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

  “Motherfucker,” Frank muttered as he began to load another arrow, but Harold could see how half-hearted his attempt was. The same had happened with Charlie on the steps. A crossbow was a fine weapon against the lesser supernatural beings just not against the Shadow Eater’s.

  Octavius came at him again.

  CHAPTER 30

  Boris wanted to vomit. His mouth was full of the most disgusting meat he’d ever tasted. It was meat from a being beyond death.

  He crawled away from the battlefield, spitting on the ground as he did so.

  He had tried on two separate occasions to summon his magic, but there had been some kind of block on him, whether mental or physical he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if it had to do with the Shadow Eater’s presence, or the fact that the door had been spellbound; he just knew he was screwed if he didn’t gallop somewhere safe.

  The grunts from the fighters and the kisses of steel followed him.

  Harold Storm may have been Electus, but he was outnumbered. Boris knew how powerful they were.

  He stifled a choking sob, spraying black blood and bits of flesh as he did so.

  Aqua had told him when Spider would not. And Aqua had turned out to be a traitor…all for what? Just to die a pointless death. Somewhere, her soul was in the void where it would be for infinity, and Boris couldn’t truly fathom that. Not yet. His love for her was shaken but not gone.

  He was out of the room now, steel on steel still ringing out into the acrid air. He was crawling away, pulling himself forward with his humanoid arms while the horse part of his body remained slack, when his heart nearly jumped out of his throat. Right in front of him stood a pair of dark boots. His eyes trailed upward, tracing the person they’d belonged to. Greenish skin, almost sickly, with bits of black stubble along the legs. He kept going and saw a night gown drifting lazily in the draft.

  Boris sighed a loud, then opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off before he could say anything.

  It was one of Spider’s big hands, and it closed around his mouth. Her eyes were opened to maximum capacity. She shook her head slowly and raised her other hand to press a finger over her lips.

  “Don’t speak,” she whispered. “Play dead.”

  Boris mumbled under her palm.

  Spider’s fangs came out. “Don’t speak, I mean it.”

  Then she changed.

  And it was the first time Boris had seen her do it in person. He’d seen the final product of transformation, of course, but never the act of…transforming.

  It was enough to shut him up. In fact, it was enough to knock him out.

  Play dead.

  CHAPTER 31

  Harold’s blade worked back and forth. It was almost hypnotizing. The sound of metal against metal, of the two of them grunting, of Worm shrieking outside.

  Beth came at him too, only momentarily slowed down by the arrow. Just a fraction of a second off in her stride.

  Then Octavius slipped up. Just the slightest bit. It was not enough for Harold to deal a final death blow to the Eater, but it was enough for him to slip a kick into his midsection.

  A powerful kick.

  Octavius flailed backward.

  And Frank took his opportunity again.

  Two arrows went out at once.

  Shoosh. Shoosh.

  He must’ve stacked them on top of each other, and doing so sacrificed his aim a bit, but when Frank was off, it was only the slightest.

  Octavius let out a terrible scream.

  Two shafts jutted out from his middle, one in the chest opposite of where his decrepit heart would lay unseating, and the other in his stomach.

  Black blood leaked from the wounds. They wouldn’t be fatal, of course, but they would slow him down.

  Harold darted forward, sword out like a spear.

  He meant to deal the final blow.

  Just as he thrusted out, he was blocked. Beth’s smiling face hovered in front of him.

  “Won’t be that easy, Realm Protector,” she said.

  Behind her, Octavius fell on his knees, black blood rolling out from between his teeth.

  “We’ll see,” Harold said, grunting as he tried to hold her off. She was stronger than she looked. He spun off of her. The move wasn’t fluid or even pretty to look at, but it gave about six feet of separation. He dropped down in a fighter’s stance — a poor replication of Sahara’s he’d remembered seeing not too long ago.

  Beth chuckled and she ran at him again with cat-like grace.

