House of Cards

by W. J. May

  The Chronicles of Kerrigan

  House of Cards

  Book III

  by

  W. J. May

  Copyright 2014 by W.J. May

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright 2014 by W.J. May

  Cover design by: Book Cover by Design

  Edited by: Chelsa Jillard

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

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  The Chronicles of Kerrigan

  Book I – Rae of Hope is FREE!

  Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gILAwXxx8MU

  Book II – Dark Nebula is Now Available

  Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca24STi_bFM

  Book III – House of Cards is Now Available

  Book IV – Royal Tea, coming Fall 2014

  Preface

  Rae giggled as her mother playfully dabbed frosting on the tip of her nose. She was ten years old, and they were making cupcakes for her birthday party in a bright, sunny kitchen. The sun glinted off her mother’s shoulder length, thick hair. They were wearing tiaras, gown costumes and pretending to be princess and queen. It was a perfect moment. It didn’t matter to Rae that it had never happened.

  She knew she was on the verge of waking, but fought hard to stay in the place between dreaming and waking, this perfect place, where she could pretend she had grown up with her mother by her side, playing dress up, having princess-themed birthday parties, having her mother call her by pet names like “pumpkin” or “monkey”, telling embarrassing baby stories to her friends and their mothers at gatherings, like a normal girl.

  These small bits, things that other girls took for granted, were precious to Rae. Not having them left a hole in her life, which made her feel vulnerable. After her fight to the near death with her half-brother, Kraigan, while she had been healing, she had thought a lot about family and memories and how the two things shape a person. She looked at her best friend Molly, and saw how her relationship with her mother and father directly affected the person she was today, even if Molly couldn’t see it. Rae felt like she was lacking this seemingly vital part of her personality, that having it would make her stronger.

  While she couldn’t turn back time to avoid the horrible fire that ended her father’s reign of terror and unfortunately claimed her mother’s life, she could pretend in these quiet places in time, where no one would know that it wasn’t real. So she clung tightly to these stolen moments with her fictitious memories.

  Chapter 1

  Nervous

  “You ready for this?”

  Rae stared at Julian as they stood in front of the large wooden door, his hand on the knob, about to bring her into the completely chaotic world she had not known existed until two years ago. Just before turning sixteen, she had come to Guilder Boarding School with no knowledge of tatùs or the fact that she would receive an ink mark on her sixteenth birthday.

  One minute she was the parentless kid being raised by her aunt and uncle in New York, and the next she was the center of unwanted attention at Guilder. Now she stood about to join a secret agency because they wanted her, not the other way around. The child deep inside who had been orphaned at a young age and never quite healed from the experience now demanded answers. The sudden realization that her perceptions of reality had shifted so drastically in such a relatively short period of time momentarily stupefied her. She blinked, and then blinked again, trying to force her focus back on the present. “I’m re—”

  A sudden crashing against the other side of the door, followed by an inhuman howl, cut her off. Julian jumped back at the impact, then flashed his super-model gorgeous grin with a twinkle in his dark brown eyes, and tightened the ponytail holding his long dark hair when the door stayed intact. Aside from Devon, Julian was one of Rae’s closest friends. He glanced at her, the door and then her again. “You sure?”

  She knew him well enough to recognize when he was taunting her. Rae shot what she hoped was her dirtiest look and stepped in front of him, determined to quell all nervousness. Could the butterfly wings in her stomach be blamed on the fairy ink-art on her lower back? Along with waking up to some unknown marking on her sixteenth birthday, she learned it had some kind of supernatural power, which she would need to figure out. If that had not blown her mind, Rae also learned both her parents had tatùs, where almost everyone at the school only had one parent inked. She, and her tatù, were both on edge. With forced determination she grabbed the handle of the door and yanked it open.

  Before she had a chance to check out the room, some kind of Frisbee disc flew toward her. Tatù reflexes kicked in naturally and she ducked just in time. She couldn’t stop the giggle upon hearing the deep “oof” reverberating out of Julian as the unidentified, flying object nailed him in the chest. It bounced off him harmlessly and landed on the floor at her feet. She leaned down and picked it up. Surprisingly heavy. I bet Julian will have a bruise. Speaking of which… She straightened and grinned. “Thought your tatù gave you the ability to see the future.” She couldn’t hold back the laughter as she handed him the disc. “Even I saw that coming a mile away.”

  Obviously winded, Julian shook his head. “I-I’ll g-give you that one…s-since it’s your f-first day.”

  What had Headmaster Carter said? Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.

