Were you scared, Adley? Did you see what was coming for you before it took you?
My heart broke for her. All of this was Finch’s fault. He’d led her to this, and I doubted he’d even care when he found out. He’d made his loyalties very clear, and Adley barely featured, even after all the sacrifices she’d made for him.
“I’m so sorry, Adley,” I sobbed, wanting to reach out to take her cold, dead hand. She’d ended up like this because she fell in love with the wrong man. Love made her foolish, the same way it was making me stupid.
A glint caught my eye. A white object lay underneath the darkness of the bed, catching the glow of the fire orb above. Frowning, I carefully arched across Adley’s body and picked up the item. As I turned it over in my hand, I realized it was a fang—long and pearly white, slightly curved with a sharp point. A snake’s fang. Slipping it in my pocket, I made a mental note to give it to Astrid, to study further. She could find out almost anything using Smartie, and I wanted to know what the significance of this was. Did serpents leave their fangs as a sign of victory? Did they shed them along with their skins? I had to know why Quetzi had done this—and in forensics, teeth never lied.
Alton appeared at the doorway to the prison cell. He was breathing heavily, his hair messed up, his eyes carrying a haunted look. Without saying a word, he closed the gap between us and bent down, scooping Adley into his arms like Sleeping Beauty. Her body was limp in his grasp, her head lolling until he cradled it against his arm.
“Can you help her?” I asked, my voice catching in my throat.
He shook his head slowly. “It’s too late. I got here too late.” The words sent an eerie shiver up my spine.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Some spirits leave the body quicker than others. It varies from person to person. For some, it can take twenty-four hours; for others it can be a matter of a couple of hours. I’ve heard of some spirits leaving within ten minutes of death, before they’re even cold. Adley is already gone.”
My heart sank. “Then what will you do with her?”
“I’ll take her to the infirmary and send security down.”
“Isn’t it too late for that?”
He sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging. “I can’t help her, but I will see that she is treated with care as they perform a postmortem examination. She deserves that much. Indeed, she deserves so much more than this fate,” he said, his voice strained. “I am sorry, Adley. I am so sorry.”
“I found this,” I said, lifting the fang. “Do you think it’s important?”
He frowned, his voice choked. “We’ll find out once the postmortem has taken place. If Quetzi did this, then that fang may be our murder weapon.”
He turned and left with her in his arms before I could see a single tear fall from his eyes. Nevertheless, I could sense his heartbreaking guilt. This had happened under his watch and he hadn’t been able to stop it. No matter what Adley had done, she’d been a fixture of this coven for a long time, before her crimes were discovered. She’d been a colleague of Alton’s, if not a dear friend. True, she had kept secrets, but she hadn’t known of Finch’s true self. She’d been just as fooled as the rest of us.
Now, she was dead, and we had a killer snake on the loose.
Fifteen
Harley
Feeling like I owed it to Adley, I loitered in the mortuary with Dr. Krieger while he performed the first stages of the post-mortem examination on her. A simple overview for now, though the grisly stuff would come later. She looked so still and almost peaceful on the slab, but the image haunted me. It was impossible to look at her and think she’d never do anything again. A few hours ago, her heart had been beating and there’d been breath in her lungs. Now, nothing so much as flinched.
Dr. Krieger moved around her, performing the procedure with dexterity and a gentle touch. I couldn’t bring myself to watch him work, but I stayed close by, keeping my back turned. I didn’t know how to explain it, but I wasn’t ready to leave her alone. She’d died on her own—the least I could do was stay by her side at the very end.
“This is very puzzling,” Krieger murmured to himself.
I glanced at him. “What is?”
“Well… you told me that you found a fang at the murder site, yes?”
I nodded.
“There are no puncture wounds from fangs on her body, and she doesn’t seem to show any signs of constriction. I will run some tests to see if I can find poison in her veins or discover any damage to her internal organs that might suggest constriction, but this is a rather strange case if a serpent is supposed to have killed her.”
