The Order of Chaos

by Rhonda L. Print

  “Excuse me?” Now I knew she was crazy.

  Sonya and Henri looked at each other speculatively. “You have never raised a corpse from the grave?” she asked doubtfully.

  My face twisted in disgust. Even if that were possible, why the hell would anyone want to do that? I looked at Ian only to find his face completely emotionless. I hated it when he pulled that shit on me so I pushed against his mental shields, trying to figure out what he was really thinking. They were locked up tight and I was left with only being able to throw daggers at him with my eyes.

  Finally he spoke. “Necromancers are a myth, Sonya.”

  “So are vampires, Ian.” Sarcasm heavily laced her voice.

  “Sonya, I know that your…” Ian sucked in a breath, “research has been extensive in this area, however, have you ever met a necromancer?”

  She squared her shoulders, clearly irritated. “Very well, perhaps a demonstration is in order.” She looked at me. “If you think you’re ready for that, Miss Wolfe?” she taunted.

  I tensed. She was challenging me to prove I was something I didn’t want to be. Raising dead people from the grave only put images of stiffly walking, dirt-covered corpses wandering through a cemetery and moaning incoherently. Great fodder for a low budget film, not so great for real life.

  Ian looked to me with raised eyebrows. “My Love?” he whispered through my mind.

  I threw up my hands. “What the hell.” I resigned to it. “What do you want me to do?”

  Thirty minutes later I stood in the desert over the body of a poor coyote that had been hit by a car. Blood dried to black covered its long muzzle and one ear was nearly ripped off. Its front legs were twisted at odd angles and by the damage to its torso, I was pretty sure it had been hit by a car.

  “Did you…?”

  Sonya crossed her arms over her chest. “Of course not! What do you think I am?” She held up her hand, palm out. “Never mind, don’t answer that.”

  I gave her my best sarcastic smile.

  “We passed it on the road coming over here,” she clarified. “Now clear your mind.”

  “I think she has enough air flowing through her brain for all of us.” I spoke into Ian’s head and he had to cover a laugh with a cough.

  “Please, My Love.”

  I took a deep breath, feeling some of the tension ease out of my neck.

  “Focus your thoughts on the coyote,” she hummed.

  I closed my eyes; I didn’t want to look at the poor thing anymore anyway. I tried to wipe away the image of its mangled body. I took a breath so deep that my lungs filled to capacity, held it for a moment, then let it escape from my mouth.

  “Tell it to rise,” Sonya said theatrically.

  I opened my eyes enough to roll them at her, my expression sarcastically saying “really?”

  She cowered sheepishly as if embarrassed by her own melodramatics. “You have to tell it what you want it to do,” she justified.

  I closed my eyes again and thought. Poor thing, it’s not bad enough you got hit by a car, now you can’t even have peace in your afterlife. Wake up.

  A vicious snarl cut through the peacefulness of the night and my eyes sprung open to see the coyote.

  It was standing awkwardly on its twisted limbs and its jaw was hanging off its head, dried blood turned black matted its fur. The coyote’s eyes were pinned on me as it struggled to make the twisted limbs move, bringing it closer to me.

  Sonya screeched and Henri pulled her farther away from the hideous mess that had once been a beautiful animal. Even Ian didn’t contain the look of awe on his face.

  “Put it back, put it back!” Sonya cried.

  “I don’t know how the hell I got it here!” I took a few steps back from it as Ian crossed himself in front of me, placing himself between the coyote and me.

  “F-focus on it being dead again!” Sonya stammered.

  I buried my face in Ian’s back, afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes closed otherwise, and took a stuttering breath.

  Dead coyote, rest in peace, rest in peace, I thought over and over again.

  After several agonizing minutes, Ian stepped to my side. “My Love.”

  I kept my eyes squeezed shut.

  Ian placed his hand on my shoulder and I jumped. “It is gone, My Love,” he said gently.

  I opened my eyes and saw the coyote, once again motionless. Sonya and Henri wore dual expressions of horror.

