The Havoc Chronicles (Book II): Unbound Read online

  Unbound

  Brant Williams

  Copyright © 2012 by Brant Williams

  First Kindle edition published 2012

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Tian Mulholland

  Dedication

  For my mother,

  who was always there when I needed her and loves me unconditionally.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Out on the Town

  Chapter 2: Haze

  Chapter 3: Acting Out

  Chapter 4: The Test of a Binder

  Chapter 5: Beaches, Confessions, and Spoons

  Chapter 6: The Play's the Thing

  Chapter 7: Figment of My Imagination

  Chapter 8: What I Did on My Spring Break

  Chapter 9: Boys Will Be Boys

  Chapter 10: From Bad to Worse

  Chapter 11: Hateful

  Chapter 12: Worst. Prom. Ever.

  Chapter 13: Message from the Dead

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Out on the Town

  I awoke in a bed that wasn’t mine, rays of sunlight filtering through large windows framed by thin, lacy curtains. For a moment I simply lay there, not sure where I was, or how I had gotten there.

  Then I heard shouting and the previous night’s events came flooding back: The endless torrent of Bringers. Osadyn and Aata. Kara releasing the snare. Although I didn’t recognize the room, I figured I was in one of the many bedrooms in the Berserker house.

  With more effort than should have been necessary, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and onto the floor.

  The world spun, a dull ache pulsing at the back of my head. Nausea rose in my stomach, so I put my head in my hands, concentrating very hard on not projectile vomiting all over.

  After a moment the worst of it appeared to be over, and I felt strong enough to stand. As I got up, I realized I was wearing a long nightgown that was definitely not mine. I had no recollection of how I got into it, but I sure hoped it was Mallika or Kara who put it on me.

  I followed the sounds of arguing downstairs and into the large living room with the massive stone fireplace and overstuffed leather furniture.

  Aata and Kara were locked in a massive shouting match, and from their appearance had only recently gotten out of bed themselves.

  I took a step back, not wanting to intrude on their conversation, but there wasn’t a place I could go in the house where I wouldn’t overhear them screaming at each other. Unsure of what to do I simply stood there, out of sight, just around the corner.

  “I was trying to save your life!” Kara shouted.

  From my brief glance into the room, Aata had looked positively furious. I wouldn’t have been surprised if any second he ‘zerked.

  “You had no right!” he shouted back.

  Back and forth they yelled, Aata furious that Kara had released the snare and freed Osadyn, and Kara upset that Aata was angry at her for loving him enough to save him.

  “It wasn’t your choice to make!” Aata said. “I put my life on the line when I joined the Berserkers. We all did when we took the oaths. Some things are worth dying for.”

  “I couldn’t just let you die,” said Kara. “I love you!”

  A crash and the sound of splintering wood reverberated through the house. “And that’s why Berserkers and Binders should not get involved with each other!” shouted Aata. “I told you from the beginning that this would lead to trouble. Now you’ve ruined our one chance to capture Osadyn. All his future deaths are on your head!”

  Heavy stomping footsteps crossed the floor. The front door was yanked open and slammed shut, shaking the house.

  With Aata gone, the decibel level dramatically dropped. But the sound of Kara’s muffled sobs pierced the silence, bringing tears to my own eyes.

  I rushed into the living room and found her collapsed on the couch, sobbing uncontrollably. I sat down next to her and pulled her head onto my shoulder. I didn’t say anything; I just held her and stroked her hair, brushing the stray strands out of her face.

  Eventually Kara’s sobs began to subside. She looked at me with tear-filled eyes and a sense of hopelessness. “He... he hates me, Madison,” said Kara, and the sobs began again.

  There was nothing for me to say, so I simply continued stroking her hair and making gentle hushing noises. Looking around the room, I saw a splintered hole in the floor and a broken chair. The frame had been split, the leather torn, and the stuffing was half out. I guessed it hadn’t been Kara who had done that.

  To be honest, I wasn’t too happy with what Kara had done myself. I understood it – what if it had been someone I loved there – and in her position I probably would have done the same thing. But this morning, in the harsh light of day, just the thought of Osadyn getting away made me feel queasy about Kara’s choice. Who knew how many people were going to die because we hadn’t stopped him when we had the chance?

  I was rescued from my comforting duties by Rhys, Shing, Mallika, and Eric arriving home with food for breakfast.

  When Mallika saw us on the floor, her face changed from its normal stoic expression to one of pity. She reached down and pulled Kara to her feet. She and Eric guided Kara up the stairs to her bedroom, the crying growing fainter as they closed the door behind her.

  The rest of the day was rather subdued. Aata didn’t return and no one knew where he might have gone off to. Dad showed up around lunch time and gave me a big hug. He tried to cheer me up by telling me how brave I had been, but all I wanted to do was forget that last night had ever happened.

  Once I had gone back home, I tried to call Amy and repair the damage I had done to our relationship by not being there when she desperately needed me. Unfortunately, she had already left to visit her Grandparents' farm in a tiny town in Kansas that we knew from past experience did not have cell phone reception. There was no way to contact her and make it right so it would have to wait until I saw her again at school.

