Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) (6 page)

“Then what’s going on?” I asked. “Why did she go all Desperate Housewife on you?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Rhys said. He squeezed my hand. “Maybe she is interested in me. But I promise you the feeling is not mutual. Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me?”

“Aside from being so perfect that every woman who sees you wants you? No.”

Rhys rolled his eyes.

A knock at the door prevented us from continuing the conversation. Which was probably a good thing. I really did know Rhys wasn’t interested in anyone else, but I still had moments when I couldn’t understand why he would be attracted to me and my insecurities would come flooding back, drowning out my common sense.

Shing and my dad stood in the doorway. Apparently my room had been nominated the unofficial gathering place while we waited to meet with the Binder Council.

I stepped aside to let them in. Shing entered and took a seat in a chair by one of the couches, but Dad didn't come in right away. He stood in the doorway looking around the room for a minute, seemingly lost in thought.

"Are you coming in?" I asked.

He started and then smiled a rueful grin. He walked in and took a seat on the couch next to Rhys.

Great.

I took a seat on the empty couch, looking over at Rhys longingly. I noticed what looked to be a hint of a smirk on Dad's face. I was pretty sure he had sat there just to watch me squirm.

“So what have we found out?” Dad asked.

I really hadn't found out anything other than the fact that I was a jealous psychopath who needed to get back on a regular sleep schedule.

“I spoke with Julie, and it appears to be a full gathering,” Shing said.

“I suspected as much,” Dad said. “Who’s in hiding?”

“Nanti, for now," Rhys said. “His turn ends in a few weeks.”

Because of the fact that the seven Berserkers who keep Verenix bound would have to be killed at once to break his seal, they always keep one of the seven in hiding as a precaution. His location changes frequently and is unknown to any of the Berserkers or Binders.

“Did Julie tell you anything about the meeting agenda?” Rhys asked.

Julie was Shing’s Binder. I had never met her, but I had heard good things about her from Shing and was looking forward to finally meeting her.

“It is as we suspected,” Shing said. “The weakening of Thuanar’s binding has them worried. They are also concerned that no other Berserkers or Binders have appeared with Eric and Aata’s deaths. But, at this point it does not appear that anyone suspects that Madison has their powers.”

“I’m still not sure we should tell them,” said Rhys.

Seriously? I gave Rhys an exasperated look. We had already spent hours debating this and finally agreed that we couldn’t keep it a secret any more. This topic was a horse that had not only been beaten to death, but the carcass had been picked clean and there was nothing but bleached white bones left.

We were spared the possibility of another prolonged battle over this topic by a forceful knock at my door.

I opened the door and was greeted by the unwanted presence of plastic girl – Nicole. She smiled, but it just looked so fake. I was really starting to dislike her.

"It's time," she said. "The council is about to convene."

Chapter 4

Council Under the Mountain

The four of us followed Nicole through the house to a set of double doors. We waited for a few minutes while she made some taps and gestures on her tablet. After a moment the double doors opened, but instead of opening out into a room, they slid open to reveal an elevator.

Not exactly what I had expected.

Rhys, Shing, and I all walked past Nicole to enter the elevator, but when it came time for Dad to get on, Nicole reached out a hand to stop him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but only Berserkers and Binders are allowed past this point.”

Dad’s face flushed and his neck turned all red and splotchy – a sure sign of an imminent explosion. And who better to take the brunt than Nicole? I settled back to watch the fireworks and enjoy the carnage.

But instead of the expected explosion, Dad remained calm. He took a deep breath and spoke very civilly – even if it was between clenched teeth.

“I will not allow my daughter down there without me accompanying her. Either we both go, or neither of us go.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Besides, I was a Berserker for over 350 years. There are no secrets I don’t already know or can’t be trusted with.”

I was both pleased and disappointed at the same time. I was always pleased when Dad managed to control his temper, but at the same time I would have really enjoyed watching plastic girl melt from the heat.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Montgomery,” she said, “but rules are rules.”

It was time to back Dad up. I stepped off of the elevator and stood next to my dad, imitating his arms folded pose.

We looked tough together.

“I guess I’m not going, then,” I said.

Rhys and Shing both stepped off the elevator and stood beside us. Strength in numbers.

Nicole’s plastic smile seemed to slide off her face and she looked visibly flustered.

A good look for her, I might add.

“Uh, let me make a few calls,” she said. She brushed back her hair to reveal an ear piece headset. She pressed something on it, turned on her heel, and started walking down the hallway.

“Yeah, we have a problem,” she said, before entering an unoccupied side room and closing the door behind her.

“We could just go down right now,” I suggested. The elevator doors were still open. Apparently they didn’t automatically close on their own.

Dad shook his head. “It’s not a question of sneaking down to see what’s there. I’ve been down there before. In fact, I helped design and build this place. What I want is for them to let me stay with you during the meeting.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the head. “And thanks for backing me up.”

“Any time, Dad.”

After a few minutes, Nicole came out of the room, looking considerably more composed. Her plastic smile was back.

“I made a few calls, and given the unusual circumstances they are willing to make an exception for you Mr. Montgomery. You are welcome to accompany Madison to the council meeting.”

Although it took every ounce of self-control I had, I managed to wait until the elevator doors had closed before pumping my arm and high-fiving my dad.

Take that, plastic girl!

The elevator only had two buttons – neither of them labeled. The top button was dark, but the bottom had been lit when we got on the elevator. I figured it had been electronically programmed by Nicole’s tablet.

As the elevator began to descend, we all became very still and no one talked. What was it about an elevator that made everyone feel the need to be quiet while it was moving? I generally went along with it, but I never really understood why everyone had this unspoken agreement. Were we supposed to be pretending the other people weren’t there, or was the idea to just not make noise in an enclosed space?

