Balanced Chaos (The Void Series Book 3) Page 23

  Sam released her gift, sensing what the other faes’ gifts were and what they were doing hidden behind their fort of thorn vines. To her surprise, she felt the workings of a beast conjurer.

  Didn’t they learn anything from the massacre?

  The last time they had sent a beast conjurer after her, it had not turned out well for anyone—herself included. Sam went straight to work on the conjurers’ power, carefully sipping it from her as the other woman continued to call a beast from the earth. Sam wanted to allow the fae to finish her spell, knowing if she took too much too soon, the beast would never appear. In contrast, if she allowed the conjurer to produce her beast, and then drained her flat, it would be a whole different story.

  Just as she had expected, the conjurer brought an enormous bear from the depths of the earth, despite the multiple layers of the man-made structure beneath their feet. By the time the woman had finished her spell, Sam had nearly a quarter of her tank filled with the conjurer’s power. At the end, she gave a might jerk, knocking the conjurer out and releasing the bear from its leash right in the midst of their little fort. A cacophony of screams erupted as the bear roared and slashed.

  Sam smiled to herself as she took this brief respite to work on her next plan. She pulled her knife free from its sheath, grimacing as it tried to stick to the leather of the sheath.

  “Probably should have cleaned this,” she whispered to herself.

  She shrugged and went to work plunging the sharp dagger into the dragon’s neck and working it across its cooling flesh. To her astonishment, the blood did not gush out as she had expected.

  “Right, no heartbeat,” she mumbled. “It will have to do.”

  Slowly, a pool of blood formed as Sam made more cuts into the body where she guessed large veins and arteries would be. She wasn’t exactly well-read on dragon anatomy, but she did her best.

  Sam peeked out from behind her hiding place to see the mage slipping from the battle with the bear. Sam directed her gift at the mage, assuming now was as good a time as any to take on the powerful teenager. She only drained a tiny sip of the mage’s power before the girl threw up her strange mental defenses—something Sam had never encountered, even when battling Jason.

  The mage turned and looked at Sam, suddenly all worry of the raging bear forgotten. Sam stared straight back at her, her exhaustion, annoyance, and anger sending her over the edge. She poured all her emotions into her gift, willing it to fight against the mage’s defenses, but the harder she fought the stronger the walls grew, and the stronger the walls grew, the angrier Sam became. Finally, Sam crawled over the dragon’s leg.

  Sam tumbled to the other side of the leg when the world began to shake. She glanced over to the makeshift fort where the fae had been battling the bear. The animal roared as it dropped to all fours, blood dripping from its snout.

  Standing a few feet away from the bear, toward the center of the roof, was Mrs. Harmon—the mother of Sam’s old friend Carl. She pointed her hands down toward the ground, three stories below, with her brows puckered in concentration.

  Sam stumbled forward, dropping the sharp dagger and allowing the earthquake to drag her toward the mage, who battled to keep her feet at all. Swaying this way and that, she finally reached the mage, grabbing her shoulders. The mage—clearly a native to the seismically-stable Illinois—stared at her with wide eyes as the building swayed with the motion of the earth, bricks crumbling right off the walls and shattering on the pavement below. Even from their height, they could hear the cries of those running around in the courtyard below.

  The mage tried to summon a spell, but with each new shake, her concentration vanished. With a grin on her face, Sam used the momentum of the over-long earthquake to push her down, preparing to fight her with her fists and boots if she couldn’t beat her with her fae gift. The mage fell heavily against the short brick wall lining the edge of the roof, her head cracking against the corner.

  Sam’s eyes grew wide as the mage limply rolled away, the bricks glinting wet with blood. She fell to her knees beside the lifeless body and rolled her over. A roar from the bear drew her attention away from the mage before she could assess her further.

  The Rock Thrower was pelting the poor bear with all the rocks he could muster—summoning the stones out of thin air. Sam pointed her hand at the fae and took as much power from him as she could with her tank already brimming with the conjurers’ power. With what she had, she started taking the rocks already littering the roof and pelting them at Rock Thrower and the fae who had tried to kill Amber.

  Her attack gave the bear a chance to turn his attack on the others, going straight for Rock Thrower. Sam smiled a little, appreciating the bear’s taste. Within seconds, the animal had killed the fae. To her annoyance, instead of turning to another fae, the stupid animal opted to settle down for a meal.

  Sam resorted to using the stolen conjurer’s power stored in her tank, sending images of the bear attacking the other fae to the dumb animal. It let out a growl but obediently turned towards the three remaining fae when, all of a sudden, it reared back slapping its paws against its face. Sam urged it on with more images of what she wanted it to do, even going so far as giving it detailed instructions, but the more she urged the more agitated the bear got, walking around in circles.

