House of Chaos

by K. R. Alexander

  It wouldn’t stop, hand on my throat, body on mine, a gag and chains. I knew they weren’t real, but they weren’t dreams. They felt so fucking real.

  Reek of smoke from the fires of hell, burning, sinking. Sweat pouring off me. I was sick—that was it. Too much grieving, too many late nights and pour choices. I had a fever. Nightmares, then fever, feelings that weren’t there. I had a sudden bad flu or something. Sweat soaked my shirt and hair, running down my legs. So hot I felt my eyeballs would dribble down my face.

  Another hand, hot and strong, more than the weight and chains and rapist, grabbed my shoulder. Somehow, this house wasn’t that safe. Maybe it had stopped undead, but it hadn’t stopped spirits.

  Screaming all over again, I fought back, blast of fire and light, all the energy I could throw at them. It wasn’t enough. You needed quieter magics and cunning and protection to get the best of them. But it was all I had so I cast and scrambled back. Trapped in a corner, pinned here. Run then, just run, throw open the door with magic and break out. Run somewhere safe, find my friends.

  The fire was on me, my lungs burning, hair now flames. The spit in my mouth so hot it burnt my tongue like a quick drink of tea the instant you’ve poured the boiling water. I couldn’t get away from the heat anymore than the weight or chains or force. But I was the physical one. Maybe they could trip me, cut me down, sometimes even fool me, but I could still run. Run to ice. Run to the lake. Get out of this cursed house and into the lake and turn the whole thing to steam with the heat of my body.

  They grabbed me, forced me back, but I broke free, screaming against pain of burns, snapping those chains, free of the weight, while that voice still beat in my ears—all I could hear, threats and mockery, promising to do to me what had been done to Claribel.

  I ran and fell, ran again, until I hit a front door that I blasted back with magic. Out and away, get to the lake. I tore across weeds and grass, the air slipping across my body for once feeling cool in contrast with the inferno bursting from every pore.

  Long legs carried me like a wild horse across the field, red hair fanning out. I might have been ungainly in my height, but my flipper feet could run.

  I couldn’t see the lake yet. Wasn’t it right beside the house? But I’d been in the wrong house. Get back to that one and I’d be fine.

  26

  I was ripping through the night like a jackrabbit when something caught my big feet and I went flying, face-first, into the wild hayfield. I sprawled and kicked, screaming, trying to fight away and keep going.

  Something sprang at my face, a blur through moonlight and the tangle of the grasses. Mouth wide, teeth flashing—a hostile little animal. Something rabid, dangerous, meaning to keep me from reaching the lake and cool off and get back home. I couldn’t remember why I wasn’t there now, only that I had to be there and this voice would stop, pressure would stop, threats and terror and fever and pain would all stop.

  Then there was this wicket beast, like a huge weasel with a bushy tail, blocking my path, mouth wide as it must have made some sort of noise. I couldn’t hear it, but that didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t hear a whisper beyond the screams in my own head and the voice hammering at me, telling of the torment they would inflict upon me—unless I got back. Then I would be fine.

  First, I had to get this vicious shadow out of my way.

  I rolled to my knees, dodged around so it was on the trail I’d just covered, gathering earth element powers as I turned, then blasted it back through the field with a quick eruption of power—stronger than I’d previously known. I threw fire after it, setting the field ablaze. That would keep them busy.

  I ran on, vaulting over the far fence, then finding easy going across two clear fields and lawns, over a driveway, and only began to notice trouble with my lungs when I was halfway through a sparse wood of spindly trees and little underbrush. Branches slapped my face. Something hurt on my feet, yet far away. Nothing compared to the closeness of the voice or this fever that had left my T-shirt and underwear as wet as a swimsuit, plastered to my skin by lava. Or my skin was the lava, molten and oozing over my body like paint running down a wall.

  Black and white stars popped through my eyes. Just reach the lake and…

  Fire in my chest. Fire and pain… Just reach the house…

  Hurry.

