by Jenny McKane
REIGN OF CHAOS
Sunny With A Chance of Demons
Book Four
JENNY MCKANE
Copyright © 2018
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
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
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter One
Sunshine Bonnard had her eyes closed, her lips pressed together serenely, and had her legs folded beneath her in a torturous position called seiza. To the unfamiliar, seiza was nothing more than sitting with legs tucked directly beneath you, knees forward, heels of the feet underneath the butt.
But three, four or five minutes into seiza, one’s world narrowed to a pinpoint of fire and screaming knee tendons.
She sucked in a harsh breath before she could stop herself, but she knew the damage had been done.
“No good,” she heard the weathered old voice cackle from somewhere in front of her.
Kiku.
Sunny bit the inside of her cheek and did everything she could not to show an ounce of recognition that she’d heard the elderly woman.
“Open eyes,” the woman snapped and Sunny did. “No good, Nikkou.”
Nikkou. It was what the elderly nun called Sunshine—it literally meant ‘sunlight’ in Japanese and Sunny had no idea why the woman didn’t just call her Sunny. Her English was just fine.
“Apologies, Kiku-sama,” Sunny said.
How she ended up in this position, both figuratively and literally, was a bit of a blur to Sunny at this point, but it’d all began that day Gideon betrayed her.
First, of course, he tried to kill her by bashing her head open on a rock and she’d repaid the favor by slicing his abdomen with her obsidian blade. She’d pulled up at the last minute, knowing in her heart that she really didn’t want to kill him. Knowing that she’d loved him—but still. Obsidian.
Gideon had survived, likely because of his archangel parentage. Sunny had survived because Asmodeus had some demon tricks up his sleeve and because the Buddhist temple where they’d been staying had stellar healers.
They’d both survived. And now they were on a crash course to kill one another.
First, Camael had the gall to video call Asmodeus on his tablet (how in the world he’d figured out the archdemon’s contact info was beyond her, by the way), and then, she and Gideon had gotten into a sort of tit-for-tat threatening each other’s lives sort of pissing contest.
When had it all fallen to shit, she often wondered. Mostly she pondered those thoughts when she was supposed to be sitting in zazen with her new babysitter/mentor/wise woman Kiku.
When Sunny’s temper and frustration to heal faster so she could go kill Gideon faster ran off the last apprentice monk who’d volunteered to look after her, the monks had sent in heavier fire power.
A nun.
And not just any Zen Buddhism nun—Kiku.
“Her name means first,” Asmodeus had translated when they were originally introduced.
Sunny snorted at the old woman’s sour face and wrinkled bald head. As was tradition, it seemed, Kiku kept her snow-white hair buzzed close to the scalp and wore earth-brown robes every day.
“As in first woman ever born?” She snickered at her own joke, but Asmodeus just gave her a look. As in, you’re too immature for words.
It was fair. Since the great bashing-in of the back of her skull, Sunny was what you could call a tiny bit salty.
She had a thirst for revenge that was building each day to the point where even Asmodeus was getting worried—he thought the fact that the Seal of Solomon was on her finger wasn’t helping anything. Demon magic fed off emotions and Sunny was a wellspring of really negative emotions after Gideon decided to go full nox and all-out betray them.
The team was in chaos and Sunny had some mandatory down time while she healed. And it appeared that part of that healing included her new overlord’s insistence that she learn to meditate and get control of those murderous thoughts that seemed focused on finding Gideon and ripping his balls off.
“No good, start over,” Kiku barked, banging the little bell beside her.
Sunny clenched her fists and bit back on the scream that wanted to free itself from her throat.
Meditation was torture—plain and simple. She was terrible at it, Kiku knew it, and yet she still demanded that Sunny show up three times a day, before each carefully-designed meal, and sit.
And sit.
And try not to think, move, breathe too loud, or fidget. All of which Sunny found impossible.
“We try all afternoon, Nikkou,” Kiku threatened and Sunny didn’t doubt it.
Fine.
Deep, controlled breath in and then out. Sunny cleared her mind and tried to cling to the nothingness with everything she had.
“Try too hard,” Kiku interrupted. “I can feel from here.”
It was like Sunny had managed to get herself her own Yoda in the past few weeks and she tried not to smirk at the similarities. They spoke in riddles, were tiny and (mostly) hairless and were incredibly irritating when it came to boundaries.
Thoughts of Yoda danced in Sunny’s mind a few seconds before she realized that she’d lost the nothing again. Shit. Well, for what it was worth, she was relieved that she wasn’t thinking about Gideon for once.
Gideon.
His face flashed in her mind, half-covered with the demon shadow skin and his mocking, cruel red eyes.
“Concentrate!”
Kiku was on to her again.
Deep breath out.
