He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small oblong shaped stone. It shone with an inverse glow that sucked in the light around it.
The Sarolt stone.
I couldn't believe it. I hadn't seen it since Sunee and Nakai had come here to test me.
"Where did you find it?" I asked.
"It was in the ruins of the Manor House."
Something about this felt too good to be true. It made me suspicious. "And you just happened to find it there in all that wreckage?"
"I dug through to the vaults where the Binder Council keeps all their valuables. I somehow knew it would be there. It's now yours."
I picked up the stone, and watched how it sucked in the light. Was this one of the six stones I had seen in my vision? It sure looked like it. But why was this one left out? What was its purpose? It bothered me to realize that I might never know.
"Well, Madison," said Nanti. "I believe that I have told you everything I came to say. It has been a pleasure to meet you, but now I must go and fulfill my part in all of this."
He stood up and dropped a thick stack of hundred dollar bills on the table and shrugged. "Why not? It's not like I need them anymore."
He started to walk away and then stopped and turned around. "By the way, Madison, if you make it through all this alive, you may want to go back and explore those vaults. They are on the first floor in the northwest corner of the Manor house. I believe there are some papers and documents that tell you where all the various Berserker assets are invested along with codes, passwords, and account numbers. As the last living Berserker they all belong to you."
And with that he turned around and walked out of the restaurant.
Chapter 21
Voicemail From The Dead
I left the restaurant shortly after Nanti. I almost made it out the door before one of the waiters ran after me.
"Miss, you forgot your money!" He held the stack of hundreds in his hands. Wow, who knew such honesty still existed in this world?
"It's not my money," I said. "It's a tip from the guy I was here with. Enjoy."
I was halfway down the block when I heard the whoop from the waiters as he told the others the news. I smiled at the sound. Who could blame them, it wasn't very often someone left a tip measured in the thousands of dollars.
I walked around until I found a free taxi and went back to the hotel. I packed my bags and checked out. The Berserkers and Binders who wanted to kill me were all dead. I could go home now and not fear.
***
When I walked in the door, my Mom ran up to me and gave me a huge hug.
"Oh, Madison, I've missed you so much!"
I hugged her back, grateful to be home. I had missed her and Dad both. I looked around the house. It felt strange to me. No, it felt like a stranger to me. It was like the house was someone I used to know, but hadn't seen in years. Everything looked the same, but it somehow felt different.
I guessed that meant I was the one who had changed.
Fortunately, before he died, Shing had told my Mom where he had moved Dad. She had gone to see him and had talked with him for more than a half hour before he got tired and had to go back to sleep. He was definitely making improvement.
I took all my bags upstairs and dumped them on the floor. I flopped onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. I felt uncomfortable and apprehensive.
Up until now I had been so busy that I had put off dealing with Rhys' death. But now there was no danger, no life threatening situations. Yes, I would have to break Navitan's seal, but that could hopefully wait until tomorrow to be dealt with.
I pulled out my phone and looked at the new voicemail. On that message were the last words Rhys had ever spoken to me. What would they be? A warning? A good bye? A declaration of his love?
The thought of listening to the message made me feel sick inside. Once I heard these last words, there would be no more. What if they fell short of what I hoped for? What if they told me something I didn't want to hear?
There could be anything on that message and there would be no changing it. No chance to correct or fix it.
That scared me.
I took a deep breath, pressed the button, and listened.
"Madison," said Rhys' voice. "I keep trying to call you, but I can't get through. I've been watching the weather down in Portland, and I know the seal is breaking. We have to free Osadyn soon, or else Portland is going to end up like Nuremberg." I closed my eyes, reveling in the sound of his voice. If I tried hard enough, I could almost imagine that he were here with me.
"I think it’s time for some desperate actions. I can't get a hold of you to tell you to leave so I can safely come down there and break the binding, and we are running out of time. I know I’ve been distant since what happened in Antarctica. I've been doing everything I can to figure out a solution to our problems. How can I be with you if I go feral in your presence? How can we be together if I have to die so you can get all the powers? These questions consume me. I may have found a possible solution. It is risky, but it might let you have my powers without killing me."
Tears welled up as I listened to the hope in his voice. It made it all the more painful to listen to, knowing that he had been wrong. He hadn't found a solution. He had died.
"If this works, I will tell you all about it when I see you next. If it doesn't..." He trailed off, and when he spoke next, I could hear the choking emotion in his voice. "...then know that I love you. I love you with all that I am, all that I was, and all I will ever be." He paused for a moment, trying to regain some of his composure. "If for whatever reason, my plan doesn't work out, in two days from now, an email will automatically be sent to you telling you everything I don't have time to tell you now. Be brave, and know that I love you."
The message ended.
I listened to the message three more times before putting down my phone. Bitter tears fell down my cheeks and onto my pillow, but I didn't care.
Rhys loved me. And he was dead.
Two days. That seemed like a lifetime away. It had only been a few hours since his death and now I would have to wait to find out what really happened to him.