My phone buzzed before I could ask any more questions. “Hold that thought; I’ll be right back.” With an apologetic glance to Krieger, I exited into the hallway outside the morgue. “Wade? What’s up?”
“Where are you?”
“In the infirmary with Adley.”
He was silent for a moment. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“If you’re busy, then that’s fine, but we’ve had an arrival at the coven,” he said.
“An arrival?”
“The security details that Alton sent out to visit the beacon sites are on their way back, and they’re bringing the kids with them. They found them, Harley,” he explained hurriedly.
Not long after we’d found Adley, the golden medallion had located the beacons of Katherine’s associates. Several teams had been sent out as soon as the beacons started flashing. I was disappointed that we hadn’t been allowed to go along, to rescue them, but Alton had insisted we stay inside the coven and recover from the Adley incident. I’d tried to argue, but he wasn’t having any of it. Now, it seemed they’d found what they were looking for. Taking the rough with the smooth, I guess. Adley had supposedly been murdered by Quetzi, but the magical kids were on their way toward safety. Everything in warped balance. Still, I wished I could have been there to pick them up and bring them back, the way I’d promised myself I would.
“I’ll join you,” I said. Adley was in good hands with Dr. Krieger, and I didn’t think I could be here when he started cracking her chest open. That was a step too far, even for my goodwill gesture. Plus, he’d know more when I got back.
“You sure? We can manage without you, if you want to stay there. I just thought you should know what was going on.”
I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me. “We’ve been waiting for this moment, and I need some good news. I’ll be down in a few minutes. Where are they being dropped off?”
“The foyer of the Fleet Science Center,” he replied.
“Have they been checked over, to make sure they’re not bringing any vicious Shipton-style juju with them?”
“The security team aren’t idiots, Harley. Yes, they’ve been checked. They got the all clear.”
I smiled with excitement. “Hey, I was just checking. This is still Katherine we’re talking about.”
“They’re fine, Harley. They’re fine and they’re on their way here.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit,” I said.
“See you then.”
I hung up and poked my head through the mortuary door, flinching as a spatter of blood spurted from Krieger’s first incision. “The Rag Team needs me downstairs. If you find anything, let us know.”
“She’d be grateful for you staying by her side for this long,” he replied kindly. “However, I was already going to suggest you make yourself scarce before the messy part begins. It won’t be a pleasant sight.”
“Take good care of her, Dr. Krieger.”
He smiled. “I will, Harley.”
I ducked back out of the mortuary and headed for the foyer of the Fleet Science Center. It was already late in the day, having just passed seven o’clock, meaning the Center would be closed to the public. Any outsiders would probably think a private school trip had arrived or something, though they’d be smuggled inside before anyone could look too closely. My hea
rt leapt into my throat as I envisioned the missing magicals, finally coming home after weeks in Katherine’s grasp. It was as exciting as it was frightening, considering Katherine’s eventual reaction to us taking them back. She wasn’t going to be happy about it, that was for sure. Well, she can suck it, because she isn’t snatching them again. No way.
The rest of the Rag Team was gathered in the glass atrium of the Center’s entrance hall, standing around anxiously, their eyes fixed on the revolving doors. Nobody else from the coven was here, meaning that Alton had decided to keep the children’s arrival a secret. The fewer people who knew about this, the better. After all, we still had a spy on the loose. I joined the rest of my team, sensing the mixture of emotions that radiated off each person. Nerves, anticipation, fear, excitement, and an undercurrent of relief. I shared in the cocktail of feelings, fidgeting as we waited.
“How is everything up there?” Wade asked solemnly, as he came to stand at my side.
“Sad, grim, depressing, horrible,” I replied.
“Does Dr. Krieger know how she died yet?”