Sunny clung to what she’d dubbed the “white screen” in her mind and tried to make it cooperate.
“We sit here all day if we have to,” Kiku snapped and Sunny didn’t doubt it.
*****
Asmodeus was seated across from her at the low table as they ate their dinner in silence. Kiku was also their chef and her tastes were decidedly simple and sort of bland. Vegetarian, too, much to Asmodeus’ great reluctance.
“One more meal with tofu and I’m going to raze a city,” he muttered bitterly.
It was just the two of them in the temple at this hour. Kiku had gone to the small cottage on the far s
ide of their tiny island for the night and the rest of the team had scattered to the winds in recent days.
Eli and Sin had gone with Gabriel to Canada. He was closing up the home he had in the mountains, relocating Kitty and helping anyone else in the area get resettled after Vancouver had fallen.
Metatron had returned to Austin to the do the same with his property, though Austin was still somewhat safe and orderly.
Plaxo had to return to the demon realm to check in with his own kind, as Nino had sent an urgent message requesting his presence days ago.
The small dream demon was still a little cagey and difficult to convince to talk about what was going on in Hell, but Asmodeus had been and he said that nothing was beyond repair at this point.
“Seems that even as a newly-minted Fallen angel, Camael is inept,” he laughed bitterly.
Sunny considered how long and complicated their list of enemies was growing.
First, there was Camael and Victor. Camael was one of the oldest archangels in existence before he decided to team up with the archduke of Hell, Azrael. Fun fact, Azrael was an original angel cast from Heaven. He’d been an extra special sort of evil but had failed to plan for the surprise double cross Camael had pulled on him when he’d lopped Azrael’s head off.
The head had rolled to a stop in front of Sunny. No lie. She’d witnessed the entire bizarre thing.
Sunny had killed Azrael’s older son, Vitaly, herself. Camael had spared the younger son, Victor and they’d absconded while Sunny, Gideon and Azrael’s daughter Selah limped out of Hell like the broken refugees they’d been.
Now Gideon was on their list of enemy combatants, Sunny amended bitterly.
To the list, they must add Tesah and the realm of angelic Powers she hailed from. Between Sin and herself, they’d managed to kill Tesah’s brother/lover Eron, putting an end to whatever strange incest thing they’d had going on.
Tesah and the Powers had a bounty on Sunny’s head for breaking the Seal of Solomon and summoning the Guardian demons from their prison.
There was also the nox, the death eater demons that technically belonged to the entity Death, who was somehow in league with whatever Camael was doing in Hell.
The general consensus was that Death (they still hadn’t figured out who was playing this role yet) was an angel. A Power, maybe?
And Death, their unseen enemy, was orchestrating an apocalypse from behind the scenes and would make an appearance when he (or she) had grown strong enough and had enough ground forces ready.
So, there it was—the growing list of enemies they were facing from all fronts and if she were to compile a list of their allies, well, aside from a few Buddhist monks and a cranky nun, they were definitely lacking.
Sure, she’d summoned three out of the four Guardian generals to command a legion once the apocalypse had started, but they scared her more than her enemies did, truth be told.
The Guardian generals, once controlled by her ancestor King Solomon, were vengeful, powerful demons who’d been trapped for almost 3,000 years and who Sunny had no idea how to control. To say that she was in over her head was an understatement, and she’d even gone to Hell all but unarmed to rescue Gideon last year. If anything, Sunny knew a thing or two about escalating and she was certainly doing that now.
“You’re worrying again,” Asmodeus said, sounding a lot like Kiku, which irritated Sunny.
It wasn’t that the nun was a bad person, per se, but she was harsh and unapologetic in the brutal honesty she doled out. Asmodeus had picked up a few of her more annoying habits recently, like pointing out when Sunny was obsessing over her revenge or lost in thought daydreaming and not paying attention to their grimoire lessons.
Oh yes, in addition to learning how not to think, Sunny was also having to learn about the 72 demons of King Solomon as quickly as she could.
She’d been tasked with learning the ins and outs of her very own legion of demons—along with everything else she had to get done in her time at the temple. Heal. Think right thoughts. Eat boring food. Heal. Concentrate. Breathe.
Sunny grumbled into her tofu stew and took a sip of the warm tea from the shallow earthenware cup.
It wasn’t that Sunny wasn’t normally an optimist, but lately it seemed like the odds were incredibly stacked against her and despite this, the people (and demons and angels) were expecting miracles from her.
Chapter Two
“She’s not being mean,” Asmodeus argued with Sunshine.
This wasn’t the first time Sunny had accused Kiku of being harsh and cruel.
“Like you’d know,” Sunny grumbled at the archdemon who threw his hands in the air out of frustration.
