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

  The Vampire’s hissing turned to a high-pitched scream, breaking the glass of a mirror above the sink in the corner of the room.

  Eight years of bad luck already starting early for Nik.

  Soon Harold was able to breath again, really expand his lungs to their full potential because Nik no longer straddled him.

  Sahara raised her blade again, but let it fall from her side, retracting it without so much as a grimace on her face. Lucky girl. Would he ever be able to do it?

  “Now I have questions, buddy,” Sahara said. “You want to get out of here alive, then you’ll answer them.” Her red hair stuck to her face, she swiped a hand across her forehead, smearing the blood, pushing the strands out of her eyes.

  In that split second, the Vampire was gone. He rose, ran for the window and jumped through, not gracefully. The large glass pane now obliterated. Cold air whistled inside.

  “What the Hell are you doing?” he said. “You can’t let that bastard get away.” He tried to stand up. Wound up having to use the counter as support. A bullet through the brain was nothing, but find a Vampire who woke up on the wrong side of the coffin, and you’ll get enough injuries to make you feel like a corpse.

  “Are you alright?” she asked, bending low, putting her hand on his neck. “He didn’t inject his venom.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You’d be dying.”

  “Yeah, I feel like it.”

  Harold’s body shook, hoped she didn’t see it. But she looked almost as frightened as he felt, which was odd. Hadn’t she been at this for two hundred years or something like that?

  “Yeah, I-I don’t think he actually broke skin. Just a graze.” He felt like a cop who got shot in the line of duty. Hell, he wished he was a cop. Crackheads and bank robbers were one thing. Vampires and Shadow Eaters were, as was just proven, the kind of stuff of nightmares.

  “But you can’t let him get away. You have to stop him,” Harold said again. The thought of that thing being released into the heart of the city frightened him more than anything else. And earlier, he’d shot himself in the head and lived to talk about it.

  “I’m too weak,” she said, walking over to the body of the other vampire, toeing him with her boot, making sure he was dead. A gash in the Vampire’s skin was completely vaporized, showed the shiny tile like a small window in his torso. The kid’s face was fresh-looking, like he couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old. He would’ve had so much life ahead of him.

  He blinked slowly, looking away and thinking about how maybe he and Sahara were the real monsters after all.

  “Trust me, we haven’t seen the last of Nik,” she said.

  “He knew my name.”

  “Wouldn’t doubt it. You’re equipped with one of the most powerful weapons in all the Realms, second only to Satan’s horns.”

  “His horns? I thought you said he was locked up. If he’s got the most powerful weapons in all of existence, how the Hell do you keep him caged?”

  “Used to have the most powerful weapons.” She smiled an exhausted smile as if it took all the energy in her body to get the muscles in her face moving. “What do you think we made the keys from?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Harold said.

  “No, he stayed out of that one. Been laying low since the Mortals hung him up on the cross.” She shrugged. “A grudge is a grudge.”

  Harold ignored her, not wanting to delve into the history any longer. He needed to get back to Marcy, make sure she was a hundred percent safe. She required protection beyond the arms of some hot blonde model type. Though part of him wished that if the Shadow Eaters attacked her apartment they’d make that guy suffer. But if that happened, then she’d be next. A smoking hot gal like herself with that bitchy attitude. If someone like Harold was too pure for them then she’d taste like a Big Mac.

  Was it all just an excuse for him to see her again, even if it meant creeping on her through a foggy window?

  He leapt up. “No more,” he said. “That Vampire has information. I’m not letting him get away.” He lurched forward, knees buckling. Sahara caught him, her grip tight.

  “You’re not going anywhere, buddy. Neither am I. Let him go. I promise he’ll come back.”

  Though Harold had never seen a real, living Vampire — he didn’t know if they were actually alive — something was really off about Nik. That crazed look in his eyes, killing for blood instead of sustenance. In the animal world they had a word for that and it was called rabid. Which meant he had to be put down.