I shook my head. “Inconclusive right now. He’s puzzled because there aren’t any bite marks or bruises, even though I found that fang, but he’s still running tests. Bloodwork is next, I think, although he was about to start delving into her innards when I left.”
“I don’t know if I could watch that. It’s weird when it’s someone you knew, isn’t it?”
“Really weird.” I glanced over at Astrid, reminded of the fang in my pocket. “Can you give me a minute? I need to speak to Astrid.”
He nodded. “Sure.”
I hurried over to her, pulling her to one side. The kids would be here soon, and I didn’t want to muddy the waters by asking her to look into the fang when they arrived. They’d be freaked out enough, being brought here by a bunch of burly security officers. I didn’t want to make it worse by talking about killer serpents and murdered prisoners with them around.
“Astrid? Can I talk to you about something?” I asked.
She frowned. “What’s up? Is it Adley? I heard what happened.”
“You know that fang I found in her cell, under the bed?”
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if you could look into this for me,” I replied, pulling out the fang and handing it to her. “I don’t know if it fell out of Quetzi’s mouth or what, but I was hoping you could run some checks on it and see if we might be able to use it to track him. Plus, it might be useful to see if there’s any reference to this kind of thing in the book of ancient serpents… if that exists?”
She turned the fang over in her hands, peering at it. “I’ll have to connect Smartie to a mass spectrometer I customized for this kind of stuff, but yeah… I’ll see what he can find out. It’s definitely a serpent fang, isn’t it? Do we still think he did it? I hate to admit it, but I can’t help thinking it all seems a bit set-up.”
It still amused me that she called Smartie “he,” as though he were a real person and not a network of technical systems. There was a sweet innocence to it that made me want to wrap Astrid in cotton wool and shelter her from ever having that taken away. If you hurt her, Garrett, you’ll have all of us to answer to.
“It’s really weird,” I agreed. “Krieger is stumped, but this might help us figure out what really happened down there. If you could check and see if it’s got any connection to Adley, that’d be great. Some DNA or something, I don’t know, so we can be sure it’s Quetzi who did this. You’re the whiz kid here. Alton knows about the fang, but some more info on it would be good. We can tell him what we find once you confirm if it has her DNA on it,” I explained. I supposed that, deep down, I wanted to make amends for disappointing Alton, and I knew this might hold the key.
“Okay, I’ll do some digging and get back to you. If I find anything useful, I’ll let you know, and send any details over to Alton, too.”
“Agreed.”
We both turned to look at the revolving doors as three large SUVs pulled up on the curb outside. Men and women in dark suits and sunglasses stepped out, even though it was evening and the sun had set an hour ago. Who do you think you are—Bono? They moved toward the rear doors and opened them, urging the passengers out into the open. My heart soared as I saw the first of the missing children edge out of the cars, their eyes darting around in panic. They looked so small beside the officers.
“Where’d they even find them?” Raffe asked. I’d been wondering the same thing.
“An abandoned ferry port. Commander Beeton led the operation,” Wade explained.
“Commander who?” I retorted. “Never heard of him.”
“LA sent him. A bit of a bulldog by all accounts,” Wade said.
I hated being out of the loop on something as important as this. I was even more miffed that Wade seemed to know more about it than the rest of us—why did he get the intel, and we didn’t? This was personal to all of us. We should’ve been there. Even now, I was wondering if this whole thing was even real. Were we actually getting the kids back, after all this time?
“Okay, a few pointers to go over before they come in. There’s no way we can hide the children in the coven,” Wade declared, taking center stage. “So, our job is to get them down to the prison cells, using the concealed doorways and stairwells. Alton has gathered the rest of the coven into an urgent meeting, giving us a brief window to get them downstairs and out of harm’s way. Hopefully, the spy won’t know this is going on, which is why we have to keep this top secret. Understood?”
I stared at him. “The prison cells? You’re kidding, right?”
“Sadly, no,” he replied. “It’s the only place safe enough to hide this number of people, without raising any suspicions. Micah and Marjorie will stay where they are, but these kids have to go downstairs.”
