Death Bound_An Urban Fantasy Series

by Justin Sloan

  The surge of demons appeared like an explosion of fire. All Nora and Rohan could do was stand there, holding each other and shielding their faces. He felt her energy pushing back against the demons, and put his entire being into focusing on his own powers.

  If they didn’t make it through this, nobody would survive the next few days. Altemus would set the demons loose on the world of humans, destroying their world to ensure he never lost his Anne again.

  Something had to be done, and now.

  In his journey through Russia and Central Asia, he had used his powers and controlled the spirits of the dead. It was all about his emotions! He had dug deep inside to tap into his necromancy powers.

  He knew what he had to do. He still wasn’t sure it was going to work, but it was better than cowering in fear.

  Spinning Nora to face him, he pressed his lips firmly against hers and closed his eyes, focusing on the moment.

  Nothing else mattered. Her lips were warm against his. Her soft hands held his face, and he could almost hear her heartbeat, pounding, pounding, POUNDING… And then their eyes were open, and they were staring at each other in surprise as they felt their power growing.

  Let’s do this, her thoughts said, and he heard them clearly in his own mind. He smiled, hand still locked in hers, and together they turned to see a wall of demons and fire, curving around them. The wall curved upwards and over their heads, horrible faces scratching at the invisible barrier, screaming without sound.

  And then Rohan pushed out—the energy was like nothing he had ever felt. Not tingling like before, but a flowing river of warmth coursing through his limbs. His energy connected with Nora’s, and they threw the demons back with a wave of purple light that rippled across the ruins.

  The demons vanished. And at the same time, Altemus and Anne were knocked back so that they fell to the ground. Altemus dropped the tablet. The orb fell out and rolled into the grass.

  Altemus’s spirit sprung up, immediately searching for the tablet and orb, but Rohan didn’t give him time. He was already charging toward the items, which lay just a few feet ahead of him.

  Suddenly, something hit him and he fell, sprawling across the grass.

  A warmth came over Rohan, and he realized it was blood, flowing down his side. Only then did he see the arm holding the knife that was in his side. He turned with a grunt of pain, and froze in confusion. Tess was standing over him, a fierce look in her eyes—then it hit him… Altemus must have taken over her body and caught up with him.

  Now the pain came, shooting up from the knife and threatening to take over Rohan’s consciousness.

  He tried to focus on his powers, but nothing happened. His arms shook as he pushed himself up, but then he stumbled back and collapsed, his hand on the knife blade. The hills and spirits—everything around him—was spinning.

  “Back off,” Nora said. Rohan turned to her, relieved to see she had the tablet in one hand, the orb in the other. Anne had taken over Beverly’s body, but Nora had her pinned down.

  Anne’s spirit floated out of Beverly’s body and flew at Nora, but Nora simply frowned and a wave of energy pushed the spirit back.

  “If I throw this tablet,” Nora said, her voice deep and threatening, “it’ll break, and this will all be over.”

  “You wouldn’t do it,” Altemus said, a cautious glance toward Rohan to confirm his doubts. “Because then there’s no stopping what I’ve begun. Without that tablet, these spirits are stuck here and will haunt these lands forever.

  Altemus laughed then, and took a step toward Nora. “And does it really matter, anyway?” He gestured at himself, in Tess’s body. “I could douse myself in flames right now, and it wouldn’t matter. There are plenty of weak-minded people whose bodies readily await our possession.”

  He was probably right. But instead of replying, Rohan took advantage of the distraction. “As long as you’re not in Tess’s and Bev’s bodies,” he said, and then he leapt up and placed both hands on Tess’s forehead. Focusing his energy on the spirit leaving, he imagined a massive wave of positive energy flowing in to take its place.

  Anne screamed with rage as she circled above the two, but Nora kept her back. Tess was strong with the power of Altemus’s spirit, but Rohan wasn’t fighting with physical strength. Lucky for him, his emotional strength was at an all-time high, and he pushed out so that Altemus’s spirit was flung up to join Anne.

