He nodded. “If you could all stop what you’re doing for a moment, there’s something I need to tell you. Leave the others to round up the rest of these Purge beasts—we can’t get distracted by this.”
“What do you mean, we can’t get distracted by this?” Harley interjected. “If Quetzi is out, then we need to find him. We don’t know what he’s up to.” She looked strange, as though burdened with guilt. I wondered what that was about.
“Why would Quetzi escape like this?” Santana asked.
“For Katherine, perhaps?” Tobe answered, dusting his hands on his feathers. “He may be able to sense her in a way that we can’t. He may have escaped because he knows that she is coming and does not wish to be here when that happens.”
I hadn’t thought about that. Quetzi was fiercely powerful, and, from what I remembered, he knew Katherine from her days of visiting this Bestiary. His desire to avoid her was definitely the best explanation that I’d heard so far, not that anyone had been particularly forthcoming with their ruminations. Garrett had rather helpfully suggested that he “just wanted a break from being stuck in a glass box.” He’d been so adorable when he’d said that, with such earnestness… Though Wade had laughed at him and set his mood on edge. He was still fuming away nearby, taking his anger out on a hobgoblin.
“Let’s sweep the coven, see if we can track Quetzi down,” Alton instructed.
Splitting into groups, the Rag Team headed out with some of the security personnel who weren’t busy catching Purge beasts. We traipsed through the corridors for the better part of three hours, looking in every room, searching behind every door, turning over every possible hiding place. Wherever Quetzi had escaped to, he wasn’t coming out. By the end of our search, it started to feel somewhat hopeless. The coven was enormous, and I couldn’t find any sign of the serpent on the camera systems. A shadow here and there that might have been him, but we checked each location and still came up with nothing.
My phone pinged. A message from Alton flashed up: Meet me in the Aquarium. I wondered if he’d had any luck. My team of Raffe and Tatyana headed there with me right away.
Pushing through the fish-handled doors of the Aquarium, I glanced around at the enormous tanks to make sure that the integrity hadn’t been compromised. It was attached to the Bestiary’s central power, meaning it could well have been affected by the damage Quetzi’s escape had caused, but everything seemed to be intact. A few beady eyes watched us from within the water, a selkie in her seal form swimming up to the glass before moving away again.
This place had always felt eerie to me. At least in the Bestiary you could see the black smoke of the beasts, if they didn’t want to take their normal form, but the water creatures were harder to pick out. Then again, I hated water anyway, which didn’t exactly help. Ever since I was a child and I’d almost drowned at the beach, I’d loathed the very idea of deep water, especially when I didn’t know what was lurking beneath.
Alton turned as the Rag Team gathered in a semicircle around him. I found a way to be close to Garrett, my shoulder touching his. A frisson of excitement pulsed through my veins, my heart pounding. He glanced down at me with a warm smile, though the tightness in his jaw let me know that he’d yet to forgive Wade for his mockery.
“I know it seems as if we’re in a perpetual state of doom and gloom, considering what has happened today, and it hasn’t been helped by our inability to find Quetzi,” Alton began stiffly. “However, there is some good news. I didn’t want to announce it to the rest of the coven, as we have no way of knowing if it’ll lead to success. Saying that, I’m hoping that it will be left in good hands if I tell you about some progress we’ve made.”
“Progress?” Harley spoke up, her arms folded across her chest. Out of everyone, she continued to intrigue me. Power like hers didn’t come along very often. In fact, I’d never read of anyone like her. It was hard not to sink into an unbidden state of heroine worship when I was around her, though I knew it couldn’t be easy, living under a burden like that. At least, with being non-magical, there wasn’t much of an expectation on my shoulders.
Alton nodded. “We spoke with the two guards we captured from the warehouse, and—”
“I thought we didn’t get anywhere with them?” Wade interrupted, gaining a steely look from my father.
“Please listen without interjecting,” he said curtly. “Yes, they proved tight-lipped during interrogation. Nevertheless, new information has come to light.”