  Blood in my mouth. The lake would wash it away. Another branch slashed into my hair and I yanked free.

  By the time I reached a straight stretch of the county road to follow, I couldn’t see any better than I could hear. I ran down the center of the road—I hoped. Still so far from the lake. Soon…

  My feet were wrong. My lungs weren’t there anymore.

  How many miles had I run?

  What was the farthest I’d ever run at a flat-out sprint in my entire life until now?

  Way, way less than a mile.

  The voice would stop if I got there, the water would cool me, save me, end all of this—so just a little farther.

  My legs hit a big, fluffy something as I stumbled and dropped. My knees struck pavement only after striking this. I grabbed it. Someone had left a bear out in the road. Then I fell the rest of the way.

  The moon was in the trees. The sun was on the ground. Right there, blazing into my face, as my cheek came to rest on the cool road.

  27

  I was fourteen when I first started volunteering with animal rescues—all with mom along at that age. First the local animal shelter in Illinois, then a wildlife rehab place in Maryland after that move. I’d had to get a tetanus shot for the work.

  My parents weren’t big fans of inoculations, but the wildlife place wouldn’t let me through the door without it. By the time I was sixteen, I could even go alone. As long as I had one simple shot. I insisted. Mom relented. And to this day it makes me a little crazy that I had the most hellish reaction to that shot.

  I was sick for a month—swollen, burning, fever, felt like I had the flu, and just plain pissed off about it because my mom acted like I should have excepted such a thing, which is nonsense. Sure, reactions happen. But is it normal to react like that? No.

  Other than long-term irritation about how the world works, and the fever, what I remember most about that shot was spending almost two weeks home from school, and a whole lot of extra time with my parents. Dad even took some days off from the bank to be around. We’d worked on magic—the at-home part of my schooling—and they’d talked shop. They’d still harbored the delusion then that I would grow into the idea of working with them. I had pretty tight control on the curse by then. I still saw spirits—they’re all over the place, mostly attached to the living, in supportive and protective ways—but they were soft forms, easy to ignore, and they seldom spoke or tried to communicate with me.

  It had still been my magical priority at sixteen: stop the curse. Everything else came second.

  Those weeks that I was home, we’d talked about things that maybe kids don’t often talk to their parents about, and maybe they should. About their work and why they did it, about the curse and how it was a gift and blessing, about some bad houses they’d had recently, dealing with the sort of evil they didn’t often see.

  “You two can’t see it at all,” I’d teased.

  “When they’re this powerful you can,” Dad had said. “They have ways of showing themselves.”

  “Like streakers?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “When you get one that’s really bad, Ripley,” Mom had said, “you can’t do it alone. That’s why we’re a team. They take a lot of maneuvering, even tricks, to get them to let go. And you’ve got to watch your back all the time.”

  “They’ll hurt you when you’re down, get into your dreams, play to your weaknesses. But you can always get them. Because you’ll always have something they don’t have.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Ripley?” It wasn’t Mom or Dad’s voice.

  Wait, just tell me. I can’t remember. What is the power that I’
m forgetting?

  “Ripley?”

  I hugged my tiger to my chest. I’d never had a teddy bear. I’d had a plush tiger that I still had in one of the boxes or bags I’d brought to the house and hadn’t unpacked. Jasmine was her name. Because I’d been little, and animated Aladdin, and my tiger was a girl, not a Rajah, so … Jasmine.

  If Jasmine was in a box, how was I hugging her? And why was this bed so hard? Something digging into my ribs. Something rising up my back. I wasn’t in bed. Why wasn’t I in bed? Hadn’t we all gone to bed? Yes, and Gideon was with me and I’d thought … I have a pack. I’d really kind of been liking the thought, right?

  Now I was on my side in the back of a car, the door open at my head, my knees drawn up.