  Harold raised his blade to block her hit, but decided at the last moment that she was coming in too hot, and instead, dove out of the way, narrowly missing her blade and a pile of stones still radiating heat to his left.

  He shot up as quick as he could. Blade at the ready. He had figured Beth would be on him in a flurry of attacks; he had figured it would be the end.

  It wasn’t.

  She actually had her back turned to him. He almost ran at her until he heard the sounds of Frank’s chokes. Beth turned around slowly. In one hand she still held her blade; in the other, Frank King squirmed like a fish pulled out of water. His knuckles were bone-white as they clawed at Beth’s clamped hand. His legs kicked out. The old man’s rugged face was slowly turning purple.

  “Stop!” Harold yelled. “Leave him out of this. This is between you and me. Not him. I didn’t bring him down here. He came in on his own free will. Drop him.”

  “Or what, Realm Protector? You’ll give up and go home?”

  Harold said nothing, only breathed hard and fast. The rage was coursing though his veins, now. The Wolves were unleashed, their pack disbanding. Every man for himself, they seemed to howl.

  Beth snickered. Her hands let up, the only indication being Frank King taking in a horrible gust of breath. “Yes, we know all about Harold Storm, now. You’ve put yourself on our radar. There’s talk you’re the Electus. Talk you’re going to destroy us all. But then we found her.”

  “Who?” Harold demanded. His voice was deep and strong, but for some reason, it felt so little.

  Octavius was up now. He pulled out one arrow then the other, both were slimed with what looked like tar — his Demon blood. His brow wrinkled as he examined the point of the arrow, then tossed it aside. “Nice try,” he said to Frank. A sound came from him like a switchblade opening. “I can stab too, you know.” He pointed at Frank with an index finger, and the nail seemed to extend about six inches, then he drove it into Frank’s side. Frank howled a pained, choking scream and flailed even more.

  Beth’s laughter was almost uncontrollable.

  “Leave him out of this!” Harold said again. And again, he thought his voice was lost in the chaos.

  “Marcy,” Beth said. “We found Marcy.”

  Harold swallowed hard. Marcy, a name he hadn’t heard since the dream he had almost two days (?) ago.

  “She spilled the beans — is that what they say up there? You Mortals are such a funny bunch,” Beth said, smiling. “But she also spilled her guts.”

  Octavius laughed too, still pained and choked. “Spilled more than that, didn’t she?”

  “A child,” Beth said. “Yes, a child. Though I don’t know if you could call it that. More like a seed.”

  Harold’s legs gave out on him. He hit the stone floor with his knees. Pain shot up his back, but he barely noticed. Yes, he was in pain, but it wasn’t physical pain, though if you had felt how he’d felt at that moment, you might think it was. It was as if a bullet train hit him square in the middle of his sternum over and over again.

  His brain felt like it had shattered.

  “She — she lied?” he said, but it came out more like a question.

  The Shadow Eater’s had stopped laughing now. They regarded him with something akin to sadness. Beth even lowered Frank until his feet brushed the floor. He no longer fought, and his head lolled to one side, eyes barely open.

  “She lied to me about the abortion.”

  “Yes, I guess so,” Beth said. “I
f we had known, we might not have gutted her. Might.”

  “Yeah, the bitch wasn’t even showing. Oh well,” Octavius said, “way I see it, we did her a favor. She wasn’t going to make it seven more months anyway.”

  “That was my child,” Harold said. He was taken back to the dreams he’d had before finding the Lake and the Witch named Roberta. The dreams where a baby haunted him, and he’d felt like he was falling…and falling…and…

  His vision went red.

  A Wolf howled bloody murder.

  “That was my child,” Harold said again, this time barely audible through his clenched jaw. He felt as if he were having an out of body experience, as if he was floating above himself, looking down at a burned monster determined to destroy anyone in his path.

  “Oh, no, looks like we’ve upset the poor Electus,” Beth said, then she clucked her tongue. “Where’s that in the Prophecy?”

  Octavius laughed again.