  He took a step, regaining his balance. The pain fleeted from his body, veins pumped with adrenaline. “I have to do this.”

  She gripped his arm. “No, you don’t. You don’t have to do anything besides stay alive. If that key falls into the wrong hands — ”

  “It won’t,” he said. “I have to do this. Go check on Roman and his daughter. Make sure they made it out alright.” He moved towards the other end of the room, then gripped the frame of the window with the least amount of deadly shard of glass sticking up.

  Her lips parted as if to say something, but he left before she could protest.

  The broken glass from earlier laid in a pile of sparkles outside on the ground. Cool air blasted in, sparking a painful sensation on the place where Nik scraped him, but even then Harold could feel the wound closing itself, healing at a rate no injury had a right to heal.

  Yeah, he could’ve used the door, but truth be told, he didn’t want to risk running into Roman in the hallway, especially with his daughter. Vampires were not, at the moment and probably never would be, at the top of his list of things he liked. He didn’t want to risk a testosterone-fueled fight, didn’t want to risk killing a father in front of his daughter, or vice-versa because the allure of staying alive, other than the most logical reasons, was much better when one had a purpose. Harold seemed to find his purpose.

  A Protector, now. A Realm Protector, though he thought he’d never get used to that term.

  He heard the sound of sirens off in the distance, thinking about how stupid he was to have shot the gun. Not only would it not have done much damage besides slowing the creatures down for a few seconds, but it also notified the entire neighborhood where he was at. Soon the flashing red and blue lights lit up the dark street beyond the gate. They’d find poor Ramirez, probably find a bunch of Harold’s DNA, see the security footage, and have a city-wide manhunt for him, flaming torches and all. How crazy would he look if the myths about Vampires not having a reflection were true? He’d be on the screen with Sahara fighting nothing but thin air. The thought made him chuckle. Still, he didn’t want to risk it. Jail would be too much of a hassle. Cops had always pissed him off. Throw in his crazy burned features along with his equally spicy attitude and he had the perfect recipe for twenty five to life.

  It didn’t take him long to pick up on the trail of blood that led from the back of building to back fence. At one point he lost it — the darkness and the pitch black concrete doing well to mask the matching black-red liquid — but caught a few drops rolling down the blue Dumpster pushed up against the back of the fence. Nik had no doubt used it to propel himself over the fence and Harold followed in his footsteps. A good sign. The Vamp was weak, relying on objects to get him away. No flying, no changing into a bat, or anything of that weirdness.

  Beyond the fence were two more brick buildings and a narrow alley between them, leading out onto a street where cars barreled down well over the speed limit. The blood drops slowed there, spaced out by more than a few feet until they reached the end of the alley. Harold took a right, nearly knocking over a group of women in tight skirts with plenty of leg showing. They were the type of girls Harold might’ve had the nerve to whistle at had he been a few years younger and spent less time in a spell-fueled oven.

  One of the girls exclaimed in disgust as she brushed up against his slick trench coat. The other side stepped him as if he were roadkill that wound up undead on the sidewalk. A few girls were gro
ssed out by him, so what? That was nothing new. He had a goal in mind. A purpose. He couldn’t get distracted now. But the next group of people did the same thing. Their eyes wide, renouncing all manners and staring with as much subtlety as a man dressed as a bomb in an airport. Everywhere he looked, eyes. People pointing. Whispers. Cars slowed, gawking at him. Someone honked, yelled out: “Freak!”

  Yeah, the city could be brutal. They didn’t call it Gloomsville for nothing. But he did his best not to get off track. The blood was still spattered on the sidewalk, but to a normal person’s eyes, it might have been tar. And to a normal person’s eyes, Nik might’ve looked like a sulky teenaged emo kid. They might see the missing arm, but that couldn’t be worse than walking around looking like Freddy Krueger’s cousin.

  Luckily, the trail of blood ended near some tacky Chinese take-out joint. Tinted windows, a large neon sign of a dragon and some Chinese symbols.

