Threads That Bind (Havoc Chronicles Series Book 1) (11 page)

I walked out of Room 114 feeling strangely disillusioned. It hadn’t been the horrible seventh circle of hell that I had imagined. Having experienced it, I could now see why the threat of detention didn’t seem to phase some people.

The halls were relatively empty, and echoed hollowly with the sound of my footsteps as I made my way out of the school. I walked out the front doors and crossed the lot to where I had parked. I climbed in my car and was about to start it up when I noticed someone behind me in the rear view mirror. I turned to get a better look and immediately turned back, my pulse quickening. 

Rhys stopped suddenly and looked around, grabbing Eric’s arm to get his attention. Clearly he was searching for something, but what? They both looked around, peering into the few cars left in the parking lot. Eric walked past me and gave me a wink as he continued his search.

After a few minutes, they held a whispered conversation that was too soft for even my enhanced senses to hear. Then they climbed into their Range Rover and pulled out.

This was it. This was the moment I had been waiting for. After weeks of frustration, I was finally going to find out more about them. 

I let them drive past me and waited until they were about to turn out of the parking lot before I pulled out. I wanted to follow them, but I didn’t want them to notice me.

The problem was, I had never learned how to follow someone without attracting attention. That hadn’t been covered that in Driver’s Ed. Clearly a serious flaw in the driver’s education system, and a skill that would be much more useful than watching those scare-tactic movies with footage of real accidents.

Despite my lack of “tailing” skills, I was able to at least keep the Rover in sight as I drove. I had some close calls when the boys got farther away than I had planned or turned onto a street that I didn’t notice until I was almost past it, but thanks to my enhanced abilities, I managed to make the turn anyway. There were definite perks to having these powers.

We wound through the main part of town and into the Heights, a ritzy area with a lot of big houses. There were fewer turnoffs here, so I let them get farther ahead.

Most of the houses in the Heights were better described as mansions, with gated driveways, and enormous manicured lawns. Because of the large yards, the houses were spread very far apart.

After traveling a few miles up the road, the Range Rover turned into a gated driveway. Rhys reached out and punched in a code. The gate opened, and they drove up the driveway.

The house was enormous. It was three stories tall with the rustic appearance of a massive mountain cabin. Made of dark wood, it had many large peaks and gables with enormous windows.

I drove past at a crawl, taking in everything that I could. Eric and Rhys got out of the vehicle and walked into the house. Rhys seemed much more relaxed than he had been at school. I even saw him laugh at something Eric said.

They walked into the house without using any keys. It had been left unlocked, I noted. If further reconnaissance became necessary, things like that were good to know.

When I was past the house, I parked my car to the side of the road and walked back. The gate blocked car access, but the fence around the property was made of long rails and was easy enough to squeeze through.

I scurried up the lawn, feeling exposed until I stopped at a large artificial waterfall that had been built into the landscape. It was a perfect place to hide and observe.

I spent the next fifteen minutes watching the house and everyone I could see there. Through the windows I saw three other people. The first was an Asian man with dark skin and dark hair, somewhere in his mid-thirties. The second was a redheaded girl in her early twenties, and the third was a large man with dark hair and dark skin – I couldn’t place his nationality, Samoan? - who was built like a professional football player.

And that was the extent of the useful information I could get from that far away. Part of me wanted to move closer and try to learn more, but now that I knew where they lived, I could come always come back later.

I ran back to my car and started it up. The road was too narrow to make a u-turn, so I drove forward looking for a driveway I could turn around in.

As I drove, a wave of heat came over me and I began sweating profusely. A few hundred feet farther, nausea caused my stomach to roil. In addition to the physical symptoms, I felt that indescribable sense of darkness come over me, but a thousand times more powerful than it had been in the woods.

Unable to continue driving, I swerved to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. I tried to open the door, but I was too late and vomited all over my lap and the steering wheel. I fumbled with the door handle and finally shoved it open.

Gasping, I pulled myself out of the car, sucking in fresh air. I tried to stay upright, but my legs were too weak. I teetered and fell to my knees. With another painful wave of nausea, I emptied the remaining contents of my stomach onto the ground.

The heat had become unbearable. Sweat poured off my face in streaming rivulets. Exhausted, I lifted my head and found myself surrounded by hundreds of the creatures I had fought in the woods.

An army.

Behind them, like a demented general directing his troops, stood a reptilian monster the size of a bull elephant. It lifted its head on a long snake-like neck and roared.

The creatures charged.

Cold fear drifted through my body. I was going to die.

Then I began to glow.

Power exploded through me as my body began to glow. My senses burst into life, making everything more vivid and real. Hundreds of the creatures I had fought in the woods swarmed towards me. An unavoidable tidal wave of death. Their slimy grey skin glistened in the sunlight, and I had a horrible suspicion that they were covered in some sort of mucus – or at least close enough to not make a difference in the grossness factor. 

