Deathbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 3) Read online

  Far away, a bolt of lightning streaked through the sky, vanquishing the darkness for just a moment.

  CHAPTER 21

  It had been so long since Sahara had entered the darkness, but not long since the darkness had entered her. She wouldn’t have survived had it not been for Harold Storm, and now she believed he wouldn’t survive if it wasn’t for her.

  But Hell.

  Hell was not home.

  The voices, the venom — both long gone — came back full force. Her knees buckled, she swooned, and then clutched at her head. A deep freeze filled her bones, then it filled her heart. Felix’s white robes doubled ahead. He stretched and bent like melting rubber pulled apart. Sahara opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped.

  There was an explosion like a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier. A flash of warmth, then frigid cold.

  Her feet slammed the dead ground with a thud. Bones clattered and shot up all around her.

  “We’re here,” Felix said.

  She blinked hard, her head still spinning. “What?” she managed to ask in a weak voice.

  “We’re here. Welcome to Hell.”

  She looked down, vision blurry and coming back to her in bits and pieces. “This…”

  “It’s a terrible place, yes,” Felix finished for her.

  They were surrounded by dry bones, Sahara’s foot found one and she applied a trace amount of pressure. The bone turned to dust, then blew away in a light breeze. They were human bones, and some of them had seemed fresh. Felix held his chin up, beard blowing in the wind, unfazed.

  “This is a graveyard,” Sahara said. She felt sick to her stomach. Had she eaten anything recently it would’ve come up.

  “You know I tried to stop it, but even I am powerless when it comes to an evil as big as this.”

  “We can stop it now,” Sahara said.

  “Maybe,” Felix replied. “Maybe not.”

  The explosion of the two breaking through the portal still rang in her ears. She believed she was suffering from a strong sense of vertigo when the ground started to shake, like the aftershock of a large earthquake.

  “There’s something we have to do first,” Felix said. His light eyes twinkled in the darkness.

  “What?” she asked.

  The ground shook harder. That sense of nausea came back.

  He turned and pointed toward the rolling hills and jagged mountains behind her. “That,” he said.

  Sahara wheeled around, the sound of a panther rousing itself into a fighting position. The blade exploded from her wrist in a burst of dull pain she was almost oblivious to now.

  At first glance, she thought the mountains themselves were moving. They might’ve hiked up their skirts of dead trees and rotten soil and begun to tiptoe over to the boneyard her and Felix stood on, but that made no sense. It was a silly thought she had pushed from her brain as fast as her blade had come out.

  A round shell, silvery in the dying light raised into the air. Dust and dirt rolled off of it. And it was a beast bigger than any of the largest Demons that had raided Gloomsville. Its legs were the width of tree trunks — four of them — and ran up about twenty-five feet before they merged with the creatures jelly-like underside. Then its head raised; two pincers fell from its cavernous mouth like gigantic scythes. They clicked together two times before they parted in a roar that rivaled the sound of the Realm Protector’s arrival. Hot breath spewed from its mouth. The smell of rot engulfed Sahara in a putrid blanket. She raised her blade up and her view, with the beast in the background and blade in the foreground, the weapon looked to be the size of a toothpick.

  Her breath froze, heart hammering.

  Felix was at her side now, weaponless, his key and Deathblade lost in an endless war between good and evil. Seeing the man who’d practically raised her and taught her everything she knew like that did not make her feel better.

  The beast roared again making enough wind to cause Sahara to stumble, and this time, as the long drawn out sound resembling a tornado warning siren went off, the beast’s belly lit up. Its skin was translucent. She could see what it had been chowing on before they had stumbled upon it.

  She saw a backpack filled with canned goods. Campbell’s Tomato Soup, Mexican corn, yams. She saw a face, distorted and bloody, nearly indiscernible — there was the bridge of nose and a forehead, but beyond that you couldn’t tell it was once a Mortal at all.

  The roar died, and with it so did the light.

  Felix pointed again, his voice as calm as if they were strolling through a park. “The stomach. That is the weaker point. Run your blade along its underside, and you will end its life.”

  Sahara blinked stupidly at Felix. “That easy, huh?” she said. Her head craned back up to the beast. It was easily thirty feet above them, and far as Sahara knew, gravity acted the same in Hell as it did in any of the other Realms.

  Reddish eyes narrowed down on them.

  “How do you expect me to get up there?” she asked.

  “I’ll give you a boost.”

  She looked at him puzzled.

  “Accept the offer, Sahara. Time is wasting away.”

  The beast let out another roar, this one closer, almost bending the metal of her blade. She looked up, saw it a mere twenty feet away and nodded her head vigorously.

  “A fine choice, dear,” Felix said.

  Then something happened. Something Sahara had not seen in a long, long time. The kinds on the Mortal Realm who were not supposed to be there were peanuts compared to the beast, so she guessed it made sense. Felix’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, exposing the whites, except the whites of his eyes weren’t exactly white at all. They were an iridescent green like the water the Lake had been. Radioactive in a sense, it seemed.

  A thought passed her mind then: He’s changed. He died and he came back and now he’s more powerful than he has any right to be. It may be too much power, even for him.