  I turned and jogged back toward the house while visions of that poor dead animal spun in my head. I’d talked to the souls of the dead many times. It was part of my job as a SINS agent. But they had all been ghosts, not physical bodies that I’d reanimated.

  My stomach twisted with bile and I held my hand over my mouth, willing it to settle as I sprinted up the stairs and threw the door to my room closed behind me.

  I splashed cold water on my face and sucked in deep gulps of air. I lay on the bed and slowly tried to make peace with what I’d done.

  The hallucinations in the hospital, they had been ghosts too, but not the recently departed. Spirits have always faded shortly after their death. Before my stay in the hospital, I hadn’t met any that stuck around for too long. Unless they were gone, and I summoned them.

  It all came back to me and oddly, that thought is what calmed me. After all, it wasn’t too far a stretch from talking to dead souls. I finally had a name for what I was.

  Necromancer.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  I wasn’t alone for long. Ian came in to check on me. I assured him I would be fine and just needed some time to digest all of this. And, no, I did not want to talk about it right now, thank you very much.

  He placed a light kiss on my lips then retreated to the door.

  “Ian?”

  “Yes, My Love?” He paused at the door.

  “If Sonya was so sure I was a necromancer, why did she freak out when the coyote came to life?”

  “Necromancers were thought to be myth,” Ian explained as his face took on its emotionless expression. “If one who could command the dead actually existed, presumably, that person could also control vampires. After all, we are no longer among the living.”

  I felt my heart sink into my stomach so hard there must have been an audible sound. I nodded numbly.

  Ian started to cross the floor to me but I waved him off. “You need to meet with Chaos, maybe find out why the hell he’s here.”

  With an understanding nod he left.

  I wanted solitude and Ian needed to get back to Chaos, Sonya and Henri. Sonya had some explaining to do to Joaquín before Ian sent them on their way.

  I tried to sleep but was far to wired to even lie on the bed. The vision of that coyote, desperation in its eyes as it struggled to get to me, kept spinning in my head. I was pacing the room when Shia walked in.

  I greeted Shia with one simple statement. “I need a drink.”

  “I know just the place.” She nodded understandingly, and started walking toward the door. “But if you leave, Ian will have my ass on a platter.”

  “We’ve come to an agreement.” I smiled sweetly at her. “We’ve decided to compromise. Besides, I’m taking my bodyguard with me.”

  Shia drove, choosing a large black SUV from the vast choice of vehicles in Ian’s garage. I wanted to take the RJ5—the luxury of it was too tempting to resist, or maybe I just wanted to piss Ian off—but in the end, the SUV was the better choice.

  The roadside bar we stopped at was nestled within the reservation. The name Mal’s was scrolled across the front of the building. “Odd name,” I commented as we stepped onto the wood plank flooring that served as a porch.

  “It’s short for ‘Animals’.” She shrugged.

  Okay.

  I perched myself on a stool and ordered a rum and coke. The bartender filled three quarters of the glass with rum then waved the coke dispenser over it lightly. The first sip went down like fire but I didn’t care. It was a good burn. I chugged the rest and ordere
d another.

  Shia sipped on some pink fruity-looking drink, saying someone had to drive.

  Well it sure as hell wasn’t going to be me tonight!

  My ex-fiancé had just morphed into a full-blown wolf and was, at this moment, trapped in a cage in the basement of my vampire lover’s home. The cherry on the top of that shit sundae was that I’d just reanimated the corpse of some poor animal. I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around that one and I was entitled to a few drinks.

  The bar was full to capacity, bodies pushing against one another just to move around the room. Smoke permeated every molecule of air and too-loud music pounded through the room, making normal conversation impossible. Two pool tables were set up on one side of the bar with a smattering of old wooden tables and chairs in the rest of the bar. There were two doors; one was marked “Mates”, the other “Bitches”, and I made a mental note not to pee until we got back home.

