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

  “Look around you, Octavius. You are dead no matter what,” Felix said. His voice was no longer grandfatherly, now it was menacing, sending chills up Harold’s spine. “You slice his throat then you have no collateral to bargain with. We will not let you run back to your precious Master. We will have the Wolves on you in seconds. There’s six of them and one of you. Do you think you can take them all on?”

  “Don’t y-you threaten me,” Octavius said. “I’ll do it. I’ll really do it.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Felix asked, voice still ice cold. “I am Felix, the greatest Wizard in Existence. I control the sun and the clouds, the stars and the moon. I can set you free. Isn’t that what you want, to be free?”

  Octavius’ grip loosened. Harold sucked in a burst of air, his vision spotty and his head thrumming.

  “Your Master cannot set you free. Not like me.”

  “You’re evil!” Octavius said. “You’re our enemy.”

  “Why? Because the man in the box said so? That’s hardly a reason to think someone’s evil, is it not? What you have done is not good, Octavius, but that does not mean your sins are unforgivable. I can set you free.”

  “My soul is damned. I will go to the Void where I will rot for eternity.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way, son. Let Harold go, give up his sword, and you can work on redeeming yourself now,” Felix said.

  Octavius let out something that sounded like a stifled sob, but he let Harold go. The sword clattered off the frozen ground directly afterward, and Octavius fell to his knees.

  “Good, my son. Good.”

  Harold gasped, grabbing his neck which was still sore.

  Sahara rushed over to him, bending down and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She was so warm. Her smell was intoxicating. It was almost like a dream. And then her lips met his cheek, soft and velvety, warmer than the rest of her. At that moment, Harold felt he could do anything. All his pains and troubles disappeared.

  Felix walked past them, placing a hand on Harold’s shoulder, then stopping in front of Octavius whose head was bowed.

  “Thank you, Octavius. You did great,” Felix said.

  “Am I saved? Will you keep me from the Void? Will you send me to the Heavens?” He looked up with a gleam in his eyes, something Harold thought not possible.

  Felix sighed. “I wish I had that power, my friend, but there is one more powerful than me.”

  Octavius’ lips parter, his teeth bared. “You lied.”

  “His name is Harold Storm, and he will be your judge, jury, and executioner today. That is, if he so wishes.” Felix turned to Harold. “What say you, Electus?”

  Harold stood up, hand now clasped with Sahara’s. He swiveled his head to the Wolves who watched him with a certain intensity. In a croak, Harold said, “I say my Wolves are hungry. I say they need to eat.”

  They howled in unison. Harold walked over and picked up his sword, feeling the vibrations of their cries of joy through the hilt.

  Octavius shouted, “No! You lied! You’re as bad as him. You won’t stand a chance — ” But before he could finish, the Alpha tore out his throat, spraying black blood.

  CHAPTER 44

  Beth was almost there. She could see the shining black walls made of iron and bone. Beyond that, the tower.

  What did they expect? What did Octavius expect? There may have been a romance between them — if you wanted to call it that — but that was long gone, and now it was fight or flight. Live or die.

  She chose live.

  Then the Wolves howled. A screeching howl which caused her head to pulse.

  Don’t look back. Don’t look back, she told herself. If she did, they would be there, just inches away from her face, then they would feast. And she would enter the Void forever.

  The gates loomed in front of her, old and wrought iron. She ran to the bars, gripped ahold of them. She yelled. She cried.

  Moments later, a stooped man with a long and bushy mustache entered into view.

  “No need to get your britches in a bunch. No need.” His head was down, glasses hanging off the end of his nose. This was Peter, the gatekeeper, and he’d been the gatekeeper since there had been gates to keep.

  “Open up, old man. They’re coming.”

  He looked up his eyes magnified ten times behind the lenses of his glasses. “Beth, oh my…where is the — ”

  “It doesn’t matter. Open the gates!”