  Sam looked up at the remaining fae. She knew what the two women did—grew bushes and made earthquakes—but she couldn’t remember what the man did. He was the spokesman for the clan leaders, and she had probed him at the beginning of the meeting.

  The woman with the vines increased her efforts, sprouting vines around Sam’s feet. Sam jumped, quickly scrambling up the dragon’s leg until she reached his haunches. She glanced back to see that the woman’s viney attack had slowed as the greenery struggled to climb up the dragon’s body. Sam turned her gift on the spokesman standing near the edge of the roof, needing a reminder of what he could do.

  Blindness, she thought to herself, suddenly remembering. He blinded the bear.

  Sam quickly inspected her tank. She had beast conjurer, rock thrower, and just the tiniest trickle from the water wielder. Sam reached for the water power and flung the pooling blood, directing it all at the spokesman. He stumbled back in shock as a wall of dragon blood washed over him and tripped over the wall, tumbling off the two story building.

  Closing her ears to the cries of his fall, Sam turned to the last two clan leaders to stand against her as she crouched on the shoulder of a dead dragon.

  “Ready to submit?” she asked, sounding a lot more cocky than she felt; truth was, she felt like scum—all this destruction was her fault.

  Why can’t you find peace within this walls? her mind probed.

  Sam shook off the question within and focused on the two women staring up at her. Much against her expectations, Mrs. Harmon gave her a closed-lipped smile and shook her head.

  “Only atop your grave, little Sammy,” Mrs. Harmon growled, driving her hands towards the pavement and drawing forth another earthquake, while the other women continued to drive her vines up the leg of the dragon.

  Sam slipped on the dragon’s leg, sliding toward the outstretched vines. She grappled with the scales of the dead beast, frantically looking for something to hold onto as the earthquake worked to shake her loose. Not for the first time, she wished she hadn’t dropped the dagger. As she fought for purchase on the slick scales, she threw her leg over the arm until her entire body was wedged between the two front appendages protruding from the right side of the dragon’s body. With one booted foot dug into one scaled leg and one foot dug into the other leg, she began to climb back up towards the dragon’s oddly shaped shoulder, completely able to handle the jostling of the earthquake.

  Near the top, she paused to eye the other two fae and the bear still roaming in circles. Sam closed her eyes and focused in on her conjurer’s power, still bubbling inside her. She concentrated on the bear, willing it into calmness. With the bear subdued to her authority, she molded its mind to h
ers and focused on the smells invading her senses. With the addition of the bears heightened senses, the odor of death and blood permeated everything atop the crumbling building, but slowly she began to notice a few other subtle smells. Eventually, Sam noticed a delicate bouquet that reminded her of when her mother would work out in the potted garden on the spiral driveway of the parking garage.

  Sam steered the blind bear toward that odor. It moved slowly, fighting the movement of the earthquake, but its strong muscles managed the task. As it got closer to the smell, the odor of living flesh mixed with the scent of growing things. Sam worked to keep her concentration as she opened one eye and peeked over the shoulder of the dragon. Sure enough, the bear lumbered just behind the vine-fae. Sam closed her eyes again and issued the order to attack the scent of greenery.

  A second later, she heard a scream rise up as the bear swiped at the woman. Sam stayed hunkered down between the legs of the dragon, trying not to hear the screams of the two women. She hadn’t even had to issue the order to attack the other woman. Mrs. Harmon had stopped her earthquake attack and went in, fists blazing, to assist her friend.

  Sam closed her eyes, tears leaking out, as she listened to the last gurgle of life escape their lips. As the roof fell into silence, Sam pulled herself free and climbed up onto the shoulder of the dragon to survey the damage.

  Oh, you idiot, she thought as she surveyed the destruction littering the roof. At the same moment, the soldiers slammed the door open, splintering the doorjamb in the process. Not only had she gotten her best friend killed along with her step-father, she had slaughtered the entirety of the clan leaders. Each one lie dead, draped over each other, or strewn over the dragon’s corpse, or splattered on the pavement below.

  The soldiers raced across the roof, their shotguns butted up against their shoulders. As if at some cue, they turned on her, pointing their weapons at her.

  Sam raised her weary hands. “I surrender.”

  Two hours later, Sam stood on a hastily-erected platform surrounded by soldiers, Corporal Werner at her side.

  Shortly after the arrival of the soldiers, their guns pointed at her head, Lieutenant Colonel Gallagher emerged from the stairwell, Halstead and Werner in tow. Like any good soldier, Gallagher came up with a few creative expletives as he scanned the damage, finally looking up at Sam still standing atop the dragon carcass.

  “You sure do know how to make a mess for me, Gollet. How the hell did you pull this off?”

  “Check ‘em. Some may still be alive. I was just defending myself.”

  Gallagher waved her off and nodded to his men who still held her at gunpoint. “I know. Those fae waiting behind the doors attacked us once you had the dragon well in hand. I swear, you do this just to make my life difficult. Well get your ass down from there. We have a nightmare to clean up.”

