Free Shadowbound: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Realm Protectors Book 2) by Spencer DeVeau Page B

didn’t. It wasn’t my fault, it was your mother’s,” he said.
    “I have no mother.” The voice broke into a sinister tone. “A mother does not murder their unborn.”
    “It wasn’t my fault,” Harold repeated.  
    He shook his head, felt the tears coming down his cheeks, wet and hot. Then raised a hand to brush them away, felt the smoothness of his skin — the wholeness.
    “So be it,” the child said.
    And it was a child no more.
    Now it stood, as a Shadow, hunched over with its jagged outline.
    Harold felt the fear seize him. He stood now, too, backing away into the darkness beyond him, not sure where it would lead. A hand struck a wall, cool and rocky, then his other hand reached out behind him, only the hand didn’t exist. And he touched nothing, took another step.
    His heart nearly exploded as he plummeted into the abyss, as he looked up and saw the twisted face of a baby looking down at him like a full moon.
    Soon the face grew to the size of a speck. Colder air rippled through him, and he stopped, landed in a lake with a hollow splash. Bubbles flew from his mouth, trying to escape to the surface too. The icy feeling froze his brain, and for some reason he opened his mouth to breathe — or scream — and his eyes followed suit.
    But there was no more blackness. Only the crystal clear blue of water. And the coldness left him, replaced by a tropical current.
    He had no longing for breath, no longing for answers. He had found the Lake, and Sahara was right to talk of it in death. It was so pleasant, so relaxing — a vacation for the mind and the body — no more dead children, no more Shadows.
    He’d enjoy it while he could, enjoy it before he was back in Reality’s Realm, fighting for his life. But nothing good ever lasted long, especially for Harold Storm.
    Because a corpse floated towards the surface, a thick metal chain swayed lazily from the its ankle. The skin looked like wet toilet paper, milky-white and bloated. Bits of flesh hung from the face, swayed with the current. A wild mane of white hair, one that could only belong to an old woman — or an old rock star — pointed towards the surface.
    Harold screamed again, kicked his hands and his feet to try to swim away, but as he looked down he saw his ankle had been clamped, too. And the woman’s corpse had a subtle smile on her face.
    Her lips didn’t move; a voice struck his mind: “The key, Harold. Find the key.”
    “I don’t have it,” he answered, and somehow his voice came out perfectly clear as if he wasn’t chained to the bottom of large body of water.
    “I do, in my shirt pocket. Come closer.”
    Harold hesitated. The dead eyes just stared at him blankly. He must’ve been going crazy. Must’ve been accepting that fact, too, because he swam closer, or as far as the chain would let him go, which was about a foot too close to the body.
    She might’ve once been pretty a hundred years ago, might’ve had the ghostly features of a Russian supermodel if the water had not taken her skin and turned it into pulp.
    His hand reached out to the woman, snaking through her floating arms towards the breast pocket, feeling like the woman would change into the face of an unnatural baby and bite his fingers off at any moment, feeling the fear wrenching at his insides.  
    She didn’t. Instead, she just bobbed, rocked back and forth with the same dead look on her face.
    His fingers dug into the pocket, and he felt the unmistakable metal between them. The jagged edge of a key, the loop of a keyring, and a hard plastic keychain. He pulled it free, and saw it as clear as day. The keychain had a crudely drawn wave on it and a little stick figure surfing, with a wave at his back. The words read: THE LAKE, Bar and Grill, FIRST DRINK’S ON US!
    Was this the Lake Sahara spoke of? Harold thought.
    Sahara.
    A hint of consciousness washed over him. He was asleep, but not. Half awake, stuck in Dream’s Realm, one foot in Reality’s.
    He had forgotten