Havoc

by Taylor Longford

  Books in the Greystone Series:

  Valor

  Dare

  Reason

  Defiance

  Chaos

  Victor

  Force

  Courage

  Havoc

  Dedication:

  For Rory

  Havoc

  A Greystone Novel

  Book Nine

  ISBN 9780997191820 k12

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Havoc Copyright 2016 © Taylor Longford

  www.taylorlongford.com

  Electronic Book Publication August 2016

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Taylor Longford.

  Warning: Any unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher's permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

  HAVOC

  A GREYSTONE NOVEL

  Book Nine

  by

  Taylor Longford

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Mitschka's Prologue

  When Mitschka is very young, she hears many stories before leaving her mother's aerie. Her mother's best story is about nine beautiful gargoyles, trapped in stone by a gang of very stupid harpies.

  Back then, there are plenty of gargoyles. Harpies not think it stupid to seal the gargoyles away. Maybe harpies think they'll come back one day and dig the gargoyles out. But the Great Warrior kills the gang before they can do that. Nobody knows where the gargoyles are sealed in rock tomb forever. But they are beautiful gargoyles. The most beautiful gargoyles to ever walk the earth. And very young, like Mitschka.

  After that, the plague comes and carries away most of the gargoyles. Only a few left. Then none left. Only the legend of nine gargoyles locked away. And every harpy looks for the beautiful nine. Every harpy dreams of finding the gargoyles, of wearing their runes and drinking their venom. All the harpies turn to stone and wait for the rock to break down around the lost gargoyles, wait for one day in the long long future, wait to scent the gargoyles and track them down.

  Harpies wait centuries. Mitschka waits too, in the dark corner of an old ruin. Then one day, Mitschka smells a beautiful scent and thinks the wait is finished. She comes to life, spreads her wings and follows the scent east to the sea. There, a big boat floats on the water. Mitschka can see it from the edge of the land. Mitschka flies to the boat and finds many harpies gathered around wooden boxes stained blue. Harpies rip the boxes apart but no gargoyles hide inside. Only a small bottle in each box. A small bottle filled with gargoyle poison.

  The harpies fight each other for the bottles. Mitschka is young and quick. She gets a small taste before a big harpy rips the bottle from her hands. It is Mitschka's first taste of venom. And Mitschka knows she will do anything for more.

  A flying machine comes from south and lands on the boat's deck. A man steps from the machine and promises more poison. Much more poison. Harpies only must go on the boat to another country where many gargoyles live.

  Harpies not like the man with white hair and black eyes. Harpies not trust him. But they do anything for the promise of gargoyles. Harpies say yes to the man, and the big boat sails away from the land.

  Mitschka not believe in many gargoyles. Mitschka believes only in the last Great Warrior who guards his treasure in an aerie far to the north. And she believes in the nine beautiful ones waiting to be freed. Mitschka thinks maybe the man can lead the way to the lost gargoyles.

  All harpies want to find the beautiful nine. But only Mitschka knows the names of the gargoyles trapped in centuries gone past, names passed down from her mother who befriended the Great Warrior.

  Mitschka whispers their names when no one is listening: Reason who drew on bridges long ago, Force the strong, Victor the gold, Dare the reckless, Defiance the cold, Valor the brave, Courage the mild, Chaos the dangerous, and Havoc the wild.

  Havoc

  Chapter One

  Sixteen's a great age. I should know; I was sixteen for around eight hundred years. And after returning to my living form at the end of all those centuries, I turned around almost right away and spent another four years in stone. I did it so I could be Sophie's age when she turned sixteen.

  And that came about because I promised to take her to prom.

  When I made the vow, Sophie was really sick. And the docs at the hospital felt like she wasn't trying to get better. So I hoped my promise would give the twelve-year-old something to look forward to. I don't know if it helped, but she did get better.

  And I was all like mission accomplished, right?

  After that, I went stone and waited out the next several years because I always keep my word. Or at least, always whenever I can. I can only remember one time in my life when I wasn't able to follow through on a vow.

  And that one still bothers me.

  But in the meantime, I was your typical sixteen-year-old (minus the prerequisite acne). I'd paid attention to history, I knew how romance worked and I knew exactly what I wanted from life. In short, I wanted to be a ladies' man—a rogue, a rake, footloose and fancy-free. How do you say it nowadays? I wanted to be a player.

  I liked girls. All of them. And—yes—the pack lasses were some of the best. But I didn't only like the good girls.

  Take Mim, for instance. She was probably the sweetest, prettiest girl in the world with her big violet eyes and long black hair pouring down her back. The rest of the girls were beautiful too—MacKenzie, Elaina, Samantha, Camie and Lorissa. 'Course, Torrie fell into an entirely different category. She was more of a gal pal. I mean, we skated together. Or at least we used to skate together before I went stone for four years. She was cute as hell, but I could never think of her that way. And even if I did, I wouldn't be jealous of Chaos. Or Dare.

