Harold may not have been the greatest man in the history of the world, but he wasn’t that bad. Without her, where would he have been? He wasn’t sure. But even if he never met her and he never got in this mess, never had his soul nearly stolen or killed a Vampire, he couldn’t lie, it was the most alive he’d felt since coming out of the womb and that memory was long gone.
Charlie laughed, torn between who to kill first. “She said ‘See you in Hell,’ can you believe that? Like she’s some kind of action hero with a snappy one -liner.” He looked over to her, cupping his free hand around his mouth, “Well newsflash! You can only say a snappy one-liner if you know you’re going to beat the bad guy.”
“Leave her alone,” Harold said.
“Aw, protective, are we? Well you shouldn’t be. The bitch is anything but in need of protection.”
Harold flexed his hand, tried to calm his heart rate — nothing. Pure internal silence.
Then Charlie’s voice broke the silence: “Way I see it, you gotta dispel of the biggest threat first.”
His heavy footsteps banged against the floor in a show of arrogance. It reminded Harold of the way the black hat wearing cowboy walks to a shootout, spurs clanking, ugly mug bent on killing the good guy.
“And since you’re nothing to me but an emotional fella who can’t even use the powers the key gives you…”
He raised the Hellblade, did a practice stab above Sahara’s heart.
Her eyes fluttered, but she wasn’t conscious. Hardly breathing, chest rising and falling.
Harold’s arm shot out. “No, don’t.” Then he took a shaky step forward, seeing Slink halfway poked out underneath the coffee table. But Harold was too late and his size twelve boot came down on one of the poor Hellhound’s paws.
Slink shrieked, the sound sharp, piercing Harold’s ears. And it was enough to distract Charlie from skewering Sahara, enough for him to snap his head at the two idiots and lower his weapon. The Hellhound’s howls were answered. For a second, he thought the Wolves were there, surrounding him, protecting their kin, but they weren’t. It was all in his head.
Then the words danced on his tongue once more: “Circumventa Lupis!”
Harold’s own Deathblade extended. He yelled. The sound of more fabric ripping echoed off of the walls as the Persian rug split near the fringes. Harold’s hand pulsated, blazed with pain.
He looked down at the glimmering silver, smiled. Yeah, he was in a lot of agony, but he wasn’t completely defenseless now. He could at least go out with a fight. His eyes followed the length of the sharpness, and he had been so enamored by the miracle that he hadn’t noticed Charlie’s menacing frame advancing on him.
The Shadow Eater’s grunt snapped him out of his daydream. Then the sound of air whistling as the Hellblade swung down on him. He rolled out of the way, closer to the door, and Charlie’s blade struck the rug. When it did, the fringes caught flame and ate up the rest of the rug in a blaze of orange and red.
Harold popped himself up and ran in front of Sahara, blade raised in a defensive stance. Though he wasn’t sure if it was really a proper stance, he just echoed what he’d seen in old Japanese sword-fighting films and Star Wars.
Charlie turned his ugly head, beads of sweat dotted his flesh.
Can’t take the heat, then get out of the kitchen. Better yet, go back to Hell.
“How sweet. Protecting your lover,” Charlie said.
Harold grunted. Not answering. His body was so tense, he thought he might be able to deflect a gunshot if it hit him the right way.
“Such a shame for me to come between lovers.”
Then his blade swung, and Harold met it with his own. The metal rang out. His arms vibrated from the impact, he bit his tongue, feeling the warm blood fill his mouth. Charlie swept his blade away in a downward arc. It would’ve flew out of Harold’s slippery hands had the damn thing not been connected to him.
Slink was growling and barking like a rabid dog. He’d start running at Charlie, then chicken out from the flames. Flames, which spread to the curtains, dripped down the walls, caught the couch on fire. A thick layer of black smoke formed, rising to eye level, making his lungs reject the poisonous air with coughing fits.
