“Because of their souls, dummy. The Eaters need their sustenance.” Steve rolled his eyes, and fished inside of his robe, pulled out a pack of Marlboros, and handed Jer another cigarette.
Jerry lit it up with a smile on his face. He closed his eyes, exhaled a big puff of smoke.
“Alright, you ready?”
“Guess so,” Jer said.
Harold saw his window of opportunity closing, and not wanting to cause a big commotion, he did what he knew best — he acted, put on a performance that would have all of the producers who rejected him kicking themselves.
“Say guys, you got room for one more?” Harold asked.
Turned out, the machete was real, and its sharp point dug into his flesh.
CHAPTER 24
Harold pulled back at the last second, but still got caught by the sharpness. Nothing major, mainly hitting clothes, but he threw his hands up in defense as he said, “Hey now, fella, take it easy, will ya?”
“We’re at full capacity,” the fat one said — Steve. He gripped the baseball bat tight. And Jerry stood behind him, a head taller than Harold, his machete ready for another go.
“The man said we’re full up. Take a step back.” He jabbed the blade toward him, but Harold listened, not wanting to have to pick up his spilled guts while the world ended around him, or lose control of the Wolves and draw the attention of the other Disciples.
“I’m just trying to find my salvation,” Harold said, and he tilted his head up, looked the boys straight in their eyes, let the shrouded moonlight catch all his hideous scars.
Steve shuddered. The baseball bat fell a few inches until it hung by his side. The solid clunk of wood on concrete echoed off of the terminal’s structure.
Harold took a step forward, swiped away the machete easily, finding Jerry was about as strong as he looked. A steady hand gripped the door handle and began to pull it open. He was almost halfway in when he saw the reflection of the raised baseball bat.
Steve.
“I said, full capacity!” the chubby guy shouted, voice straining with the swing. Harold let go of the handle and dodged the hit before his brains were bashed in. The bat clunked off of the metal door frame instead and Steve cried out, the vibrations of the miss probably rippling through his finger bones.
So much for not drawing attention.
Jerry must’ve been inspired by his fat friend’s courage because he took a swing at Harold too. But not with the bat.
The machete ripped through the air with an audible whoosh. Had Harold been a half a foot closer to the kid, he’d have been sliced in half. But he wasn’t and the fear pumped through his veins faster than his blood did, though he didn’t think these kids had the balls to actually try to kill him.
Harold ducked. His fedora went flying behind him. There was not enough time to check to see if it was sliced in half — he’d really liked that hat — before the next swipe came. This one connected, stuck in his clavicle like a meat cleaver in a half-frozen piece of steak. The pain was intense. Almost riveting. And he collapsed with it still stuck in his flesh.
Momentarily paralyzed.
Something was off. He couldn’t move his arms, couldn’t try to pry the blade from his flesh, from deep in his bone. Felt like a piece of rotten wood, and Jerry was a tall, malnourished lumberjack, too strong for his own good.
“Is it him?” Steve asked, his fat body morphing into a fading blur.
“They said he looked like an overcooked hamburger, didn’t they?” Jerry replied.
“That was a kind understatement.” Steve put his hand out, palm face up. “Gimme the machete.”
“What? Why? You got your own baseball bat. Don’t get greedy.”
“I’m gonna cut his fuckin hand off, nimrod. Be the goddamned hero I was meant to be.”
Harold felt like he had drank all three of Chet’s whiskey bottles and then whatever else was on the shelf by the time Steve held his arm. The machete came down on his wrist, cut skin, but that’s about as far as it went. Steve hacked again.
There was no pain, thankfully, only pressure, like getting a tooth pulled while numbed. But Harold watched it happen with glazed eyes, slurring his words, calling out for Sahara.
The third hack went deep. The metal met Harold’s bone and the bone seemed to win that contest, because Steve howled again, like he had when his baseball bat met the door frame.
“Let me try, you idiot,” Jerry said.
