The figure hovered.
His mind reeled, trying to shake the fog of sleep that filled his brain. The crossbow would be in the same place he’d left it almost a year ago when he vowed to retire from Hunting. Right in his tiny study, buried in the small closet behind the huge cardboard boxes filled with old jobs, older receipts; next to another box marked TRAVIS, filled with report cards, macaroni pictures and shaky hand drawn houses, stick figures of fathers and sons holding hands made in the first grade. There the crossbow would lean up against the side wall, collecting dust.
Even if he could get by the Shadow, and somehow get his hands on the weapon, nothing was guaranteed. The formula on the end of the arrow head wouldn’t be potent after almost a year, would it? Besides the thing wasn’t a Dark Wizard or Witch, it was a full-blown spirt from a spirit world Frank hadn’t stepped into yet. Besides, what if it was another one of the creatures who’d killed Travis? The arrow had had no effect on it.
Those dark eyes.
No, his best bet would be to reason with the damn thing, unless of course he couldn’t, and that small voice in his mind told him that he couldn’t reason with a thing like that. Told him that it wanted his soul, his heart, his mind.
But he spoke up nonetheless because it didn’t seem like the spirit would.
“What the Hell do you want?” he asked. There would be no politeness shown to an intruder, that much was true.
It didn’t answer. Just stood there.
“C’mon,” he said, “I’m real tired and not in the mood for this bullshit.”
“You will find the forests,” it said, in a man’s voice, laced with energy.
Frank’s words caught in his throat.
The forests?
“There you will find him. Is that not what you want? To find the creature who took your son from you?”
“Y-yes,” he answered, voice cracking.
“You must follow the trail of blood. From the forest, it flows like a river. And from the stream, the Demons drink like parched Wolves.”
“The forest? How do you know about the forest?”
“I know about all, Frank King. I’ve closed my eyes and have seen every image looked upon by man and beast alike; I’ve heard every sound ever made, every sound yet to be made; smelled the stench of death and the sweetness of life reborn. My gaze stretches eons. Your dreams are mine, Franklin Percival King.”
Frank looked away from the creature. Took the heel of his hand and rubbed his eyes with them, his back still pressed up against the headboard, wood creaking with a subconscious attempt at escaping through the wall behind him and into the study where he’d at least have the comfort of a weapon, whether it worked or not. But even subconsciously he knew that way led to a death — and despite all his sadness and depression and the nightmares — he wasn’t prepared to face.
“Where is the forest?” he asked, looking toward the dark light in front of him. He ground his teeth; it was almost too much.
“Gloomsville,” the Shadow said. “The outskirts. Find the Vampires, and you will find him.”
Somehow, Frank knew that’s where it would be before the Shadow said it.
His father had told him something that had stuck in his brain almost forty years after he said it during one Hunt. They were in the woods in search for a pair of Witch sisters who were so sick of persecution, they’d taken it upon themselves to use their magic to become Mortal. Which was all fine and good until Frank’s father had found out that particular brand of magic required the blood of a pure Mortal, and purest of Mortals are easily found in the playgrounds or the daycares. Virgins. Purebloods.
Kids.
Frank remembered looking upon that kindergarten class. At the impressionable age of twelve, that image had stuck with him all these years. The blood. The melted ABC blocks. The teacher’s carcass strewn near the back door…and the front…and her head over by the kitchen counter. He had nearly puked, but couldn’t risk it in front of his father.
His dad had looked at him then, eyes studying the sweat beaded on his forehead in tiny droplets, and the pale complexion, hunched over posture, and he said: Chin up, Franky. Shit only gets worse from here.
And he was right. Forty years later and his father’s wisdom never expired.
Hell had its claws firmly in place of Gloomsville’s gullet, and Hell was not something Frank wanted to deal with, something he wasn’t prepared to deal with. But somehow he knew he’d have to if he wanted to get revenge for Travis. Wanted to gut the Demon who’d gutted his son.
Those eyes. Black pools submerged in piss-yellow.