  He hurriedly moved to the lever beyond the bars. It took him longer than it should’ve to pull it down. As soon as the gates raised high enough for Beth to squeeze under, she did. She thought it was about time for a new gatekeeper, and when she was finally safe beyond the enchanted iron, she took a deep breath and looked out, and what she saw was…nothing.

  Nothing. They aren’t chasing me. Maybe Octavius stood and fought.

  No way. They would put him down as easily as they’d put down a sick dog.

  “He will not be pleased,” Peter said, rubbing at his temples.

  “He’s back?” she asked, an odd mixture of fear and happiness brewing in the pits of her stomach.

  “Yes,” Peter said. “He is back, and he’s preparing for war.”

  “Good. War is what we’ll have. Where is he?”

  “You know where he’s at, Beth, you always know. He’s…he’s raising an army,” Peter answered. A crooked look graced his face, then he shrugged as if to say, Don’t ask me, I’m just the gatekeeper.

  The little bit of happiness — of being home, of her Master living again in his true form — disappeared at the mention of the Black Pits. The place had been off limits since he’d gone. Beth knew terror, she knew horror, but she would not even join Charlie on his many trips there. It was a place almost as unspeakable as the Void.

  Charlie, she thought. He will be so happy I am back, but so mad that I’ve failed.

  That’s the least you have to worry about, another part of her mind said.

  She looked to Peter who still regarded her with as much importance as he’d regard a tumbleweed blowing in the wind. “Charlie?” she asked.

  And something unusual happened. His features distorted. He looked ten times older. It was a look of fear and dismay and sadness all rolled up into one.

  “Go see for yourself,” he said.

  She did.

  CHAPTER 45

  Frank took one look at the damage the Shadow Eater’s had done to the Renegade’s stronghold and figured it would topple over in a matter of days, maybe hours if the winds picked up. He held his crossbow at his side. There were a few chips on the sides and on a few of the arrowheads, but he had fired a test shot into a wooden sign about a hundred feet down the street, and hit it.

  “We’ll be walking a long way, Frank,” Boris said.

  “So what? As long as we get there. We might be able to catch up to them, I mean we know where they’re going, right?”

  Boris nodded.

  “So we’re good. Longer we stand and chitchat, the farther they’re getting.”

  “But we don’t know which way they’ve gone. Could’ve gone along the Vortex, or went the route of the Old Road.”

  “You’re talkin’ like I know what the fuck you’re saying,” Frank said. “All I know is they’re going to wherever that asshole Satan is at. So that’s where we need to go.”

  “What if I told you we could beat them to the spot,” Boris said, ignoring Frank’s rudeness.

  “I’d say you’re a crazy horse bastard,” Frank said, but he smiled. Boris didn’t return that smile.

  “We can use the Knight’s armor.”

  “Won’t he need it?”

  “No,” Boris said.

  “You mean…he’s gonna die?”

  “No, he is already dead. He wanted it that way. The wound Harold gave him was not devastating, but he didn’t try to heal. With the equipment we have, he could’ve. He just won’t. Death — a way out of this place — was always a goal of his.”

  “That�
�s a weird goal, but, shit,” Frank said, “sign me up. Didn’t know the guy well anyway, might as well use his stuff. Not gonna do him any good if he’s dead.”

  Boris’ eyes glistened and he looked down at his hooves, but he nodded. “It’s what he would’ve wanted.”

  After what felt like ten minutes, Boris was in the armor. The torso of the Knight, which had a long slash from Harold’s sword down it, housed the Centaur. He was small enough to fit comfortably, though seeing him leaning on the chair, propped up on his back legs with his front legs on the seat cushion brought a grin to Frank’s face. It was nothing compared to how ridiculous Frank looked. He had rigged a harness around the metal exoskeleton’s shoulders so Frank could saddle in like he was getting a piggyback. He tied a few of the bedsheets together until they were as strong as a rope. Some of the material had been burned, but he figured it would hold up well enough. And if not, then he’d just walk or have the big metal bastard carry him.