The room fell silent. Even the Aquarium creatures seemed to be holding their breath.
“Late last night, some unexpected files came through from the Reykjavik repository, by way of a certain Preceptor Salinger of the New York Coven,” he went on, looking toward Harley for a fleeting moment. She dropped her gaze immediately, her face blanching, her manner becoming somewhat fidgety. Santana also seemed to be struggling to look at Alton, her expression sheepish.
What’s going on with them? Why do they look like blushing schoolgirls facing the principal?
Nobody else in the Rag Team had noticed their sudden discomfort. Despite my curiosity, it wasn’t the right time to ask about it. If they had something on their minds, then I wasn’t about to expose them in front of everyone. I got the impression that my father was clued in, which was likely all that mattered.
“Wait… Reykjavik?” Tatyana asked, puzzled.
“Yes, Reykjavik, by way of New York,” Alton replied.
“Did you order the files?” Wade chimed in, his eyes narrowed in confusion.
Alton smiled thinly. “In a way, yes.” Harley and Santana looked like they were about to implode, their cheeks reddening. There was definitely something amiss here, but I held my tongue as my father spoke again. “Anyway, using those folders, and a copy of some of the information that Wade passed on to me from New York, I was able to find the name of one of Katherine’s former associates. I left early this morning and visited him in Purgatory, to speak with him about Katherine. He was suitably silent on the matter, but the prison staff granted me access to go through a bag of his personal effects—the items he had arrived with—where I discovered an unusual medallion amongst his belongings.”
“How does a medallion help us?” I asked, feeling slightly stunned by this revelation. He hadn’t told me any of this, and I was normally his first port of call for advice. His residual anger had evidently taken me out of his inner circle, albeit temporarily. We’d argued before, and he always came around in the end. Although, if things continued with Garrett, I reasoned that my father and I might end up clashing more often in the near future. It didn’t fill me with joy, but what else could I do? I wouldn’t give up Garrett, but I couldn’t give up my father, either. Ah, to be lodged between a rock and a hard place.
“There was a list of missing objects and spells from the Reykjavik repository,” he answered, without any hint of snark. “One of those spells was a unification spell. Thieves and smugglers used them in the old days of magic, to speak in secret. It was placed in the repository as a means to prevent such secret conversations, in the hopes of bringing down the rates of magical crime. From what I can gather, it works like a transmitter of sorts, revealing coordinates to the whereabouts of anyone else who has one of the charmed objects enchanted with the same unification spell. These coordinates are only revealed for a short span of time, before disappearing. Complicated, I know, but bear with me.”
“We’re still with you,” Dylan said.
Alton smiled. “Thank you. So, it appears that this medallion is precisely that—it’s one of these charmed objects. The associate I spoke with—a grim individual named Cairo Pernice—allowed it to be taken from him, as it needs the spell in order to work. As the spell had been taken, I presume he thought he was off the hook. What he didn’t realize was that the Reykjavik repository had made copies of all the spells they’d placed in the repository, in case anything like this happened and anyone was able to steal the originals. Reykjavik sent me this copy last night.
”
“Which means that Katherine doesn’t know there’s a copy, either?” I said, the thought popping into my head.
“Exactly,” Alton replied with a thawing smile. “Reykjavik has also provided me with a powerful Suppressor, to hide the medallion’s presence while allowing us to see the coordinates of Katherine’s remaining associates. They appear to be more inclined to trust us than the American covens—so, all I can say is, thank God for the Icelanders and for Salinger’s lack of thoroughness in checking what was in those folders.”
Garrett frowned. “What—and you think these beacons will lead us to the kids? You think they’ll still be operational?”
“I don’t see why they wouldn’t be,” Alton answered. “Katherine doesn’t know she’s been potentially compromised, and the system is a useful one for her line of work. If she doesn’t know it’s broken, she has no reason to fix it.”