Shit only gets worse from here.
That night, looking onto the electrical dark form of energy, Frank had made up his mind. He wouldn’t die unless the Demon died with him.
“The forest. The Vampire’s Haven,” the Shadow said, before vanishing with a splash.
Frank fiddled with the light switch, yanked the cord down nearly hard enough to rip it from its socket. Still, the light flooded the room, and the stain of blood on the hardwood was still there, except it shimmered like flames dancing on crystal.
The Shadow was gone. And Frank sat on the bed in empty silence. A thought rolled in his mind over and over again: Shit only gets worse from here. The forest. Find the Vampires and you will find him.
He’d fallen asleep easily enough after that, not bothering to gather his blanket or his pillow. The nightmares hadn’t left with the Shadow. And he dreamt of a huge oak tree burning with Hellfire, and a river of blood flowing near its roots.
Frank smiled as it washed over his boots.
CHAPTER 5
“The funeral will be at sundown,” the King said.
Harold knelt at the threshold of the door, a few feet behind Sahara who also knelt.
The trek through the forest was something of a wonder to Harold, having seen The Blair Witch Project at the height of its popularity in the late 90’s, barely a teenager at the time, the utter horror of the movie had never left him. And in the forest with all the dead trees, gnarled branches, and the eerie quiet, that movie flooded back into his brain like war flashbacks and he nearly had to stop and turn back around. Until he remembered how there were a group of Vampires mourning a dead Vampire who he had basically killed. Suddenly Harold didn’t want to head back that way anymore.
They had come upon a tree in the middle of small clearing, much bigger than the rest and much healthier, too. It seemed to stretch up into the black clouds beyond the branches as far as the eye could see like a great tower or a city skyscraper, reminding him of his home, his lost city, Gloomsville. Sahara had walked straight up to the tree and looked like a dwarf when next to it.
The wooden grooves in the base of the trunk reminded Harold of the way a candle looks after the wax has melted and hardened, seemingly deforming the thing. Except with the tree, it was about a million times larger than any candle he could picture in his head.
Sahara’s hand brushed the wood, searching, until it had stopped in between a crevasse closer to the bottom. She looked over her shoulder, and smiled. “Watch this,” she said, like a child ready to show off a new trick they learned on the playground. Then her hand had erupted into a sea of fire. Smoke clouds funneled up around her face, but she showed no signs of pain despite the smell of burnt wood and singed flesh — a smell Harold knew all too well. And soon the front of the tree showed the faintest outline of a large, looming door, glowing with the same fire that had engulfed Sahara’s hand.
Harold could do nothing but stand there with wide eyes and a shaky frame. Still, part of his mind told him he shouldn’t be shocked at all. He’d been to Hell, fought Demons, Vampires, watched a Wizard get murdered, was friends with a Witch, oh, and yeah, had a goddamned sword shoot from his forearm more than once. And that’s not all of it. Why would a hidden door in the base of gigantic tree shock him?
He didn’t know why, but he knew that in the back of his mind, where the darkness loomed and rolled over his brain like lava from a
volcano, that he was not in the right place. Knew he didn’t belong there amongst the Vampires, amongst a Realm Protector.
But where did he belong?
The duo had entered the tree and were graced by rows of endless stairs, only lit by torches on the walls — walls that weren’t made of wood, but rather something more organic. Harold made sure not to touch anything.
Now as he stared at the man they called the King, Harold swallowed hard. The sight of this creature unnerved him. He was a very large man, the type of man who’d build his throne in an equally large tree, with skin a dusty shade of milk and eyes that sagged lower than his loose jowls. Thunderbolts of wrinkles zagged their way through his forehead and near the corners of his lips. Lips, that were the color of blood, and had Harold questioning whether the man had put on a bunch of makeup when he woke up. That was, if he woke up.
The daily routine of Vampires were still a little hazy to Harold. Yet things just kept getting weirder and weirder.
“You may rise,” the King said.