  Harold barely heard anything they said. He was up now, and he squeezed the pommel of the sword hard enough to draw blood. He raised it up above his head in much the same manner Worm had, not even thinking about the repercussions. All that was on his mind was revenge and murder. He didn’t care for the Realms at that moment, didn’t care about the weight of the world’s responsibilities on his shoulders. None of it all. And he didn’t care if he died.

  He should have, too. His whole midsection was exposed, Beth or Octavius could’ve easily reached out and gutted him like (Marcy) a deer. But they didn’t. Beth raised Frank up a little higher.

  “Ah-ah,” she said. “Don’t come any closer.” She shifted Frank around to where she had him in a sleeper-hold, then put the edge of her blade above his temple.

  Harold stopped.

  “One more step and I kill him. You don’t want that blood on your hand, too, do you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I mean, if you want, I could certainly use a snack. It’s been awhile since I’ve fed.” Her jaw seemed to unhinge. Rows of sharp, shark-like teeth stuck out from her gums like the night Harold has seen her and Charlie outside of Chet’s bar as he cowered under the taxicab scared for his life. That’s when it had all started, wasn’t it?

  It could all end here, he thought, I could fold, and the suffering would be over. I never asked for this, they can just save themselves.

  No, you didn’t ask for this, it was someone else’s voice, someone familiar. But it’s been given to you and you can’t fold, you can’t give up…and you won’t.

  “What do you want?” Harold asked.

  “First drop the blade,” Octavius said, “and kick it out of your reach.”

  “A certain someone wants you for himself,” Beth said. Her jaw was back to normal, now. And she smiled a grin that said she had won, and Harold knew she was right. “A certain someone who will be expecting us to not come back empty-handed. And we’ve done enough fighting, haven’t we? No more blood needs to be shed until we get to the tower and until you meet him yourself. And, hey, who knows? Maybe he won’t even make you suffer. Maybe it’ll be over quick.”

  “I doubt that,” Harold said. The blade fell from his hands and clattered off the stone floor.

  “On your knees,” Octavius said.

  Harold got on his knees.

  “Good, good,” Beth said. Her own blade retracted, yet she still held Frank in a sleeper hold. He was out, eyes not even half-slitted now. “Bind him, Octavius.”

  Octavius patted his pockets until something jingled within them. He pulled out a pair of black handcuffs, except on the inside of the ring were spikes about two inches deep. Harold remained still as the Shadow Eater walked behind him. Then he grunted as the spikes drove into his wrists. Blood flowed down his hands like rivers.

  “What about his sword?” Octavius asked, his voice right in Harold’s ear. “Worm was supposed to handle that but,” he looked over his shoulder — Harold looked, too — to where the ruined, smoking body of Worm lay in a heap amongst piles of stone.

  “Worm,” Beth said. “He has the…” she trailed off, looking upward. Harold’s own eyes followed her gaze. What he saw was odd, but not wholly surprising. It was Hell, after all.

  From a silver string, dangling about two feet above Harold’s head was a spider. It swung back and forth like a pendulum. Harold looked back to Beth. Her face seemed to go a shade paler, almost sickly and ash-like, but her eyes remained narrow and alert. She smiled the slightest bit as if she was in on another joke Harold was not.

  Then it happened.

  The spider was no longer a spider. Eight legs covered in small hairs turned to just four — two arms, two legs. The eight eyes turned to two also. But the fangs remained.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Spider said, then she jumped at Octavius, knocking him over, and taking Harold along for the ride.

  CHAPTER 32

  When he woke up, it was to pained screams. His legs were weak and rubbery, but his upper body wasn’t. Pins and needles stabbed him all over, making him feel like the only thing awake was his mind.

  He heard Spider’s voice.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  Boris dragged himself through what seemed like miles of broken stone. Some of bricks were hot with the fire. He paid no mind — or at least tried not to — as he clawed himself forward, hearing his skin sizzle and smelling burnt hairs.

