Shadowbound
The Realm Protectors Series
Book Two
by
Spencer DeVeau
Copyright © 2016 by Spencer DeVeau
Cover design by Carmen Rodriguez
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Author’s Note
For more books, updates, and complimentary review copies visit me at www.spencerdeveau.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Shadowbound
Thank You
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
The world was going to Hell, but for Frank King, that already happened a long, long time ago.
He sat in a chair — an old leather thing, cracked and faded. His eyes studied the tip of the arrow that had speared the Demon’s shoulder nearly a year ago — still sharp beneath the crusty, black blood, unlike the dulling old man who held it.
One year on Tuesday, he thought.
That was five days from now. Three hundred and sixty days ago, Frank King lost his son.
The boy had been green yet, almost on his seventeenth year and begging to go on one of the hunts. Frank had refused, not once, but quite possibly twenty times. Young Travis was the only bloodline he had left, how dare Frank put his son in danger, in the line of the dark magic. He knew how the beasts were, how gruesome and horrid they acted. Like wild animals. But this…thing was something else entirely. It had shown up out of nowhere. What would’ve been a routine kill had turned into something much worse.
But his son had followed him. It wasn’t Travis’ fault really. He could’ve handled himself had Frank found the Witch he was looking for, but the Demon didn’t hesitate. He played the father/son card perfectly, and it had, in fact, worked because he was still out there, still wreaking havoc.
One full year, Frank thought again. A year that had felt like an eternity, each day like a tortured lifetime. Frank had aged in that span, too. Oh, how he’d aged. The full head of black hair had faded into something that resembled a thin toupee, and the color — all but drained. Now it was the color of old concrete. Skin wrinkled, drooping, and eyes so heavy, he looked as if he were constantly fighting sleep.
He’d been beaten and he had given up, content on withering away.
Sure, there’d been times when he’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming, covered in cold sweat, shaking. Times when his son’s pained face would flash in the pitch blackness of his bedroom, the shower of blood spraying every which way like a hole-ridden garden hose, his collapsing body, a gaping chunk of skin missing inside of his son’s chest. Even more times where the thought of ripping out the creature’s black heart had him grinding his teeth into dust, but that wasn’t enough for him to pick up the crossbow again. No, not with confidence. What good would a crossbow have against that black sword, the thing that seemed to suck the daylight straight from the sun?
All Frank could do was lift the arrow and with a different type of confidence.
His finger ran over the sharpness. There was a thin layer of crust, black as the Demon’s sword, black as his eyes, that lined the point. Blood? Possibly, though Frank doubted the creature really bled.
He brought it up to the wrinkled flesh of his neck. How hard would he have to slice in order to drain the life from his throat? How long until the pain consumed him and he went numb? He pressed harder, audibly gasped, jammed his eyes close. A single tear leaked out from between tight eyelids, running along the wrinkles in his weather-burnt face. He could do it now. End the emptiness.
But the phone rang.
Frank jumped, the arrow in his clenched fist jerked against him, and the sharpness bit. He grimaced. A trickle of blood beat onto the leather chair.
The phone rang again.
Frank thought he was going crazy. He didn’t remember having a phone. How long had it been since someone called him? A year, maybe two. He wouldn’t have known what day it was had Travis’ death anniversary not been so close.
It rang for the third time.
Frank still held the arrow. Sure, there were easier ways to take one’s life, but the lack of energy he had made him think he’d never be able to do it. Never gain the courage to go out back and shoot himself in the head like Old Yeller.
Now or never.
Fourth Ring.
Not dying with the last thing I hear being that lousy phone. No, give me some Rolling Stones, and I’ll give the Devil some sympathy.
He got up, knees crackled like radio static. The phone hung on the wall like a crooked painting — dingy white, pigtail cord. Then it rang again, and to Frank, it seemed louder, more violent, like whoever was on the other end was using some kind of magic to emphasize their importance. It was like the ringing in his head, except less real. He picked it up.
“H-hello?” he said. His voice fuzzed out like he was speaking for the first time. And it might as well have been, the only person he talked to nowadays was himself, and he wasn’t very good company.
“Frank King?” A girl on the other end said.
“Yeah.”
“The Frank King?”
“Who’s this?” Frank said with more of an edge to his voice. He sounded like a cranky old man, and the thought didn’t go quietly in his mind.
“Like the Frank King? The one who took down the Radioactive Witch Queen in Pripyat?”
Frank said nothing, only breathed heavy and leaned his forehead against the wood paneling of his small study.
Yes, he thought. Don’t remind me.
“You there?” the girl asked.
“Y-yeah I’m here. Listen, lady, I don’t have money and whatever weird product you’re selling, I’m not buying, got it?”
“Oh no, Mr. King, I’m just a fan. Well — more than that. I was a friend of Travis’.”
Frank swallowed hard.
“My name is Priscilla. He told me all about you. Talked about you like you were a god.”