  Soaking wet, a deep cold seeped over my skin. The night had finally cooled some. Not that it was frigid, but wet and just about naked, a startling chill crept through me. I clutched Jasmine tighter, shivering. I didn’t remember her giving off so much warmth before. Or being so big. Or furry. Or bony.

  I caught my breath and looked down, blinking to find the inside lights of the car on, though it was still night outside. I was clinging to a gray fox. He probably had fleas and ticks and worms and who knew what all. Not a pleasant thing to cling to. Yet I knew this one.

  A blazing pain in my head made my vision blur. Another shiver set my teeth chattering.

  “What’s going on?” I tried to ask but my words slurred. Hot, metallic taste of blood in my mouth. A flutter of fear rippled through my aching chest. That wasn’t the worst ache. After my head, my feet hurt worse than anything.

  I needed my feet. I tried to look up.

  “Ripley, can you hear me?” It was Gideon’s voice, right by my ear, kneeling down there in the doorway. Reassured, I was nevertheless angry with the fear. What the hell was happening? Where were we? Why in the world wouldn’t I be able to hear him?

  “What’s going on?” I demanded more clearly, sharpness in my voice. “Gideon? Where are we?”

  “You remember nothing, Miss Ahearne?” That voice startled me so much I jumped.

  “Fulco? I thought you couldn’t be here?”

  “We are at the farm. Your cohorts brought you for a second opinion.”

  “Second opinion on what?” I demanded, struggling to sit up but finding I was achingly sore and cramped and miserable all over. I lay back, now really shaking.

  “Could we have that coat?” Gideon sounded annoyed also.

  Fulco would still have on his overcoat, surely.

  “There’s a blanket in the trunk,” I said through chattering teeth.

  Gideon got up, popping the trunk. It was Mom’s cat-wrapping blanket for tricky customers. Actually a beach towel, festively colored, long enough to use as a blanket.

  Wade was in the front seat. He turned and spread the towel over me and Vel while Gideon told what had happened. How I’d woken up screaming and fallen out of bed, set the quilt on fire, then cowered in the corner, totally ignoring everything he and Adam said until I’d blasted past them and run downstairs and outside, barefoot, in my underwear. How they’d all chased, Vel tripping me in fur, then them having to put out the next fire I’d started in the field before Gideon jumped in the car with Wade, Adam had changed to track me, and they all set out after me. Adam had kept a bit behind me, out of the way after what I’d done to Vel, then caught my fall when I’d finally dropped on the road from exhaustion.

  It was coming back.

  I remembered some of the images and rush and terror and getting away from them. I couldn’t remember why. The voice, yes, the demon attacking me, but why take off running for the lake? I only knew that was the direction I’d been taking when they’d caught me.

  “Then, once we got you, Wade said to bring you here,” Gideon finished. “We were afraid you’d wake up and be just the same. None of us with any clue what to do for you, and he says it’s a mental thing—like what the vampires have. Not a caster sort of magic that got into your head.”

  “Your demonic friend waited to access your dreams because dreamers are such easy targets, as I am sure you know,” Fulco said. “Since you no longer appear to be possessed, allow us to also assume that my assistance has outlasted any necessity.”

  “No…” I shook my head, confused, sore, not sure what to think, mostly just plain scared as I began to remember what had happened. “No, it hasn’t. You know this sort of thing. Telepathy and reaching out to others like this. I don’t. Wade is right. This isn’t caster magic. He got into the house—the warded, enchanted, protected house—and did this to me. How do we stop it?” I couldn’t quit shivering. Why was I so cold? Yes, the night had grown somewhat cool, but it was all relative. Certainly nothing I would normally shiver in, even damp.

  I struggled to see around as he answered, twisting until Gideon’s head and shoulders mostly filled my vision. I could just see Fulco standing a few feet back from the light, watching me, arms folded.

  “Stop it? With you and your house already magically protected, your only remaining course of action would seem to be banishing the demon who is causing the trouble. Until then, I can only recommend forgoing sleep.”