  Harold pulled the door open, ringing the bell above. He was hit with the smell of fried rice and orange chicken. Someone shouted in Chinese. Harold understood none of it, but looked up and saw a balding man with a gray-streaked goatee pointing a metal spatula at a booth to Harold’s left.

  “I don’t think he serves our kind, Storm,” Nik said. His hand was clamped around the stump of his arm, blood seeped out from between his fingers. “If you’re gonna kill me, just know I’m going to put up a fight.”

  Harold looked him over. Sweaty strands of hair stuck to the Vampire’s forehead. Dirt streaked his right cheek, more tar-black blood on his left. Dried human blood rimmed around his mouth. He was something much worse than a Hollywood Vampire, more like something that crawled out of its casket.

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Harold said.

  The Chinese man kept yelling in words that Harold didn’t comprehend. Another man emerged from the kitchen, pushing the door open a crack and peeking out with a phone in hand, a hat on his head.

  The Chinese man stopped. For a second, there was silence, until Nik started laughing again.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “You are thrust into this world of responsibility and you just accept it like nothing’s changed. You must be crazy.”

  “As you get older, the crazier you are, the better,” Harold said. “But I’m not here to kill you.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have much of choice. The way I see it, one of us is going to die. Probably Squinty-Eyes over there, too.”

  He stood up, steadying himself on the table, the salt and pepper shakers vibrating with the shudders of his body, like an idling engine.

  “I just want to know more. You’re right, I didn’t want this. If it were up to me, I would’ve died a long time ago, but that isn’t the case. And when I do a job, I try to do my best. It’s the only way I know how. I was raised the right way.”

  “Then why did you let your girl do the dirty work for you?” He held up his stump. “Too afraid?”

  Harold stood there, armed with nothing but his words. No gun. An unwelcome silence inside of his head. No howls. And he stood there and realized how absolutely naked he was. The thing across from him was an honest-to-god Vampire with ties to Hell itself.

  Now, Harold had made some dumb decisions in his life — a list too long to count — but this had to be the dumbest of them all.

  Then the door opened, bell ringing, drawing all their stares to a blonde bombshell walking in, six or seven year old son holding her hand. The Vampire may have been hurt, but he moved as gracefully as anything Harold had ever seen, knocking the mom out of the way and scooping the child up in his good arm.

  The kid’s screams ripped Harold’s heart apart as they left the Chinese restaurant.

  CHAPTER 15

  The mother had a nasty gash across her head from hitting the corner of a table. Blood trickled from the wound, and for a second Harold rocked on his heels, torn between helping the woman or chasing after the Vampire and the woman’s son. He was no hero, he knew that. Because of situations exactly like this. In the end, he decided to bend down, knees somehow popping louder than his heartbeat in his chest, and ask if she was okay.

  She nodded. “My boy,” she said, trying to get up, but failing and almost busting her head open again. Harold caught her, motioned towards the Chinese man who stood behind the counter shivering like he’d just emerged from a frozen lake. The man gulped and reluctantly, he came over to tend to the woman.

  Harold launched himself out of the door, afraid of what he might find. The people still stared, now gathering in crowds on the sidewalk, their heads cocked, eyes curious, trying to figure out what was going on. Most of them looked like tourists. Harold spotted a few fanny-packs, some with expensive cameras draped around their necks. Old stuffy-looking people.

  Sorry, folks. Vacation’s over. Welcome to the real world. The world where Vampires exist and a man can be burnt to a crisp and live.

  Up ahead, under the glare of a streetlight, Harold spotted the Vampire. He dragged the kid with one arm, while the boy kicked and screamed. Harold sprinted, knocking shoulders with a few people, dodging others, spinning around a newspaper stand like a running back.

  The Vampire looked over his shoulder, then turned his head and hissed to a large man trying to stop him. The man backed away, stepping off of the curb, scrambling in the road. A car rolled down, high beams on, honking, then skidding to a stop inches away from the guy. Harold hurdled over him like he’d been doing it all his life.