Frank couldn’t speak. It had felt like a lifetime ago, but the name rang a bell. The normal girl his son had been smitten by. A tall, brunette who helped him pass Algebra. Math he’d had no problem with until he found out what his old man did for a living, until his head had been lost in the clouds, dreaming of another world — a hidden world.
“Listen — I’m sorry for bothering you, but he told me so much, so much I didn’t believe…until now.”
“Whatever he said was a lie,” Frank replied. “Travis had…a wild imagination.”
“Mr. King, I don’t doubt that. I really liked your son, I did. I’m young and stupid, like my mom tells me, but it might’ve been love, and I don’t think I’m that stupid.”
“Stupid enough to believe such fantastical things as Wizards and Witches and Demons.”
“I never said anything about that…” she said.
What was keeping him on the phone? He didn’t know, could’ve just slammed the plastic on the receiver hard enough to shatter the damn thing. But he didn’t and he sensed it had something to do with hearing another human’s voice that wasn’t his. Or maybe it was the fact that Priscilla, despite being god-knows-where, was a connection to his son in some sort of way.
“I-I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. King,” Priscilla said, her voice faded, distant sounding.
The hurt in her tone stabbed Frank in the heart.
“No, no, I’m sorry,
” Frank said. “It’s nice to hear a voice, nice to hear someone who knew Travis.”
The girl didn’t answer. And Frank stood straighter, fearing she’d hung up. With his other hand, he clutched at the fresh wound that stung near his Adam’s apple. A slickness touched his fingers.
“Yeah, yeah it is,” she finally said. “Very nice, but unfortunate.”
“Better late than never,” Frank said. He smiled then, imagining what it would have been like to see his son dressed up in a tuxedo on prom night, a blue flower pinned to the suit’s lapels, and this Priscilla on his arm.
“I fear it’s too late, Mr. King. Unless you do something about it.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Haven’t you heard? The world is ending.”
Frank’s fingers gripped tighter around the telephone, its plastic creaked, straining underneath the force of his bloody hands. Bloody, from when he wiped away at the cut on his neck.
“If this is some kind of prank phone call…I swear on the Holy Lord above — ”
“No, Mr. King, it’s not a prank. I promise. Turn on the news, if you have a television.”
He didn’t. Never cared for one. As a child they were too expensive. Books were the cheaper alternative. And his mind never had a budget. He’d surround himself with the damn things until his father had shown him the way of his father before him. The way of a Magic Hunter. Hard to imagine anything more fantastical than his reality.
“They’re talking about some kind of attacks in Gloomsville. Creatures. And horrible, horrible deaths — ”
Frank didn’t let the girl babble any longer. He slammed the phone down with force. His opposite hand snatched at the base, ripped it clean off of the wall so it hung there on thin wires, the dead tone shrieking, too loud. What right did she have doing that? Those damn kids. He coughed, inhaling the dust sprouting from the wall’s wound.
The beep, beep, beep continued to echo inside of Frank’s ears until a quick snatch yanked the cord free, and the poor phone looked like it had been mauled by some pissed-off Grizzly. He breathed hard, and his heart thumped harder. Fifty-two wasn’t old, not that old. But man, had he felt like it. Sounded like it too. Accused the girl of a prank phone call. What was next, sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, yelling, “Get off my lawn!” to the school kids strolling by?
Frank shook his head, sat down. He needed to get out of the house, needed some fresh air. Maybe he was getting old.
Gloomsville, Priscilla had said. And like her name, the city had rung a bell.
Of course, he knew where Gloomsville was, had spent a brighter portion of his childhood there. Hanging around the tourist shops, playing in the parks, and when the sun shone, swimming in Lake Shallows. The memories tugged at him, and he leaned forward, head on his dark, mahogany desk, closing his eyes.
The cut on his neck burned worse than he cared to admit. And when he raised his neck up again, two drops of blood spilled onto the wood — two drops of pitch-black blood.
CHAPTER 2
They didn’t have time for funerals, Harold knew that; Sahara knew that, too. But what could they do? Just dump Roman’s body off into a ditch while they tried to close Hell’s Portal, and hope that the Vampire’s body hadn’t rotted by the time they got back? That was, if they got back.
The Audi that Roman had stolen wound up a country road that narrowed as it got closer to the forest. The sun barely poked out over the horizon, still covered by a wisp of dark clouds. And when Sahara pulled the Audi into the mass of tall, black trees, it was like the sun didn’t exist at all. Out here, the sky had been untouched by the fire that pulsed low and thick over Gloomsville’s horizon. But it wouldn’t be much longer until that same fire consumed the forest, and the world beyond.
Perfect place for sun-fearing Vamps, Harold thought. For now.
And he shivered, cold creeping up his burnt and blackened skin, as he thought about the dead body they had in the trunk. He looked down at his left hand, the gnarled mess of flesh, the jagged lines deep in the skin where Charlie’s Hellblade had cut. But it wasn’t Charlie who had swung the sword; it was Harold, sacrificing his Deathblade for Sahara, trying to save her by giving them what they wanted.