Harold looked up. Way up. Eyes traveled over the long torso of the even longer man. His gaze reached the pinnacle, the tip of the machete, some hours later it seemed. Like the man was miles long. Harold gulped, Adam’s apple bobbed against his dry throat. At least it felt dry. A glob of spit fell from his lips, pooled on the lapel of his trench coat. He could no longer hold his head up, no longer keep his eyes open.
What had they done to him?
Poison?
Some kind of magic?
He moaned.
The blade came down with all the force of guillotine moving in slow motion. Harold blinked twice as it happened and on the third blink he moved the slightest bit to the left, and Jerry missed. A slow moving cloud of concrete dust came up from where the blow struck. It reminded Harold of a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb.
Jerry kicked him in the face.
“Stay still, goddamn it.”
“Jerry, give it a rest, man. You’re too weak. You’ll never be able to lop off the key. It’s Demon metal, man.”
“We need more venom. The machete’s losing power,” Jerry said, disregarding Steve’s pleas.
Harold saw little pinpricks of light dancing in his vision.
Venom?
He shook his head, felt more control over his movements, noticed the vision getting clearer despite the stars.
Venom, poison, alcohol, what was the difference? His body reacted the same it did to all that stuff now, and his metabolism burned through it like that of a madman, but each impact was enough to set his flesh on fire and make him start anew. Determining time wasn’t Harold’s strong suit when sober, and especially not while he was under the influence of some sort of Demon venom, but he figured at least a minute had passed since the last blow had struck him, and his body was already coming back to normal — well, as normal as he could be with the key inside of him.
The two men huddled together arguing, their words lost in the wind and the pounding inside of Harold’s head. Soon Steve left, opening the door into the terminal and meeting the man who guarded the stairwell from the lobby with his submachine gun.
“I should just lop off your goddamn head, man,” Jerry said. “It wouldn’t make much of a difference, would it? They just want the key, couldn’t give two shits if we keep you alive.”
He raised the machete, bent down in a stance like he was the world’s most awkward baseball player. The blade came an inch away from his neck, swung back, and then back to its original position. He was sizing Harold’s head up. And Harold watched through half-slitted eyes.
The door opened again, and the clamoring, worried voices of the people within smacked Harold in the face. Where was Roman? Why had he left him? But the Vampire was nowhere in sight, probably not even watching. The scaredy-cat. And the howling, where was that? No longer there. The words, the incantation lost in the static crackling inside of his skull.
“Lu-lu-por,” he mumbled.
Steve carried a large glass jar,crossing his field of vision. The contents inside were pitch black. The blackest thing Harold had ever laid eyes on. It entranced him, called out to him. His heartbeat sped up, then he involuntarily moaned like a kid running a high fever.
Steve snickered, looking at him with a cocked head. “Guess the son-of-a-bitch is immune to everything but the venom.” Stevie leaned in closer, held his hand over his mouth, and shouted: “I eat this shit for breakfast, you pussy.”
Jerry punched him in the arm. “Quit messing around.”
Steve smiled, removed his hood so he could see better. A
nd showed his very round and pale face, pock-marked and too closely resembling the moon. “I’m working on it,” Steve said, struggling to pop off the lid of the jar.
Jerry set down the blade, leaned it up against the wall about three feet from Harold’s reach. He thought about reaching for it as fast as he could, but didn’t know exactly how fast that would be. There was a good chance that he might’ve ended up moving like a slug and in his head he’d feel like a cheetah. The venom was a mystery to him. So he didn’t. It wasn’t the right moment, but he didn’t doubt that moment would come.
Have faith.
Stevie inhaled deeply as the lid to the jar popped off. “Greatest smell in all of Existence,” he said, sloshing around the black contents of the jar.
Harold had to look away, had to focus on something else before he became hypnotized — crazy like the two Disciples.
The blade scraped the concrete when Jerry picked it up and brought it to the jar. Steve held as still as a statue. There was a faint sizzling sound. The metal seemed like it was screaming, protesting the fact that it had to be dipped in that poison. And Harold heard other things too: an ancient sounding tongue that spoke in a language he didn’t understand whatsoever, the cawing of crows, raindrops thudding against something hollow, the roar of a fire. All endless. All melding together, yet distinct.