  The first day of preparing to be one of the best covert agents in Britain, under the special training and watchful eye of the Privy Council. A secret operative. It sounded official and important. She imagined she should be feeling very accomplished right about now.

  The problem was, she didn’t. At that moment, Rae felt like she had a year and a half ago when she had first arrived at Guilder Boarding School and been the odd one out. Everyone had stared, whispered and treated her like a leper. It had been awful.

  Don’t do this, she told herself imagining her mother standing behind her, giving her a pep talk. You are not the same girl anymore. You know who you are now. You’re powerful in your own right. You’ve got this!

  Forcing her shoulders back, she put herself in the present, not the past. She had proved them wrong then, and judging by the fact that the large,
noisy room had suddenly gone silent as a tomb, she would have to prove them wrong again. Time would prove that she was up to it. She knew it would. She would prove that she belonged here if it was the last thing she did. She had to because she also had another agenda. A personal one.

  Over the past few months she’d lost sight (or maybe her eyes had been opened) of who to trust. Her mentor, Carter, was acting secretive. Her boyfriend had betrayed her in the line of duty. Some of her friends had been proven to be anything but. Her half-brother Kraigan had screwed everything up. At least he hadn’t succeeded in killing me when he tried. She had won that battle, though she barely remembered how. Carter and Julian had shown up at the very end and cleaned up the mess, sweeping Kraigan off to an undisclosed location.

  She had no idea where he could be right now and she was at least half sure that would be a bad thing. She detested the guy, but he’d kept her father’s journal a secret when he had the opportunity to screw Rae over. Now everyone was searching high and low for the darn thing and had no idea she’d hidden it the night Kraigan had tried to kill her. Has it really only been a week? She had recovered and accepted a position working for the mysterious organization that seemed to be pulling all the strings in her strange little world, but remained determined not to share her father’s journal. Not yet anyway. Everyone she knew kept things from her. She was determined to keep this one thing to herself, at least until she had wrung every last bit of information out of it that she could get. For that, she needed time, and for the time being, that meant that assimilation was key.

  “That’s Kerrigan? She’s so thin, fragile looking.”

  “You know she’s got her father’s ability? Bad blood only breeds bad blood.”

  Whispers from the room abruptly cut off her thoughts of the journal.

  “Did you know she’s got a half-brother who can do basically the same thing? Heard he’s locked up. The guy’s a danger to himself and everyone else. How much you want to bet she’ll end up the same?”

  “Privy Council only wants her here because of her father’s stuff.”

  “Nah, they want her here to see what happens when you cross two tatù people.”

  Someone laughed. “They’ll put her in a special room with a spinning wheel, pellet food and a bottle with a water dripper. She’ll be the Privy Council’s very own guinea pig.”

  She turned off her heightened hearing, a skill she had copied from Devon. That was enough for now. The words stung but she needed to hear them, to know where she stood, what preconceived notions she would need to overcome, and how close to the truth people actually were.

  Rae’s tatù was unique. While she did have her father’s gifts and her mother’s, she was ultimately even stronger than the two combined. Where her father could mimic other tatù abilities when he touched someone with ink, Rae could do the same but also recall those abilities whenever she needed them, while her father had only maintained those skills until he copied another tatù. She briefly recalled when she had learned that little tidbit, when she was locked in the tower at Guilder by then-Headmaster Lanford. He had been the one person she truly trusted when she had first arrived at the school, and in the end, had proven himself to be her enemy. She regretted the trust she’d mistakenly placed in him, but she couldn’t regret how the experience had unlocked the next level of her powers. Her body was becoming so in tune with her ink, it would automatically switch to whatever she needed to use. Like being able to hear whispers from across the room.

  It was an involuntary action, she’d tried to explain to her boyfriend, Devon. He’d gone on some secret mission but had managed to call her last night and this was what they had talked about. Except he seemed to think her reactions needed a stimulus and argued her tatù had become more of a reflex not a switchboard. I’d like to give him a bit of a reflex right now. He had promised he would be here when Julian brought her. Just because no one, aside from Julian, knew they were dating, was no excuse. Even though tatù people were forbidden to date, he had no excuse, in her opinion, not to be there. A promise was a promise. Plus, she needed all the support she could get. Even if she couldn’t quite figure out whose side everyone was on, the old saying went “the evil you know is better than the evil you don’t know.” She knew it wasn’t an exact fit for the situation she was in, but close enough. She had learned the hard way that trust and friendship didn’t necessarily go hand in hand. In accepting the position with the Privy Council, she knew she was stepping even deeper into the shadows, where the truth would be harder to discern, not easier. So while she cherished the friendships she had already, she was constantly holding back just enough to make her feel safe. She held back from everyone: Carter, Devon, even Julian. Strangely, she only felt guilty about Julian. He’d been nothing more or less than the perfect friend every step of her journey. It seemed wrong to doubt him. However, she couldn’t afford to make a mistake just now. So she valued his friendship, but held back just as she did with everyone else.