Now there was an emptiness inside of his head. No more Wolves howling, guiding his every movement, keeping him company and letting him know that it’ll all be okay. There was an emptiness inside of Sahara, too. She had not talked the entire ride. The girl he’d grown to like, perhaps one day love, had gone eighty miles per hour out of the city, weaving in and out of the backed up traffic until only the open road stretched out in front of them. Harold feared for his life on more than one occasion too. But the feeling had subsided once they got a few miles away from Gloomsville.
And now it was back, even though Sahara couldn’t drive as fast as she had gone earlier on the bumpy forest road. But Harold pressed his forehead to the glass of the passenger’s side window, looking into the infinite blackness of the trees, and he got another odd feeling in the pit of his stomach like he was being watched by not one pair of eyes, but hundreds. It made him want to rip the wheel out of Sahara’s hands and spin them back the way they came.
He didn’t have to be here. Not anymore. With the blade out of his body, he was nothing but deadweight, technically no longer a Protector — just a normal man with horrible burns. Still, he felt the obligation to tag along. Roman had given his life to ensure Harold didn’t die, to ensure that the Spellfire wouldn’t take him. But why? Harold wasn’t special. Never had been. He was another victim of a very famous courtroom argument: Wrong place, wrong time. That’s all.
“We’re here,” Sahara said, stopping the car. “Help me get him out of the trunk.”
Here, he thought. In the middle of nowhere. Not much of a here at all.
Harold nodded. There was a phantom pain in his body. But that’s all it was — just phantom. He wasn’t in any real pain, the burns and the scars and the newly jagged and healing cut on his left hand made him feel that way.
The air outside of the car chilled Harold’s skin even more. Sahara hadn’t bothered to park off to the side of the one lane road and if another car had eventually pulled up behind the Audi, the other car would have nowhere to go besides into the sea of gnarled black branches and towering trees. Something in Harold’s gut told him that they wouldn’t have to worry about that though. The woods were that of a graveyard and the only types of folks who might’ve strolled through there were ghosts.
Or pissed off Vampires.
He looked down the length of the road, and although it must’ve been close to six or seven in the morning with the sun slowly peeking out over head, he could only see about another two hundred feet before the darkness swallowed up the path.
Sahara popped open the trunk, started to drag Roman’s wrapped body out, grunting as she did so. The girl possessed super-human strength, but could hardly lift a dead Vampire. It didn’t make sense to Harold. So he went around the other side to help.
The earthy smells of dirt and wood and grass were replaced with something much worse. And Harold had to hide a gag. Roman was in the process of decomposing, fast. When Harold placed his right hand on the black sheet wrapped around the body, a warmth unlike anything other radiated from beneath it. Nothing dead could’ve been that warm, and he almost started to rip the sheet away like wrapping paper, before Sahara collapsed right there in the dirt.
Harold stood with the Vampire’s warm body in his hands, and he stood without struggle. Roman’s corpse wasn’t heavy, at least not as heavy as Sahara made it out to be. No, he sensed there was something more to the girl’s struggle than the weight of the body. It was the weight of the situation; the weight of her broken heart.
Harold set Roman back down in the trunk and squatted, leaning his back up against the taillights of the car.
Sahara’s face rested in her hands, the wild red hair frizzled in every direction, making her head look like it was on fire. She sobbed audibly, her body
shaking with the sounds.
Harold didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know if he could speak at all. They’d driven so long without so much as a word that maybe his voice didn’t work any longer.
“I’m stupid,” Sahara said. And her voice, hearing it, the faded bullfrog voice, gave him strength to speak himself.
“No — no, you’re not. I am.”
He would’ve cried too had there been any moisture in his body.
“It’s okay, Storm,” she said, sniffling. “We’re gonna make it. I swear.”
He opened his mouth to say some more comforting and empty words before twigs snapped off the path, and then dead leaves rustled. Harold looked to Sahara before looking towards the source of the noise. Her eyes were watery, but focused.
Then Harold’s neck turned following her line of sight. A tall and muscular black man dressed in the same garb as Roman — leather jacket, faded black pants — stood at the tree line, one arm rested against the trunk of a blackened oak.
“Sahara,” the man said in a voice like thunder. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you around these parts. What gives us the honor of hosting you today?”
“I come bearing bad news, John.”
John’s eyes narrowed. He took a step forward, and Harold could’ve sworn that the very foundation of the world shook with the man’s steps. He did not look like a Vampire in the most common sense. He looked like a star athlete instead, or might’ve been a star athlete many years ago. Although his eyes were young-looking, wrinkles dusted his face and there were spots of gray in the close shaved hair of his head and in his beard.
“Can’t be as bad as the end of the world, can it?” the Vampire said. “I trust you’ve heard, being a Protector and all.” His gaze flicked to Harold, and he looked him up and down. “Who’s this one here?”
Harold gave him a nod and faint smile despite the fact that he didn’t like the way the Vampire looked at him.
Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) Page 1