Harold opened his eyes fully. He couldn’t help it, he had to. Jerry looked down at the gleaming blade, admired the way the red streaks of Hell danced down it, much like Charlie’s own Hellblade had, and Jerry smiled.
“This is what we live for,” he said, then turned his attention to Harold. “Oh boy, Sleeping Beauty is awake.”
Steve laughed. And then his face went serious in less than a second. Features like a cold piece of stone. “Don’t mess around, Jerry. Cut the arm off. Rick and Cam can only hold the crowd off for so much longer, even with guns. Those people can take them if they’re smart and willing to die, man.”
Jerry’s hand went up, telling Steve to be quiet. His eyes narrowed and the sides of his mouth were pointed in a devilish grin. He was going to enjoy this. Nothing else mattered. Not the key. Not Hell. This was a kid who’d been picked on his entire life, and it ended here, right now. Harold knew the look because he’d had it himself so many times.
The blade hovered over his neck. He kept his eyes open, unwatered, staring into Jerry’s own. If Jerry was going to kill him, he wanted him to look him dead in the eyes as he did it.
“What are you doin, Jer? Not his fuckin head, man. The arm! Cut off his arm.” Steve put a hand on Jerry’s shoulder, but it was too late, the blade was already in motion.
And before it struck him, his whole body tingled with that all too-familiar pain, and he thought of Roman’s smiling face, how it morphed into the sickening Vampire creature when his cold hands plunged into his chest, and he couldn’t help but think: That traitorous bastard.
CHAPTER 25
Jerry grunted. All of his six and a half feet, one hundred and fifty pounds went into the swing. Harold blinked, thinking that it’d be more than enough to lop his head off and any other body part the sick kid could think of. Not to mention the Demon venom the blade was coated in. An image of his body going up in flames, headless and missing his left hand, flashed inside of his mind while his soul floated above the scene, tears in his eyes — an out of body experience. The thought brought the Wolves out of their hiding spots. They shook their fur free of the dying black venom, spraying off of them like dark rain.
Harold spat the words with ease. “Circumventa Lupis!”
He yelled at the top of his lungs, more than enough to shake the very foundation of the terminal, which had already been used to that kind of roar like the locomotives for years.
Steve’s eyelids flew open like snapped window shutters, and he stumbled backwards. The jar of venom spilled over and the screams of tortured souls, the cawing of hungry crows, and the heat of the Mortal ovens cracked out into the air. Harold saw shadows standing in a semicircle around the three of them. The Wolves? Or the Demons?
And the machete met the Deathblade.
When the metal clashed with a great whine. Almost high enough to blow out Harold’s ear drums. Jerry smiled, brought the blade up high. Harold was too slow in his attempt to gut the kid, and he moved like a drunk — sluggish and unwieldy.
The machete came down again. Blades met. Harold screamed out. Something sizzled. Harold tried to scramble up, but the pain was too much for him to bear, and he fell back down to one knee.
Jerry laughed. Behind him, rose the dark black flames. The shadows of things from another Realm. The evil twisted through the night, taking Harold’s breath away. He thought his head might explode with the sounds, with the pain.
“They said you’d be tough,” Jerry said.
Harold tried to keep his eyes open. And through fluttering eyelids, he saw the kid’s smile — the I’m-gonna-toy-with-you smile.
Steve was up now, too. His hands moved all over his body like he was covered in bugs. There was fear written on his face. Fear that Jerry was completely oblivious to.
“But I at least thought you’d be tougher than this. The venom helps too. Look at that pathetic blade now.”
Harold did, and his eyes found the source of his pain. The metal was a rustic black color. The sharpness of the blade all but gone. It looked more like an ancient windshield wiper than an ancient weapon. Though it was more than a weapon. It was part of Harold now and the venom eating away at it would slowly make its way down the rest of his arm, then his chest, finally his heart. And he’d be no more. Would’ve been killed by some punk goths. A great way to go out, like a little bitch.