  Sam climbed down off the dragon, limping as the adrenaline drained from her body and the multiple gashes on her leg screamed out their mistreatment. Gallagher’s men began checking the corpses. In the end they found Mr. Newberry tucked under one of the dragon’s back legs, as though he had used it as a hiding spot. By the looks of things, Rock Thrower had struck him in the back of the head, and he had slowly bled out. It took Sam awhile to realize that when Newberry had whispered to her mind he had likely been on his last leg. Later in their search they found Dave, also dead and tucked under the dragon’s long tail.

  As they worked through the corpses, they found the mage, the back of her skull crushed.

  “She’s from outside the reservation,” Sam said, coming up behind the lieutenant colonel.

  “What?”

  “She told me the clan leaders hired her from outside the Res. I have no idea how they managed it, but I’ve never seen her before today.”

  Gallagher stared at her for a long, frightening moment.

  Now, Sam squeezed her eyes shut, willing away the dread building inside her chest. Even on the platform she could feel one of Roman’s strange little markers. What am I going to do about that?

  She opened her eyes and, just as before, a few thousand eyes stared up at her—all thoughts of Roman vanished. She spotted her mother and brother, huddled together, their eyes red and puffy from crying over Dave’s death. Like them, Jason stood distraught a few feet away. Carl, her old friend-turned-enemy stood at the foot of the platform, glaring up at her, his eyes red with unshed tears. A soldier had gone to all their homes, informing them of the deaths of their loved ones—at her hand.

  It was just like the vision her enemies had forced on her at Jason’s apartment. She had killed them all.

  It came as no surprise that the Res looked as though a war had torn through it. The building the Newberrys lived in had already begun evacuation procedures after being deemed unsafe. Then again, no building would survive the direct attack of an earthquake, much less the crash landing of a dragon. The parking garage had received numerous nicks and chunks taken out by fly-by swipes of the dragon’s tail. The courtyard was strewn with piles of rubble mixed in with the masses.

  All this because the clan leaders had wanted her dead.

  Gallagher stepped up to the microphone.

  “Thank you all for gathering on such short notice. A recording of this will be shared with the vampires. As you are likely aware, the entirety of the clan leaders of the fae are dead. It has come to attention of this administration that the clan leaders were plotting to kill an individual in an uprising. Such extreme acts of violence, or any acts of violence for that matter, will not be tolerated by this administration.

  “For this reason, I am enacting curfews for all factions, depending on their various needs. These curfews will be posted throughout the reservation.”

  Sam sighed. Another restriction to trap them within the walls of their homes. What’s one more, she thought cynically.

  “Furthermore, all reservations throughout the United States are implementing a chip program, to be started next week. Each mystic will present themselves to have an electronic chip inserted just behind their ear.”

  Sam gasped, drawing the attention of the soldiers standing near her on the platform. Like her, the other mystics stared at the lieutenant colonel in stunned silence.

  A calloused hand slipped into hers, squeezing her small fingers. She squeezed Werner’s warm grip, thankful to have his friendship back. She glanced up at him, giving him a sad smile. A gleam in his eyes suggested he wanted to give her more of his touch, to say more, something more, but they were surrounded by an audience of thousands. Nothing more could be done at that moment.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered.

  “Always,” she mouthed back.

  He matched her sad smile and squeezed her hand just as Gallagher continued to speak, pointing at the location behind his ear where the chips would be inserted.

  “This chip will be read by sensors throughout the reservation, notifying officers if you are out of your homes beyond curfew. Similar sensors will be installed in human transit locations and through our major cities, enabling us to track any escaped mystic moving throughout the human population. All mystics are required on pain of death to participate in the chip program.”

  Sam stared at the back of Gallagher’s head, her chest tight with panic. She had been trying to do the right thing, she had been trying to stop clan leaders from controlling everyone without any thought to who they might hurt, and yet all she had done was cause the humans to tighten their grip. She had brought this on, and all the mystics knew it.

  Her breath coming in quick gasps, Sam turned her eyes onto the masses filling the rubble-strewn courtyard. All eyes were turned on her.

  Gallagher had just painted a target on her back.

  Thank you for reading Sam’s story.

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  help future readers make an informed choice. Thank you.

  Continue reading for a sneak peek of Balanced Chaos,

  Book 3 in the Voi
d Series.

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  Works by Charissa Dufour

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  Sneak Peek of Sucked In

  Chapter One

  …Audrey leaned forward, his intoxicating smell filling her lungs and making her head spin. She knew she should be afraid. But she couldn’t make herself feel what she didn’t feel, just as she couldn’t drive away the feeling of love that welled up inside her. Just like she knew she should be afraid, she knew she shouldn’t love him. After all, he was a vampire.