“Wade, Adley died down there today,” I said coolly.
Santana nodded. “We don’t know if Quetzi is still hiding out nearby. Surely, this is putting the kids at even greater risk?”
“Security swept the area. It’s clean of Quetzi,” Wade replied.
“It’s not wise to put young children so close to a fresh spirit,” Tatyana added. “I can’t feel her presence down there, but that doesn’t mean she’s crossed over. If she’s feeling vengeful after her death, then it may affect the children. They have a greater affinity for these things than adults, as their minds have yet to be altered by their environment.”
Wade sighed. “I hear you, and I agree that it sucks, but I’m following orders. I suggest you do the same. I imagine it’ll be a temporary measure until we can find somewhere else to put them. Until that happens, that’s where they’re staying. End of discussion.”
We had no chance to argue, as the children flowed in through the revolving doors, directed by the guiding hands of the security personnel. A few kids were pushing and shoving one another, while others cried quietly, and several looked around in abject fear.
“Hey, don’t touch me!” one of the slightly older girls muttered, snatching her hand away from the littlest boy, who seemed desperate to find someone to cling to. Samson Ledermeyer, age three, and Cassie Moore, age eleven. I remembered their pictures from the folders. My heart broke for the little boy, who looked so lost and alone, tears brimming in his eyes.
It looked like the missing girls had formed a bit of a clique amongst themselves. Min-Ho Lee, the twelve-year-old Herculean with Earth abilities, stayed glued to the side of Cassie Moore, who was an Empath and a Morph, if memory served. I remembered the last ability because it had been such a strange one—the power to transfer consciousness into an animal. Sarah McCormick, the ten-year-old with unconfirmed Supersonic abilities, also stuck with the older group of girls. They glanced sourly at Samson, which irritated me. The little boy couldn’t help being frightened. Then again, I knew what girls could be like, bullying because of their own insecurities.
I noticed Emilio Vasquez bringing up the rear, standing off to one side by himself. He was e
ight, with Fire and Herculean abilities. The little girl, Mina Travis, who was barely six, drifted away from the whispering gaggle of girls and clung to the hand of a shadowed figure at the very back of the group. They wore dark clothes with a hood over their head, masking their face from view. I couldn’t tell if they belonged to the security team or not, but the two littlest ones—Samson and Mina—seemed to gravitate toward them, after being rebuffed by the mean girls.
I did a quick head count, realizing that two of our specified eleven children were missing—Andrew Prescott and Denzel Ford. Their abilities had been unconfirmed, but they’d been on our list of stolen kids. I looked through the glass front of the Fleet Science Center, waiting for more children to come out of the parked SUVs, but the doors were closed.
I walked over to the hooded figure, while the rest of the Rag Team edged forward to talk to the children and tell them about what was going to happen next. “Where are the other two?” I asked.
“We’ll explain everything later, once the little ones are settled. They’re our priority right now,” a muffled, feminine voice replied, her chin dipped to her chest. The lip of the hood was so far forward that I couldn’t make out a single feature of her face, as though she didn’t want me to see. A sudden flash of fear shot through me.
Katherine… it’s Katherine!
With panic searing through my veins, I lunged toward the figure and yanked down her hood. She shouted in alarm as she struggled to pull the hood back up, but I’d seen her face.
“Louella?” I gaped at her in disbelief. “How the—you’re dead. We found two of your limbs. We had them on a slab in the mortuary.”
She looked up angrily. “Well, I’m not, as you can see.”
“How?” I wanted to pinch her, to make sure she was real. I’d seen the limbs myself, but she seemed to be intact—two arms, two legs, a body, and a head. All there, in one piece. Had Katherine patched her up? My nemesis was powerful, but I doubted even she could put limbs back where there weren’t any.
Harley Merlin 4: Harley Merlin and the First Ritual Page 17