Hellbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 1) Read online

  “You mean how my right eye is dehydrated-piss yellow and the other one is firetruck-red? Plastic surgery couldn’t fix that, that’s for sure.”

  Chet smiled. “Even after you die you’re still a sarcastic asshole.” He placed a hand on Harold’s shoulder, patted him twice with some force. “You know when I heard the news, after they found that bum’s body in the parking lot across the street and they found your wallet and your blood, I thought to myself, goddamn it, there goes my best customer. How the Hell am I gonna put Jimmy through college now? And here you are. Sometimes God is great, Harry. I’ll tell ya.”

  Harold shrugged. “Believe it when I see it.”

  “You’re here, aren’t ya?”

  “I guess, but under special circumstances…I’m kinda like an old dog who just needs to be put down. Nothing major’s wrong with me, per se. But quality of life is suffering.”

  Chet shook his head. “That’s no way to think, Harry. Instead think of it as a new lease on life. So what, you look a little monstrous right now. Our bodies heal. And when your’s does, you won’t look so bad. Just old — like a pair of worn leather boots. There’s nothing like a pair of old leather boots, just mold right to your feet.” He looked down, pointed to his feet, “Hell, I’ve had these since I got back from ‘Nam and I love ‘em more than I love my grandson. So chin up, drink up. It ain’t that bad, Harry.”

  He lifted his glass of whiskey high, and Harold did the same. The glasses clinked, then they both drank, setting their empty glasses down on the bar. Both men grimaced as the alcohol burned holes in their throats. Harold gripped the underside of the bar in a wave of dizziness, thankful for the few seconds of complete forgetfulness. Like when he used to wake up in a past life so long ago with a fresh mind and not a care in the world. It’d last about thirty seconds — but that thirty seconds was usually the best part of his day. No thoughts about money troubles, Marcy, failure, or fear. And he’d subconsciously urged his mind to make the clearness last a little bit longer.

  It didn’t.

  And Sahara’s face came floating back into his brain. And so did that clueless look of defeat, the hopelessness.

  Chet poured him another drink, then himself one.

  “What do you think about love?” Harold asked him. “Like how do you know when it’s actually love?”

  Chet’s eyes ballooned. He blinked hard a couple times and then turned back to the wall of alcohol, bringing back another dusty bottle of label-less poison.

  “How long you got?” Chet asked. He unscrewed the cap on the bottle and guzzled it down right there. No glass.

  Harold stumbled over his words. He could tell the bartender that he had forever, because as long as that key was laced into his bones he wasn’t dying anytime soon. But with the impending doom hovering above his head — those powers gathering below him — and his ever blossoming idea of saving Sahara, he knew his time might be short.

  “Rhetorical, kid. Just means not to get me started on love. That kind of shit will get us killed.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Harold said under his breath.

  The door to the bar creaked open. A green glow from the buzzing neon leaked into the dark bar. None of the few patrons stopped to turn their heads except for Harold and Chet. The clack of Slink’s claws moving on the hardwood floor proved the hound noticed too, and when Harold looked down at him, he saw his tail wagging, bouncing from leg to leg, looking up at the Vampire.

  Roman.

  CHAPTER 21

  The Vampire walked over to the bar, and sat a few spots away from Harold, probably to avoid the mirror. Though he looked like a normal man, Harold doubted that extended to reflections, if he had one at all.

  “Harold,” he said. His head bobbed as he gave him a curt nod.

  “Roman,” Harold replied.

  “What can I get ya?” Chet said, coming between the two men.

  “A Bloody Mary,” Roman said, “please.”

  Harold chuckled at that.

  Chet rolled his eyes. To Chet, Harold knew, that a Bloody Mary was what he called, ‘a chick drink.’ There was nothing quite like straight up whiskey. Only the real men drank that.

  Slink clawed at Roman’s thigh, trying to scrabble his way up the Vampire. Roman flashed the hound a smile, then made kissing noises that failed to do much because of the way his fangs hung out of his mouth.

  “Harold, the city needs you,” he said after he greeted Slink.

  Chet had his back to the both of them, making Roman’s drink.