  “I don’t understand how he got in after he was so drained—and the house is so protected you can’t even set foot inside.” Again, I tried to sit up, holding onto Vel and the towel.

  “Oh, I am certain he did not venture beyond his own quarters to touch you. He forged a connection when he spent time with you, Miss Ahearne. From that, he reached out for your dreams. It is the easiest way to probe another mind. He did not need to extend his own energy anywhere near the protected house.”

  “Then you’re saying I can’t sleep until he’s gone?”

  “You may do as you like.”

  “But if I sleep, he’ll get into my head again?”

  “If you dream. Possibly. I have been growing accustomed to my death and heightened mental abilities for a very short time. I cannot hold your hand through demonic attacks.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Gideon asked. “She needs her strength back. You said you would help if that varmint was still messing her up. Maybe you should come back with us?”

  “I cannot even go in the house. What would you have me do?”

  “The night’s almost over,” Wade said. “Could you just come and … be in the area?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said past shivers. “I’m not going back to sleep.” There was blood on my feet. Just a bit, like the scratch on my face and cut inside my cheek that left blood in my mouth where a branch had creamed me.

  “Not going to run from a bully like—” Gideon started.

  “Then you sleep with him,” I snapped.

  “You can’t avoid rest,” Wade said. “Not after a night like this.”

  “Night being a crucial factor,” Fulco cut in. “Creatures of the night hunt by night. Like your pet fox. I am not coming to guard your door in case she runs out on you again. Be on your way. But, if I were you, Miss Ahearne, I would not fret about troubling dreams. I would wake up and slay the monster.”

  He walked away, while Vel growled like a cat after him, and furry Adam pushed his head past Gideon to lick my face.

  28

  There was no functioning bathtub in the house at the moment. By the time we got home, I was so deeply chilled, I had to get in a steaming shower and stay there for ten minutes just to feel normal.

  Only a few tiny cuts on my feet. The mini-soak in the shower, with a careful wash and rinse took care of them with a couple of Band-Aids. I’d been very lucky not to impale a foot on a stick or barbed wire, or on litter like broken glass for that matter. The cut on my jaw was also swollen, plus scratches on my arms from branches, and many more bruises that would linger.

  Could have been so much worse. From burning the house down to an infected foot to smashing my knees—or skull—on pavement if Adam hadn’t been there to catch me. Or reaching my destination.

  How had he been able to convince me
to come back there? I remembered being on fire, feeling like my own sweat and saliva were hot as boiling water, and thinking the lake could cool me down, that I could just jump in. But, dude, go turn on a cold shower. That was no reason to run miles across country, basically naked, at 2:00 a.m.

  What else had there been? Part of me wanted to remember, try to be better prepared. Part of me was furious, hating him, hating that whole house, never wanting to remember. Part was terrified, afraid to probe anymore into what had happened, as if it would relapse, opening my mind. But most of me, really, was incredibly embarrassed and ashamed that I was such a mental lightweight I could let something like that happen, needing to be rescued by my friends after I’d blasted them out of the way—every one of them seeing me at my weakest, literally picking me up and putting me in the car after passing out. For that, I couldn’t bear to think about it at all. Just pretend the whole thing hadn’t happened.

  Maybe I could have pulled this off, feeling better after warming up in the shower, cleaning up my face, doctoring my feet, and slipping on thick socks for extra protection. Maybe I could have hopped back in bed with herbal tea and read a couple chapters of a novel on my mom’s tablet, or watched an episode of anything at all, and gone back to sleep. Or done the above but skipped sleep with a whole season rather than an episode.

  Instead, everyone wanted a piece of the problem, while I was too scared, even over embarrassment, to tell them to leave me alone—that I’d just sit up the rest of the night watching cat videos on YouTube.

  Going on what Fulco had said, they figured I only had to stay up overnight. Give it another four hours and I could sleep once the demon had settled down and was brooding on its own recovery, or whatever they did since they seemed to keep quiet during the day.