Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3)

by Brant Williams

  The man stopped smiling and gave me a severe look. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  I wasn’t going to let this guy intimidate me. I stared right back at him. “I saw it in a vision one of the Havocs showed me.”

  His expression was thoughtful and calculating. He seemed to be weighing his options as to what he was going to tell me. In my experience that meant a lie, or at best a half-truth.

  “Don’t lie to me,” I said.

  His expression quickly switched to indignation. Have I ever lied to you, Madison?”

  “I don’t know. You’ve told me a lot of things I have no way of verifying. And you haven’t even told me your name or who you really are.”

  “True, true. There are some secrets that I have kept, and believe me, I have very good reasons to... for now. But have you ever heard me utter a deliberate lie?”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t ever heard you say anything that I can prove was a lie. That doesn’t mean everything you say is true.”

  “A very astute observation,” he said. “But I am not going to lie to you now, Madison. Yes, the dragon you saw was Verenix and the world with the tree is his home.”

  Fair enough, but I had already figured that out on my own. “So why the hesitation? What were you thinking of hiding from me?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of hiding anything from you,” he said. “The Havocs are evil, and if they can communicate with you, I worry they might try to manipulate you and feed you false information.”

  “Like what?”

  He shrugged and smiled. “Who knows? If they could somehow convince you they were harmless or good, you might be tempted to let them remain free instead of rebinding them. You have to remember these monsters have lived through multiple millennia and are subtle and devious. Don’t let them fool you.”

  Could that be what had been happening? Was it possible that the visions the Havocs had been giving me were designed to manipulate me, to make me think of them as victims?

  “But let’s not worry about that for now. Your next step is to free Verenix so that you can send him back to his world. You have all the powers and for the first time in history, he can be sent home and removed from our world. Once he is gone, you will have a choice. You will have enough strength to either rebind the Havocs,” he paused for a moment, “or to kill them.”

  I wasn’t quite sure I heard him right. “Kill them? I thought they couldn’t be killed. Isn’t that why they were bound?”

  “They couldn’t be killed when the powers were all split up. But now that they are all consolidated in you, it’s a different story, Madison.”

  A world without the Havocs? I had seen what just the continued presence of Osadyn could do. I knew the evil these creatures were capable of. The bringers. Zombies. All the people who had been killed over the years.

  Eric’s reanimated corpse.

  If I had a chance to ensure they could never harm anyone again wasn’t it my duty to take that opportunity?

  “You don’t need to decide this minute. You first need to find Verenix and break his bonds.”

  “How can I possibly do that?” I asked. “No one knows where he was bound.”

  “Ah, but that is where you are mistaken. I know where he is bound.” The man tilted his head to the side as if contemplating. “And in a way, you do too.”

  “Really? That’s news to me.”

  “Believe me, you will know the location when you see the sign.”

  “And are you going to show it to me?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am.” He took my hand and we flew into the sky. In half a second we were in space.

  Outer space! I should be dead – frozen or have my eyeballs burst out of my head or something like that. But I didn’t feel anything. No cold, no lack of air, no discomfort at all. I guess that’s the advantage of traveling in your dreams.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “My knowledge of this world is pretty old. I cannot tell you by what name you call this place, but I can show it to you.”

  We zipped around the globe until we were over Europe. We continued North and West until we were over Norway. I was glad I had done well in geography. Looking at the world from space wasn’t like looking at a map where there were neatly marked country borders.

  A bright blue beam of light shot up from the ground. We descended until we were directly over a large mountain by a lake.

  The same mountain where I had seen the vision of the one-eyed man and the other beings four beings binding Verenix. The same mountain where I had seen the man eat the stone and become Osadyn.

  “I’ve seen this place,” I said. “I saw five people bind Verenix. There was a one-eyed man who ate a stone and turned into Osadyn.”

  I looked at my informant to see his reaction. If it was upsetting to him that I knew this, he sure hid it well. He listened to me and then slowly shook his head.

  “This is exactly what I was afraid of,” he said. “The Havocs know what you’re doing. They’re trying to manipulate you. These five beings that you saw were criminals from my time. They used their powers to take Verenix away from the World Tree and into this world. As punishment, they were banished here and forced to be the source of his binding for eternity. Except they managed to exploit a flaw that allowed them to make the bindings imperfect and eventually breakable. The power consolidating in you is the direct result of that flaw. They used that to make the bindings unstable so they could be freed.”

  The beings I had seen in my vision were criminals? This was their punishment? I supposed it made a twisted kind of sense. After all, the Havocs had been ruthless and killed without remorse until the power started consolidating in me. Then they suddenly changed. That did seem to be a rather glaring coincidence.

  Was it all an act? Were the visions I had seen lies designed to make me feel sorry for them? Was I being played for a sucker?

  “You cannot let them cloud your judgment,” he said. “I know these beings and they will stop at nothing to keep their freedom.”

  I slowly nodded. “Ok,” I said. “I won’t let them manipulate me.”