  Altemus’s and Anne’s spirits circled Rohan and Nora as the bodies of Tess and Beverly dropped to the ground, unconscious. Rohan pulled Beverly away from the drop-off, eyes on the spirits of Anne and Altemus and armed with a spiritual push to keep them away.

  “You can’t stop us,” Altemus shrieked. “It’s already begun!”

  The two spirits swirled together and dove for the tablet, which Nora had dropped when catching Tess. Where was the orb? Rohan spun, searching, and then spotted it. He fell upon it as the wave of the spirits’ energy swept over him.

  He rolled over to see the spirits flying into the air, the tablet flashing in the rising sun as it spun off into the distance.

  “They… took the tablet,” Nora said in disbelief. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not important,” Rohan said. He took her hand in his and watched them vanish from sight into the orange and pink sky. “We’ll find them, somehow.”

  “Or they’ll find us,” she said.

  “Either way, we’ll be ready.”

  A cough drew their attention to the ground. Beverly was sitting up, holding her head. A groan from nearby told them that Tess was waking up, too.

  “Rohan?” Beverly asked. “What happened?”

  Rohan embraced his sister. “It's a long story, sis.”

  Chapter 14: Plane Ride

  As the sun rose, Rohan and Nora lay Beverly and Tess down on the grass and gave them water. Beverly was happy to see Rohan, but Tess was disoriented and had to be calmed down. The possession had taken the worst toll on her.

  “What exactly do you remember?” Rohan asked.

  “Everything,” Beverly said. She swatted Rohan on the shoulder. “When you said you had been through a lot, you weren't freaking kidding.”

  “We've got different problems right now,” Nora said, gesturing behind them.

  Tourists had begun to gather around the site, staring at it in horror.

  “Let's get out of here,” Rohan said.

  They ran to the SUV and drove back to Aguas Calientes.

  Along the way, Rohan kept glancing at Nora as she drove. He wasn’t sure what they were, now, but he knew they had kissed. And judging by the power of that kiss, it meant something. Something real.

  After everything he’d been through, he was finally okay with that. He knew Senna would be too, and that made all the difference.

  “What… now?” Beverly asked, holding herself tight, as if she were cold in spite of the increasingly hot and humid morning.

  At the train station, Rohan had bought four tickets. Now they were waiting for the next train that would get them out of there.

  “We go home,” Rohan said. “Try to live normal lives.” He shared an awkward look with Tess, and then said, “I’m truly sorry for what happened. Neither of you should have been mixed up in all this.”

  “And you?” Beverly asked.

  “I don’t really have a choice,” Rohan said. “I’m the only one with the power to stop them.”

  “Well….” Tess glanced at Nora with a raised eyebrow.

  “She has a point,” Nora said, smiling at Tess. “I mean, yes, you have more spiritual power than I do, that’s obvious. But before I came around, did you think you were the only one?”

  “Well, no,” he said, catching on. “There was the temple, and the old man, Ahmed.”

  “You see?” Nora glanced around at the other passengers waiting at the train station. She leaned in, lowering her voice, “Any one of these people could be necromancers.”

  “I don’t like that title,” Rohan said, a shudder
running through him. “But… it’s what we are now. Still, I don’t see how the existence of others can help us. Most necro—these people, they get their powers through the dark arts, right? So more likely than not, they’ll be on the side of Altemus and Anne.”

  “But you won’t know until you ask,” Beverly said.

  “Typical sister thing to say,” Rohan said with an exhausted laugh. “Fine… we’ll put that on the list. If Altemus and Anne are a problem, we seek out other, er, people like us, and try to get them to help.”

  An idea hit him, and he turned to his sister.

  “Bev, were you able to hear his thoughts? Did either of you pick up anything related to their plan?”

  Tess shook her head, grimacing at the memory.