I had the sudden urge to laugh out loud or shout as loud as I could to see what kind of reaction I got, but I wasn’t entirely sure the elevator wasn’t being monitored and decided to at least to pretend to have some decorum.

After what seemed like a very long few minutes of silent descent, the light on the bottom button went out and the elevator doors slid open.

A long passageway stretched out in front of us. Long enough that I couldn’t see the end of it. The walls were a bright white, and lights were placed every twenty feet along the ceiling. The floor was lit with long rows of tiny lights that ran along each side of the hallway making the corridor feel like a cross between the Hoth Rebel Base and the Bat Cave.

“I see they’ve made some upgrades since I was last here,” Dad said.

“One or two,” said Rhys.

“And just how far under the mountain does this go?” I asked. Between the elevator descent and the hallway leading directly toward the mountain, we were definitely going to be under a lot of rock.

“Pretty deep,” Dad said. “But you don’t have anything to worry about. I personally supervised the excavation of these tunnels when this place was built. I made sure they would hold.”

It was a good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic, because just the idea of being literally under a mountain was already disturbing enough. Now that I started thinking about it, weren’t the Hawaiian Islands pretty much just a bunch of active volcanoes sticking out of the water? I had a brief vision of the floor crumbling and all of us plunging to a fiery death in a giant pool of bubbling lava. 

What kind of protection would my Berserker powers give for lava? It would probably be best to never have to find out.

Maybe I was a little claustrophobic after all.

We walked down the corridor for at least a quarter mile. The temperature was quite cool, and I felt a slight breeze as we walked. The hallway ran straight without a single door or cross corridor until we reached a large metal door.

And when I say large, I mean large. Like bank-vault large, or underground-military-base large.

The massive steel door was already open, showing a width three feet thick with eight metal rods each six inches in diameter spaced down its side.

The door was obviously meant for security, but I couldn’t help wondering for a brief moment if it was meant to keep things out or lock them in?

I entered the room with no small amount of nervousness, following behind Rhys, Shing, and my Dad. None of them seemed even slightly worried. I, however, could hardly keep my hands from shaking. I clasped them in front of me to keep them still, but something about that posture made me feel like a powerless little girl, so I quickly let them go and held them stiffly at my sides.

Awkward was better than powerless, right?

The room itself was very large and open. The room was decorated in ultra-plush corporate chic. Everything was made of rich dark wood and soft leather. It was dominated on one end by a massive screen that took up most of the far wall. In front of the screen, on a raised platform, was a large podium with a microphone.

Facing the podium were three rows of what seemed to be individual pods or compartments. They were recessed down into the ground so you would have to step down several stairs to get into them. Each row had four of these pods split in half with two on one side of an aisle and two on the other. The rows were set at an angle from the front so they resembled three V’s pointed towards the back of the room.

Each of the twelve pods had a wide desk with a bunch of computers or some sort of technical communication equipment built into it. I couldn’t see much more than that from the back of the room.

We were clearly not the first people to arrive. I saw several people moving around and talking with each other. The room held the low buzz of multiple conversations going on at once.

All of that stopped momentarily when we walked into the room. The silence lasted for a long, awkward moment as everyone turned to look at us and then returned to their conversation.

A slender woman in her early thirties with shoulder-length blonde hair and bright blue eyes left the people she was speaking with and hurried over to us, a huge grin on her face. She looked expectantly at Shing.

Shing gave her a formal bow that she returned, but I could tell she was anxious to get through the formalities. She had a look of pent-up energy waiting to be released that reminded me of my best friend Amy when she had a good piece of news she was dying to tell me.

Shing turned to face us. “Allow me to introduce Julie Pierce. Julie is my Binder. Julie, this is Madison, Scottie, and you already know Rhys.”

Julie shook all our hands in turn. When she shook my hand, she gave me an even bigger grin, and pulled me in for a hug and then held me out at arms’ length, like an aunt who hasn’t seen her niece in several years. I just needed her to pinch my cheek and say something about how much I’ve grown to make the scene complete.

“Madison, I’m so glad to finally meet you,” she said, and pulled me back in for another hug. “Shing has told me so much about you.”

“He has?” I asked. I glanced over at Shing who looked slightly embarrassed.

“Oh yes,” she said. “Every time we’ve talked over the past six months you’ve been all he’s talked about. You know how he gets when he’s excited about something.”

Actually I had no idea. As far as I could tell, Shing hadn’t been excited about a single thing since I’d met him. He was probably the most reserved person I knew.

“Well, I hope he’s told you good things,” I said, not sure what else to say. She was very friendly, but a little overwhelming.

We didn’t get much more time to talk, as other people started filing over to see us. I went through the motions of shaking many hands as I was introduced to people who up until now had only been names and facts drilled into me by Rhys and my father.

I already knew Sunee and Nakai, they were the two binders who had come to confirm that I was a Berserker and a Binder. Nakai was the unofficial leader of the Binders and Sunee was the keeper of the Sarolt stone, the strange rock that was somehow attuned to Berserker and Binder powers.

Arthur Cooper, Josiah Smith, and Davu – who didn’t seem to have a last name – were all here. I had met these Berserkers earlier that spring when Eric had brought them to visit.

All the other Berserkers I hadn’t yet met were here except for Nanti who was the Berserker currently in hiding.

The first to introduce himself was Yul Romanov, a broad-shouldered Russian man. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, but from what Rhys and Dad told me, he had become a Berserker later in life and was only three hundred and fifty or so. He had dark hair and a neatly-trimmed beard that only partially hid his infectious smile. He grabbed my hand with both of his and shook it vigorously.

“Madison! It is good to finally meet you!” he said and pulled me in to give me a kiss on both cheeks. It was one of those not-quite-kisses where he put his cheek next to mine and made a kissing sound without actually touching me with his lips.