  Once Boris powered the machine up, he said, “Won’t last us long, doubt it’ll even get us to the tower, but we’ll get there before them, that’s for sure.”

  Frank heard the metal legs pumping. He was reminded of the sound of a train slowly gearing up to full speed. The feeling was not of that though; it was of an old wooden rollercoaster that killed you more than it thrilled you. His head knocked back and forth, teeth rattling in his mouth.

  The dark wasteland was ahead of them. Frank couldn’t see this of course, all he could see was the rusting metal of the armor’s back.

  They moved at a pace of sixty miles an hour for what seemed like three hours to Frank. The city was at their backs now, and Frank watched it as the towering spires grew smaller and smaller.

  “How we doing, Boris?” he shouted over the sounds of the heavy boots slamming the ground.

  “We have about thirty percent power.”

  “We gonna get there?”

  “As long as nothing gets us first,” Boris replied.

  The armor broke down about an hour later, but Frank heard it unraveling thirty minutes before. Screws fell off of the metal. It whined and screeched. Boris’ breathing grew heavier as he had to use his own muscles to spur the levers that worked the legs back and forth. He had slowed the machine to about fifteen miles per hour. It wasn’t Frank’s old — now defunct — Ford pickup, but it did the trick.

  Then, seemingly, all of a sudden, the knees gave out. Boris shrieked. Frank braced for impact, instinctively protecting the weapon he had slung over his back more than he’d protected himself.

  There wasn’t much of a crash, though. Instead, the machine just stopped.

  “It locked up,” Boris said.

  “What’s that mean? It’s broken? Fixable?”

  “It means we walk from here.”

  Frank figured as much and he would be lying if he said he didn’t want to get out of the harness. It had started rubbing him raw in areas that probably shouldn’t have been rubbed at all. He also didn’t like the idea of anyone looking at them and seeing a large man on the back of a machine piloted by a horse. A ridiculous notion, indeed. What kind of creatures in Hell could possibly judge Frank King?

  Still, anytime a man was on the back of another man that was always cause for concern according to Frank, and especially according to Frank’s father.

  Oh, if you could see me now, pops, he thought with a grin on his face. You’d be so proud.

  He crawled out of the harness and wiped some dust from his face.

  Boris was in the dirt, his small hands sifting through the pile of broken parts, probably looking for something they could salvage, maybe even use on the rest of their trek.

  “Any luck?” Frank hollered, brushing himself off. He leaned over and shot a big burst of air through his nostrils to clear them. He could smell the rot, could taste it on his tongue. This place was a wasteland. A place of desolation. He looked out over the horizon where a range of dark mountains seemed to stretch the length of this world until they faded into black. There were hardly any sounds except for the icy bursts of wind that whistled into Frank’s ears, that seemed to chill his brain, even his soul. One look all around him told him they might have to walk longer than they both had originally intended.

  He looked back to Boris, hoping there’d be some good news and shouted, “Come on, big fella, give me something good.”

  “Well, it’s not totally lost. One of the hydraulic pumps disconnected and is leaking. I could patch and we might get another few miles out of it, more if we go slower.”

  Frank nodded. That was good. He thought if he had to walk this dead soil, he wouldn’t get far. Whatever rotten things were beneath his feet might pop up from the ground and seize his ankles, then it would drag him down into the blackness. He shook his head, a lame attempt at shaking his mind free of the thought. One he found hard to shake. It seemed like this place was getting to him. The atmosphere. The air. The cold. Without Harold Storm, he seemed lost, and man, would Frank King never admit something like that to anyone but himself.

  “Let’s go for it,” he said. “But I don’t know much about a machine like this. Back home, I used to work on my Ford all the time. Can’t be much — ”

  A rustling from his left cut him off. He expected the worst — skeletons determined to rip his head off, Renegades gone rouge, even Shadow Eaters.

  It wasn’t any of those things.

  It was a voice and it said: “You two in love?”

  Frank froze. His hand twitched, a useless attempt for his crossbow. Useless, because the creature was already revealing itself.