For several hours I stared at the ceiling, remembering Rhys and all that we had been through. The first time I had seen him in the woods. The time when I had looked into his eyes while pre-zerking and felt that instant connection. I even remembered when he took me ice skating, and I was so worried.
I remembered that day when he took me out to the coast and rented out the restaurant and finally gave me the love spoon. I glanced over at the wall where it hung from a hook. I got up and brought it back to the bed with me. I traced the intricate pattern on the handle while I cried.
The spoon was supposed to represent the beginning of us – of being together forever. We were going to live for hundreds of years together, fighting evil and living our lives in blissful happiness. It was more than I had ever dared to dream, and just when it was almost a reality, that dream was yanked out from under me. Like those cheesy cartoons where one character pulls the rug out from the other and they fall to the floor in a heap.
That was the perfect metaphor for my life. Just when I get my feet under me, the rug gets pulled out. Why did I draw the cosmic short straw in life?
I felt a sudden sharp pain in my head and then images flooded my mind.
– A young native American boy trying not to fall off a horse while his dad teaches him to ride.
– Nanti dressed as a full Indian Chief glowing as he fought off an invading tribe.
– Davu, Shing, Nanti and two other men I didn't recognize all touching a Havoc seal.
And there it was. Nanti had taken his own life as he had promised. I briefly wondered how he had done it. How did a Berserker voluntarily take his own life? Presumably with something bone. Would I have had the courage to do that? I suspected that I wouldn't have.
I was now the last Berserker and Binder in the world. All the powers were consolidated in me. I could bind
and free any of the Havocs – or even Verenix.
For the next several hours I contemplated death and what it meant to me and to those I loved. Was death the end of life? Did those who died cease to exist or was there some sort of afterlife? When the body ceased living was there a part of us that continued? A spirit? A soul?
I didn’t have the answers, but I sure knew what my preference was.
Eventually I fell asleep. I started out dreaming of Rhys and reliving our time performing Camelot. Only this time the audience was full of bringers, hissing and howling at the end of each scene.
That faded away and was replaced by the world with the massive tree. There before me was the dark-haired man who was my mysterious informant. He leaned casually against the tree with his arms folded and one leg bent back so his foot rested against the trunk of the tree.
"All hail the conquering hero," he said with a mocking smile. He gently clapped his hands. "We are down to the last Berserker standing. I knew it would be you."
Something about his attitude really annoyed me. So many of my friends had died – including Rhys – and he seemed to find it funny.
"Those were my friends who died," I said. "So you'll have to forgive me if I'm not too excited about it."
The man immediately dropped the mocking smile and it was replaced with a look of genuine concern. Perhaps I had misjudged him.
"Of course," he said. He took a few strides toward me and put his hand on my shoulder. It felt very warm. I could feel the heat even through my clothes. Of course, this whole thing was a dream, so why should that surprise me? "I didn't mean to make light of their sacrifice. I'm just glad you survived. Pardon my insensitivity."
I shrugged. I wasn't quite ready to forgive, but it wasn't worth talking about any more. "So what's next?" I asked.
The man smiled and his eyes lit up. "Ahh, an excellent question. I like your enthusiasm."
I would hardly call it enthusiasm. I just wanted to get this entire thing over with. The sooner I could fix the binding and get back to a somewhat normal life, the better as far as I was concerned.
"What’s next, is that you need to break the bindings on Navitan and Margil. They are starting to decay rather quickly."
"How much time do we have?" I asked.
"A day maybe two at the most."
"Then we're already too late," I said. "Even if I flew out immediately, I could never get to Hong Kong and Paris in time."
The man nodded and smiled. "But now that you have all the powers, you don’t need to go there to break the bindings," he said. "You don’t have to be physically there to do it. All you have to do is reach out and sever the connection between the Havoc and the seal."
"Oh, is that all?” I asked. I didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm in my voice. “I just reach out? May I ask with what?”
I had always used blood to break the bindings and that meant being there. I liked the idea of not having to travel to where the bindings were, but I had no idea how to do it.
“Relax,” he said. “I’ll help you. It isn’t that difficult. You can do it. You just need to be shown how, and that is my job. I will guide you so that you can break the bindings.”
“Okay,” I said. “Guide me.”
“Excellent. Take my hand.” He reached out a hand for me to grab. After a moment’s hesitation, I grasped it and felt myself pulled into the air at a speed I was pretty sure approached the speed of light. In an instant I was tens of thousands of feet in the air flying high above the clouds. I tried to cry out, but the speed was so fast that my words were ripped from my mouth before they could even be fully formed.
My heart pounded and adrenalin flooded my body, but I didn’t ‘zerk. Had something happened to my powers? How could I be feeling this way and not be ‘zerking?
And then it was over. We hurtled toward the ground at a suicidal speed and came to an instant stop. No slowing down. No deceleration. One second I was flying through the air at thousands of miles per hour and the next I was standing on the ground completely still.
Now my words caught up with me and a petrified scream left my throat. I gasped, sucking in lungfulls of air, unable to control myself.