  “A bit,” Beverly said. “But… it’s all so cloudy.”

  “Give us anything,” Nora said, more gently than Rohan. “Tess, can you try to go back, think about what they might have said or thought?”

  They waited a moment, during which Beverly wrapped an arm around Tess for comfort. Then Tess gathered her courage, and said, “The Lich King. He said something about it… whatever that means.”

  “They mean to go after him,” Rohan said, his voice low with amazement. “How…?”

  “The king of the dead….” Nora bit her lip, then sighed heavily. “Bloody hell.”

  “And even… Death herself,” Beverly added. “I heard that thought from them both.”

  “What’s that even mean?” Nora asked, as they stared at each other in horrified shock.

  Rohan furrowed his brow, fingers to his temples to massage the dull aching away. This was far from over, that was for sure.

  A loud horn sounded, and they turned to see the train approaching. It was a blue train with windows along the side and top for travelers to enjoy the scenery. But Rohan and his companions weren’t interested in anything other than sleeping for the short train ride it took to get back to Cusco. He needed to recover, and be ready for Altemus’s next move. Though how that involved the Lich King and Death, he had no idea.

  After a long train ride to Cusco, they made their way to the airport and caught the next flight to Washington, D.C.

  After boarding the plane and getting seated, Rohan leaned back in his seat and let his heavy eyes close. He was distantly aware of the flight attendants and their safety message, and then a rumbling of the plane’s engines. Before they took off, he was asleep.

  In his dream, he was back in the heavenly place where he’d said farewell to his fiancée, Senna. He stood there with Nora, arm in arm, and Senna smiled down at them with joy and waved before turning and vanishing into the clouds.

  Moving on wouldn’t mean he lost any love for Senna, and he was at peace knowing this.

  A rumbling shook him. Part of the dream? It rippled again, and he opened his eyes to see Nora with her back to him, staring out of the plane window. Beverly and Tess were bending over to see through the window in the next aisle up, and then someone screamed.

  He jolted, the haze leaving his mind, and realized everyone was looking out the windows, some unbuckling themselves and standing, shouting about demons.

  “We’re all going to die!” an elderly man shouted.

  A child was crying.

  Finally, and slowly, Rohan turned to look out the window. He knew what he’d see before he saw it.

  Spirits were floating past like silvery wisps. Among them, large hands reached through the sky, and the shapes of skulls formed in the clouds. Then, with a burst of red light, black and red flames began flickering all around them.

  The plane was jolting worse than any turbulence Rohan had ever experienced. He blinked at a flash of light as one of the red spirits entered the plane, and then became one with a man. The man spun, his eyes going straight for Rohan. With each step he took, his skin peeled back in patches to reveal a fiery glow like a lake of lava beneath his flesh.

  “ROHAN!” the demon said. “We’ve come for Rohan!”

  Screams filled the plane, and then more people became possessed and stood, some ripping at their skin as horns sprouted from them, others unleashing bursts of purple and black energy that dissolved everything in its path.

  But Nora and Rohan were ready now, pushing back with their powers. Rohan lashed out with his spiritual mind and snatched the demon from the first attacker. A flare of pain went through him as he did, but he gathered his energy and flung the demon from the man.

  Another man stood, showing his gun and an Air Marshal badge. “Freeze—”

  A burst of red light, and he too was taken over. He seized Rohan, strangling him with hands of fire.

  Now it was Nora’s turn to grasp the man with her spiritual link and toss the demon from his body. They continued the fight, standing before Beverly and Tess to ensure nothing got near them, and then the plane suddenly lurched to the side. People were flung about the cabin, screaming. They were at an angle no plane should ever be, and soon would crash.

  “Brace yourself!” Rohan shouted to Nora, and Beverly reached out to help him. Together, he pulled himself back into his seat, managed to get Nora into hers, and they strapped in.

  The demons were gone now, but that wouldn’t matter in a few minutes when—

  CRASH!