Charlie’s dark blade would’ve been camouflaged in the smoke had the light of the fire not been glinting off of the metal. Still, Harold hadn’t seen it coming, only saw the Shadow Eater’s arms raise, parting the smoke like some kind of bizzaro Moses.
The blades kissed again.
Behind Harold, Sahara started coughing, whimpering. Still unconscious.
His mother always told him to swing for the fences and since he’d never been much of a baseball player, he’d never grasped that concept until now. The sword would be his baseball bat and he meant to knock Charlie over the black fences of Hell.
Smoke in his eyes, trapped in his lungs, he took a deep breath, mustering up all the strength he had left in his system. He swung. Hard. As if he was trying to shatter a rock wall with a sledgehammer. In the split second before his Deathblade met Charlie, he saw the look in the Shadow Eater’s eyes. The blooming flowers of hate in his irises, rolling over and changing color from black to the same color of the fire surrounding them. There was no fear in those eyes. Only arrogance — a cocky, self confidence that deserved to be cut out of the creature with a rusty hacksaw.
Charlie never wavered, never hesitated, never met his doom.
CHAPTER 19
The fire had died in a blink of Charlie’s eye, sucked from the room with an industrial sized vacuum cleaner, leaving the walls permanently marked with black soot, the couch a blob of melted fabric, and the Persian rug non-existent. Even the smoke had disappeared, seemingly vanished into thinner air. The two fighters stood there amidst the chaos with their blades locked, neither of them gaining ground on the other.
Charlie’s jaw flexed, his teeth bared. Harold’s eyes narrowed to slits and his arms shook.
“Looks like we’re in a bit of a stalemate,” Charlie said through gritted teeth.
Harold didn’t know how it had happened, or why, but he saw the flames blazing inside of the Shadow Eater’s pupils. Not a reflection. It was as if his blood were replaced by the fire. And he hoped that things from Hell didn’t possess the ability to blast it from their eye sockets.
Harold pushed harder, but the blades wouldn’t budge. His head swam, trying to reach out to Slink for backup, but the hound only cowered behind the ruined, smoking mess of the couch.
“Way I see it, one of of us is going to die,” Harold said.
Swing for the fences.
“Hard to kill a man who’s already died, isn’t it?” Charlie asked.
Harold exhaled, let his body go slack, and dropped to the floor as the momentum of Charlie’s lumbering frame toppled over him as he curled up into a human boulder. The Shadow Eater flew into the drywall, thumping an already loosened panel. His blade withdrew back into the cylindrical flashlight holder from before, and he shook his head, looked at Harold with a dazed expression. Though the fire never extinguished inside of his eyes.
Harold didn’t take the opportunity. Didn’t stab the Shadow Eater right there, mainly out of fear. He didn’t have enough energy inside of him to go through another battle. Could hardly raise his blade; it felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Instead he hobbled over to Sahara where she sat propped up against the opposite wall. He dragged his blade on the floor, watching Charlie out of the corner of his eye.
Sahara stirred, opened her eyes a couple times, blinked heavily, and whimpered. The way Harold saw it, if he could get her up and fighting again, now that he had his blade out and ready, two against one would go a lot smoother than Shadow Eater versus exhausted newbie. Harold might be able to keep his life. But then his mind shot back to the other night when the female Shadow Eater had burned him with the Spellfire. Where had she been? Were they not important enough for Charlie to need backup?
Probably not.
But he didn’t think tha
t was the correct answer. Charlie was, after all, a creature of the Underworld, of Hell, and he doubted they’d be the type of people you trusted with a spare key to your house. Maybe he wanted all of the glory for himself. That glimmering piece of hope flashed in his mind, that the female Shadow Eater didn’t know Charlie was here and wouldn’t be coming as backup anytime soon.
He reached an arm out to Sahara, to pull her up, shake her, try to rouse her back to consciousness.
Then the flames exploded from the floor in front of him, roasting his arm like a hot dog over a campfire. He screamed, the sound catching in his throat and resembling a buzzsaw more than a human being. He tumbled backwards, landed on his ass.