Not today.
He stood up, ignored the way gravity tried to pull him down to the concrete, ignored the throbbing pain in his arms, in his chest, and in his head.
Steve saw it before it happened, and he took off. The leak of voices came through the open door, then the glass jiggled when it hit the metal frame. Jerry didn’t notice any of this. His look was wide enough that Harold thought he would’ve seen it all, but he didn’t.
And the blade was too fast. It might’ve been a rusty old windshield wiper, but anything will go through you with enough force. It went clean through. Something gurgled from deep within the poor kid: the sound of spilling blood. Harold stood there with the blade in the kid’s stomach, waiting to see what would happen. With the Vampire, Nik had almost completely evaporated into a cloud of fire-colored ash, but that was a supernatural being. What would come of some regular human?
The machete swiped at Harold’s head, and Harold ducked, yanking the blade free. Not what he expected at all.
His roll away from the swing was clumsy and forced. But it did the trick. He still had his head, and most of his sanity.
Jerry came at him like he was in the middle of a roid-rage. His muscles flexed and all of sudden he didn’t look so young anymore, or so skinny. Harold narrowed his eyes, surveyed him.
A light flipped on just inside of the doors of the terminal’s entrance. It bathed Jerry in gold, showed how much blood poured out of his stab wound. A great river of red. But that wasn’t where Harold focused. The machete, either.
Ink black streaks ran through the kid’s exposed skin. His hand that gripped the machete was almost the color of coal. And the veins in his neck danced like black snakes. Blacker streaks ran from his eyes. The surprised look he wore when Harold had found the courage to stab him was gone. His eyes were wild, like a rabid dog. The pupils dilated until they were nothing but black pools the color of tar, the color of the rest of Demon venom coursing through him.
Harold had only been in this seedy Underworld for about two days, but even if he hadn’t, he’d know that a guy closing in on him wielding a machete with the eyes the color of death is never a good thing.
To make things worse, the glass in the doors shattered, and the echo of the Desert Eagle going off rang through his ears. The stone pillar, inches away from his head expl
oded in a cloud of dust. Chunks of rock showered his shoulders.
Jerry was a foot away from him. The blade came down. Harold blocked it, the pain of the clash tore through his body. He closed his eyes, feeling woozy again.
No time.
The blade came down again.
Missed.
And it lodged into the concrete ground.
Harold saw his chance. What he wanted to do, he wasn’t sure. So he tried to run, but the way his legs felt made that difficult. And Jerry’s hand shot out and grabbed him around his arm before he could take more than three steps.
The Desert Eagle clapped again.
Missed.
More concrete exploded.
Jerry’s grip was out of this world. Harold felt like his bicep might burst.
He was face to face with Jerry, with the dripping black venom from his eyes, from his mouth. Harold said a silent prayer to any God that would listen.
Give me the strength. Give me the strength.
Harold kicked out his legs, realized he was being lifted up off the ground and his feet weren’t finding any purchase on the thin air. He was at least a head above the six and half foot Jerry-Monster and he could see Steve crouched down in a pool of glass, hand holding the Desert Eagle, shaking.
The machete twanged, pried from the ground with Jerry’s opposite hand.
“They said it’d be easy. They said it’d be easy — the Dark One is coming. He’s packing his suitcase,” Jerry said. His voice became distorted, like a dying machine, shorting out, warped. Harold’s chest was on the verge of exploding from rapid heartbeats.
He swung his blade, and it hit Jerry in the thigh. The beast wavered, but didn’t fall.
“Jer?” Steve yelled from the shattered door. “Stay still!”
Jerry ignored him, brought the machete up, meant to skewer Harold. The other hand slipped around his throat, brought him up higher. Harold’s fingers gnawed at the grip but it was too strong, like metal. He’d need a blowtorch to break through. He swung his Deathblade clumsily, hitting nothing but the air.
Hellbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 1) Page 15