  Humph. Home. When the hell did I start considering Ian’s place home? I sucked another sip of rum and coke through the tiny straw, finished it off and ordered a third. This one didn’t burn quite so much going down. I grabbed a handful of nuts from the community bowl on the bar and sat back to let the alcohol smooth away the wrinkles in my life.

  Shia swayed in time with the music. I closed my eyes and tried to get the image of Joaquín’s shift out of my head. I was too caught up in my own thoughts to pay attention to the movement around me.

  Not good.

  A few moments later I felt someone standing behind me. I turned only to find a guy who could only be described as a “surfer-dude” smiling at me. His long blond hair hung far enough down his face that I had to fight off the urge to push it out of his eyes. He wore long shorts, a button-down shirt patterned with palm trees, and was missing everything but the surfboard. “Would you like to dance?” he shouted above the noise, extending his hand and motioning toward the corner of the room where bodies moved so closely together you couldn’t tell who was with whom.

  I didn’t mean to be rude but I laughed. The last thing I needed was another man in my life. Not that he wasn’t attractive; he was blond, built and human. Shia moved in closer and stood tense at my side. I didn’t take it as a good sign.

  “No thanks,” I yelled with a shake of my head.

  “Maybe we should go,” Shia began, “we’ve had a couple of drinks and it’s time to get out of here.”

  “Perhaps the lady isn’t ready to leave,” Surfer-dude’s expression hardened.

  I groaned and with a roll of my eyes turned on my stool.

  “Sorry buddy, this is ladies night and you don’t fit the bill,” I replied.

  “Glad you noticed.” He smiled down at me.

  Shia turned away but I didn’t for a minute think she wasn’t listening in on the conversation.

  “What do you want?”

  “You want details?” He wagged his eyebrows suggestively.

  “No.” I took a drink. “I want you to leave.”

  He flashed me a look full of mock sadness. “But I haven’t had any fun yet.”

  “Go back to your game then.” I jerked my chin toward the pool table.

  “I’m not interested in that game anymore.”

  I gave a tight smile. “Short attention span, huh? I bet that’s not the only short thing on you.”

  His eyes darkened. “Perhaps you’d like to find out.”

  “Piss off.”

  I attempted to stand when every ounce of rum I’d drunk raced straight to my brain. I braced my feet and pushed off the barstool again when a large hand caught my arm and hefted me to my feet. I raised my face up to snarl at whoever it was and let them know that I was perfectly capable of standing on my own when I saw who it was and bit off my words.

  Ian loomed above me, his eyes dark, and expression grim. He gave Surfer-dude a lethal gaze.

  “Time for me to go,” Surfer-dude said nervously as he backed into the crowd and disappeared.

  “You were to stay at the house,” Ian growled.

  “I thought we agreed to complimise.” I slurred then laughed when I realized how it sounded.

  “You’re intoxicated,” Ian accused.

  I held my thumb and forefinger a fraction away from each other. “Just a little bit.”

  “Come on,” he said exasperatedly, then hefted me over his shoulder to the whoops and applause of those nearest us.

  “Let me go!” My wounded pride had to argue, but something closer to the surface knew I couldn’t walk out of there.

  “What the hell was in those drinks?” I asked his ass, because that was really the only part of him I could see. Not that I was complaining, the powerful muscles flexed with each step he took.

  We were sitting in his RJ5 before I realized that Shia was nowhere to be seen.

  “She stayed behind with Cougar and Falcon.” He answered my unspoken question. “It’s a bar for supernaturals, My Love.”

  I let my head lazily flop over to the side to look at him questioningly.

  “It takes a hell of a lot more alcohol to affect a shifter or vampire. The liquor is three times as potent as in a human bar. Shia called me after you ordered your second drink.” He strapped my seatbelt on, a wide smile cracking his lips. “You’re smashed, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.” I popped my p.

  Ian started the car. “Let’s get you to bed, My Love.”

  It was the last thing I remembered before waking up naked and spooned against him.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Living with vampires made a hangover a lot more tolerable. The light that would have surely pierced my skull was pleasantly absent. Fragments of the ride home came back to me as I showered and swapped the stench of smoke for the calming scent of my body wash and shampoo.