The fire stretched to the ceiling like it were another wall appearing out of thin air, put up by evil gods. It divided him from Sahara and the Shadow Eater. And Charlie stood then.
Harold couldn’t make out Charlie’s face from behind the sheet of flames, but he knew if he saw the creature’s eyes they’d be empty — somehow.
Sahara stirred again before Charlie was on her. He swung the hilt of his blade against her face. And Harold heard the knock over the incessant roaring of the flames.
How long could it burn? The fire had to die sometime.
His freshly wounded arm throbbed, but he paid no notice, only gripped the ruined rug’s ashes. He squeezed them so hard that they practically turned to a ball of coal in his fist. He stood up, got in a position like an Olympic track runner, ready to take off when the wall of flames died. Ready to rip off the Shadow Eater’s face and wear it on every Halloween night.
“You’re stronger and smarter than you look, Harold!” Charlie said. “Much too strong for me. You see I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather. And I know what will fix me right up.” His shadow motioned to the slackened outline of Sahara slumped against the wall like a pile of dirty laundry. “I know you Mortals say chicken noodle soup is good for the soul, but down in Hell, we have a different saying. A soul is good for the soul.” He laughed.
Harold flexed his knuckles, practically growled like Slink was apt to do, though the poor Hellhound slouched beside him under the cover of a pile of charred wood with his ears folded down far enough to cover his eyes.
The shadow moved towards the flames. Any closer and he’d be liable to catch on fire.
“I’d love to stay and chat, but really, I must go. My people will be wondering where I’ve been off to. If you need me, or wish to carry on in our lovely duel, you’ll know where to find me, though I can’t promise your girl will still be breathing.”
His finger poked through the fire. One dot next to another dot, then a curved line under the dots.
“One down, one more to go,” Charlie said.
Harold jumped at the finger, aiming to chop it off or at least grab it. But just as his hand closed around Charlie’s bony digit, he disappeared, the wall of fire with him. All that was left was a burning smiley face inches away from Harold’s own. A wonderful juxtaposition of the way Harold felt and the way his face was screwed up in disgust, anger, and sadness.
The floating smile fizzled away.
Harold dropped to his knees, not noticing the audible creak from the floor, from the possibly loose boards that could send him careening down to the next floor and with enough momentum, possibly the basement.
Finally, Slink came out of his hiding place. Harold could’ve sworn the hound looked slumped, and he quickly matched the hound’s posture.
Sahara was gone, and Hell was just one key away from spreading its Kingdom to earth.
Harold left before the cops and the fire department made it there. He was sure to rummage through the old Wizard’s wardrobe before he left, knowing the town would be plastered with his face. Mess with one citizen, mess with them all seemed to be the motto around the city. And he couldn’t fight again. Not yet.
He found a fedora-looking cap, one he could tip over his brow without looking like he was deliberately hiding himself from the public.
Felix had a never ending supply of trench coats in all different colors. Black, gray, a velvety-red, even a camouflaged one. In the end, Harold settled for the black because it was the same faded shade as the hat. God strike him down if he didn’t look fashionable. He’d also settled for a new pair of pants, a little too long and a tad too loose, but nothing a belt couldn’t fix — these a shade of ashy gray.
From a distance, he looked like a private investigator, or one of those creeps that camped out in the mall parking lots at night, waiting for the perfect employee to walk out to their car so he could flash his junk hidden underneath the coat and bolt into the darkness.
On the exit steps as the fire alarm rang out like a shrieking monkey, an old woman with an arm load of cats and dreads tight enough to be mistaken for black ropes passed by, then a long-haired college-aged kid with eyes much redder than what a small fire could do to them. The three-hundred-dollars-richer bum was no longer pissed-drunk on his ass in the stairwell, either. Harold didn’t blame him. He would’ve been at the bar, buying the whole place drinks for the rest of the night — getting pissed-drunk with style.
