Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3)

by Brant Williams

  A few seconds later he ran back out, whooping and laughing. “Come on in,” he shouted over the rushing of the wind. “Grab something heavy to keep you from flying away, and run on through. The wind wall’s not too thick.”

  I ‘zerked, grabbed a piece of cement foundation with rebar sticking out of it to use as handles, and made a dash into the vortex.

  I hardly had time to blink before I was through. The extra weight helped me gain enough momentum to push through the wall of wind without getting swept away. Once I was through, I dropped the cement and looked around in awe.

  I was in the eye of a tornado. There's a phrase I never thought I would say.

  The sounds of the world seemed to have disappeared as I crossed the boundary. The silence, while totally welcome, was also a little eerie after so much constant noise.

  All around were white walls of swirling wind rising thousands of feet into the sky. Bolts of lightning flashed inside the walls, moving with the wind. Chunks of buildings, ripped up trees, and other debris punctuated the whiteness of the walls, showing just how fast the vortex was spinning.

  The rain was still falling, but much more like the drizzle from back home instead of the bucket-dropping deluge of earlier. Through the fine mist, I could now see the Puebla Cathedral a few blocks away and a beam of light that shot up from the courtyard. I wasn’t in position to see, but I was willing to bet the light was coming from Thuanar or possibly his seal.

  That was our target.

  Shing brought in Dad, and Miguel carried Onaona through the vortex wall. Rhys and Josiah came through last, completing our numbers. Rhys looked a little unsteady on his feet, and through the glow of his power, I could see his expression twisted into a grimace of pain.

  I zipped over to Rhys and wrapped my arm around his waist for support so he didn’t fall over. “What’s wrong?”

  Rhys pulled away and shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I’m fine.” But the fact that he said it between gritted teeth and wouldn’t even look at me, made it possibly the least convincing lie ever.

  I reached out to pull him back to me, but he shrugged off my hand. “I said everything’s fine. Just drop it!”

  He ran off in the direction of the cathedral.

  I didn’t move, too stunned to even think about following him. Rhys had never yelled at me like that before. What was happening? Was he sick? Did this have something to do with the headaches and other problems he had been having lately?

  I completely lost my desire to fight Thuanar. I just wanted to curl into a ball and cry. Or maybe throw up.

  Dad came over to me and gave me a hug. Apparently he had seen what had happened. He leaned in close and whispered into my ear.

  “We’ll figure out what’s happening with Rhys when this is over.” He pulled back and looked me in the eye. “Right now I need you to focus on the task at hand, ok? This is dangerous enough without you being distracted. Can you do that?”

  I nodded and hoped the Berserker glow and falling rain would hide my tears.

  I took a deep breath and stood up straighter. My situation with Rhys would have to wait while I took care of business. I could put my feelings aside while I did this task. There would be plenty of time afterwards to figure out what was going on.

  And believe me, I was going to figure it out.

  The rest of us ran through the streets, zipping around corners and jumping over cars that blocked our path until we reached the cathedral and stopped next to Rhys. He stood completely still, his hands on his hips, surveying the scene before us.

  The first thing I saw was the seal. It glowed with a blinding light that shot up into the sky, so it was kind of hard to miss.

  Beside the seal, Thuanar reared up on his hind legs, the other two sets of legs with long talons pawing the air. When last I had seen him, he was insubstantial – completely drained of color and substance. Now every few seconds his outline seemed flicker and for a few seconds he would look completely solid, before flickering again and going back to insubstantiality.

  Thuanar paced around the courtyard, his sinuous form still reminding me very much of a Chinese dragon, with two rows of sharp spikes running completely down the length of his back. His face was flat and squashed looking, but the eyes were wide and bright with a clear intelligence behind them.

  I remembered last time I had been here. I had touched Thuanar and had a vision of a red-headed man wearing a metal glove and a one-eyed man with two black birds perched on either shoulder. The vision had ended with the one-eyed man throwing a spear through me. It had been an unsettling moment, and not one I was looking forward to possibly having again.

