Essence of Chaos Read online

  Essence of Chaos

  The Books of the Cuari—Book One

  Marie Andreas

  Copyright © 2020 Marie Andreas

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions

  EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-951506-05-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of copyright owner.

  Please Note

  The reverse engineering, uploading, and/or distributing of this book via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Cover art by Joolz &Jarling (Julie Nichols and Uwe Jarling)

  Interior format by The Killion Group

  http://thekilliongroupinc.com

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Dear Reader

  Other books by Marie Andreas

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Roxane Noelle Johnson.

  You never got to see it finished and in print, but you will always be a part of it.

  You are very missed.

  Acknowledgments

  This story is a book of love that started a very long time ago and has gone through many incarnations. Thank you to Sandi Jordan for making me believe in this story and my writing again all those years ago. Keanin will always be yours.

  * * *

  Thanks to editor extraordinaire- Jessa Slade for her magic skills of helping me make sense and hunting down runaway plots. Thank you to Lisa Andreas, Patti Huber, Lynne Mayfield, and Fantasy Proofreads for trying to catch all the word shenanigans. And to Ilana Schoonover for working to keep me out of too much trouble. Any errors or mistakes that survived are completely mine.

  * * *

  A special shout out to Jonathan Jacob for coming up with the name for my big bad-Qhazborh, and for his ongoing support.

  * * *

  And a major thank you to Joolz and Jarling (Julie Nichols and Uwe Jarling) for an amazing cover and the Killion Group for the interior formatting.

  * * *

  Writing is a wonderful journey that takes a lot of support from folks around you. Thank you to everyone who has helped me, bought my books, let me cry on their shoulder, or helped in any way.

  1

  Jenna Reilly was swear-til-you-turn-blue lost. Not the making a left instead of a right lost, but the where-is-the-damn-road lost. She’d come out to just outside of Barstow, a desert town more known for being a stopping point to Las Vegas than for anything important, for what she thought was a newly discovered ancient burial dig site to gather supporting evidence for another dissertation. But there had been a large stand of trees, big ones, where there shouldn’t have been anything larger than chaparral. Then her not so reliable ten-year-old car died, her cell phone gave its last gasp, and she’d brilliantly thought of walking the rest of the way to the location.

  That had been two hours ago, and she not only hadn’t found the location of the supposed burial site, she’d now managed to lose her monstrosity of a car when she gave up and turned back.

  “It’s here, I know it’s here.” The mantra was more for her own peace of mind than anything else. She was starting to get scared. And dizzy. The dizziness had started not too long after leaving the car and was getting worse. Logic said to sit down until it passed; emotion said to keep going until she found her way back. Everything she looked at had a weird double image to it, like a twisted afterimage that wasn’t exactly the same as the original. The more she walked, the more the images differed from each other.

  A thin shape brought her to a stumbling halt as it darted ahead of her. The body looked like a distorted version of a greyhound. While she knew the animals were popular pets, she doubted anyone was letting them run wild in the backcountry of Los Angeles. A moment later another long, lean, and slightly blurred shape broke to the left. Her dizziness grew worse and she dropped to her knees.

  “Is someone out here? This isn’t funny.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket. “I’ve got a gun and I’m not afraid to use it.” There was nothing in her pocket beyond car keys and a dead cell phone, but hopefully it would scare off most people. Living in Los Angeles her entire life meant she would assume the worst, then be grateful if it didn’t happen.

  Her only answer was an increase in the blurs around her, closer, but still too fast for her to identify beyond vaguely dog shaped. The blurs made the dizziness worse, pain shot through her head, and then darkness overtook her, and she collapsed.

  Jenna’s mind fought its way free of the darkness that engulfed it. Without opening her eyes, she took a few deep breaths and forced her mind to settle. The stabbing pain in her head gave way to a dull throbbing and the chaos diminished. Sucking in another steadying breath, she forced one eye open. When the world didn’t explode in sparks of pain, she eased open the other eye.

  At least the double vision seemed to have vanished. But in its place a surge of violent and distorted images slammed into her mind. Fangs and claws reached out toward her. The smell of blood filled the air and bile rose in her throat.

  The visions vanished a heartbeat later.