  Felix raised his hand to the sky, drawing on the powers above, as he was always so apt to say, and a lightning bolt cracked through the black sky, illuminating everything around them. The beast’s ridges and scales were covered in mucus. Some of it was saliva, some of it was slime, and she was sure some of it was blood, too.

  The lightning never struck the ground, instead it struck his closed fist. His bones were visible for a fraction of a second, teeth clenched, eyes still rolled backward and spilling green light. In one swift movement, he brought his hand downward and punched the ground. Sahara gripped her hilt tighter.

  The ground fractured causing the beast to totter on all four of its tree-trunk legs like a drunk. Then it seemed to sink into the very ground that split, but really, Sahara had risen above it.

  “Now!” Felix shouted, his voice booming over the shifting surface.

  Her legs pumping like pistons, she crossed the plate with her sword raised. The thing’s head craned up to get a better look at the woman who would end its life.

  Or at least she thought.

  But if it didn’t see her coming, it must’ve felt her. As she reached the edge of the ground, ready to explode forward, the beast raised on its front legs, essentially doing a handstand. It’s chitinous, black body stretched high into the air.

  Sahara couldn’t slow down, her momentum was too great. She jumped, pulling her blade at the last moment. If she would’ve tried to slice through the armor on its back, she would be minus a Deathblade.

  Instead, she landed with a clink, like boots crashing on metal. Something squished beneath her feet. Something else squealed, then hissed violently. Flapping wings were sent up all around her, but she was too busy trying to keep her balance to notice the creatures that roosted on the beast’s various bumps and crevasses, like barnacles attached to the underside of a great ship.

  She was too busy waving her arms, trying to find her balance. From way up there, Felix looked like a white speck. He was resting on one knee, his head barely up, one hand iron-gripped in the tufts of whiter hair. For
a split second she thought he might’ve been dead.

  But she remembered her training. He may have been stronger now, but something as taxing as calling the good lightning from the dead skies of Hell would’ve killed a normal wizard. A feeling of doom filled her stomach. Essentially, Sahara was on her own.

  The beast shook its back, the sounds of the swishing contents of its stomach hit her. One of her feet wedged in between two lumps of its armor, enough to keep her up, and it was then she saw the sticky, red blood that had wrapped around her boots like an oversized, chewed piece of watermelon gum.

  More flapping wings.

  She aimed her sword down, expecting the next shake to be more violent. Sparks flew as the sharpness etched jagged lightning bolts on the already scarred surface of its armor.

  The beast roared once more. The ground which jutted up from the earth shattered as easily as if it were made of tempered glass. Sprays of rock flew over Sahara’s head. Pebbles danced across the bumps and rises of its armor. She was showered in pale dust.

  “Felix,” Sahara said after the sound died.

  But he took no notice.

  The beast was coming right for him and pretty soon if he didn’t get up, he’d be flattened. She had to act fast. Legs pumped again as she maneuvered through the bumps and ridges of its armor. She was heading for its head. There had to be a soft spot in that large cranium, and if not, she would go for its mouth, and she’d travel to the pits of its glowing guts as a last resort.

  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

  She was about ten feet from the base of the thing’s neck when she stopped dead in her tracks, almost jumping herself right out of her boots.

  Three medium sized creatures flew into the air in front of her face, practically manifesting out of thin air. She hadn’t seen them before — Maybe you weren’t looking, she thought.

  But that thought was worthless. Sahara was a Realm Protector trained by one of the most powerful Wizards in Existence. She saw more in a minute than a normal person would see in a lifetime. Of course, she’d been looking.

  The flying creatures did not go far. Two of them hovered above her, swooping around her head like planets around the sun. Cold wind sent her auburn hair flying. But she could not focus on them because one hadn’t taken to flying at all. It stood on bent hind legs, beak parted. A forked tongue lolled out lazily between its teeth, teeth which looked more like broken fragments of glass.

  Their host roared again. Some of the light from its underbelly seemed to seep through its armored surface.

  She held the blade across her field of vision in a defensive pose, listening to the wings above her, waiting for the sound to speed up, waiting for one of them to swoop in for the kill.

  Time was short.

  She guessed, if Felix hadn’t gotten his strength back and still sat where she’d last seen him, the beast was only about few feet from flattening him.

  The creature in front of her eyed her gleaming slits; it snapped its jaw open.

  She saw it happen before it actually did.

  The way the creature’s muscles twitched, the slight dilation of its pupils, the way its chest hitched like a diver sucking in a big breath before they plunged to the water. This creature meant to attack. She rolled to her left, going against the tilt of the bigger beast she stood on. Blade cut into flesh.

  The flying creature shrieked a dying shriek.

  Its head landed below the sword with a wet thump and a spray of black blood.

  One down, she thought.

  The beast roared, its whole body shook. It was getting ready to raise on its hind legs again.

  She risked a glance over her shoulder, pinwheeling her arms for balance, sword still out. Felix was on his feet, but he wasn’t much farther away than he had been before. He might have bought her a little bit of time. Even up here she could see how ashen his face looked, how slumped his shoulders were. Still, he raised a hand as if calling the lightning. She doubted he’d be able to conjure up anything, and if he did, it wouldn’t have been enough to even singe this creature’s nose hairs.