  A gentle nudge from her good friend reminded Rae she needed to move. Taking a deep breath, she stepped further into the brightly lit gymnasium and focused on the surroundings instead of the people, with a perfect smile plastered on her face. Mask on, time to work.

  Bone-white walls with the odd spot having a black smudge and blue mats surrounded the bottom third of them. The high ceiling made the mats appear small, but they had to be at least ten feet up the wall. Even a few spots on the ceilings, in between the fans, had mats. Interesting…

  Julian chuckled, following her gaze. “So, this is where we spar and train in our free time. There are also several rooms through those doors,” he pointed to blue doors that matched the color of the mats, only several feet shorter, “where you’ll personally have your one-on-one prep.”

  “Like one-on-one training?”

  “Sort of. You’ll have a Botcher and you’re the Dagonet.”

  Rae cocked an eyebrow and looked at Julian questioningly. “The what and what?”

  Julian grinned. “Privy Council loves using Tudor references. The Botcher is basically a mentor. I actually looked the term up. A Botcher back in King Henry’s time was a mender of old clothes. So I questioned Carter about it. Apparently it was a secret term back then to hide the trainer of tatù people back when the whole school and Privy Council started. Their job was to fix and mend tatù abilities to perfection.”

  “Then what’s a Dragon net?”

  “A Dagonet.” Julian laughed. “Ironically, it refers to a foolish, young knight.”

  “One in need of teaching and training?” Rae pulled on her shoulder length hair. She’d gone and had it nearly all shaved off and bleached blonde almost a week ago. It had seemed like a good idea at the time but Molly, her best friend, had freaked when she saw it. That same afternoon, she had dragged Rae to a hair salon out of town. Molly found a girl with a tatù who had hair and supposed nail ability. She had turned Rae’s hair colour back to its natural dark brown. When Molly pulled the girl aside and asked her about her ink, the girl smiled and said she could do more. So now, Rae could mimic the ability. She now knew how to return her hair to its original colour and also lengthen it. The ability might prove handy if she ever had an undercover op to do. Or a need to disappear.

  Right now, every night her hair grew about an inch longer. Rae knew how to stop the rapid growth when it reached the length she wanted. She planned to go back to its original long length.

  “Rae? Are you listening?”

  She blinked and stared at Julian. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  He shot his eyes in the direction to her right. “Carter’s coming.”

  “What?” She straightened and realized the room still remained quiet, but everyone was now watching the man walking toward her. Does everyone here know he’s the president of the Privy Council?

  “Rae, follow me.” Carter nodded. His face revealed nothing, but the sharpness in his voice startled her.

  She glanced at Julian who shrugged in surprise.
She had no choice but to follow the tall man across the gym to the blue doors on the other side. The butterflies returned and it seemed to take forever before she finally stepped through the door Carter held open for her.

  The bright hallway contained a long row of doors on each side with a fire exit at the end.

  “This hall doesn’t lead back to Guilder does it?” she joked nervously. Then annoyed at herself for feeling as she did, she forced the anxiety out of her system. The Privy Council had asked her to work for them, not the other way around. She had agreed to the job in order to find answers and today was the perfect time to start.

  “The underground passageways are not connected to the training facility. This building is newer, originally built in the sixties and then revamped several times.” He must have sensed the change in her attitude and stuck his hands into his pockets. “I wonder if a tunnel dug here and connected would save students some time – the ones working here and trying to get to class.”

  Rae walked beside him down the hall, noticing windows in some rooms, others with loud noises, both mechanical and human, coming from them. “Why keep the Privy Council’s building locations a secret from students at Guilder?”

  “Fair question. I used to ask it myself when I first started.” He paused at a door with a window and frowned at the vacant inside. He glanced down the hall and sighed before opening the door and stepping in. “It’s safer for the students, and for us. It also holds an allure about keeping it hidden.” He wouldn’t say more.

  He sat down at the oval table so his chair faced the window and door. He pointed to the chair closest to Rae. She pulled it out and sat down with her back to the door.

  Carter sat silent, watching her and glancing to the window and door behind. He tapped a thumb impatiently against the table top. After a few moments, it grated on Rae’s nerves.