It was the voice of the Wolves. A collective chanting.
Blood.
Protector’s blood.
Only your blood, Harold, shall douse the flames. Extinguish the fire.
They howled high and strong. The tops of the pine trees shook away their dusty snow in his mind, and then Harold was transported back into the sickening coliseum, blazing inferno that grew stronger with each saw of Beth’s blade, each layer of skin cut away, each inch cut closer to the black piece of metal that would unlock the Dark One — Satan, himself.
He pressed the release button on the hilt. Pitch black metal shrieked as it left the flashlight-shaped handle.
They say your life flashes before your eyes at the point of a near-death experience, and there in Hell for Harold that could’ve very well been true, but knowing what would happen once he lopped off this left hand and the key was free of his body, nothing flashed. But not because the dying cliché wasn’t true, but because his life was nothing.
Until now.
He aimed his wrist towards the fire. The Hellblade sliced through the air. Flesh popped with a sickening hiss, bones cracked, tendons snapped. He screamed — oh, how he screamed.
And the blood poured from the wound, red Mortal blood intertwined with the venomous black gore. He let it rush from his body like a waterfall, let it hit the flames, heard them sizzle, saw the black smoke before it blurred his vision.
He was in the dirt now, crawling through the bones. The glowing Demonic eyes fading. He dropped the Hellblade, let it thump into the graveyard of a million lost souls.
Sahara’s flesh felt so cold, so clammy, so near death as Harold’s right hand clasped around her bloody wrist.
Beth screamed; the Demons shrieked.
Then, like the groans of a collapsing house, the vision of the Hell Realm toppled over, and there was nothing…nothing, besides the warm blackness of a sure and peaceful death.
CHAPTER 31
Drops of liquid sizzled, and steam rose from his skin. He opened his eyes to see the last wisps of a faint vapor floating up and vanishing into the foreground of the vaulted ceiling.
Heavenly architecture, he thought. Even in Heaven they build roofs over our heads.
But where had the rain come from? He had felt the drops, hadn’t he? The last thing he wanted in death was more questions. That was not how it was supposed to be. You die, then you get answers.
But he awoke with no pain, that’s all that mattered. No more pain for the rest of time. He brought his right hand up to his face, and though the lightning of the Heaven he was in seemed sparse, he could still catch the red and black grooves in his skin, the scars, the soft tissue, the blisters, and he felt queasy. What a way to enter a god’s Kingdom, making friends by puking all over his new marble floor.
He sat up, his vision adjusting. And softly, under his breath, he said: “No.”
“He’s up. Roman, he’s up,” a voice said. Soon, Sahara filled his vision. Black smears of ash coated her face. Blacker droplets of blood dotted her t-shirt.
The Vampire groaned.
Harold’s head snapped to look behind him, and he saw the Vampire leaning up against the burnt wood of a support beam, his gaunt face in the black woman’s lap, her arm draped around his shoulders.
The teacher from the terminal.
Harold couldn’t focus on anything, but inhaled deeply and smelled something that reminded him of a freshly doused camp fire. Then he saw the clear tube lodged into the vein of his left arm. The same vein they’d use to draw blood from him had he ever donated.
Harold’s jaw dropped open as his eyes ran the length of his skin — his burnt, ashy skin — because his left hand was there, still intact. He wiggled the fingers, watched the tendons and crisped flesh dance.
How? he thought.
His head was so empty. Nothing there but the dull thud of blood pounding his ear drums.
No Wolves; no howls.
His wide eyes scanned the surroundings. He was back in the terminal now, and smoke wafted from pieces of blackened wood and scorched metal. Everything looked damp. Bodies had been dragged off to the side, stacked neatly in a row, their faces up.
“I’m…I’m not dead?” he asked. “But my hand. I-I cut it off.”
Sahara flashed a wild look at him — one that read worry and annoyance. She bit her lip and looked to the draining Vampire, jaw muscles flexed.
“Okay, Roman! That’s enough. Pull the plug — pull it!” she said.
The black woman next to him visibly shook, and an unsteady hand reached out to the clear tube, ripped it out of the skin of the Vampire. She grimaced, got up and frantically walked away.
A spike of pain ran through Harold and he grunted, lost his vision for a second, but like a minor speed bump, it passed in the blink of an eye. A stretch of open road unfolded in his mind, miles and miles. Life ahead of him.
Roman’s eyes drooped, cheekbones stood out like the points of a blade. Harold was reminded of the security guard who had the life sucked out of him back at the blood bank, except Roman was one step beyond how Ramirez looked, one foot already in the coffin.
“There…there…” Roman said, his voice raspy and weak, fading. “That sh-sh-should do it, S-Storm.”
Sahara cradled the Vampire, his full head of slicked-back, black hair sprawled out on the white bandage wrapped around her arm where Beth had tried to saw the key out of her, which had felt so long ago — a distant memory, another life.
A tear fell from Sahara’s face, landed with an audible splash on Roman’s leather jacket.
Harold knew he should’ve been sad, or at least grateful for the Vampire’s sacrifice, but he wasn’t. Instead, he found himself standing up on shaky legs, felt his skin prickle, his teeth bare like the Wolves that had vanished in his head, and he advanced on Roman.
Why had he been given another chance when he was nothing but a failure?
“Why, you idiot? Why? Why? I’m not worth it!” he shouted, voice echoing in the wide expanse of the terminal station.
Sahara’s Deathblade exploded out in a flash, blocked the Vampire.
“Step back,” she said.
Harold had no choice, but the rage wasn’t gone yet.
“I’m a nobody. I’m nothing. You hear me? Nothing. You could’ve done a better job, Roman. Why? Goddamn it, why?”
Roman wheezed. “I-I am no Harold Storm,” he said. “No Protector. You-you are a better man than I’ll ever be. I am-am not…T-T-The One.”
His chest rose once more before the gurgling noises rumbled from deep within his throat. His head rolled in Sahara’s lap, eyes — glossy, dead eyes — looked up to the Heavens.
Sahara breathed unsteadily, then she let out a sob. A crippling sob, held Roman close to her, kissed his forehead.
Harold slunk low. And as he fell to his knees, the wave of guilt struck him like a lightning bolt. He had sobbed then, too.
Once the duo had composed themselves, and the fire department had finished clearing the terminal, Harold and Sahara moved Roman’s body out of the building, dried tears in their eyes. Eyes not the same shade, but a little bit darker. Even in the low light Harold could see something off about them. But he said nothing because neither had spoken until later when Sahara broke the silence by the Vampire’s abandoned sports car with a smoking city landscape rising high behind her.
“I’m glad you came for me,” she said in a flat tone. “But there’s still work to be done, Realms to protect.”
He let the silence between them drag on a little longer.
Then she spoke again: “The Portal to Hell has been opened.”
Harold nodded, “And now we have to nail it shut.”
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About the Author
Spencer DeVeau lives in Ohio with six dogs and one cat. He primarily writes dark stories, but sometimes he’ll surprise himself with a happy ending or two. His go-to genres are fantasy and science fiction.
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Hellbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 1) Page 19