“It will show us where Katherine’s people are, right?” I asked.
Alton nodded.
“And we can be sure that the kids will be at one of the locations, at least. That should be our theory, going forward.”
“Yes—that’s my thought on it, anyway,” Alton said.
I was still somewhat bothered about the fact that he hadn’t spoken to me about this earlier, but then the course of familial love never did run smooth. It was petty of him, that was true, but he was a proud man. Telling me about this would have meant seeking me out and running the risk of starting our dispute afresh. His wanting to avoid that was something I could understand, as I would have done the same thing. Meanwhile, my mind was still racing with thoughts of Quetzi. We needed to get him back, pronto.
Harley barked out a weird laugh. “Wait—so does this mean we now have a way of finding the children? Are we finally getting somewhere?”
“If everything works out, then yes,” Alton replied.
I raised a shy hand. “We should still pool our efforts into tracking down Quetzi, though, before he can get up to anything dangerous. Finding the kids is very important, but Quetzi is the biggest imminent threat to the coven and the surrounding areas.”
Alton nodded. “Agreed. Let’s continue in our search, though we must make his capture quick so we can get back to finding those children. Since our border alerts haven’t been triggered, he’s likely still in the coven somewhere, waiting for an opportunity to slip out unnoticed. Keep your eyes peeled, people, and get him back in his box before he can get out of the coven perimeter.” He glanced around the room. “I trust I can leave it in your hands?”
A murmur of assent rippled around the Rag Team.
“Good—then I will expect an update on Quetzi first thing tomorrow morning. It’s almost four, but we should continue to look for him through the evening. As for the coordinates, I will arrange for the unification spell to be undertaken this afternoon. I’ll send word when the preparations are complete. You don’t all need to be there, but I would appreciate a contingent of the Rag Team.”
With that, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room, giving me no chance to speak with him about why he hadn’t mentioned this to me earlier. You can’t avoid me forever, Father.
“So, what’s the plan of action?” Wade gathered us closer, a serious expression on his face. In all the time I’d known him, he was the one I still struggled to comprehend. He could never quite decide if he was superior or if he was one of us—that was my impression, anyway. We’d never been close, per se, and I got the feeling that my alliance to Garrett pushed me even further down his list of acquaintances. Still, what he lacked in warmth, I gained from Santana, Tatyana, and Harley. Although the latter was clearly besotted with him, and he with her. It was just a shame that his stern façade would probably always drive a wedge between them. Not that I claimed to know a whole lot about romance. Still, for that reason, I was even more grateful for Garrett’s bluntness—he’d come out and told me he liked me, plain and simple.
“I’ll keep trying to scan the cameras for any sign of Quetzi. If he got out of the Bestiary, then there has to be footage of him somewhere.”
“Good idea,” Harley replied.
In theory, yes. Quetzi was a sly, intelligent serpent with a lot at stake—he’d have been careful in his escape, taking the appropriate precautions to avoid capture. But my technical wizardry could be clever enough to catch him.
Thirteen
Harley
At noon, my phone pinged. The Rag Team and I were scouring the coven for Quetzi, using some footage that Astrid had found of a vague shadow moving down the hallway from the Bestiary. It wasn’t much, but it was all we had. It could’ve been a hobgoblin or a Chinese Fox for all we knew, but Astrid was convinced she was on the right track. She’d never set us on the wrong path before.
Meet in my office in ten minutes, Alton’s text said. I looked up to see if anyone else had gotten the same message, but nobody else’s phone had gone off. Weird. Why was Alton asking to see me and none of the others? My stomach sank. I got the feeling we were about to have a little discussion about my casual use of the mirrors. After his sly dig earlier, that had to be it. He knew what I knew, and he knew I knew, so to speak.
“Guys, I’ll meet you back here in a bit. Alton needs to see me about something,” I said.
“About what?” Wade replied.