  “Bull.”

  He cocked his head to the Vampire and a smile spread across his face. “I just came up with the beginning to a great joke — a Freak and a Vampire walk into a bar…”

  “Enough,” Roman said. His fist slammed the mahogany.

  Harold looked to Chet, and from his angle, in the reflection of the mirror, he could see the bartender’s eyes studying the place underneath the bar where Harold knew a shotgun laid in case any of the patrons got too wild, too drunk. Chet’s place had become a hangout for a lot of the bikers strolling through the city — the real sketchy meth-head types partial to violence — but they respected the place and Chet. If a fight broke out they made sure to take it outside and bleed on the opposite side of the sidewalk. Even then, that didn’t happen much. Not while Harold was there, and he was there a lot over the past year.

  Still, a shotgun wouldn’t do much to Roman. Slow him down, but not kill him. More likely just piss him off. The real weapon was inside of Harold, the one that had ended the overconfident Nik, the one that had almost saved Sahara, the weapon that was as sporadic as spring-time rain. All in all, Chet and Harold were most likely screwed if Roman wound up not liking his drink.

  The bartender pushed the glass to Roman and told him the price. Roman reached into his pockets, pulling out a very old looking twenty dollar bill and told him to keep the change. Chet eyed the money, slid it off of the countertop, and held it up to the dim light for reassurance.

  Harold couldn’t help but smile at the old man’s frugalness. In a way, Chet reminded him of the father he never had, the one he always wanted.

  The register dinged, and Chet slipped the money inside, catching eyes with Harold, who gave him the slightest of nods. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll make sure this stays civil.”

  He got up and walked the few feet over to the Vampire, drink in hand, and sat down.

  Roman produced a flask from the inside of his jacket, and poured the contents into the drink. Bright red liquid flowed from the silver container. He smiled. “I like my Bloody Marys extra bloody.”

  Harold’s eyes crossed, afraid of what the contents of the flask were.

  The Vampire leaned back on his stool, eyes wide, and swiveled his gaze around the sparsely crowded bar. “Hm,” he said, “I don’t think I see many people with the same gifts you and I have. So unless one of these fat, bald men can see my fangs, then I don’t think they’ll mistake my flask for human blood.”

  Harold turned away, gagged. “Human blood, seriously?” His hand shot up to his mouth.

  “I’m not here to gross you out, Harold. I promise. I am here because, if you haven’t noticed already, Sahara is very dear to my heart and I know the Eaters have taken her.”

  Harold’s face went blank. Something about the way Roman had said she was dear to him set him off. He didn’t like the sound of it, didn’t like the taste of it on his tongue as he mouthed the words. Then he turned back to Roman.

  “I tried my best, I swear. I put up a fight.”

  “No, no, Harold, I’m not blaming you. They are products of Satan himself. There wasn’t much you could do, I understand. I would’ve probably done worse. Those blasted swords they carry around frighten me more than your Deathblades.”

  Harold ignored him, thought about what the blade had done to Nik, the way it had gutted him then vaporized his insides. He shuddered. That kind of power was in his hand. It was like walking around with a nuclear missile strapped to your w
rist and a broken timer that would set it off at any moment.

  “I’m sorry about Nik,” Harold said. “He was going to kill me.”

  The Vampire waved his hand. “It’s alright, really it is. If you wouldn’t have killed him, then I would have.” His eyes went distant, as if remembering a life ages ago. “Yes, my daughter is very upset, but she will be much better off without him in her life. But the other Vampire was much more lucky. I got there in time to heal him. Now back to the matter at hand — ” He put a hand up, calling Chet over.

  Chet took his sweet time. He fumbled around with a few glasses.

  “Wait, the other kid didn’t die?”

  “No, Sahara didn’t wound him as badly. Just a gash, healed simply by the donation of my own blood. A minor wound like that doesn’t hurt me much to heal. Nothing a quick nap couldn’t fix. Besides, I’d rather the young one suffer in a cell than die. Because the pact we made with Felix is not one taken lightly. And after seeing what you did to Nik, I wouldn’t have been much help to him anyway unless I wanted to transfer all of my life force to him. Dying is not on my wishlist, Storm. Not yet.”