  If we needed proof that Osadyn was gone, the weather was all the evidence we needed. The temperature dropped down to a much more normal fifty degrees. Then, as if making up for being so warm, on New Year’s Day, we got a couple of inches of rare snow that managed to last the entire afternoon before melting.

  In addition to the temperature drop, the local news – which for the past few months had been full of assaults and murders – now seemed to be nothing but a non-stop holiday love-fest. Unlike the snow, that was a welcome change.

  With Osadyn gone, there wasn’t much reason for everyone to stay put. Yes it was possible – even probable – he would come back and attack, but the Berserker council wanted at least some of the Berserkers to once again go on the hunt for him.

  There were many days of arguing and debate while the Berserkers tried to decide who should go and who should stay. They finally decided that Shing, Aata, and Eric would leave to actively search out Osadyn. There wasn’t much they could do without Rhys’ blood and Mallika’s binding power, but it was to be purely a reconnaissance trip for the time being. Kara would stay because it was best for Kara and Aata to be apart for a while, and Rhys and Mallika would stay here because Osadyn might begin targeting me again.

  With the logistics decided, Shing, Aata, and Eric left just before school started again, leaving the Berserker house feeling much emptier than before. While I was sad to see them leave, in some ways it was a relief. Aata’s departure removed a source of tension and meant that Kara would now leave her room.

  And, if I was honest with myself, I was eager to spend more time alone with Rhys now that Eric could not monopolize my attention.

 
The first day at school, I immediately sought out Amy to beg her forgiveness. I found her at her locker, her usual vivacious smile gone, replaced by a night-of-the-living-dead zombie-ish blank expression.

  “Amy, I’m so sorry!” I blurted before she even had time to speak. “We were driving out of town when you called and we just left cell phone range. I tried to call when I got back but you were already in Kansas, and I couldn’t get a hold of you. But I did leave several messages.”

  Knowing Amy for as long as I have, I knew she couldn’t hold a grudge for very long, but I thought for sure she would pout and make me do a bit of pleading for forgiveness before thawing out. To my surprise, she gave me a smile and a big hug.

  “I know,” she said, and squeezed me tight.

  “You do?” I pulled back to get a better look at her. This wasn’t like Amy. Something was going on here.

  “Yeah,” she said. “The night I called, Rhys came by a couple of hours later to tell me he had dropped you off at an Aunt’s house, and he told me how upset you were that we hadn’t been able to talk. He stayed and listened to me babble on about what a jerk Cory was for almost an hour.” She gave a sigh and leaned back against her locker. “It’s too bad the boy is so clearly smitten with you, or else I would go after him myself.”

  Rhys had gone to see Amy while I was in the forest? Why hadn’t he told me? It would have saved me a lot of worry if I had known.

  Amy must have seen some of the concern on my face. “Oh, don’t worry about him, that boy is crazy about you. I mean what kind of uber-perfect boyfriend would think to do something that sweet?” Her eyes tightened. “Not Cory, that’s for sure.”

  Boyfriend? The word bounced around my head like a hummingbird with ADD, never staying still long enough for me to analyze it. Did he really tell Amy he was my boyfriend or was that Amy making one of her usual – shockingly accurate – assumptions?

  While Amy turned back to her locker and continued getting her books, I took in a few deep breaths. The last thing I needed now was to trigger a ‘zerk in the middle of school. “Did, he, uh actually say that word?” I asked.

  “What word?” Amy asked, not looking up from her preparations.

  “Boyfriend.” It came out rather higher-pitched squeakier than I had intended. I knew the minute the word came out of my mouth that I had said too much.

  Amy looked up, a wicked gleam in her eye. I had her attention now. She paused and appeared to give the matter some thought. “I’m pretty sure,” she said. “Does it really matter? I mean the boy has love-sick puppy written all over him.” She gave me her most devious smile. “Unless you don’t want him, of course?”

  “No! I, uh...” I was too flustered to find words. Of course I wanted him. Who in their right mind wouldn’t want someone like Rhys? But I still had those nagging feelings of self-doubt. I knew how I felt, but we had never actually talked about a relationship before. For all I knew any relationship we had could all be in my imagination. I didn’t want to presume.

  “Yes,” said Amy, this time with a genuine smile.

  “Yes, what?”

  “He said the word ‘boyfriend.’”

  A warm giddy feeling washed over me. Our special moments weren’t all in my imagination! He did care about me. That wonderful, almost magical, connection wasn’t just some pent up schoolgirl fantasy playing out in my head – at least not entirely.

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Amy, closing her locker. “But keep in mind since you and Rhys are an item, that means Eric is now up for grabs, and I’m ready for a serious rebound.”

  We took a few steps down the hall before I answered her. “That might be difficult to do, unless you’re looking for a long distance relationship.”

  Amy stopped and crossed her arms. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Spill.”

  When it had been decided that Eric would join the hunt for Osadyn, we knew we would have to come up with a good story to explain his disappearance. Eric wanted us to tell people he had been sacrificed by a ritualistic cult, but as usual we all ignored his suggestion.

  “Eric is going to a military academy in Virginia for this semester,” I said.

