Your brain throbs, like it j
ust bench pressed an Olympic record. You know the feeling?”
“A headache?”
She nodded. “Yep, that comes after. All I’m saying is that’s all the vial is. It’ll just make you think really hard. Take you back to what happened last night or the weekend. And you’ll feel like you’re thinking hard enough to perform telekinesis or something, but I’ll get to see it broadcasted from your mind like it’s a movie. Then we can figure out what we’re up against.”
“Sounds like a lot of bullshit,” he said, grumbling.
“Yeah. Figured you’d say that. But c’mon, a sword just shot out of our hands. A mind movie can’t really be any more weird than that.”
“Goddamn it,” Harold said, uncorking the vial. He was blasted with a smell too sweet to be natural. Like he had snorted pure sugar cane and forgot to blow his nose after. His mouth watered. It’d been awhile since he had some food and he hadn’t realized it until now.
“Chug it! Chug it! Chug it!” Sahara chanted, pumping her fist.
Harold leaned away from her, looked at her harshly. “What is that?” he asked.
“Just trying to give you the college experience,” she said.
“Well dial it back a little bit.”
His trembling lips touched the rough glass of the vial, eyes crossed, staring at the liquid rolling forward under his nose. When the first drop touched his tongue, his mind screamed the type of pain he associated with a hangover. He got that familiar broken glass feeling, followed shortly by what felt like a bolder squeezing next to his brain in the cramped space of his cranium.
He shuddered.
“It gets better,” Sahara said. “Chug it! Chug — ”
He did. First, tipping his head back and swallowing hard, letting the sweet liquid coat his throat, travel down his insides, burning the entire way down. Then his head felt too heavy to keep it up. A knock came from behind him. His vision vibrated with it. He didn’t realize, but his head had slammed against the drywall. Tongue felt too swollen to exclaim. And the last thing he remembered seeing before the scene played out in front of his face was Sahara’s toothy grin framed by a sea of fiery hair.
Hellbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 1) Page 3