Sunny was sitting on a stone bench in the small temple garden, picking at the ground with a stick. She’d spent the morning getting badgered by the nun for not controlling her thoughts. Again.
“I’m just not good at it,” Sunny said.
She wasn’t even trying to get any sort of sympathy out of the archdemon—she was stating the absolute truth. She was awful at controlling the thoughts spiraling through her mind. She simply couldn’t do it.
“Why do you think Kiku and I are insisting that you learn this, Sunshine? Have you pondered that yet?”
Asmodeus was standing in front of her. His arms were crossed over his chest and she noticed for the first time that he was dressed incredibly casually—as in a pair of track pants, some Adidas sneakers, and a hoodie sweatshirt.
“What frat house did you roll out of, today?”
Asmodeus swore as he looked down at himself.
“I was going for something new,” he mumbled, clearly annoyed. “But this isn’t about what I’m wearing. Really, do you ever think about why we’re torturing you like this?”
She sighed after putting up a stubborn moment of silence.
“I have no control over my mind, right?” She gritted through her teeth.
“None,” Asmodeus replied. “Not only that, but you’re such an emotional mess, that your mind is ripe for the picking from any piece of shit feral demon Camael sends your way. You’re a liability right now and what this team needs is its leader.”
She balked at the words and frowned.
“You’re joking right? I’m not the leader of this team.”
Asmodeus raised an eyebrow.
“No? Then, tell me, who is?”
She opened her mouth to give him a smart reply, but then really considered what she was going to say.
Was Gabriel the leader of their little band of rebels? Not really. At one point, as the archangel in charge of keeping track of Camael, he’d made a lot of decisions, but they’d mostly concerned himself. Sure, he and Eli had trained Sunny to head into Hell after Gideon, but she’d made the decision to go on her own. He was their strategist and the keeper of the ring until he could deliver it to Sunshine, but after that, he’d stepped aside.
Metatron, then? Not really. He kept the peace and helped them think through puzzles nearly every day, but Metatron wasn’t calling the shots. He was the glue that kept the team cooperating and utilizing each other’s strengths, but he’d never once assumed the yoke of leading the group.
Eli? No. Eli stayed in the periphery and kept his eyes on the shadows in case of sneak attacks or backstabs—which he still hadn’t forgiven himself for after Gideon turned on them.
And what about Asmodeus? He’d been one of the last to join their crew and while he was old as dirt and smart about all things demon, he’d never once tried to make decisions or objectives for the group. He’d merely provided his expertise when asked.
Sunny closed her eyes.
Was she really the leader of this rag-tag band of misfits?
Reluctantly, she was beginning to see what Asmodeus meant.
The trouble was, Sunny still identified herself as the lost misfit she’d been two years ago working under Michael. Answering his summons and finding herself a sort of dog catcher of stray demons, she went to school as best she could by d
ay, worked at an overnight radio during the wee hours three nights a week, and chased whatever random demons Michael wanted hunted down.
Never receiving proper training had made the job incredibly difficult and resulted in her being really, really bad at it.
She’d barely scraped by in school until Gideon had paid for her tuition.
She could hardly hold a sword until Eli and Gabriel drilled it into her thick skull over and over again.
And she’d hardly known what to do with herself the first time Plaxo had pulled her into a dreamscape.
But, Sunny realized with a little bit of awe, she’d evolved. She’d learned the lessons her friends had taught her over the past two years now and she’d grown.
She sucked in a breath at the realization.
Holy shit.
Knowing she was only a few feet on a miles-long journey, she couldn’t help but acknowledge just how much she’d changed since that first time she met the sulky half-demon named Gideon when they’d been assigned to hunt to down succubae plaguing Seattle.
If she were to look at a picture of 19-year-old Sunny, who thought the Cherub named “Rub” was the scariest creature on earth at that point, and compare it to the face looking back at her in the mirror, she’d hardly recognize her younger self.
“You’re all screwed if you think I’m leadership material,” she said, unable to stop herself.
Seriously. Sunny was the worst possible choice. Plaxo was a commanding general of a whole slew of demons—why couldn’t he run the show?
“You’re the glue, idiot,” Asmodeus smirked. “You’re the one thing all of us have in common. Without you and your mission, there’d be no need for an archdemon to cooperate with archangels or for humans to enlist the help of cambions and dream demons. You, Rosie.”
The nickname made Sunny roll her eyes. Rarest of roses. First, she’d been teased by Gabriel for not being one. Now, it seemed, she was the rarest of roses—Rosie.
One day, when her mind was whole and functioning, she’d come up with nicknames to fire back at all of the fools who called her Rosie. But for now, she’d just scowl and roll her eyes at them.
The glue that held them all together? Poor bastards. With her mental condition lately, they were about as sturdy as a picture frame made with Popsicle sticks.