Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3)

by Brant Williams

  I knew they were coming for me. I had helped Madison hide and then made myself as easy to find as possible. Keeping my cell phone turned on made it easy for them to trace should they go that route, and if not I 'zerked periodically to broadcast my location at the Berserker house.

  I had thought Josiah and Arthur had honor, but their recent actions had shown me otherwise. They were capable fighters, all Berserkers learned that skill over time, but I had many hundreds of years more practice than either of them.

  I would make them pay for their lack of honor.

  I heard the car pull into the driveway. Sloppy. They gave away their one advantage – the element of surprise. I may have known they would come for me, but at least they could have attempted to take me off guard.

  The front door opened. I had deliberately left it unlocked. "Oh, Shing!" called Josiah in an annoying sing-song voice. "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

  His little children's chant was even more ridiculous since I was standing in the middle of the living room in plain sight. They may not have honor, but I did. I would not resort to tricks or surprises. I did not need such things.

  Josiah's eyes widened when he saw me standing with my swords at the ready. He pulled out his varé and smiled at me. "Well, well, what have we here?" he said. "And here I thought we were going to have to hunt you down. Looks like Christmas came early this year."

  "You have disgraced the Berserkers and all we stand for," I said. "I now give you the opportunity to take your own life and regain a portion of that honor."

  Josiah tipped his hat back and looked up. "Hmmm. You're giving me the opportunity to take my own life? Gee, how's a man supposed to pass that up?" He grinned at me mockingly. "Thanks, but I'm going to pass. How about you tell us where Madison is and make this nice and easy?"

  Anger coursed through me. How could they even think I would betray her? They were projecting their own cowardice and fear of death onto me.

  "You had your chance," I said and 'zerked. I twisted around and in a single motion attached my swords together. By the time I finished my turn I had doubled the reach of my weapon.

  Josiah attempted to move out of the way, but the increased length took him by surprise, and he did not move far enough away. My blade caught him across the right arm and sliced him along his chest.

  The coward howled in pain and jumped back. "I could use some help in here!" he yelled.

  But even as he spoke I had once again split my swords into two and pressed the attack. Josiah attempted to parry, but he was clearly unused to fighting someone with two weapons. I blocked with one sword and hooked with the other. With a single jerk I pulled his varé from his grasp and sent it flying across the room.

  I pushed Josiah against a wall and put my sword to his throat. "I will let you die the honorless death you deserve."

  "Stop," said a voice from the door. "Do not kill him." Despite my intentions, my sword remained still and my arm felt strangely unable to move.

  Nakai walked into the house, followed by Sunee and Arthur.

  "Thanks for nothing, Arthur," said Josiah. "At what point were you going to jump in here?"

  Arthur shrugged. "I prefer to pick my battles and only fight the necessary ones. Nakai has this under control."

  I continued to will my arm to move forward and take Josiah's life, but I could do no such thing. "What have you done to me?" I asked.

  "Ah, Shing. My simple friend," Nakai said. "We just want to know the location of dear young Madison. We need to speak with her and ask some questions."

  "You lie," I said. I continued to push forward. I only needed to move my blade a fraction of an inch.

  "Hey, you want to ask him to let up?" Josiah said. "This is getting a bit uncomfortable.

  "Shing, let him go."

  Slowly, against my will, my arm lowered. How was this happening?

  "Lovely isn't it?" asked Nakai. "We placed a haze on you years ago. Amazing how long they seem to last."

  I listened to her words, but they didn’t seem to make sense. What did a haze have to do with my obeying her?

  Arthur took a step toward Nakai, and I lunged. Or rather, I attempted to. I got my swords in the air, but once again, I found I could not swing them. Something was causing my body to betray my mind.

  "Now, now," said Sunee. "We can't have you doing any more of that. You will not attack any of us ever again."

  I felt something shift in my mind – a mental tug. Could she possibly expect me to do that?

  Except I couldn’t. I could move my arms when I had no intention of attacking, but as soon as I thought about using my swords, my arms became unresponsive and useless.

  "You will now tell us where Madison is," Sunee said. She took several steps until she was right in front of me. I desperately wanted to use my sword.

  I felt a strange compulsion to tell Sunee what I knew of Madison's disappearance, but I managed to stop myself from speaking.

  Sunee looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. "I see," she said. "It looks like I'm going to need to do this the hard way."

  She held up her hands and I felt... something touching my mind. I suddenly felt relaxed and calm.

  "Tell us where Madison is."

  Of course I would tell them what I knew. I opened my mouth, but realized what I was doing and closed my mouth again.

  I would not betray Madison.

  "Impressive," said Nakai. "He has great strength of will." She looked at me appraisingly. "Break him."

  "Tell me," said Sunee.

  I felt a sharp pain in my mind. The compulsion to tell what I knew was overwhelming. I dropped to my knees, my swords still grasped in my hands. I would not betray Madison. I would not betray the daughter of the man that had saved my life.

  I would not.

  I would not!

  "Tell me where Madison is!" Sunee shouted.

