The Havoc Chronicles (Book II): Unbound (27 page)

I believe you are that one. I believe that you have absorbed the powers of Eric and Kara and are now both Berserker and Binder for Pravicus and Margil.

The prophecy seems to hint that eventually all the Berserkers and Binders will die, save the one, leaving you with their combined powers. Then, when all their power has consolidated in you, you will have the ability to not just bind the Havocs, but to remove them completely. Whether that means you will be able to kill them or to simply send them back where they came from, I do not know.

This is a heavy burden, especially for one so young as yourself. If the fates are kind you will have many years to grow up before I need to reveal this to you.

I fear we may not have that long.

Sincerely,

Mallika

Placed underneath the signature was a sticky note with handwriting on it similar to the letter, only not as neat and precise. It was obviously written in a hurry.

Through my bond with Rhys I felt his anguish and knew you were on the verge of death. By ending my life I gave you the power to live. Do not be sad, for this is a sacrifice freely given. I have lived a long and full life and am at peace with my God.

Farewell.

Rhys and I sat in silence trying to take in everything Mallika had written. It seemed so overwhelming, so... big, that I had difficulty wrapping my mind around it. Not only was I a Berserker and a Binder, but it seemed like I was destined to be the last one standing.

The sound of a car pulling up let us know that the other Berserkers were back from investigating the temperature spike. Rhys and I went out to meet them.

Clearly the temperature spike had not just been a false alarm. Shing, Davu, Josiah, and Arthur climbed out of the Range Rover, defeat written in every movement they made. Their clothes were ragged, and their expressions were so grim you would think someone had died.

Then I realized Aata was missing.

Like the last tumbler of a lock clicking into place, Mallika’s words in the letter suddenly made sense. If Mallika’s suspicions were correct, then those images that flashed in my head were glimpses of other people’s memories - some sort of side effect of the power transfer.

Which meant that Aata was dead, too.

That flood of images before Osadyn had attacked would have fit perfectly - Maori warriors, the beaches of New Zealand, and the small boy fighting would all be significant images to him. The German village and the soccer match must have been memories from his Binder, who would have died when he did. 

It was no surprise, but it was another grief to add to my rapidly expanding list, when Shing opened the back of the Range Rover and pulled out a figure wrapped in a blanket. Judging by the size, it had to be Aata. 

Arthur, Davu, and Josiah came into the house while Shing carried Aata’s body in through the garage. While he found a place to store Aata’s body, the others told us what had happened.

The Berserkers had been monitoring the local temperatures. At 7:30 Aata discovered an anomaly in Astoria, a small town out at the coast.

Once they arrived, the signs of Margil’s presence were clear. They found him waiting for them in a large cemetery surrounded by hundreds of reanimated corpses. These bodies weren’t like the slowly shuffling zombies you see in the movies. They certainly didn’t have a Berserker’s speed and strength, but they were as fast and agile as the Bringers Osadyn used.

The Berserkers battled their way through the reanimated corpses to get to Margil, but Margil had no intention of fighting them directly. Once they had defeated his minions, he began to retreat. The standard protocol should have been to track him for a few more hours until they could force him into a location that didn’t have so many dead bodies for the Havoc to reanimate.

Aata had a different idea.

He rushed Margil and tried to take him on by himself. He almost managed to do it, but Margil was able to pierce him through the throat with one of his long claws. While Aata struggled to get free, Margil pierced him through the heart with another claw and killed him.

At this point in the story something inside me snapped, and I was filled with the overwhelming desire for solitude. There had been so much death and killing in the last few days that I couldn’t listen any more. I needed air, or space, or anything but being here and talking about monsters and the dead.  

I stood up. “I’ve got to go,” I said.

Rhys immediately was on his feet. “I’ll take you home,” he said.

“Thanks.”

***

When we got to my house, Rhys walked me up to the front door. It was three in the morning and from outside I could see there was a light on in the living room.

“Do you want me to come in?” Rhys asked.

“No. I think I’m ready for tonight to be over.” I reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “Goodnight.”

I slipped in the door and walked down the hall to the living room where I found my dad asleep on the couch, the television tuned to some random infomercial. Clearly he had made a futile but well-meaning attempt at waiting up for me.

Watching him sleep, I was torn between exasperation that he couldn’t seem to stop treating me like a little girl, and a warm feeling of joy that he truly loved me. Given all the death and monsters I had been dealing with lately, this whole little girl thing didn’t seem so bad.

I sat down on the couch and laid my head on Dad’s shoulder. He stirred and opened his eyes.

He yawned and stretched, sitting up straighter. “Oh, you’re home.”

“Yeah, I’m home,” I said, and then unexpectedly the tears came. As much as I wanted to think of myself as grown-up – independent, tough and unstoppable – there were times like this when all I wanted was my daddy.