  Then Frank laughed, not at the creature’s remark, but at the sight of it.

  “Love? You better watch your mouth there, pipsqueak,” Frank said. He was about to turn his back on the little thing — it resembled a possum, maybe a little bigger. Its eyes were dark yellow, but big and soft like a puppy’s. Frank figured he could’ve squashed the thing beneath his boot. So he turned, and he saw a look of despair on Boris’ face. It confused him.

  “Don’t move, Frank,” Boris said, his voice was stern, in control.

  “What? This little guy ain’t gonna hurt us,” Frank said. He could move now, unfrozen, and he raised a hand and waved downward at the little possum-looking creature.

  Then the creature smiled — at least that’s what it looked like. A smile full of serrated teeth that seemed too big for its tiny skull.

  “What…what is it?” Frank asked. All the playfulness had gone out of his voice.

  “It’s a Jackal,” Boris said, his eyes regarded Frank with a weariness.

  “They flammable?” Frank asked, looking down at Boris’ hands.

  The Centaur shook his head.

  “What do you y’all got there?” the Jackal asked. It stood up on its haunches to get a better look at the slumped heap of metal that had been their rides.

  “It’s not going to be of much use to you,” Boris answered.

  “Is that right?” The Jackal moved like a weasel through the dirt, crawling on all fours. It stopped beneath one leg — the broken one, if the dark fluid running down it was any inclination, Frank thought — then raised his own, letting loose a bright yellow stream of urine. “A fine piece of equipment, if you ask me,” it said.

  “Please, just leave us be,” Boris said.

  “Afraid I can’t do that,” the Jackal said. “Unless…”

  “Whatever you want,” Boris said, his hands up in front of his face. The Jackal was on its haunches now, wearing a sharp grin, leaning close to Boris.

  Frank scoffed. “This is ridiculous. Even you’re bigger than this asshole, Boris.” He reached behind his back, caught ahold of the cold metal grip of the crossbow, but Boris was on him before he could draw it. He dug his nails into Frank’s flesh and shook his head slowly back and forth.

  “Don’t, Frank.”

  “Yeah…don’t, Franky,” the Jackal said, almost perfectly imitating Boris’ voice. “Not if you want to keep going where you’re going.”
It smiled again. “And you wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to Harold Storm, would you? He might not make it if you two don’t show up to help.”

  Frank narrowed his eyes. “How do you know about that?”

  “I may be small, but I get around. We all get around,” it said. Then it cackled a laugh only a few notes lower than Beth’s had been.

  “They’re called Hell’s Voice,” Boris said. He loosened his grip on Frank’s arm, and when he did, Frank saw there was some blood welling from a few small slits. It would sting later, like a paper cut, but he couldn’t blame the horse-man. He was scared, and now Frank was, too.

  “And Hell’s Eyes…and Ears. Wouldn’t want the big guns finding out you’re coming, would you?”

  “They probably already know,” Frank said. “Could be you’re just a weak asshole trying to benefit off the fear of others. Could be you don’t talk to anyone.”

  “Then how would I know about Harold’s Wolves. Or your little run in with the skeletons back at the Portal? Hmm?”

  Frank ground his teeth.

  “We talk. We whisper. Kill me, and one of us will see, and then your little element of surprise will be taken.”

  “What if we kill all of you?” Frank asked. Really, he was just testing this little creature’s patience. He didn’t have murder on the mind…not yet, not towards them.

  The Jackal stood up a little straighter, the smile wiped from its face replaced by a look of seriousness, a look of metal. “Then you’ll need a lot more than ten arrows and a cracked crossbow.”

  And as if on cue, a chorus of yellow eyes popped out from behind him. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands. Fear wrenched Frank’s gut. They may not be skeletons, but they had sharp teeth. Really sharp teeth.

  “Please, just take what you want,” Boris said, “and don’t tell a soul you found us.”

  The Jackal grabbed its gut and leaned over, laughing. “A soul, he says! Good one! This place hasn’t been funny in a long time.”