  The pain in my head doubled. It felt like hot brands were pressed against every inch of my skull. I knew that the pain would go away if only I would tell Sunee what she wanted to know.

  "Never," I said through clenched teeth.

  "You will tell me!" Sunee said.

  The pain doubled again. Then grew exponentially. My vision blurred from the overwhelming agony. I felt my resolve slipping. It was only a matter of time until I had to obey.

  My hands still held my swords. I couldn’t use them to kill my attackers, but that did not mean they were useless to me.

  I dropped the sword in my left hand and grasped the remaining sword with both hands. The pain in my head made it difficult to concentrate, but I pushed forward.

  I lifted the sword, but made no effort to attack anyone. Instead, I plunged the sword into my own abdomen. Pain flooded my body, drowning out the command from Sunee.

  "No!" she shouted, but it was too late.

  I was free.

  I would die with honor.

  I sat bolt upright in my bed and screamed. I was drenched with sweat, and the sheets were all tangled up. I could still feel the pain of the sword piercing me.

  What had happened? Why had I dreamed I was Shing? Was that real? Were those his memories?

  His memories.

  The realization of what had happened hit me and was so overwhelming that my emotions shut down as shock set in and my mind went numb.

  Shing was dead.

  Chapter 18

  Shanghaied

  Before I could recover, more memories assaulted me – Julie's this time. I fell off the bed and thrashed on the floor.

  – Julie as a little girl playing with her sister's toys.

  – Accidentally casting a Haze on a friend before she knew she was a Binder.

  – Meeting Shing and Yul for the first time and learning about the Berserker's world.

  Dead.

  Now there could be no doubt about it. Shing and Julie had died. Not only that, but if the dream I had was a true vision, then Shing had sacrificed himself so that I could be safe.

  He was the second
person to do so. How many more would have to die for me?

  But what was that dream I had of Shing? Never in my life had I dreamed that I was someone else, or had such a vivid experience being that person. It wasn't like the visions of the one-eyed man where I was watching as an outsider. During this dream I had thought I was Shing.

  Could those have all really been his memories? But why were they so much more vivid and intense than any of the others? Even Julie's memories that I experienced right afterwards were the normal flashes of pictures, not an immersive vision.

  I had seen my Dad as a young – well, young by Berserker standards – man. Shing hadn't really liked him that much. Had my dad really saved him from Navitan? That would explain Shing's devotion to him and why he had spent so much time and energy caring for him.

  But why? Why Shing's memories?

  It was the first time I had ever been deeply asleep when a Berserker had died. Could that have made a difference? I had heard once that dreams were really just flashes of disconnected images and pictures that our mind made connections between. Maybe when I was asleep my mind could better process the memories I was getting?

  And since the dream woke me up, I was awake for Julie's and so they were normal. Well, normal-ish. Nothing about this was really normal, but it made about as much sense as any other explanation I could think of.

  I looked at the clock. It was after one o'clock in the morning. I was tempted to go find Shing for confirmation, but that was probably just what Nakai and Sunee wanted me to do.

  No, if he were really dead, there was nothing I could do now.

  I pulled out my phone to call Rhys, but it went straight to voicemail. What was going on with him? I left a frantic message telling him my fears that Shing was dead.

  I lay in the bed, and stared at the ceiling. Sleep was gone and far away. All that was left was an excess of guilt and self-loathing. More people dying for me.

  I don’t know how long I lay there before I finally fell asleep, but when my phone rang, I had definitely been asleep.

  It was Ginger. I looked over at the clock. It now read seven thirty.

  "Hello?"

  "Madison?" said Ginger. She sounded panicked. "Have you been watching the news?"

  "No, I just woke up. It was kind of a rough night." I didn't elaborate.

  "Turn on the news, now."

  "Ok." I pressed the button on the remote and flipped to one of the local stations. "What's going..."

  But before I could finish my sentence, I saw what Ginger wanted me to see.

  The headline across the top of the screen read: Local landmark vandalized in potential kidnapping plot.

  A petite blonde reporter holding an umbrella and wearing a water proof jacket stood in the rain reporting the story.

  "...between three and four A.M. this morning a beloved Portland icon was vandalized. A security guard for the Portland Building, where the statue resides, discovered the damage early this morning. The Portlandia statue, which has sat above the entrance to the building since 1985 was beheaded in what many are calling a gruesome and barbaric display of contempt for the symbol of our beloved city. Authorities have been interviewing witnesses all morning, but do not have any leads at this time. Anyone who has information about the people responsible is urged to call the police at the hotline number listed below." An eight hundred number scrolled across the bottom of the screen.

  Portlandia was a massive copper statue of a woman dressed in a toga, holding a trident in one hand, and reaching down with the other to greet visitors. Who would want to vandalize that? It couldn't have been a Havoc. They would have simply demolished the entire building without really trying. Cutting of the head was too precise and planned.

  "That's awful," I said to Ginger. "But why did you call me about it?"

  "The sign," said Ginger. "Keep watching. They haven't gotten to it yet."

  I continued watching for a few minutes until they got to the part Ginger was talking about.