  My informant nodded in approval. “I am very thankful that it was you that fate saw fit to put in this situation. A lesser person might have been swayed.”

  “Unswayable. That’s me. How every girl wants to be described.”

  He looked at me for a moment, unsure of my meaning. Perhaps in his world they hadn’t yet invented sarcasm.

  “Ah, yes, I see. Well, to unbind Verenix you will have to go to the mountain in person. His binding is far too strong to be done from afar. I trust that you know where to go?”

  “No, but with a little help from the internet I should be able to figure it out.”

  He looked at me blankly.

  I sighed. “You know, Google Earth? Online maps? Computer?” He continued to look at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. Which, if he really was as ancient as he claimed to be, was probably pretty close to the truth. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I can find it.”

  ***

  I awoke in my bed, out of breath and covered in sweat as if I had been exercising for hours. Bright morning light streamed in through my bedroom window. Clearly I had slept in way later than usual. A side effect of my body still not knowing what time zone it was in.

  I rolled over and stretched, remembering my dream. I was going to have to go to Norway and find that mountain where Verenix was bound. I would break the binding, absorb the power released, and then have enough strength to send him back to his home world forever.

  And then I would have to make the decision of whether or not to rebind the Havocs, or kill them all. The thought of making that decision made my stomach feel like ravenous weasels were having some sort of gang fight in there.

  Because the truth was, my informant was right. I was starting to see the Havocs not as criminals and monsters, but as people who could somehow be rescued. The thought of killing them or even rebinding them seemed somehow wro
ng. I was obviously more gullible than I had thought.

  I got up and showered, letting the hot water rinse away my night sweat and warm my bones. I stayed in way longer than I needed to, but got out just shy of irreparable pruning.

  Once I was ready for the day, I was going to do some research to figure out where that mountain in my dream was. Then it would be time to fly there and, one way or another, finish my business with the Havocs for good.

  I had dressed and was in the middle of brushing my hair when I heard the doorbell ring. I ignored it and continued getting dressed, figuring it must be for my mom. Anyone who wanted to talk to me would call and not just show up randomly.

  I heard the door open and then my Mom’s footstep climbing the stairs. She knocked and after a brief pause opened the door and poked her head in.

  “Madison, you have a visitor,” she said.

  That seemed strange. It had to be Amy or Ginger, but either of them would normally just call. Something must be wrong.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  Mom smiled and shook her head. “Who do you think?” she asked. “It’s Rhys.”

  Chapter 22

  Is This For Real?

  Rhys? I looked at my mom to see if she were joking, but she seemed completely earnest. Besides, she didn’t even know he had died.

  And there was no doubt Rhys had died. I had seen his memories. There was no questioning that. But despite what I knew to be true, I dropped my brush and dashed downstairs, my throat suddenly tight with anticipation. If this turned out to be some sort of joke, I was not going to be happy.

  I turned the corner to the family room and saw him standing by the couch. I was so surprised my legs stopped moving and I jerked to a halt in the doorway. My vision blurred as tears made it impossible to see. Could it really be him?

  “Rhys?” I managed to squeak out.

  In an instant he was there, sweeping me up in a tight embrace. I melted into his arms, feeling truly at peace for the first time since our trip to Antarctica.

  We held each other for several minutes, neither of us able to stop crying and laughing enough to actually speak.

  Rhys. Rhys. My Rhys was alive.

  After a moment I pulled back and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I stared at the face I had come to love more than any other.

  “How?” I asked. “I felt you die.”

  “I did die,” Rhys said. “I got better.”

  I rolled my eyes at the completely inappropriate Monty Python reference. “You got better?”

  Rhys held my face between his hands and kissed me. And then he kissed me again. I knew I had missed him, but I didn’t realize just how badly I had missed him until he came back. It was like coming up for a breath of air after nearly drowning. My every cell rejoiced at being given what it had most needed.

  “Yes, I got better,” he said and smiled at me in a way that made my legs weak. “I never planned on being dead forever. Just enough to break my connection to the power. Like what happened to your dad.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  Rhys gave me an exasperated look. “And what would you have done if I told you in advance what I was planning?”

  That question didn’t require much thought. “I would have stopped you.”

  “Exactly. You knew the prophecy as well as I did. I either had to die or the world was going to be destroyed. It wasn’t really that difficult of a choice,” he said. “I will admit that the timing wasn’t exactly ideal. I had planned on at least talking to you in person to explain everything, but when I saw what was happening in Portland and I couldn’t get through to you, I knew I needed to go ahead and do it.”

  I glared at him in mock fury. “Timing not ideal?” “You can say that again! I’ve spend the past day and a half thinking you were dead!”

  Rhys leaned in and kissed me again. Slowly and gently.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I had a hard time catching my breath to reply. I simply held still for a moment and enjoyed the sensation. He was back. Rhys was alive!