One of them broke away from the pack and reached me before the others. I really didn’t want to touch it, but I wanted to stay alive. I met its charge with my fist, landing a punch on its head.

The upper half of the creature exploded, spraying the area – including me, eew! – with black slime.  I had no time to react to the carnage and pushed the voice in my head screaming “Gross, gross, gross, gross!” into the far corner of my mind. I had to focus on staying alive.

 Four more creatures attacked me at once. I caught one as it leaped and I pivoted, using its own momentum to swing it around and back into a second creature. I then ducked under a third as it leapt. The fourth one hit me from behind, knocking me to the ground.

I rolled to my back, bringing my legs up just in time to ward off the creature as it pounced on me. I sent it flying with my feet, and it crashed into the crowd of onrushing monsters.

I leapt to my feet in time to fight off five more creatures. Those were followed by more and more in a seemingly endless parade of horror. Time passed in a blur as I fought for survival. I lost track of my surroundings as I continued my repetition of destruction. Punch, kick, throw - repeat.

Just as it had been in the dead woods, my body seemed familiar with these creatures. I instinctively knew where they were vulnerable. My muscles contracted before my conscious mind registered a threat. I was fighting by pure instinct, and it was the only thing keeping me alive.  

But it was a losing battle. There were too many of them. For every creature I killed, three more seemed to move in to take its place. I slaughtered the first dozen without too much difficulty since the frontrunners had been spread out. Now that the main surge had arrived, I was completely surrounded and fighting a dozen at a time.

Slowly, inevitably, they began to wear me down. That unknown survival instinct kept me fighting, but I couldn’t last much longer. Physically, I was fine. My body felt as if it could last forever. But the feeling of darkness that accompanied them began to multiply. I had recovered from the initial onslaught in the car, but now that they surrounded me, I could feel the darkness holding me, slowing me, gradually overwhelming me. My senses dulled, and my thoughts became clouded.

It was only a matter of time until I would no longer be able to fight.

Faintly, through the suffocating blackness, I felt something else.

Rhys and Eric.

I recognized the feeling from the dead woods. But they weren’t alone. Two others came with them. Their features were obscured by the glow, but I recognized them from the house - the Asian man and the large man who had looked like a football player. They charged, four glowing beings rushing into the hoard of monsters, killing and destroying everything in their paths.

I didn’t know if it was psychological or what, but with their arrival I felt the darkness dissipate, no more substantial than cobwebs in the path of a speeding truck.

My strength returned, even multiplied. Invigorated, I stood and lifted a pile of monsters on top of me. I flung out my arms, sending creatures - and bits of creatures - flying.

The elephantine monster, seeing the arrival of the four glowing beings, arched its long neck and roared. Somehow, I knew this creature was different from the others, and not just in size. It had an aura of intelligence, of purpose. That bellow was not an expression of fear or anger, but one of defiance.

Rhys accepted the challenge and rushed at the monster, knocking it onto its back and into my mom’s car. The Jetta’s roof crumpled like a wad of aluminum foil. Great, if these creatures didn’t kill me, my parents would. The creature roared furiously and regained its feet, kicking the car and knocking it upside down. It bared its teeth and swung its serpentine neck in deadly arcs.

Rhys punched the creature in the head, whipping its neck around. He leaped onto the creature’s back and wrapped two crushing arms around its throat, squeezing hard.

“Get Mallika!” he yelled. “Now!” The Asian man dashed towards the house.

Eric stood back to back with the football player guy encircled by dozens of the creatures. The football player guy yelled and made horrible faces as he fought, bugging out his eyes and sticking out his tongue. As I watched, he smashed two of the skinnier creatures together, sending out a spray of black ooze that coated him and Eric. I made a mental note not to try that move, or for that matter to even get close to him while fighting.

Eric, in contrast, fought with a sort of minimalist grace. Every move seemed calculated to generate the most destruction with the least required effort. He struck with precision, spraying far less ooze than the football player did, but he must have been puncturing the creatures at vital points because once he hit them, they fell to the ground and turned to goo. Curiously, he was smiling. I saw his lips moving, almost as if he were singing or chanting to himself as he fought.

I continued my battle, finding it easier now that there were others to take some of the focus off me. Not that I found this as enjoyable as Eric apparently did – what kind of lunatic liked this? – but I no longer felt overwhelmed.

The Asian man returned carrying an older woman in his arms. Dark, wrinkled skin hung limp on a frail body, and her head was covered with long, steel-gray hair tied back in a braid. This must be Mallika.

With her arrival, the large creature let out three short, almost bark-like, roars. The remaining creatures abandoned their positions and rushed to its defense. A dozen of them leaped at Rhys, forcing him to release his choke-hold on the large creature’s neck and knocking him to the ground.

With a sort of reverse flash – everything got dark for an instant – the elephant-monster disappeared. The temperature immediately dropped, and our remaining opponents began to scatter.

“Don’t let them escape,” said Eric. “Spread out and stop them.”