  Amy gaped at me. “Military academy? Like the kind of places where they shave your head and make you run ten miles with a heavy pack in the middle of the night?”

  I shrugged. “Something like that,” I said. “I don’t know all the details - it was rather sudden. Rhys told me he kept breaking house rules and something bad happened on Christmas Eve so they sent him there to learn some discipline.”

  Once the initial excitement of new gossip was over, Amy seemed to deflate. “Well, so much for rebound option number one,” she said. Suddenly she brightened. “Hey, why don’t we forget about boys for a while and do something together, just the two of us?” she suggested. “Like old times.”

  “You really want to go back to old times?” I asked. “You and me as spokespeople for the hopelessly undateable? I’ll pass, thanks.”

  “Not that,” she said. “You and me go and have a girls’ night out. No boys allowed.”

  “Sure, why not?” I said, with what I hoped was an enthusiastic voice. Actually I could think of several really good reasons why not, the foremost of those being my desire to spend time with Rhys, but Amy was my best friend. She was trying to be tough, but I could tell she still needed me.

  “This will be fun!” Amy put an arm around my shoulder. “Look out world, Madison and Amy are going out on the town.”

  Over the next few days we solidified our plans. I was hoping for a laid back evening spent watching romantic movies and crying our eyes out, but Amy wanted to “get out and do something.” We settled on dinner and shopping in Portland Friday night.

  Getting permission to do that was not so easy. Dad and Rhys were both against it, but that made me all the more determined to make it happen. I had spent the last several months under constant surveillance. Osadyn was gone – it was time for my parole to begin.

  “Can Rhys at least come with you?” Dad asked. As much as I liked the idea, I knew Amy wouldn’t want it, so I shot that idea down in a hurry.

  “This is a girls’ night, Dad,” I said. “Not only would Rhys hate it, but the entire point of this trip is to do something fun without any boys around.”

  I was glad I had started early, because it took most of the week to wear them both down. But my logic was sound: Osadyn was clearly gone – significantly colder temperatures as proof – and I was a Berserker, which meant it was safer for me to wander around downtown Portland than it was for Dad.

  By Friday night they had given in – if not willingly – to my demands, and Amy and I drove my mom’s car down to the Pearl District – a sort of urban-chic hipster neighborhood with plenty of art galleries, shopping, and restaurants.

  Amy wanted Thai food so we went to a little place off of Hoyt street that had recently opened up. Amy was more adventurous and tried one of the spicy dishes, but I stuck with my usual Pad Thai. I hadn’t eaten Thai since I had become a Berserker and I hoped it wouldn’t be too strong for my enhanced sense of taste.

  Despite the fact that Amy had wanted this to be a girls’ night out with no boys, she sure had a hard time not talking about them. She told me all about Cory and how he had gradually gotten meaner during the semester until that last night when he had shoved her down.

  “And now he has the nerve to call up begging for forgiveness,” she said, and thrust her fork into a piece of chicken as if it had personally offended her.

  I tried to persuade her to give him a second chance, especially since I knew it was partially my fault he’d been acting that way. But without revealing the key fact that her boyfriend had been influenced by the prolonged presence of a monstrous demon, I didn’t really have much of a case.

  After dinner we walked through the streets looking in shop windows and occasionally going inside for a closer look. In the end we didn’t buy anything because the prices for everything were unbelievable. We were used to shoppin
g at the mall and everything here was quite a bit more expensive.

  I remembered Eric’s revelation that as a Berserker I’d inherited some sort of trust fund, but I hadn’t heard any mention of it since, and Dad certainly hadn’t brought it up. So, in the meantime I was going to have to continue in my teenage poverty.

  After a while Amy got discouraged by the prices. She had never had much money and was hoping to find a good bargain for the last of the income from her summer job. To take her mind off of clothing, I suggested we stop at Powell’s Bookstore. To my surprise, Amy agreed.

  We hopped on the MAX, Portland’s light rail, and rode over to Powell’s, one of my favorite places in the world. To call it simply a bookstore didn’t do it justice. They called it the City of Books, and that wasn’t much of an exaggeration. It took up an entire city block and extended several stories upwards. It was my own personal haven. I could spend hours there and never get bored.

  Together we wandered through the rooms browsing through thousands of titles packed onto row after row of shelves.

  By the time we’d finished, it was getting late and we decided to head home. A thick fog had rolled in while we were inside, turning the night eerie and damp. The night air surrounded us and coated us with moisture as we walked back to the MAX stop.

  With the fog as thick as it was, we accidentally missed our stop and had to get off one stop farther than we’d intended. It was only a few blocks so we decided to walk rather than wait for a train back.

  “Thanks for tonight,” said Amy as we walked. “I know you have better things to do than hang with me, but it felt good to be back together again. No boys getting in the way of our sisterhood.”

  Before I could reply, a large man stepped out of a nearby alley holding a knife in his hand. He wore jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head, obscuring his face.

  “What are two attractive young ladies doing out here all alone at night?” he asked, casually holding his knife as if he were simply going to use it to clean his nails. His voice sounded merely curious, but it was glaringly obvious he was trying to intimidate us with his presence and physical size.