My informant smiled, seeming to enjoy my reaction. “See, it wasn’t so difficult.” If I could have ‘zerked, I would have probably punched him hard enough to send him back to where we had just come from.
Now that we were on the ground, I looked around and took in our surroundings. A giant statue of Buddha loomed above us, sitting on an enormous lotus flower at the top of hundreds of steps. I recognized the place immediately from when we had bound Margil. It looked a little different this time because it was daylight instead of night, but it was definitely the same place. The entire area was completely empty – not a single person in sight. That seemed odd, until I remembered that I was here in a dream and had flown here from some magical world in a matter of a few seconds. Why should a lack of people be surprising?
I looked around and found the seal, glowing golden on the ground. Margil stood nearby, his gaze fixed on the man beside me. He opened his mouth and let out a soundless roar. I blinked in surprise. I wasn’t used to the Havocs fixating on anyone else. Usually they sought me out, but now Margil was all but ignoring me.
I glanced over at my informant and he was staring back at Margil, a small smile playing across his face. He looked rather smug. After a moment he turned to me and spoke.
“Now you just do what you have done before – cut yourself and let your blood do the work. In case you were wondering, you aren’t really here, I just brought your awareness to Margil. Going through the same ritual that freed the others will allow you to mentally sever the connection.” He stepped to the side and gestured toward Margil.
I took a couple of hesitant steps forward. I was in a dream with my awareness half a world away cutting an arm that wasn’t actually my physical arm? It seemed like some kind of bizarre joke.
I pulled out my varế and covered the remaining distance to the seal in a few quick steps. I now had Margil’s attention. His gaze bore into me as I pulled the varế across my arm and sliced it open.
Blood flew from the wound, spinning in a circle around the seal in a violent red vortex. The seal lifted off the ground and began to glow brighter and brighter until it was difficult to look at. With a loud crack, the seal split into pieces and dissolved in a shower of gold dust. The dust rushed toward Margil, swirling around him, and bringing his color and substance back.
He let out an ear-splitting roar and then popped out of existence.
“What happened?” I asked.
The man shrugged. “Nothing to worry about. His seal is now broken and he is free.”
“Yeah,” I said. “No need to worry about another giant monster loose in the world. What’s one more?”
“Exactly!” The man said and he clapped me on the back with a hand. “Now let’s free Navitan!”
The man grabbed my hand and we zipped through the sky. This time I was somewhat prepared for it – well, as prepared for it as anyone could possibly be. At least I managed not to scream this time.
We landed in Paris, just under the Eiffel tower. I had been here once when I was younger and still had vivid memories of the trip. It had taken a lot longer to get there on a plane.
I saw the glowing seal immediately – it was kind of hard to miss. I looked around, but didn’t see Navitan. I searched for him and found him hanging upside down from the bottom of tower.
I had seen him before when I had dreamed I was Shing, but in the dream I had been limited to what Shing had seen, and I hadn’t really been able to examine him closely. Yuck. Even among the Havocs Navitan was gross. It was as if a praying mantis had crossed with a squid made of pure evil. And then grew to the size of a house.
A giant fishy head with a sharp beak for a mouth sat on top of a monstrous body with eight – no I counted nine – tentacles covered in suckers. Nine tentacles? What kind of creature wasn’t even symmetrical?
Navitan dropped to the ground and landed on six insect-like legs. He thrashed his tentacles about and charged at my informant. Knowing I couldn’t ‘zerk, I was ready to make a run for it. Sure Navitan was supposedly insubstantial and couldn’t hurt me, but the rules here were clearly different than what I was used to.
My informant didn’t move. He stood his ground and faced the charging Navitan with perfect calm. Right before the creature arrived, he held up a hand and Navitan screeched to a halt. He stood in front of us, his body heaving up and down. He appeared to be so furious he could hardly contain his rage.
“Now might be a good time to break the bond,” my informant said. When I didn’t immediately move, he turned to me, raised an eyebrow and made a shooing motion with his hand. “Sooner is better,” he said.
I stepped around Navitan, who didn’t appear to even notice me, and walked up to the seal. Once again, I pulled up my sleeve. I was pleased to see that nothing remained of my previous cut – no blood, no scar.
Slowly, I drew the varế across my arm and watched as the blood was sucked out of my arm in a swirling vortex. It twisted around the seal as it began to glow and lifted off the ground. Like with Margil, the seal cracked into pieces and dissolved into golden dust. The dust swirled around Margil and in a matter of seconds he was once again fully substantial, his color returned.
He thrashed his tentacles in what could have been anger or joy, it was kind of hard to read emotion on that fishy face. After a second, he blinked out of view and appeared to be completely gone.
My informant laughed and clapped me on the back. That was starting to get annoying. “Excellent!” he said. “Now that all the Havocs are free, we can send Verenix back to his home world and rebind the Havocs for good.”
“Is Verenix that dragon you took the shape of in the world with the tree? Is that his home world?”
Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) Page 27