  Shaking off the last bit of adrenalin, she tried to figure out what had happened to her and where she was. Considering it didn’t look remotely like the area she’d been in, she assumed that she’d started walking at some point. And fallen. She shoved aside the thought that she had no memory of going anywhere as she took in her new location.

  Rugged sheer rock walls rose at least ten feet above her. The narrow ravine she lay in couldn’t be more than six feet across, but it curved down beyond her line of s
ight. A quick glance around showed only small rocks, dirt, and a few torn plants that had most likely made the trip down with her when she landed here. Nothing that could be used to get out of the ravine.

  The hand she held up wasn’t hers. Jenna’s heart pounded when she raised her hand to block the glancing light of the setting sun.

  Far too thin, and the fingers were too long. Those faint white lines of old scars didn’t belong to her. She moved the hand closer and tried to accept it as her own. Brushing the tattered sleeve further up her arm, she started shaking. It wasn’t right either. The rest of the arm was pale, like it should be, but it was covered in additional fine, web-like scars from injuries she’d never had. She flexed the arm and hand. They moved under her command; she’d just never seen them before.

  Panic growing, she looked down at her dust-covered clothing. She’d never seen the tattered, loose weave dress she wore either. However, a burst of relief hit her when she recognized the battered hiking boots and faded jeans she had put on that morning.

  A hazy part of her mind stepped in and accepted the odd clothes and the scars, soothing her fears. The feelings of not recognizing her body vanished. She knew she should be worried for her sanity, but the vague, soothing essence in her head calmed her fears. It was like the one time she had too many pot brownies as an undergrad, reality was wrapped in a nice fuzzy cocoon of serenity, and right now her best option was to keep it in place as long as possible. She directed her energy to other things—like how to get out of the ravine. Judging by the sky above her, night would be falling soon, and spending it trapped in a ravine wasn’t her idea of a fun evening. Hopefully, she could get out, find her way back to her car, and figure out a way to get it running.

  First thing was to get the hell out of this hole. “Everyone always said I’d fall in a ditch if I didn’t pay attention to where I was going. I never thought they meant litera—”

  Her attempt at standing brought a scream and pain, as fire from her ankle shot its way up to her hip as she tried to put weight on it. Collapsing back into the dirt, she dug her nails into her palms until the waves of pain faded. She’d broken an ankle once before, right after high school, when she’d misjudged her landing while skydiving. This was the same pain. Minus the thrill of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.

  After two more failed attempts to stand, she yelled again, but this time with frustration and anger more than pain. She punctuated her screams by pounding the ground with her fists, but her efforts brought no relief to her leg or her situation. It did, however, bring an answering voice. It sounded male, but he wasn’t speaking English. At that point she didn’t care what he spoke. She wanted out of this damn hole.

  “Down here! I’m stuck!” Possibly not the best thing to advertise if the person in question had ill intent, but she was willing to take the risk. This place terrified her, something far less rational than being in a strange ravine, injured, and with night falling.

  The approaching voice continued to speak as it came closer, but she still couldn’t make out what was being said. Light and musical, like a combination of French and Gaelic, yet it didn’t sound like either. Nor could she understand a word of what the man was saying. A shiver made its way down her back. But she needed someone’s help.

  “Come on, you’re almost here, I can hear you. I don’t know what you’re saying, but—” She froze as her rescuer appeared over the edge of the pit.

  “Oh my God…what are you?” Her voice came out in an embarrassing squeak, but she couldn’t help it. The face peering down at her was in no way human.

  He was humanoid, with long, scruffy brown hair pulled back from an angular face with a thin band of cloth. Unfortunately, the cloth also kept the hair away from a pair of sharply tapered ears that Mr. Spock would have envied. And he studied her with wide, tilted eyes that couldn’t be found outside of a Japanese anime film on elves. Worst of all, he started speaking again in that musical, elegant, and completely inhuman language.

  Jenna swore. She’d hit her head harder than she thought when she fell. “You don’t exist. Whatever you are, just go play in someone else’s nightmare.” She motioned the creature away, and then scuttled further back against the rocks.

  Unfortunately, she’d forgotten her injured ankle.