  I’d flirted with Ian relentlessly but fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow. I’d also agreed to talk more with Sonya about necromancy.

  Damn! Alcohol makes me reasonable; I hate that.

  I remembered Ian telling me that Joaquín had held his wolf form for more than an hour. He transformed back to human while asleep, which is common for new shifters but he had survived the ordeal. Each shift would become less painful and easier to control but he still had to be confined until we were sure he could keep his instincts in check.

  The reason Ian’s kiss had made him lose it was because Joaquín had already considered me his “mate”. Wolves mate for life and it was ingrained in him to protect his mate. The easiest way for Joaquín to control this was to no longer look at me as “his”. The hardest, and of course most dangerous, option would be for them to fight for me. Joaquín would relinquish his hold on me, and therefore his wolf’s instinct to protect me, if Ian beat him in a fight. It was very archaic and I refused to even consider it.

  More disturbing was that Chaos had finally told Ian why he was here. The Marquis wanted Ian back. The VRA had opened a whole slew of possibilities for the supernatural community and Ian and his brothers comprised of the highest concentration of vampires in one area, the United States. While shapeshifters and Therians lived in groups, vampires were generally solitary creatures. All were territorial by nature and didn’t particularly care to share space. Now that they didn’t have to hide their existence in the shadows, it was all too probable there would be more confrontations between them.

  Chaos offered Ian full control of the United States. He would be responsible for protecting the entire country with his brothers alongside him.

  Ian hadn’t decided if he wanted to be part of the Marquis once again but I knew without him telling me that if he didn’t accept Chaos proposal, everyone he loved would fall under the rule of another. It was the proverbial rock and hard place.

  * * * *

  I got a call from Sam that afternoon, letting me know Maxwell Palmer had scheduled a news conference to officially file a motion to repeal the VRA. I flipped on the television to the all-news channel and found a screen-size photo of Ben. I let out a gasp, then swallowed
hard to keep the sob from bubbling up from my throat. The camera angle changed to Senator Maxwell as he ranted about the “abominations plaguing us”. His overly round face and ample jowls shimmied angrily as he spoke of the evils of supernaturals. He all but asked the townspeople to grab their pitchforks and torches. I listened to him rage for as long as I could before my headache threatened to implode my brain. I didn’t think he was going to accomplish anything but stirring up enough trouble to keep SINS hopping. I’m sure the crazies would be ringing our phones off the hook every time the wind blew. For once, I was glad Sam had insisted I get away from the office.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  That evening was the Day of Lost Souls on the reservation. It was a Native American ceremony to honor the spirits of those who had passed before them. It took place at the cemetery with candle lighting, prayers and ancient dances.

  The moon was just a dash of silver, allowing the Milky Way to take prominence as it weaved a river of light through the midnight sky. The stars glistened like the bright souls of those who went before us, approving of the ceremony we were about to honor them with. The rhythmic beat of drums danced on the breeze, lending a spectral feeling to the candles that adorned every gravesite.

  The tribe believed the souls of the dead passed into the spirit world and became part of the forces that influence every aspect of their lives. Therefore, once a year the Celebration of Spirits is held in hopes of making the souls happy so they will bestow many blessings upon the tribe. It sounds reasonable enough. Quid pro quo and all, but we’d been there a half hour and I’d yet to see a soul. Not that I was complaining, mind you. I’d seen more than my fair share of souls and a nice uneventful night sounded just fine to me. I saw Shia, Cody and Quinn a couple of rows over, kneeling in front of a mounded grave, surrounded like all the others with lit candles. Cody and Quinn had their little hands folded, their lips reciting words I couldn’t hear.

  “Their father’s grave,” Ian said solemnly.

  My throat tightened with their pain. Children should not have to suffer through pain. Childhood was meant for fun and love, not death and sorrow. Ian wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him. The comforting gesture earned him a smile and a kiss I had to stretch up onto my toes to give him.