And so I cried in his arms while he held me, and I told him everything that had happened: Osadyn attacking at Prom and using his powers to soothe our ‘zerking, the images that came to me, and how Mallika had died and I bound Osadyn.

When I was finished, Dad had a far-away look in his eyes. “It should be me,” he said. “I should be the one dealing with all of this, not my teenage daughter.” He took a deep breath, and tears began to stream down his face. “I feel so useless.”

“You’re not useless,” I said. “You’re my dad. I need you now more than ever.”

Dad pulled me in tight and together we cried. We cried for lost friends, for fear for our loved ones, and for the certainty we both felt that the worst was still to come.

***

The next day I slept in past noon. Mom of course wanted to hear all the details about Prom, and so I told her how wonderful it had been. I left out the part about Osadyn crashing the party.

That afternoon, I got into Mom’s car, and I drove. I needed time to come to grips with everything that had happened. Until recently I had never known someone who died. Now I knew far too many.

I ended up near the school, and on a whim I drove into the school parking lot. I parked on the far side of the lot, just outside of the dead woods.

Strange how I used to fear those woods. I now knew I was more dangerous than anything that could possibly be in there. 

I ‘zerked and ran to the clearing where I had first been attacked. It was also the place where I had first seen Rhys. Despite the months that had passed, the evidence of my battle lingered – broken trees and large gouges torn out of the ground.

Dropping the ‘zerk, I found a fallen tree trunk that was about the right height and sat down. It was a truly glorious day. Bright and sunny, with a light wind that blew in the fresh scent of pine.

I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. This place still had meaning to me. I fought my first battle here, not knowing what my enemies were and doubting whether I should be allowed near normal people. It had been a turning point. Up until then I had been scared and alone. Afterwards, I knew there were others like me.

My life had changed completely since then. Eric, Kara, Mallika, Aata and his binder, Christine, had all died. I now held their powers within me – six sets of powers inside a single person. No, seven. I had already been a Binder and Berserker when this all started.

What did this even mean? What was I supposed to do with their power? Was I just the sum of their powers, or was I supposed to be something more?

Things were changing in the Berserker world. Constants that had held for thousands of years were starting to shift and change. Deep inside me, I knew this was just the beginning of bigger changes.

And that scared me.

How was I supposed to know what to do? I hadn’t even learned the ins and outs of this new world yet. It wasn’t fair that I should have to deal with it falling apart around me.

I pulled out Mallika’s letter and reread it. The power keeping Verenex and the Havocs bound was starting to corrupt. Was there more to it than simply the power coalescing into me? My intuition told me – quite loudly – that there was.

I felt someone ‘zerk and judging by the distance and direction it was near the school parking lot.

It had to be Rhys.

Who else would come all the way out here to find me? I followed Rhys in my mind, feeling him come closer. Maybe it was my imagination, but it almost seemed like I could tell it was Rhys by the feel of his ‘zerk. Could the other Berserkers do that? I didn’t know. It was one of a thousand things that I hadn’t yet had time to learn.

Rhys stopped ‘zerking before he entered the clearing.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

I shifted to make room for him on the log. He sat down next to me, and I rested my head on his shoulder.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Scared. Confused. Sad. Angry. Mix in several helpings of joy and gratitude and it makes for a confusing recipe.”

Rhys took a deep breath. “Changes are coming,” he said. “You feel it too?”

I nodded. “I haven’t even learned how things are supposed to be, and now they’re changing on me. How do I deal with that?”

Rhys bent his head down and kissed me. “The same way you have dealt with everything up until now – with grace and poise.”

I smiled and snuggled into Rhys, enjoying the feel of his arms around me, the solidity of his chest, and the scent that surrounded him.

At that moment, I felt as if I were inside a bubble of calm. Chaos, death, and danger surrounded me, beating on the outside, trying to get in, but right here, right now, I was happy.

To be continued

in

Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3)

First and foremost, I want to thank YOU. Yes, you reading this. I want to thank all of you who read Threads That Bind and enjoyed it enough to come back to the Berserker's world and see how the story continued in Unbound. Seeing your excitement and reading your reactions has been more than worth the effort to write the books. I am truly delighted that you have let me share this story with you.

Next, I want to thank all those people who helped make this book what it is:

Thanks to Sabine Berlin who was my alpha reader and biggest cheerleader throughout the writing of this book.

Thanks to editor extraordinaire, Nancy Fulda, for once again removing thousands of words and inserting hundreds of better ones in their place.

Thanks to Janyse Frerichs, Terri Barton, and Aaron Williams for using their keenly-honed minds to weed out typos and other errors and make Unbound as clean as possible.

Thanks to Tian Mulholland for using his many graphical talents to once again create an extraordinary cover. I am
still
in awe of his skill.

Thanks to my father, Tom Williams for building
www.havocchronicles.com
when I was too busy with life to make it happen. It has helped me connect with my readers in a way I couldn't before.