  He was about ten feet from the Vampire. A crowd gathered, surrounding Harold and Nik.

  “Back off, Storm. Or I drain the kid,” Nik said.

  Harold flexed his hands, let the knuckles pop and echo in the street’s odd quiet.

  Nik snorted, wiped the moisture on his forehead away with his stump. “What the fuck do you think are? Clint Eastwood?”

  Harold took a step forward, hand out, reaching for the kid. “Don’t hurt him, Nik.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” He ripped the child closer to him. And the kid bucked like a wild animal. Nik ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t like sharing meals. The guard wasn’t very fulfilling and there’s nothing quite like fresh meat.”

  A man stepped forward through the crowd of wide-eyed people, flashed his badge. “Police,” he said, though he wore regular clothes — a light black jacket and jeans. “I’m gonna need you to unhand the child, sir.” He got close enough to shove the badge into Nik’s face.

  Harold took a deep breath. The adrenaline pulsed inside of him. He’d never told a cop what to do, actually tried avoiding them as much as possible, but still, it had to be done. “I’d sit this one out, chief,” he said.

  The cop turned to him, and that same look of disgust Harold knew he’d never get used to passed over his features. The look of seeing a true monster for the first time.

  “Jesus,” he mumbled, then louder: “That’s it. Both of you are under arrest. Get on the ground. On the ground now!”

  Nik pushed him away with his stump, sending the off-duty cop flying into the crowd. He landed in a puddle at the feet of a rather tall woman who held an umbrella even though the raining had stopped. She jumped as the puddle splashed her long black dress, polka-dotting it with splotches of mud.

  The cop fumed now, face red, veins pulsing out from his forehead. Harold knew the type. The guy who was a star athlete in high school but wasn’t smart enough to excel in the real world once his knees starting to cake with arthritis. Then he ran at Nik like a middle linebacker blitzing a quarterback, reliving those glory days. The smile on his face proved it.

  Nik sidestepped with the grace of a ballerina, switching the kid from his good arm to his stump. When the cop missed, the softest area of his throat met Nik’s grip and the momentum, along with the force of Nik’s pull tore the poor guy’s throat right out. A red balloon of blood flew from the wound then popped, spraying the sidewalk. The cop choked and gagged; the crowd gasped. Most of them ran. A lady screamed, tripped over her own feet, splashed in the
same mud puddle that ruined another’s dress.

  Harold took a step back, gagged, nearly vomited. But he took another deep breath, tried to compose himself.

  The cop writhed and kicked like a fish out of water until he just stopped moving, skin turning pale white. An eel felt like it was slithering its way through the pits of Harold’s stomach. Could’ve been a pang of guilt, but he didn’t feel that sorry for the guy. Harold tried to warn him, hadn’t he?

  “I take it you value your throat,” Nik said, staring at Harold with a look sharp enough to cut through his rough flesh.

  “There’s consequences for that type of behavior, Nik,” Harold answered, but his voice came out wispy.

  A fanged smile showed on the Vampire’s mouth.

  “Now I’m going to start walking away,” and he did, slowly shuffling backward, the good hand gripped around the kid’s jacket. The kid didn’t fight anymore, he just stared down at the pool of blood that swallowed up the concrete. The light in his eyes had faded. There would be no coming back from something like this, Harold knew. Not even the best counselors in the world could erase that memory. Harold almost gave up then, feeling like saving the kid would be pointless, like keeping a dog with cancer alive for the sake of not wanting to lose a companion even though the dog’s quality of life was suffering.

  The kid was a lost cause.

  “Good, Storm, good. You may not be as dumb as you look after all,” his voice was louder, yelling over the rumble of cars careening down the street. The crowd had all but dispersed, though a few people watched from a distance, the type of people who got off on chaos, the first ones to arrive on the scene of a bad car wreck, the kinds who smiled at the yellow police tape wrapped around a house where a husband murder-suicided his family. A couple had their cell phones out, and one had their flash on with the phone stuck up from behind the trashcan the brave owner hid behind.