The Asian man set Mallika on her feet while the rest of us spread out in an attempt to prevent the creatures from escaping.

Several dozen of the creatures remained. We battled, and this time, my attention was drawn to the Asian man. He moved with a ridiculously swift, fluid motion, never directly confronting his opponents, but rather turning them aside, changing their momentum, and throwing them – into the air, onto the ground, or into each other - as they attacked.

But it was Rhys who drew everyone’s attention in the end. He pulled out a small white disk and with a flick of his wrist it unrolled into a sword-like weapon with a series of small clicks. It was dull white and seemed to be made out of dozens of pieces of bone joined together. When only two dozen enemies were left, we all stepped back to watch Rhys in a dance of perfect death.

His bone sword blurred around him as he swung it, slicing through creatures with such ease that at first I wasn’t sure that he had really connected. The sword seemed to pass through bone and muscle without resistance. But when the creatures fell to the ground with limbs and heads severed, it quickly became clear that each stroke was inflicting devastating damage.

As I watched, I always seemed to lag a step behind. By the time I looked at one of the creatures, it was already falling apart, and I never saw the blow that killed it. Clearly Rhys was a master with this weapon. He fought the way an eagle flew or a cheetah ran, with natural and deadly grace.

He killed the last three creatures with a single stroke, beheading two and slicing through the chest of the third.

And then it was over. A moment of silence followed, almost overwhelming in contrast to the mêlée that had just taken place.

Eric broke the silence with a whoop and the big football-player-looking-guy let out a series of rhythmic shouts, beating his chest. Rhys said nothing and wiped his bone sword on the grass. With another flick, it rolled up and he pocketed it.

The Asian man walked towards me, arms held up in what was clearly meant to be a non-threatening posture. However, it had the opposite effect. His obvious efforts to make me feel comfortable put me on edge. It felt like a trap.

“Stop,” I said. My voice sounded strange in my own ears, like it belonged to someone else. “Don’t come any closer.” I crouched slightly, prepared to run. Not that I was sure it would do any good. They all seemed to have the same powers as me and a much better idea of how to use them. I wasn’t a match for the four of them.

The Asian man halted and put his arms down. “We aren’t going to hurt you,” he said.

Hearing him voice my concern only made me more nervous. I took a step back.

Eric walked up to the Asian man and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me take this,” he whispered into his ear. The Asian man took a few steps back.

“I can hear you,” I said. They were only about twenty yards away. I had heard whispered conversations at far greater distances. They had the same powers as I did, surely they should know this.

Eric closed his eyes for a second and his glow faded away. Without the bright light surrounding him, I could see his features clearly. “What makes you think I didn’t want you to overhear me?” he asked.

“Because you whispered it.” 

Eric flashed a mischievous grin. “Ah, but what if I only wanted you to think I didn’t want you to overhear me?” he asked in a very solemn voice. 

Was he being serious? “What are you talking about?”

He shrugged. “Well, you seemed so suspicious, I thought it might be disappointing if you found out that we were just trying to talk to you and didn’t have any diabolical plans.”

I let out a laugh. The way he said it made my fears sound ridiculous. I stiffened. That was probably what they wanted me to think.

Ok, now I was just being paranoid. 

“I have an idea,” said Eric. He turned around to face the others. “Guys, turn off the ‘zerk. It’s time for a bit of de-escalation.”

One by one, each of them stopped glowing. Within seconds I was the only one still – what had Eric called it? – ‘zerking? What a bizarre word.

The old woman walked forward until she stood next to Eric. Now that I was no longer fighting for my life, I could take a good look at her.

My first impressions of old age had been correct. I couldn’t guess at her age because after about sixty everyone just looks old to me. She had dark skin and wore a beautifully decorated yellow skirt that extended to her ankles. A long piece of cloth wound around her waist with the end draped over her shoulder.

“My name is Mallika,” she said. Despite her wrinkled appearance, her voice still sounded young. It had a musical tone and a hint of an Indian accent. “We are all on the same side. I would invite you to relax and release your hold on your Berserker powers so we can all speak with clear minds.”

What was she talking about? Berserker powers? Clear minds? My mind was more clear when I had my powers. Still, there was something about her that made me want to trust her.

I took a deep breath. “I can’t,” I said. “I don’t know how to turn it off.”

Mallika smiled sympathetically. “Of course you do not, child. After so long we tend to forget what it is like for one just discovering his powers.” She motioned to Rhys. “Perhaps you could instruct him?”

Him? Did she think I was a boy? I looked down at myself. With the bright glow surrounding me, I supposed it was somewhat difficult to tell.

Rhys straightened up and walked to Mallika’s side. “A Berserker’s power is all about energy. To end the berserking, you need to relax. All of us have developed body control that allows us to relax and turn off the energy on demand. For you, the simplest thing to do would be to breathe deeply and regularly. Push out your stomach as you breathe in and relax as you breathe out.”