  They hit. Water began rushing into the damaged plane. People were sinking, while others were frantically unbuckling themselves. Rohan joined them, swimming furiously. This was everyone’s worst nightmare, going down in a plane crash and drowning. He pulled at the water around him, but every instinct told him his lungs were about to collapse, that the shimmering surface was too far away, and that he’d had his last breath.

  Moments from his life flashed before his eyes—an afternoon laughing with Senna as they tried to lick up an ice cream melting too fast at the Puyallup Fair, then a day spent picking out puppies, dogs that they never even got, but had such a fun time. Then she was gone, and Rohan was with Nora, simply kissing, nothing around them mattering except for that kiss.

  He wanted that and had to be with her again.

  He had told Senna he was going to move on, and part of that meant not giving up at a moment like this. Not letting death win.

  With one last burst of energy, he thrust himself upward.

  Finally, after what felt like ages but couldn’t have been more than mere seconds, he emerged at the surface.

  Tess and Nora were nearby, but not Beverly.

  “Bev!” he shouted, looking around, and then he threw himself back under the water. She was stuck in her seatbelt, and was struggling to get free. Seeing him, she reached out with her last ounce of energy, then started to sink back.

  He couldn’t let this happen. His mind whirled. Bodies were floating around him. The people who had already died in the crash—if he could pull on their spirits, leverage that….

  He pulled with all of his spiritual energy, and suddenly the plane was lifting up, carrying him with it. He caught Beverly by the hand, and both of them sprawled over the seats as the plane exited the water. Then his energy ran out, and the plane fell back to the water’s surface with a crash. Only now it wasn’t sinking. Rohan saw a rescue raft floating in the water, and he pulled himself and Bev onto it.

  “Bev,” Rohan said as he brushed the hair from her face.

  Nothing. He wanted to cry out, to scream at the world for doing this—for taking first his fiancée, and now his sister.

  A small cough, then a larger one, and then her eyes shot open and water spewed from her mouth. She was alive!

  He held her tight as he searched for Nora and Tess. He saw them, nearby and safe, but then his attention was drawn elsewhere. A city was not far off, and it was ablaze. The air above it was filled with the swirling black and reds wisps of light he knew to be evil spirits and demons.

  Nora and Tess reached him, and they all found spots on the flotation device, but no one said a word. They simply stared at the chaos.

  Finally, Nora put her arms around Rohan and said, “Looks like we’
re going to have to find help.”

  He stared, and slowly nodded. They were going to need all the help they could get.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  Quick Favor

  Thank you so much for reading this book! We put our hearts and souls into this book, and hope it showed. It would really help us out if you could post a review. Whatever you thought, your honest opinion, would be great.

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  In the meantime, turn the page to read the first chapters of the second book in the series, Death Bound.

  Death Crowned Preview

  Chapter 1

  Rohan’s drenched clothes clung to his body as he focused on the blazing city before him. Spirits and demons were flashing through the air, wisps of red and black light. Even though they were far away, the screams coming from Washington, D.C. ripped through the night.

  If he ever got ahold of the spirits of Altemus and Anne, they’d pay for this.

  He’d make sure of that.

  Altemus had somehow managed to outwit Rohan and Nora, activate the tablet with the orb they called The Eye of Gilgamesh, and then, even though Rohan had been certain they’d won, merged hell and Earth.

  Now, he wasn’t sure where they were, but knew they couldn’t have been too far from D.C. when the plane landed. They ran across a warehouse parking lot next to the river the plane had landed in.

  “Keep up,” he shouted over his shoulder, and ducked behind the warehouse. He ran toward a wire fence but his legs gave out on him.

  “You’re the one we should be worried about,” Nora said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  He forced a smile, trying to appear strong. After what he’d just done though, she had a good point. It wasn’t everyday you pulled on spirits of the dead to lift a sinking airplane out of the water and save a dozen lives.