  Nope. The only gargoyle I envied was Defiance.

  Because Whitney was just my type. She was a babe.

  It wasn't that she was prettier than the rest of the pack lasses. She wasn't. At least not by the gargoyle standard of hot chicks and highly desirable maidens. Because gargoyles see what's on the inside of a person before they see what's on the outside. And that means a really sweet personality will override a person's physical features.

  It was more in the way Whitney acted—all cool and confident, like she was the queen of something. Like she was the queen of everything. The girl had attitude. And those legs! And that long pale hair. And those blue eyes.

  She was really something.
<
br />   And she was all Defiance's, of course—even though I was sure she preferred me. But that didn't mean I couldn't go find me someone just like her. Or several someones just like her. And that's exactly what I planned to do…as soon as I got out of my stone form…and got a few other little details out of the way.

  Like Sophie.

  She was a sweet little girl. And crazy about me. I figured I'd take her to prom and then we'd hang for a while until she got over me. After that, I was gonna be starting my perfect-girl collection.

  Good plan, right? Crushing capital plan.

  So, I'm not gonna bore you with the story about how my family and I got trapped between two walls in England for eight centuries. And how MacKenzie's stepfather shipped us to the States. I'm sure you've heard it all before…at least eight times. Instead, I'll just jump right in and bring you up to speed on what happened during the four years I spent in my stone form, waiting for Sophie to grow up.

  First off, the pack gave up the rental next to MacKenzie's house when Mac, Whit and Mim graduated from high school. And the entire Pine Grove contingent moved to the big house in Boulder. Elaina, Sam and Camie were already there. Torrie and Lorissa moved in a year later.

  Needless to say, Hooligan came with us. By that time, Mac's big wolfhound wasn't exactly a kid anymore and getting a little gray in the muzzle. But he was still in his doggie prime when it came to chasing rabbits, and we had plenty of cottontails that made their home in our spacious back yard.

  Anyhow, when we moved from Pine Grove to Boulder, the pack parked me upstairs in the attic, across the hall from Victor's room. Just inside the door stood a huge mountain lion made of stone—one of the cats I'd killed to protect Sophie. I'd taken him out with my venomous barbs and the lion was locked in attack mode, rearing back on his haunches and striking out with his fully extended claws. His long canines looked no less deadly than his claws. All in all, he was an imposing figure. I'd named him Monty and he made a killer clothes butler.

  Against one long wall sat a queen-sized bed that MacKenzie had insisted on bringing into my life. According to her, my old hammock looked lost in the big bedroom. She said the bed helped to fill up the room and made it feel cozier. So my hammock remained firmly fixed in place (and evidently lost-looking), hanging in one corner while the bed dominated the room and spread coziness into the rest of the corners by its mere presence.

  At my back stood an oval beveled-glass window that gave me access to the sun's rays should I need to return to my living form. And per my request, my family left me with a television turned on so I could watch Premier League Football. I follow Arsenal. But I'm not crazy mad about football like some of the fans in England. If you were to watch an Arsenal vs Tottenham game, you'd think there wasn't a sane person living in North London. I'm not like that. I'm much more chill.

  But after they had me settled in my new room, Valor accidentally set the TV on the Spanish channel. And nobody discovered the error for several weeks. So, yeah. I now have a working knowledge of the Spanish language.

  Hola Amigos.

  And there I sat in my attic room for the next four years.

  Well, except for some very minor cheating. 'Course, I had to come back to celebrate with Force and Courage when they rejoined the family. But other than that, I was true to my vow. I missed all of the holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. That meant the pack had to fumble through the holidays without me, which is sad because the rest of the guys are hopeless in the kitchen. In addition, I missed several other events I would have liked to be in on—like graduations and the girls' birthdays…not to mention the release of the latest assassin game.

  So the four years I spent in stone were not without sacrifice. I'd given up the opportunity to grow up with the rest of my family, for instance. Then there was the boredom of doing nothing for four years. Sure, it was no big deal compared to the eight hundred years we had done earlier. But it wasn't exactly easy, either. Because when a gargoyle goes stone, he's awake for the entire time—night and day.

  The days weren't too bad because there was football to watch and plenty of conversation echoing through the house as the pack went ahead with their lives. And often, Hooligan would lope up the stairs and keep me company when the others were out. But the nights were long and empty.