  "But perhaps most disturbing was the note found hung from the statue's trident. It reads 'I have Amy. Don't make me go berserk to find you.' At this time the identity of Amy is a mystery, but the police are searching through all new and active missing person cases."

  I closed my eyes. That was why Ginger had called – they had Amy. Josiah had met Amy and knew she was my best friend. He had even flirted with her a bit. She would have completely trusted him, knowing that we were friends.

  Anger and rage threatened to overwhelm me. How could they bring a completely innocent person into this? Amy had nothing to do with this. They were just using her.

  To lure me out.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Ginger.

  I sighed. "I don't have much choice. They have Amy. I have to find her."

  "How?"

  "My old cell phone. I have Josiah's number in it. I'm betting there’s a message from him. If not, I'll call him, but I bet the statue was just to get my attention so I would turn on the phone."

  "But isn't that exactly what Shing told you not to do?"

  "Yes, but he's dead now."

  "What? How do you know?"

  "Long story. When a Berserker dies and I absorb their powers, I also get flashes of memory. I got Shing's and Julie's last night."

  "I'm sorry," said Ginger, and the strange thing was she did sound genuinely sorry. "What can I do to help?"

  "Nothing right now," I said. "You've already done more than I had any right to ask for."

  "But I want to help. It’s my world that's at stake, too. I have a vested interest in you not screwing this up."

  I smiled wryly. That’s Ginger. "And you have helped,” I said. “A lot."

  "Ok, I get it. You don't need my help for this. But let me ask you one question first – are you sure you should go after Amy?"

  What kind of question was that? Who knew what they would do to Amy if I didn’t respond? I couldn’t just leave her. "What else should I do?" I asked.

  "Don't get me wrong," Ginger said. "I want Amy rescued, but given the stakes involved in this, is one person's life worth the risk you're going to take? If you fail, we all die."

  Of course it was worth the risk.

  Wasn't it?

  But what about what Shing had said about dying honorably? He seemed to think that the fate of the world was worth more than his own life.

  But that was different. Shing had lived for hundreds of years. He had fully experienced life. Amy wasn't even seventeen.

  And here was the real difference – Shing had to die for me to get his powers. Without his death, the world was doomed. Amy had no part in this. Her death would not advance the cause and save the world. There was no reason she had to die.

  And that made all the difference in the world to me.

  ***

  I drove out to Hillsboro before turning on my phone. If they were going to track me, I wanted to be far away from where I was staying.

  Sure enough, there was a text on my phone from Josiah. "I have Amy," it said. "If you want her back, meet me here." And he listed an address in downtown Portland. As best as I could figure it was somewhere in Chinatown.

  I wrote down the address and turned off the phone. They may have been able to get a fix on my location, but I sure didn't want them tracking my movements.

  The rain continued to pour down, and the winds got stronger. I listened to the radio and heard that several major roads were flooding and a landslide had cut off part of Highway 26 going out to the coast. Once I got Amy back, I was going to have to leave town so Rhys could come free Osadyn before the seal broke. Based on the weather it shouldn't take much of his blood to break the seal.

  I drove into downtown Portland, taking the back roads where I could since traffic on the highways had slowed down to a crawl. You would think in a city with as much rain as Portland gets that people would be used to driving in it.

  Not so much.

  The address took me to an empty storefront in Chinatown. I drove past once
to be sure it was the right place and then parked several blocks away. I had my varé in my pocket, but that was my only weapon.

  It would have to do.

  I peered inside the shop, but it appeared to be empty. I tried the door and found it was locked. I could easily break it down, but it seemed odd that they would leave the door locked if this is where they wanted me to go in.

  I looked around a bit more and a flash of red on the ground caught my eye. A large metal access door was set into the sidewalk. The kind of door you walk over all the time and completely ignore.

  Pounded into the metal, so hard that it was as if it had been welded, was a Berserker honor coin – the gold seal with a red hand print in the center.

  This was the place.

  I pulled on a ring to open the doors and they swung open to reveal a set of wooden stairs leading underground. I blinked in surprise. Was this what was under all these kinds of in-ground metal doors?

  I descended the stairs until I reached the bottom. A long tunnel with a dirt floor and stone walls stretched out in front of me and into the darkness.

  I was now faced with a choice. If I 'zerked, I could see in the dark and even have some extra light from my glow to see by, but it would let them know I was here. If I didn't 'zerk or at least pre-zerk I wouldn't be able to see much. I hadn't realized I would be walking underground and hadn't brought a flashlight.

  I 'zerked.

  Let them know I was coming.

  The tunnels made me feel as if I had stepped back in time. Old fashioned chairs and furniture littered the tunnels. Rusted pieces of metal filled various rooms and side tunnels. One large room had a trap door in the ceiling and a dozen rotting bunk beds in it.

  I suddenly knew what these were – the Shanghai tunnels. I had heard of these from some of my friends, but I had never been down here in person. A long time ago Portland was a dangerous town and a huge network of tunnels had been built under the city. People would drug you and then dump you in the tunnels where other kidnapers would sell you to ship captains. By the time you woke up, you were out to sea and had no choice but to stay on and crew the ship.