  Harold cocked his head before being cut off by Chet.

  “Refill?” he asked.

  Roman shook his head. “No, I’m looking for your television remote.”

  “Why? All the important games are on right now. Look around, buddy.”

  “What I have to show you is much more important than any game,” the Vampire said.

  “Sorry. Popular opinion wins out. Much as I don’t like these damn mindless sports myself, I’m running a business here. And keeping the customers happy is the number one priority.”

  “I’m a customer too, aren’t I?”

  “Today, maybe, but all those guys out there,” Chet motioned beyond the bar to the sea of tables sporadically dotted with big blobs of leather jackets and flaming decals with skull and crossbones embroidered on them, “they’re my regulars, and they’re bad dudes. The kind of fellows you wanna avoid getting on their bad side.”

  Roman snarled, stood up. The stool scooted across the hardwood, metal legs screeched. He threw half of his body over the counter. Chet stepped back, mouth opened, jowls jiggling.

  Roman’s hand ran around the edge of the bar until he said: “Ah,” and pulled out a small television remote with a smile on his face, fangs bared which Chet could not see.

  A vein pulsed in Chet’s forehead, and out of the corner of Harold’s eye, he saw the man quickly bend low to scoop up the shotgun that had probably only been a few feet from the remote. Next thing he knew the barrel was pressed up against the Vampire’s chest. His jacket fabric rippled with Chet’s shaking movements, like Roman had bugs underneath his skin.

  There was a sea of clicks afterwards once the bikers caught wind of the situation. Chrome-colored steel, shiny and polished to look brand new, pointed in the direction of the Vampire.

  Roman threw his hands up. “So much for customer satisfaction,” he said. “I will never come back here again.”

  “Good,” Chet said, grumbling. “We don’t want you here.”

  Harold took a sip of the whiskey, hoped it would lubricate his dry throat.

  “Now boys, play nice,” he said. But somehow his voice came out small and distant and he doubted anyone heard him.

  Chet turned to Harold. “I don’t like people coming in here and disrespecting me, Harry, you know that.”

  Harold reached across the bar, his hand touched the cool steel of the shotgun, and he gently pushed it down. “No more violence, please.” He felt calm. At peace. Like he was some kind of savior for stopping a bar fight. When in reality, he was nothing but a piece of dirt.

  You let them take her. Barely fought…

  Chet let the gun fall to his side. The rest of the crowd followed suit, then turned away as if nothing happened, as if it was perfectly normal and American to just pull out a deadly weapon, point it at someone, then be on your way. Harold shook his head. The feeling reminded him of his first stage play — a small production of Peter Pan where he didn’t even play the title role, had played Michael Darling, had to lug around that stupid teddy bar and wear pajamas that felt so stupid. So stupid in fact, that he completely choked up when the lights were on. But when the spotlight shifted from his abysmal performance to whoever had the next lines, the entire script came flooding back to him.

  That’s what he felt then, with the guns all pointed at the back of his head, not at him — though if some of the bikers were bound to miss when sober, imagine how they’d be after a few beers in.

  The Vampire’s arms went down slowly, still clutching the remote. He let out the breath he held in and Harold could see the way his eyes slackened, the tension in his shoulders easing up.

  Harold let out a breath too. He had diffused the situation.

  But then the Vampire moved too fast, spun around, knocked over his stool and pointed the remote at the large flat screen in the middle of the table area. The screen went black. A groan came from the crowd. One turned around and had his gun out again, low light glinting off of the metal.

  Then the same Asian woman, the one who’d broken the news about Harold being a hero, but was still wanted by police, was on the screen now, talking about a string of gruesome murders that had ripped through the city. She called them unexplainable. The victims had been found virtually mummified. Dried out completely. Nothing but flesh and bone. Shriveled. Almost inhuman. Tried to connect the dots to Harold’s incident earlier. Called it Hell on Earth.