  I spent the dark hours recalling my escapades back home in jolly old medieval England—the time I spent with Malarkey and his brothers hunting, fishing, raiding harpy lairs and generally looking for trouble. The gold rings I wore had come from just such a stolen treasure trove and I was especially proud of them—one lapis and the other carnelian. I had a good suspicion that they were of Roman origin.

  But Mal was one crazy gargoyle. I spent my nights wondering what had happened to him. Had he tried to find us when we all disappeared eight centuries ago? Had he stopped by to help my mother—the last member of our pack and alone after those harpies trapped us behind that wall? Had everyone we'd known and loved grown old and passed away long ago?

  My mother, certainly. She was only human. But the other gargoyles we knew—what about them? Were all of them gone? Or were there possibly a few who had survived to the present date in their stone forms? And were there possibly other gargoyles around—descendants of our original packs—who lived alongside humans in secrecy?

  After all, before Olivia Olander had died, she'd bragged that she'd imprisoned some gargoyles and milked them of their venom. They'd died at her hands, but maybe there were more of our kind out there in the world, either hiding the secret of their existence from humans or waiting to be awakened by the sun's touch.

  It was an interesting possibility…though unlikely.

  Most often, my mind returned to my mother. She must have been terribly worried on the day we failed to return home. I could picture her standing in the open doorway of our house, her thick bronze hair tied back in a loose knot as she watched the roads late into the night, her gaze searching and troubled. How long had she lived? And how long had she worried? I knew that my brothers and the rest of the pack shared my concern for her. With her quick laughter and unshakeable optimism, she had been a mother to all of us after the rest of our parents had died. But I carried an extra burden of guilt because I was the one who suggested we go stone on that fateful day when the harpies trapped us.

  Gloomy stuff.

  And when the house was very quiet and dark, I thought of my little sister, Dorrith, who died when she was a young girl. So, the four years I spent waiting for Sophie wasn't exactly a fun time for me, but I was glad she'd recovered from her surgery. And we were going to have a killer time when we got together again.

  Chapter Two

  When the date of the prom approached, and I returned to my living form to get ready for the event, everyone in the pack was four years older than me. Victor was twenty-four. That's like ancient, right? Positively archaic. Might as well stake out your gravesite. And all of the guys treated me like a kid. Defiance, in particular, was nigh intolerable. Actually, Defiance has always been intolerable now that I think about it.

  But it was not cool that nobody took me seriously. I feel like that's been a common theme in my life. It's like they're all, "Don't listen to Havoc. He couldn't possibly have anything useful to say."

  Yeah, thanks a lot, guys.

  And in a lot of ways, the girls were even worse. Do you have any idea what it's like to be a testosterone-fueled sixteen-year-old living with a bunch of hot chicks who treat you like you're some kind of puppy? They couldn't look past my age and see the cool and irresistible stud that was otherwise known as Havoc Greystone. What's more, none of them wanted to play Parcheesi anymore! Which meant I wasn't getting any kisses.

  But kisses or no kisses, I was still the master…in the kitchen. And when it came to my cooking, all of the pack lasses were still gasping for it.

  So the first thing I did after I made the change was start baking. As soon as the sun tipped over the edge of my bedroom windowsill, I used its golden energy to set the b
lood flowing in my veins. I stretched my arms and got my wings closed just in time to greet Hooligan who came bounding into the room and almost bowled me over.

  "Aye, I'm back," I told him. "And I'm just as glad as you are. Now, let's go make the girls some scones."

  I padded from the room in my bare feet. Downstairs in the sunny kitchen, I tied on an apron, started a pot of tea, and reached for the flour bin. As I worked, the girls drifted in one by one—Mac, Mim and Whitney—wearing their housecoats and rubbing their eyes and helping themselves to tea before taking a seat at the vintage breakfast set.

  "What's for breakfast?" MacKenzie asked like I'd never been gone.

  "Scones to start with," I told her. "Then we'll see about rosehip buns."

  "Rosehip buns?" Lorissa questioned with a smile as she appeared in the doorway.

  "I've been collecting rosehips for four years," Torrie announced as she followed Lorissa into the room. "You'll find them in a glass jar over the stove, Havoc."

  "Hello darling," I said. "It's nice to see you too."

  Torrie blushed and put a soft peck on my cheek. "Sorry Havoc. It's great to have you back."

  "Of course it is," I confirmed.

  It was a Saturday so no one had to dash off to school. At that point, the Pine Grove girls were about halfway through their college educations. Mac was into forestry while Mim was going for an engineering degree. Whitney was studying horses; I think they call it Equine Studies. Lorissa and Torrie were a year behind the girls from Pine Grove. But Lorissa was all into agriculture, naturally. And Torrie just wanted to be a writer.

  I started the coffee when I heard Samantha's voice drift in from the hallway.

  "Is that…scones I smell baking?"