No one was in a rush. And it reminded Harold of the way practice fire drills were in high school: everyone lethargic yet smiling because they were able to get out of class for a few minutes even if it was below freezing outside, some hoping the damn school would actually catch on fire, just as Harold was sure some of the tenants shared the same feeling about the apartment complex.
Outside, Slink was at his heels, living up to his name and slinking along on the city sidewalk. Before turning down Broadview and snaking his way towards Chestnut and Deacon street, he looked towards the building again. The flashing red and white lights spiced the place up, but looking at it, he realized how empty it would be no matter how many people occupied it. Because Sahara was no longer there.
He didn’t have a plan. But that was okay because he didn’t have a plan in life either.
So he did what any fellow wanted by the Demons of Hell would do. He went to his favorite bar and planned on ordering enough alcohol to heal his insides, and hopefully enough to heal him on the outside, too.
CHAPTER 20
Chet didn’t recognize him at first. The old bartender did what everyone that he had passed on the street did — gawked. Stared like he was a goddamn flaming unicorn.
“What’ll it be?” Chet asked. He stopped cleaning the pint glass in his hand, and held the rag inside of it. “Just gonna let you know we don’t allow dogs in here. Even cute ones like that.”
Harold hesitated. Then looked to Slink, who circled around the legs of a stool for a few laps before settling down and closing his eyes, immune to the noise and the people. Numb. Like Harold.
“Whiskey, straight up.”
He sat down at the stool next to the one Slink slept under, leaned an elbow on the bar, looking towards the heavy, windowless door, and the crack of streetlight leaking in.
Chet reached for a glass under the bar. He didn’t take his eyes off of Harold. And the way he looked at him said he probably thought Harold didn’t have the money to pay, let alone leave a decent tip.
“Not in one of those dinky glasses either. Give me one of the big motherfuckers,” Harold said like he had said so many times before to the bartender.
The glass in Chet’s left hand slipped out, the rag with it. It didn’t break, just bounced off the polished mahogany of the bar and rolled down near the basket of old peanuts to Harold’s right. Hardly making any noise.
The old bartender’s face wrinkled up even more and his eyes couldn’t have been wider.
“H-Harry?” he asked. “I heard you died.” The sternness in his voice that said the bar didn’t allow dogs had completely vanished.
“Wish that were so,” Harold answered, pulling off his hat. The low light of the bar did its best to cover up Harold’s monstrous features, but even Chet still gasped.
“You-you look — ”
“Horrible, I know. Just pour me
my drink, old man so I can try to forget about it.”
Chet bent down, pulled a large, dusty bottle of whiskey missing the label from a shelf behind him, and set it on the bar. Two tall glasses followed.
There was a low murmur of conversation throughout the place, mainly from the flat screen televisions all playing a different sport, the main one broadcasting an NFL game that everyone but Harold cared about. Hell, he couldn’t have named one of the players, even if he’d read the names stitched on their jerseys.
“Two?” Harold said. He pointed to the second glass.
“Well, I figured I’m gonna need a drink if you’re gonna tell me your story.”
He reached down under the bar again, and a second identical bottle of whiskey emerged. “And since you look like that, I imagine we’ll possibly need a third bottle.”
Chet draped the rag over his shoulder and placed his hands on the wooden bar. He leaned closer, egging Harold on.
“Not much to tell, really.”
Chet shook his head. “You look like you’re hiding some pain. Don’t lie to me, son.”
Harold motioned to his half-burnt face, like he was showcasing a prize on some network game show. “No shit,” he said.
“No. Behind your eyes. Like something beyond what a little bit of plastic surgery could fix is bothering you.”
Harold shifted on the stool. He’d never pay for a therapist, not if Chet stuck around. He’d only pay for the drinks. Somehow, Chet always knew, always was able to look past the now and dig deeper. Harold hated it. But who else could he turn to? Not Marcy. Never could. He hardly talked to his parents, and the only other friends he had worked in the cab company and barely spoke fluent English. Yeah, it had to be Chet, or a Hellhound that didn’t talk back.
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