  There were reports of fires erupting all over the town. They’d started in the heart of the city, where most of the tourists were. One building, a city landmark skyscraper now decommissioned and used as a tourist hub, was nothing but blackened ash when they cut to its remains surrounded by the firetrucks and men in yellow jumpsuits wearing hardhats. The smoke hung in the air, black and heavy. At least two hundred people had died.

  The bar crowd had shut up then. Harold could hear Chet’s erratic breathing, the occasional gasp. Roman just shook his head, clicked his tongue.

  “I told you, Storm. The whole city is going to Hell. And with Sahara incapacitated for the moment, that leaves you to fix the problem,” Roman said.

  A couple of the bikers shot up, knocked their glasses to the floor, shattering them in an array of glittering shards. No one seemed to notice though, not even the cheapest bar owner in America. They all stared at the screens like zombies, waiting for more bad news.

  One of the biggest bikers stood, bald with beads of sweat shining off the back of his head and wearing a leather jacket with no sleeves, shouted: “We gotta get the fuck outta here!”

  Then the Asian woman, wind rippling her hair, the sirens nearly drowning out her voice, leaned in, a hand pressed to her ear piece. “This just in,” she said, “the city is under official lockdown. Bridges are being monitored for terrorist activity.” She paused and all that could be heard for the moment were people yelling; a man told someone to get back behind the barriers. Then the woman started again: “Grover Bridge has been attacked. Reports are coming in now. Death tolls are nearing the five-hundreds and rising. Police are advising people to stay in their homes. Lock the doors. If you are near the following neighborhoods police are working on immediate evacuation. Francis Park…”

  Harold turned from the television. “Looks like we might need another bottle, Chet.”

  The bartender’s eyes glistened and for a moment, he just stared, not saying a thing, not even looking like he breathed.

  Harold sat back down. He let the wave of panicked conversation wash over him, the reporter listing off more neighborhoods.

  “…Mason Square — ”

  The television crackled and the feed from the news cut off. A new image popped up. And Harold gripped the edge of his stool hard enough to make the wood bend.

  Sahara sat in a dark room. One lone lightbulb swung low over her head. She had tape around her mouth, at least half a roll’s worth of duct tape, and
her red hair stuck to the moisture on her forehead. Her eyes barely held open. Blood splattered her shirt, and then the camera panned down to her hand, where a thick wad of dirty white bandages clumped at the end of her arm. Redness soaked through, almost completely overtaking the white.

  Charlie’s voice came from the speakers, unmistakably gleeful: “One key down, Harold Storm. Next thing that goes is her soul. And boy, am I so, so hungry.”

  A woman’s laughter echoed in the background.

  “You have one hour to give us your key, Harry. You’ll know where to find us.”

  Then the feed cut off, and the Asian reporter was back on the screen holding her ear piece and apologizing for the technical difficulties.

  “Goddamn network stations — can’t even skip the commercials when a national tragedy is unfolding right before our eyes.” Chet shook his head.

  “What — ” Harold began before realizing the bartender, along with the rest of the patrons wouldn’t have been able to see or hear that unfortunate cutaway, and he picked up his glass, poured some more whiskey. The anger mixed with the booze had started to make his head fuzzy, but so what? Alcohol poisoning was the least of his worries. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

  Roman groaned in disgust. Then his arm lashed out in slow motion. Harold’s glass flew down the bar, the bottle with it. He was left holding empty air, blinking deliberately. Wounded.

  The Vampire was on him, collar of his newly borrowed trench coat crumpled up in the creature’s shaking fists. He caught the stench of copper on Roman’s breath. Those fangs were just inches away from his face.

  “No more. You’ve had enough. We can’t beat them if you’re so inebriated that you can barely stand.”

  “What if I don’t wanna beat them?” Harold said. He was numb. His words came out slurred.

  “That’s not an option.”

  “Why not? I don’t care about this city, this world. It’s all trash. And I’m no garbage man.”

  Roman shook his head. “That may be, but this is not about the city. This is about the girl. You saw her, you saw what they are doing to her. She is the one person to ever show you any decency in all of your miserable existence, and you’re willing to just let her die because you’re too depressed over a few scars?”