  Rhys, Shing, Josiah, and myself approached Thuanar cautiously, not sure what to make of the flickering. Would Thuanar be insubstantial and harmless like normal, or when it flickered did it turn solid and therefore become very, very dangerous?

  Dad and Onaona stayed back since they didn’t have any Berserker powers to keep them safe, and Miguel stayed with them just in case anything happened. Dad didn’t like it, but he was smart enough not to let his pride get in the way of the mission’s safety.

  Once we got closer, Thuanar charged us, head down, running full speed.

  It looked like we were about to find out the answer to the harmless question whether we were ready or not.

  While the rest of us pulled out our weapons and took a defensive stance, Rhys raced ahead and raised his varé to attack. He swung the blade at the charging Havoc, only to have it pass harmlessly through him.

  With effortless grace he swung again and again, making sure that when Thuanar flickered back into seeming solidity that he wasn’t able to attack. After it was clear that Thuanar still couldn’t harm us, Rhys stopped attacking and lowered his blade.

  I wanted to reach out to Rhys and hold him, but the strained expression on his face told me that – despite my strong desires otherwise – whatever was wrong with him hadn’t miraculously gone away.

  My dad was right. I needed to focus on the job at hand. There would be plenty of time to deal with Rhys when this was over.

  I stepped up to Thuanar and held out a hand, reluctant to touch him again, but knowing that I would have to do so in order to rebind him.

  I pushed my hand toward his head and my fingers met no resistance. And more importantly I didn’t have any bizarre visions with birds and people with too few eyes. A win all around.

  That lasted for all of about three seconds.

  As if my touch had somehow punctured Thuanar, a gout of black liquid shot out of the place where I had touched his head. The liquid flew hundreds of feet into the air and began to spin in a circle, black globules whipping around. It started off as a fine spray, but as the blobs of liquid collided they stuck together, growing larger and larger.

  “That can’t be good,” Josiah said. He tipped his hat back, and looked up. With everything that had happened, I had no idea how he managed to keep his hat on – it was like some sort of cowboy superpower.

  The growing black blobs began to change shape. Instead of acting like a liquid in the wind, the blobs began to grow wings.

  I could suddenly feel them. The same sort of darkness that I felt with Bringers and to a greater extent with the Havocs themselves.

  Why couldn’t anything about the Havocs be easy?

  “Bad news,” I said. “I think Thuanar is about to pick a fight.”

  The blobs with wings continued to transform, molding themselves into gross bird-like creatures. They were completely black with oily feathers, long necks, and wide wings. They were shaped vaguely like geese, but instead of webbed feet, they had sharp talons and their oversized beaks were filled with serrated teeth – perfect for tearing flesh off of bone.

  The birds flew towards us in a swarm – a thousand or more aimed directly at us. The seething black mass came at us like a massive wave ready to engulf us. A wave with teeth and sharp talons – all natural weapons a Berserker would be vulnerable to. This was about to get real
ly ugly.

  Before the rest of us were ready, Rhys let out a defiant roar – seriously, that was the only word to describe it – and rushed the swarm of birds, his varé slashing the air, carving through dozens of the avian monsters at a time. He hacked and cut, twisting and spinning through the cloud of oncoming creatures.

  But there were just too many of them. As soon as he killed a single monster, three more moved in to take its place. They swarmed around him, slicing with their claws and biting with their teeth.

  Blood spurted from Rhys’ wounds as the birds began to eat him alive, bite by bite.

  Fierce anger consumed me as I watched the birds attack Rhys. With my own bellow of rage, I charged toward the mêlée with my varé at the ready. I leaped into the cloud of predatory birds surrounding Rhys and began to kill.