I shrugged. “He didn’t give me details. I’ll find out when I see him.” I swallowed a spiky feeling of residual anger from what I’d read in Isadora’s letter. I had to keep telling myself that he’d done it for a good reason, lying to me, but it was hard to rationalize.
“If it’s the beacons, let us know how it goes,” Astrid said, her voice slightly wounded. I wasn’t sure what was going on between Astrid and Alton, but things had been odd between them this morning. Looked to me like the captain had had a bit of a dispute with the petty officer.
“Do you think that’s what he wants you for?” Garrett asked, frowning.
“Like I said, he didn’t exactly give me details.”
“The golden girl gets the top spot again, huh?” Venom dripped from his words.
I shot him a cold look. “Don’t call me that again, Garrett. I’ve got no idea why he wants to see me, but if it’s to do with the beacons, I’ll tell you everything when I get back. What do you want me to do—say no to him?”
“It’d be a first,” Garrett muttered.
I knew he was pissed about the body cams, but that didn’t give him the right to take it out on me. I wasn’t the one who’d put them there. I thought about saying that to him, but there didn’t seem to be much point. We’d only end up in a slinging match and I really wasn’t in the mood. This whole Quetzi escape already had my nerves dancing on a knife-edge, and I didn’t want to say something I might regret later. The truth was, I still had a feeling that I was responsible for him getting away. My Esprit’s blasts had caused the Bestiary to fail for a moment, and Quetzi had used that to his advantage.
“I’ll see you guys later,” I said firmly, then headed off toward Alton’s office. I could feel their eyes watching me as I left, and the vibes weren’t happy ones. What are you playing at, Alton? Did he want them to start resenting me? If he did, he was going about it the right way. Then again, maybe he was trying to save my ass from their suspicions. Secrets weren’t good things to have in a group as tight-knit as ours. If they found out about the mirrors and where I’d been going, Santana and Wade excluded, they might wonder why I hadn’t told them.
I arrived at the vast black doors of Alton’s office ten minutes later, rapping gently on the polished surface. My heart was pounding, my hands shaking as I knocked. Stay cool, Harley. Stay cool.
“Come in,” Alton replied.
I peered around the doorway before stepping into the room. Books were piled high in every available space and papers scattered every surface until it was hard to see what kind of furniture sat underneath. Sigmund Freud would have a field day with this. It definitely didn’t paint a good picture of Alton’s m
ental state. Although I was having a hard time feeling sorry for him.
“Um, you look… busy. Do you want me to come back?” I glanced at the mess.
He shook his head. “There’s method in this madness, I assure you. I know where everything is. If I move any of it, I may never find it again.”
“I guess that makes sense. So, what did you want to see me about?” My tone was colder than I’d intended, getting a curious look from Alton.
He nodded toward a small table—the only one that wasn’t covered in folders and files. A golden disc sat in the center, glowing steadily. I approached it with caution, not knowing if it might suddenly explode, given my track record with magical items. It reminded me of a computer’s loading animation, the light swirling around and around the golden circle in a loop. I could’ve stared at it all day, it was so mesmerizing.
“Is this the medallion?” I asked.
“It is.”
“Is it working?”
His expression darkened. “I’ve performed the required spell, but the result isn’t as instantaneous as I might’ve liked. It could have something to do with the Suppressor, or the fact that this particular medallion has been offline for some time. Either way, it seems the medallion is scanning for the whereabouts of Katherine’s associates, looking for their coordinates. When one is in the vicinity, if I’m right, it should light up and give us the location.”
“How long will that take?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I frowned at him. “I don’t know if I’m missing something here, but that doesn’t explain why you called me to your office.”
He chuckled. “I thought you and I might have a bit of a chat, away from the Rag Team. They’ll no doubt presume I’m showing you the results of the unification spell, which gives us the perfect cover to discuss your last few trips through the mirrors. I thought you might prefer it this way, instead of me announcing it in front of them.”
Harley Merlin 4: Harley Merlin and the First Ritual Page 14