  Felix never gave up either, she realized. This thought was enough to spur her forward, and this time she ran.

  If she fell, she fell.

  Beyond the creature’s head were the rolling hills and towering volcanoes. They looked like giant’s knees covered in ash. A strange sense of wonder and dread mixed itself inside of her stomach, but she shook it off.

  Two more bird-like creatures swooped down on her, their beaks parted and their teeth razor sharp. She swung upwards, hit nothing besides the cold air. One behind her pressed its talons into her back. Warm blood flowed from the wound. The air bit at her exposed skin. But she didn’t feel it. Her adrenaline pumped viciously through her veins.

  Harold’s face crossed her mind now.

  If she died, she would never see Harold Storm again. She would never be able to thank him properly for what he had done for her, for what he meant to do for the Realms.

  She swung backward.

  Meat cleaved in half. A dying squawk came from one of the bird-creatures. A spray of blood. A thump of a dead body.

  “For Harold,” she said under her breath.

  She was running up the beast’s neck now. Its armor seemed to get harder, more protective the farther she went. This offered her more purchase. She used the bumps and ridges as stepping stones. Another bird came at her and she was ready for it this time, cocking her sword back like a baseball player ready to hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth.

  The creature didn’t stand a chance, and it saw this. It’s glassy eyes flew open, beak closed, wings fluttered like a hummingbird’s to change course.

  And then it was gone.

  She could see Felix better now. He stood up almost normally, only swaying slightly as if he’d just woken up.

  From drunk to just waking up. Better, she thought.

  The beast felt her footsteps — though she didn’t know how — atop of her head. It started to buck and twist itself wildly. Horns jutted out from both sides of its head with about a ten foot gap in between. Sahara went left and gripped one for dear life.

  If she could somehow get to its brain then it would all be okay. Sure the creature may have been of Hell, but it must’ve had a brain. And if you kill the brain on anything, you kill the anything, she rationed.

  With one hand wrapped around the slim part of the horn, she raised her Deathblade up, teeth-ground together, and drove the point straight down.

  A spark of metal on metal crackled.

  But the beast made no noises of pain. Instead, it kept swishing its head back and forth.

  She tried again; same result.

  The thing must’ve been made out of the mountains themselves.

  “A little help,” she yelled down to Felix.

  He didn’t answer.

  She raised it again, this time jumping slightly with the movement. The point hit, and for a second she thought she was successful, that was until the pain crawled up her arm in waves.

  Her blade had chipped. It actually chipped. The blade was part of her very being, basically like a third arm. It may have been made of the hardest steel in all of the Realms, but it was as organic as her heart.

  Warm tears filled her eyes, mostly out of frustration. She could’ve given up right there, could’ve jumped off and ran for dear life, leaving the beast, leaving Felix to fend for himself. He would’ve been fine, hurt or not; he was, after all, one of the most — if not, the most — powerful Wizard in all of Existence.

  But she would not do that.

  She would die with him before she gave up.

  And as if Felix had read her mind, a burst of lighting, gloriously white in the black sky, came down from the Heavens.

  She saw her opportunity. The whole world was illuminated around her, all the slimy bumps and jagged ridges, the mucus, the blood, the fear.

  She took that opportunity. The Deathblade still buzzed with pain, but she raised i
t above her head, expecting the worst. The lightning bolt slammed into the metal; her whole body was sent on edge. Her teeth felt like they were on the cusp of vibrating loose.

  But she was filled with power, power only capable of being handed to you by the Gods.

  Her blade glowed with purple-white light. Her hair was a wild mess of red rage.

  She raised the weapon up with both hands — the buzz of power keeping her upright and no longer needing her to hold on to the beast’s horns for support, as if she was floating. In a great exhale of breath, the sword came crashing down.

  The armor was no match for the power of the Gods; it split in a mess of spiderwebbed cracks as if it were a thin sheet of ice on the surface of lake.

  A hot scent of rot and decay exploded from the wound. The beast screamed, no longer capable of roaring; it was a dying scream, one of weakness, one of pain. It would’ve drove a sane person into insanity, but right at that moment Sahara was not a sane person, and the sound, which would never completely leave her mind, made her mouth water.

  The beast’s legs gave out one at a time.

  A cloud of dust and broken ground raised up around her, and when the dust cleared, when the lightning had exited her blade and her body, she saw Felix standing in front of the beast’s open head with his arms folded and that smug look of satisfaction on his face she’d grown up with. His eyes were back to normal, no longer glowing green; now they were electric blue, and Sahara had never felt safer.

  “Your landing could use a little work,” Felix said. He leaned his head to get a better view of her shredded back where the blood from the talon wounds was still fresh and dripping. “And you’re bleeding. Oh my, Sahara, there is still so much you can learn.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Now where?” she asked.

  “We go to His tower..”

  “Sounds terrible.”

  “It is.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Then we save Harold Storm.”

  She smiled wide. “That sounds better.”