  He could no longer sit idly by. Even if his magic no longer worked, he would fight until the death. He would claw, he would hit, and he would bite again if he had to. The doorway offered a semi-clear view of what was going on. Spider was no longer in her arachnid form, and she pummeled the male Shadow Eater, knocking him over, taking a handcuffed Harold Storm with her.

  Beth dropped the old man she was holding into a pile on the floor and advanced.

  Two of Spider’s other legs shot out in time to block a hit from Beth’s blade. There was a clash. A dull spark lit up their pained faces. Spider cried out the slightest bit and then blood dripped from her leg. Two other legs searched for Octavius’ throat, and found them. He gagged and fought and kicked, but Spider made no motion to let up, all the while she fought off Beth with her other legs.

  Harold Storm wormed himself away from the battle, heading for the passed out old man.

  Boris tried to call him, but his voice was a pained whisper. “Harold…Harold,” he wheezed. Harold paid no mind.

  Then he got up on all four of his horse legs. He moved slow and painfully, but also deliberate, sticking to the shadows the dying flames casted.

  “Harold,” he wheezed again.

  He was now behind the remains of the nightstand which was a hunk of charred wood, the only distinguishable feature dictating it as a nightstand being the twisted metal handles sticking out of what used to be drawers.

  This time, Harold saw him. The Realm Protector’s eyes got wide and flicked his head toward the door as if to say, “Go! Get the Hell out of here!”

  But Boris would not listen. No way was he giving up. All his life, before he’d entered Hell, when he roamed the hills and mountains of the Austrian countryside, giving up was always his first choice. Here, he had a chance to start over, even if Hell was the worst place any soul could be damned to. No more giving up. No more being small. He would be a difference…he would be a big difference.

  To his left, over the cover of the ruined dresser, Octavius had stopped fighting. Either passed out or dead.

  Beth raised her blade again, coming down with enough force to cleave a boulder in half. All six of Spider’s arms were out from their hiding spots. They came up in a flash of black lightning and formed something resembling one thick arm, and blocked the hit.

  Beth shrieked, the cords in her neck dancing with the sound. She raised the blade again, sliced downward.

  Spider blocked it.

  Beth raised it again…and again…and again…

  Harold no longer tried to come over to Boris. Now he stood up and ran at Beth to try to stop what
was happening. But she was on the other side of the room, and Boris knew it was too late.

  The blade hit Spider’s arms for the last time.

  Beth breathed heavy and fast.

  A spurt of green blood showered the ceiling then came down in fat drops.

  Spider cried out as her arms fell to each of her sides, cleaved in half.

  Harold shouted and ran as fast as he could with his hands behind his back. All Boris could do was watch with an open mouth. It was too late. Spider would die. Resistance was useless at this point, and Boris would die too. So would Electus.

  And the Realms.

  All of it.

  He no longer hid behind the dresser, now he stood, feeling like he was floating and sinking at the same time.

  Octavius got up, rubbing his neck. Red dots lined his skin where Spider had squeezed him. He saw Storm coming at him like a freight train and his eyes shot open. The sight must’ve shared all the lethargy from him because he lowered his shoulder and drove Harold Storm down to the floor, saving Beth and dooming Spider.

  “Renegades,” Beth said through bursts of breath. “This is the end of you. I came here for Storm, but why not kill two birds with one stone?”

  Spider had curled up into a fetal position, and slowly tried to wiggle herself away from Beth. But the Shadow Eater had kept coming, sword in hand, dripping green blood.

  “Go ahead,” Spider said. “Go ahead and do it. There’s more of us. More than you know. We will not stop fighting until you are banished to the Void, until — ” she leaned over and coughed up flecks of green blood, “until you drown in the Black Pits.”

  Beth cackled, but even Boris in his state of shock and dismay could hear the pain in the noise. “If that is the case,” Beth said, “then I shall see you there.”

  With that, her blade raised up high above her head, pointed downward, she drove it into Spider’s chest.

  Spider let out a horrible, blood-curdling screen, sending chills all over Boris’ body. He screamed, too.