  There was no time to think or plan in this fight. There were too many creatures to kill. Each one wasn’t dangerous on its own, but together... that was another story. I let my instincts take over like when I first fought the Bringers last fall. There was something inherent in the power I had that recognized monsters created by the Havocs and knew how to fight them.

  I released my conscious mind and let my power flow through me. My varé was an extension of my arm, and I was an extension of my power. A fierce savagery I didn’t know I was capable of flooded my mind. Power. Anger. Hatred. For a time Madison was left behind and these emotions were all that was left.

  Over and over I struck at the monsters. Hundreds died on my varé. I was fortunate that, like the Bringers, these winged monstrosities turned to goo when destroyed. If they hadn’t, I would have been slowed down by the sheer number of corpses around me.

  But it still wasn’t enough.

  Slowly, the horde of monsters began to overwhelm me. Bit by bit they penetrated my defenses and began to bite and slice at my arms, legs, and face.

  I was vaguely aware of Shing and Josiah fighting next to me, but they were overwhelmed as well. Miguel stood in front of my dad and Onaona, defending them as best he could. The sheer number of these creatures was just too much, and this time we didn’t have any weapons like the bone bombs to cause mass destruction.

  I saw Rhys drop to the ground, finally overcome by the monsters. They swarmed around him reaching in to rend and tear. I screamed as he disappeared from view under a black cloud of wings, claws, and teeth. There were just too many of them. We needed more people, more weapons, more time.

  I would not let this happen.

  I reached down inside me where I felt my power and pushed it toward the monsters.

  Something inside me snapped. My conscious mind splintered as hundreds of black snares lines burst out of me. Not just from my hands, but from every part of my body in all directions. They weren’t as thick as normal, but there were so many it was like a wave of power pushing out from me. At that moment, I was looking through hundreds of eyes at once.

  I reached out with my snares and ripped the creatures from the sky. Each tendril was an extension of me and responded like my own limbs. When I had tried to do this back in Hawaii, I had been overwhelmed with ten perspectives, now I divided my attention into hundreds of pieces. Each tendril grabbed a creature and squeezed until they were cut in half and turned into dripping goo, or I smashed them on the bricks of the courtyard where they flattened like the world’s most disgusting blobs of play-dough. Each time one was gone, I reached out and grabbed another.

  Over and over I pulled the vile creatures away from the man I loved, ripping and smashing them until they were dead. These creatures were wrong. They were an abomination. They should not exist. Their very existence offended the power that was in me.

  With hundreds of snares working together it only took a few moments to clear away the black cloud of monsters from Rhys' body. Once I had cleared enough room that I could get to Rhys, I rushed over to hold his still form.

  Please don’t let him be dead.

  My conscious mind was still broken into hundreds of parts. I concentrated as much as I could on Rhys while I used several dozen of the snares to weave a cage above us to prevent any of the creatures from accidentally getting past my defenses. The remaining snares thrashed around, reaching, grasping for any of the monsters they could find.

  Rhys didn’t look good. He was covered with bites, cuts, and blood. His once beautiful face had dozens of jagged holes where the creatures had taken out mouthfuls of skin when they bit him. His clothes were in tatters. His breathing was shallow and fast, and his skin was clammy and damp. Bits of white foam ran down his cheeks. I wasn’t a doctor by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn’t look good.

  Our Berserker powers were generally so good that it was rare to see a Berserker get this hurt. I had certainly never seen it. I knew we could heal faster than normal people, but I had never had a chance to see what that healing could actually do. Would it be powerful enough to take care of something this severe?

  Strong hands gripped my shoulders. I looked up to see the face of my Dad standing over me. Relief washed through me. Somehow I knew that my dad would be able to make this all right. I knew that thought wasn’t rational – he didn’t have any powers and was in serious danger just being this close to me, but something in me knew he could help.

  “Give me Rhys,” he said. “You need to bind Thuanar. That’s the only way this will all end.”