  I finally opened my eyes again. Rhys was staring back at me. He smiled and for a moment everything was right with the world.

  For a moment.

  ***

  Rhys took me out to eat and filled me in on what he had been up to while in Seattle. From the moment of reading Mallika’s note, Rhys had known that he needed to die. He had talked with Shing and knew about his vision as well. Shing had been at peace with the idea of his death.

  “He had lived a long time, even by Berserker standards. He was ready to move on,” said Rhys. “But I wasn’t. I still had a full life I wanted to live with you. But first I had to figure out how to die and come back from the dead.”

  He had hired a personal physician who was willing to help him die and then come back to life. The actual details were beyond my grasp to really understand, but the doctor injected something into Rhys that slowed his heart rate way down. They also put in him on ice – literally – to minimize any damage from the oxygen deprivation he would experience while dead. Once his heart had been stopped for two minutes, they injected him with something else to counteract what had been slowing his heart down and shocked him to get his heart beating again.

  “And then I should have woken back up,” said Rhys. “But it was harder on my body than we had anticipated. Because I was a Berserker they had to inject a lot of the drug in me to get my heart to slow, but once I died, that connection was severed and I had way too much of that drug in my system for a normal person to deal with.

  “I finally regained consciousness at about three this morning.”

  “Why didn’t you call me and tell me you were alive?”

  “I wasn’t sure you would believe me,” he said. “I worried you might think I was another trick of Margil’s like... he was.” He didn’t come out and say Eric’s name, but we both knew who he was talking about.

  “So instead, I bought a car and drove down here as fast as I could. I also wanted to make sure that everything was working the way I had hoped. I already knew I no longer had Berserker powers, but I wanted to be one hundred percent sure I could be around you without any problems before I let you know I was still alive.”

  “And what if you had still gone feral around me?” I asked.

  “The good news is that I wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous without my powers. However, if I still went feral around you, I would have never let you know I was alive. It would have been better for you to think I was dead and move on than to be trapped in a doomed relationship.”

  Of course he would have done that. That was my Rhys – always the self-sacrificing martyr. It was what I loved about him and what drove me crazy. Funny how it could be both ways at the same time.

  I told him everything that had happened while he had been gone. He had heard about the attack on the Manor House from Shing, but I filled in the gaps that Shing hadn’t known. I told him about Josiah and Arthur kidnapping Amy and how I had summoned an Azark that killed them. I told him about Nanti and how he had killed himself to give me his powers.

  And finally I told him about the latest visions from my unknown informant, how he had helped me break the bindings on the last two Havocs, and that I had to go to Norway to free Verenix.

  When I was done, Rhys’ face was grim. He looked dangerous. “I wish I could have been here to help you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been as kind as you.”

  I reached over the table and took his hand. “It’s over now. I’m the last of the Berserkers and Binders.”

  The realization hit me hard. I was the last. All the others were dead. All my friends and those that I had met were gone.

  All except Rhys.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” he said, but there was a bit of an edge to it, and I wondered if he was trying to convince himself as well.

  We sat in silence for a moment. Rhys sighed and looked down at our hands on the table.

  �
�Yeah, it’s been hard,” he finally said. “I used to feel so powerful, practically invulnerable. Now I’m a normal person again. No powers, no defenses. I feel like everything is a constant threat. I could be killed by practically anything.”

  I gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m so sorry.” I felt myself starting to tear up. I hated seeing him like this. And because of me. That was the worst part. He had broken his connection with the power to save me.

  Rhys swallowed hard and took a deep breath. “But I regret nothing,” he said. “I stand by what I did and would do it again. Being able to simply be with you again makes it all worth it.”

  I nodded and tried to blink back the tears. I managed to keep from an outright breakdown, but a few tears managed to escape.

  Rhys reached into his pocket and pulled out a white linen handkerchief. I smiled and let out a little laugh.

  “You actually have a handkerchief?” I asked.

  Rhys smiled back and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m an old fashioned kind of guy.”

  I wiped my eyes and tried to discretely blow my nose, but that failed miserably. It seemed like everyone in the restaurant turned to look at me. What, had no one ever seen someone blow their nose before?

  “Thanks,” I said. “Can we get out of here? I feel like I’m playing the tuba at a funeral.”

  It was Rhys’ turn to laugh. “You have such a way with words.”

  We went back to the Berserker house. It felt eerily empty. Rhys and I had been here alone plenty of times, but knowing that the others were never going to come back somehow made a difference.

  “So we need to go to Norway and free Verenix,” said Rhys. “Do you know exactly where?”

  “Sort of. I just saw it from space.” I paused. “Was that as weird as it sounded to me?”

  Rhys nodded. “Definitely. Even by Berserker standards.”

  I playfully punched him in the arm. “Thanks.”

  We got online and looked at maps of Norway. I couldn’t remember exactly where the beam of blue light came from, but I got it close enough. It was somewhere in all those fjords toward the Northwest part of the country. Where there were no large towns or major airports.