  The man pulled back a bit at her scream of pain, peering at her from the lip of the ravine until she clutched her leg and cried.

  Dancing black circles obscured her vision as terrifying images of creatures chasing her tore through her head. Unseen smoke filled her lungs and one of the shadowy beasts reared up and reached forward, tearing into her dress before she could pull free again. The vision vanished as quickly as it came.

  Reaching down, she felt the jagged tear in the dress. Whatever it was, it had happened. Somewhere, sometime, these images happened. She just wasn’t sure when. Or to whom.

  Shaking her head clear of the images, she noticed the pointy-eared man looking at her with concern.

  “…dark…” he said.

  From the part of her mind that still pounded from the nightmare, she understood that word. The fact that she didn’t think he was speaking any language she knew should have upset her much more than it did. That indistinct soothing recognition in her head kept her concern in check. Either that or she really was going crazy. Wiping away her tears of pain, she concentrated on his words, focusing that odd part of her mind to understand what he was saying. Visions of racing through the woods came back, but were weaker now; annoying, but not terrifying.

  “I don’t think you understand me.” He still spoke the same musical words, but she understood them now.

  “I do. You just said…but you still can’t understand me, can you?” Try as she might, she couldn’t form her ideas into the language she now could understand. A tiny part of her mind nagged that something was really wrong here. Again she shoved it aside. Survival over sanity.

  “You act like you know what I just said.” He paused at Jenna’s frantic nod. “You do understand? Then why in the abyss can’t I understand you?”

  Jenna’s shrug was lost as he peered up into the purpling sky.

  He turned back to her with a frown. “We can’t worry about that now. There are things out here at night that even I’d not want to meet without a good fire at my back.” He pointed toward her leg. “Can you walk at all?”

  When Jenna shook her head, he sighed. “Let me get my rope and come get you. I’d say stay there, but I don’t see you have much choice.”

  The strange man didn’t seem so unbelievable now. She was sure that wasn’t a good thing. She shouldn’t be seeing such things, let alone talking to them. This acceptance of him came from the same part of her mind as the acceptance of the odd clothes and the knowledge of his language. And the terrifying race through some unknown woods.

  Try as she might, she still had no idea where she was, or how she got here. She knew who she was. She just couldn’t figure out how she got from the Los Angeles backcountry to some pit in a forest. Or why certain limbs looked wrong, some clothes were wrong, and there was a pointy-eared man talking to her.

  The strange man returned and lowered himself on a thick rope. From behind, he looked simply like a long-haired, human male.

  Very long-haired, as his shaggy hair trailed to the middle of his back. His lean legs sported well-worn gray leggings and equally broken-in black knee-high boots. In the dimming light, she could almost believe he was just an eccentrically dressed human.

  Until he reached the bottom and turned around.

  The high cheekbones, huge slanted blue eyes, and elegantly tapered ears were too alien, and too beautiful, for humanity.

  ‘Elf’ flashed through her mind. Considering that elves didn’t exist outside of fantasy tales and movies, her mind really shouldn’t be going in that direction. But he looked the part. Tall, lean, exotic. But also scruffy and dirty. Somehow that ruined the elf image.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll have you out of here and warming by a fire be
fore you know it.” He picked her up, carefully not jostling the injured leg. His smile was meant to be reassuring, and Jenna was sure it would have been had it been less alien.

  Apologizing for the awkwardness, he swung her over his shoulder as they reached the rope.

  Jenna would have forgiven any ignominy if she could just get out of this hole. The skin-crawling feeling about this place was getting worse, and the darkening sky wasn’t making her feel any better.

  As they reached the top, more images from a chase through the forest, and being hunted by those dog-like creatures, slammed into her head and she blacked out.

  Awakening slowly, Jenna noticed that her leg didn’t hurt anymore. In fact, it was suspiciously numb. Ignoring the stabs of pine needles and broken nutshells in the palms of her hands, she pushed herself up, frantically checking to make sure her leg was still in one piece.

  The leg of her jeans had been shoved up and away from her ankle, and her sock and boot had been removed. A strange, licorice-smelling, green-gray salve covered her from mid-shin to her foot. Aside from that, it looked fine.

  “I’ve done what I could about your leg.”