  I let Dad pick up Rhys and lift him in his strong arms. My heart ached at the sight of Rhys’ limp body. His arms and legs dangled and his head was twisted at an awkward angle. He was completely unconscious. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight, but I knew my dad was right.

  It was time to end this.

  Everything slowed down as I stood up and surveyed the scene around me. On either side of me Josiah and Shing were fighting the bird monsters. I had killed the majority of them, but the remaining monsters had realized that attacking me was a bad idea and were concentrating on Shing and Josiah. Shing attacked in deadly arcs with his tiger hook swords and Josiah used his varé.

  Dad had taken Rhys to the far end of the courtyard where Onaona and Miguel were trying to keep him safe and stop some of the bleeding.

  Directly in front of me was the source of all the current problems – Thuanar.

  He glared balefully at me, thrashing his tale and pacing back and forth in front of me like a caged animal. Which was exactly what he was. And I was about to set him free.

  I met his gaze and pulled out my varé. The man in my dream had told me I had to free Thuanar in order to rebind him. I was about to find out how truthful he had been.

  Without looking away, I dragged my varé across my forearm, the skin splitting under the blade. Blood flowed out so quickly it seemed as if it were actually being pulled out, and was picked up by a swirling wind.

  The flowing blood twisted around the Havoc’s seal. The droplets changed color, from bright red to a blinding gold. Thuanar stared at the seal, entranced by what was happening. He knew what was going to occur next.

  The seal lifted off the ground, glowing so brightly that I could no longer look directly at it. Then with a thunderous crack, the seal split in half and dissolved into dust.

  Instantly the swirling vortex was gone and the remainder of the flying creatures dissolved into nothingness. The eye of the vortex had seemed silent compared to the rushing outside it, but now that the rushing wind was gone there was a silence so profound that I could feel it like a physical presence.

  The color flowed back into Thuanar. He lifted his head and roared, shattering the silence with a sound so loud that my ears felt like they had been stabbed with something sharp. Wet trickles of blood dripped out of my ears and nose. My vision went red as my eyes started to bleed from the concussive blast of sound. If that weren’t bad enough, a wave of heat and nausea rolled over me as Thuanar’s physical presence once again became a part of our plane of reality.

  I took a few staggering steps back and shook my head to clear it. I managed to regain my focus just in ti
me to watch Thuanar vanish from sight.

  This wasn’t like when he was bound and was an insubstantial outline.

  He just disappeared.

  I remembered that each of the Havocs had a power unique to it. Osadyn’s had been emotional control, Margil had control over the dead. Thuanar controlled sight and vision. He could make things – including himself – invisible, or make hidden things appear.

  Instinctively I reached out with the hundreds of tendrils still in my snare, searching for his invisible form. The tendrils wrapped around Thuanar and grasped him tightly. I pulled with all my powers, holding him still so I could rebind him. I reached out to the poles of the wrought iron fence and wrapped tendrils of my snare around them to help anchor me.

  Thuanar thrashed and twisted about, roaring in anger. He fought hard to free himself. He had been bound for so long, it was clear he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

  I closed my eyes as I concentrated on immobilizing Thuanar. Yes, I had hundreds of tendrils in my snare, but I was used to having fewer tendrils that were much stronger. It took more effort and concentration than I had expected.

  After several minutes of back and forth struggling, I managed to wrap up Thuanar. Each set of legs was tied together and his wings were bound flat against his body. He thrashed and twisted, but I had him tight.

  Now that I had Thuanar trapped, it was time to bind him. I still had my varé in my hand from when I had previously cut myself. The cut was now completely healed with no sign of a scar. I loved my Berserker healing.

  I had just raised my varé to once again slice my arm, when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. Before I could register what it was, a large shape blocked my view.

  I had just enough time to recognize my dad leaping in front of me. Something hit him, and he let out a yell of pain. He collapsed to the ground, landing on his shoulder and rolled onto his back.

  That’s when I saw the handle of the bone knife protruding from his chest.