He sat in a wooden throne, which matched the same color and texture as the tree they were in. His stomach rolled over the arm rests of the large chair. Behind him was a wall made up of chalky gray bricks. A banner with the front of a bat, wings outstretched, and the points at the apex of each wing matching the same shade of red that dribbled from its fangs, hung overhead, somehow rustling in the still, earthy air of the underground palace.
Harold stood up after Sahara did, fingers clasped behind his back.
The King rolled his hand out in front of him so his palm faced up towards a ceiling that didn’t seem to be there, seemed to stretch on forever. Harold had begun to feel small again, a feeling he’d also grown used to.
“To what do I owe the pleasure of housing a Realm Protector and…a corpse?” the King said in a voice that sounded a lot like a man spitting out disagreeable food. His gaze found Harold’s eyes. And Harold couldn’t help but shy away from the man’s stare. It felt like looking into a dying sun. There was chaos in the King’s look — death, blood.
“This is Harold Storm,” Sahara said.
The King stopped looking at Harold, blinked slow, and seemed to shrink a couple hundred pounds as he scrambled up deeper into his pointed throne, almost as if his mass wasn’t swallowing up the poor chair, but it swallowed him up instead.
“The Harold Storm,” the King asked, incredulous, voice shaky.
Sahara nodded.
A feeling of fear struck Harold’s gut. What kind of rumors were floating around already after what happened in the terminal station? Had he been deemed a savior, or a war criminal for failing to finish the Shadow Eaters and nail the Portal to Hell shut?
“I’ve heard pleasant things about you, young Storm.”
He sighed.
“Haven’t heard a thing about you,” Harold replied.
“Good. That is my intention,” the King said, smiling. “Our little band of Vampires like to keep to the Shadows — ”
Shadows. The Shadows. Come with us, Harold. Join me and together we can conquer this puny Realm.
Harold stood slack-jawed, staring at the King, but not seeing him. His mind was elsewhere, drifting amongst the stars. A black tidal wave of Shadows rolled over him, took him. He screamed. There or here? He wasn’t sure.
“ — Without the security of the forest, we’d be exposed to all types of threats.” The King continued, plump skin shaking as he spoke. Harold hadn’t screamed, at least neither the King or Sahara had given him any inclination that he had. So he nodded with agreement, trying to look as interested as possible, no matter how uninterested he actually was. And he couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness, of someone calling to him far, far away. That dark voice practically begging him. But for what?
Looking down at his hands, he noticed how shaky they were, so he stuffed them inside of the pocket of his trench coat. Except, his fingers poked out of the bottom of the liner. He’d been to Hell and back and somehow part of his mind thought he’d still be fashionable. At least he had the hat, no matter how tattered it was. At least it hid part of his disfigured, burnt face.
“Is it true?” the King asked.
Harold didn’t say anything, but felt both of their eyes fixed on them.
“Is what true?” he finally asked.
The King’s face tightened and he cleared his throat. “I know you are a Realm Protector, young man, however in my kingdom, you shall address me as ‘sir’ or ‘Your Royal Highness,’ understood?”
Harold rolled his eyes, almost not meaning to, but the way the King spoke had left a bad taste in his mouth. He turned to Sahara. “Why are we here? I don’t want to have to put up with this bullshit,” he said. “There’s a Portal to close and I fear that if we don’t do it, then a lot worse will happen than me getting my hand sliced off and a city destroyed.”
The whites of Sahara’s eyes showed in the dimly lit throne room. And she dropped her chin to her chest in something of a bow towards the King.
“Forgive my friend,” she said. “He, as well as I, have just been through a most tumultuous time.”
The King waved his hand. “Your apology is accepted, fair Sahara. I am aware of the troubles you speak, and I know you speak true about the stress placed upon young Storm, but still lessons are not learned unless taught the right way — ” He smiled harshly. “ — The hard way.”
Sahara shook her head fast, stepping back a few feet away from the King.
And Harold could sense the tension in the air, the uncomfortableness. Something bubbled on the King’s skin, shifted like a cat chasing a bug underneath a bed sheet. Harold found himself backing away too, until he nudged into Sahara and her hands found his shoulder, steadying him.
The blubber of the King tightened. His figure seemed to expand, covering the flames, shrouding the duo in darker darkness.
“Please,” Sahara said.
But the King’s eyes had already turned to red pits of fire, and the wings exploded out of his back, stretching from one wall to the other. His hands changed to claws; the blubbery mouth shrunk away until the lips were gone and all that showed were large fangs the size of two Deathblades hanging from his mouth.
Harold wished the Wolves would’ve howled then, wished for his own blade to defend himself from whatever abomination advanced on them.
“Use your blade!” he shouted at Sahara.
Sahara hadn’t done much but stand there frozen in the moment. Was it fear? Or had her body just completely shut down from the venom coursing through her. She didn’t respond. No blade came out. Instead she collapsed to the earthy floor on her knees. And she threw her arms at the monster’s feet, bowing.
Harold could only watch with his face snarled up. How pathetic. Something the old Harold would’ve done.
“Please, Your Royal Highness, please spare our measly lives!”
Her hand shot out to snag Harold’s pant leg and her uncanny strength won and the grassy carpet greeted him head on.
“Beg,” she said out of the side of her mouth.
The King — or the horrible bat creature towering over them — laughed like thunder, his voice somehow many decibels deeper. “Now, my friends that’s more like it.”
Harold’s arms began to fan the scaly, talon-like feet. A finger brushed against the thing’s razor sharp nails that protruded from the toes. He knew his life might be in jeopardy. Even if he had the key still embedded into his arm and Charlie had never gotten ahold of it, he still would’ve been in danger. Because the supernatural — whether it be the Hellblade of a Shadow Eater, the fangs of a Vampire, or the claws of some ginormous bat freak — had a way of being detrimental to Harold’s health. And now, without the key in his system, he was basically a sitting duck. A free meal set out on a silver platter for the King, who was no longer the King.
But then the torches on the walls cast a hideous Shadow, one Harold wore like a blanket or a heavy winter coat. The sound of ripping flesh and a slight squeal from the creature b
eat at his eardrums. And the coldness of the large Shadow shrunk over him. It left his body, chilled him to his bones.
The King no longer looked deformed or any more unholy than he already had. Now he was just the fat, frumpy Vampire King from before.
“There may be hope for you two, yet,” the thing in the throne said in a small and tired voice, smiling wide.
“Oh, thank you, oh gracious King,” Sahara said.
They were both still on their knees.
Harold shook his head. What in the world was going on? he thought.
“Now what will you have from me, Protector?” the King asked.
“I require your knowledge of the Shadow Eaters. Without Felix here to guide me, I fear I am of no use to my friend Harold Storm and the darkness that is invading his mind.”
“What — I’m fine,” Harold said.
Sahara ignored his voice, then waved him off.
“I fear he is Electus. I fear the Prophecy is true,” she continued. “And I fear the venom inside of him is going to turn him the wrong way.”
The King raised his eyebrows until the wrinkled mess of skin on his forehead reached his hairline. “Well, if that is the case, dear Sahara, only time will tell.”
“Time we do not have,” she said. And after the King cocked his head at her, tapping his stubby fingers on the wooden armchair, she said, “My humble King,” as if not to risk the bat-creature’s reappearance.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harold said again. He had turned to face Sahara, yet she stood straight, staring at the King. “I feel fine. I mean I cut off my own damn hand and somehow it’s still there. I’m a little burnt, but I’m already getting used to that.” When she didn’t answer or even acknowledge him, he threw his arms up in disgust, said: “Screw this. I’m not even a Protector anymore, and don’t try to lie to me with that ‘He’s the One’ bullshit. I’m nobody special and you know it,” he pointed to the King, “and this fat sack of shit knows it too. I tried it out and only managed to screw things up even more. I mean have you seen what’s happening to Gloomsville? That place is going to Hell fast. And that’s on — ”
Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) Page 3