Harley Merlin 4: Harley Merlin and the First Ritual
Page 34
“No,” I whispered, as Quetzi disappeared before my eyes. The enchanted ropes that had held him sagged, lying flat on the altar where he’d just been. I couldn’t move, my heart sinking like a stone in my chest.
Jacob had made the choice to save Isadora—and now Quetzi was dead. Not only that, but that spell was still on her, the one that could sputter out her life in an instant if she tried to run. Although I knew his heart would’ve been in the right place, it looked as though Jacob had signed her death warrant, too.
“Now, you will see Eris rise! I have taken the first step toward true greatness!” Katherine bellowed, her arms shooting up.
With a deafening crack like a thunderbolt, the vortex switched direction, all of it powering into her body. I just couldn’t look away, even as her scream filled the air. Light poured out of her eyes and her mouth. Only as the last stream disappeared into her did the glow begin to fade, though not by much. Her eyes had turned golden, and her entire being seemed to light up from the inside. She looked like an avenging angel—the stuff of nightmares, rather than biblical prose.
“There’s no way we can beat her like this,” Santana whispered, her eyes wide. “My Orishas are freaking out. They’re telling us to run.”
“Run? Run where?” I muttered.
“We need to get out of here,” Wade agreed.
Garrett glowered. “How far do you think we’ll get, huh? Jacob’s left us high and dry and now we’re screwed. The best thing to do would be to beg for her forgiveness, and hope she’ll show mercy.”
“Are you kidding?” Astrid snapped, hurrying out of her hiding place. “She’d kill us for being cowardly.”
“She wouldn’t kill Harley. Harley can make a deal for our lives,” Garrett replied.
I glanced at him in disbelief. “Oh, yeah, why not make me the sacrificial lamb?”
“I can hear every word you’re saying.” Katherine’s voice drifted across the ruins, echoey and otherworldly. “I’d rather enjoy listening to you all beg for your lives. Then again, desperation is such an unsavory look on you.”
“You should let us go,” Garrett said, raising his voice.
“With what? Your little space-hopper has taken my space-hopper, and so it looks like we’ll all have to stay here awhile, and get to know one another better,” she purred. “Maybe I’ll play a little game, and let you choose who dies first. I can be merciful when I want to, though, and, considering I feel like a shiny goddess right now, I’m open to suggestions. Who do I spare?”
“Not a chance!” I shot back.
“Now, how did I know you were going to say that?” Katherine said. “Always so predictable in your feistiness. I could raise you up to greatness, Harley, if you’d only let me. However, rest assured, you’re not dying tonight. You’re still useful.”
“You won’t be getting any surrenders from us,” I said, Fire burning in my palms.
“We’ll see,” she replied flatly. “First point of business: I’d ask that you release my associate, Naima. How would you like it if you had two young men strapping you to the ground in such a rough manner? I mean, I’m not one to judge different tastes, but it’s really very degrading.”
“Spare us, and we’ll spare her,” Wade growled.
Katherine laughed. “It doesn’t work like that. Not anymore.” With a flick of her wrist, two thick darts of gold shot out of her palms and sent Raffe and Dylan hurtling into the back wall of the ruins. They sank down, dazed. “I did ask politely. It isn’t my fault if you want to play silly beggars. People will get hurt that way,” she tutted, smirking.
If we couldn’t defeat her with traditional means, and she could knock us back with a simple flick of her wrist, then I needed to use something she wasn’t going to expect. What I was about to do was incredibly dangerous, with huge risks, but what else could I do? We needed something extreme. Still, that didn’t make it any easier. I was quaking in my boots just thinking about it. I’m going to give you something to cry about, Katherine Shipton.
I thought of the summoning spell from my parents’ Grimoire. The words suddenly came back to me, taking me by surprise, and the spell tumbled out of my mouth. My blood ran cold. My heart rate slowed. Everything fell away, as it had before, leaving nothing but darkness around me. I couldn’t see Katherine, or the Rag Team, or the Asphodel Meadows with its moonless sky. I couldn’t see anything.
Power coursed through my body, building with each sentence I recited. I could feel the black fog gathering around me. Terror gripped my chest, my heart thundering, my limbs shaking. This is too much… It’s too much for me to hold on to. Panic came at me in a flood, bombarding my senses. I should never have done this, but it was too late to back out now.
A jolt of pain ricocheted through my nerves, hot and agonizing. Deep inside, I felt something crack—not break, but splinter. No… Is it the Suppressor? I had no way of knowing, but the overwhelming pain that followed seemed to suggest it was.
Something pulsed out of me, and my body shook from the violence of it. I didn’t know what I’d sent out, but it felt powerful. In that dark world of my trance, I could see a beast emerging from the sky overhead, starting as wispy, black fog and growing clearer by the second.
“Harley, STOP!” Wade yelled. A harsh impact collided with me, knocking me to the ground before Erebus could fully manifest. The dark world receded, bringing me back to the eternal night of the Nyx’s dimension. I lay on the dirt with Wade over me, his hands shaking my shoulders. Beside me, Santana was working her magic to get the summoned beast to disappear, back into the sky from whence it came.
“Oh, my God!” Tatyana’s eyes were wide, her hand clamped to her mouth. I sat up, ignoring the pain in my muscles, following her line of sight. Two figures lay on the ground, one poking out from behind the altar, and one in front of it. Whatever I’d done, I’d knocked Katherine out, her body enveloped in a hazy shield that sparked dangerously. Whatever she’d sucked out of Quetzi was defending her, albeit a little too late. I couldn’t feel any joy in knocking her flat, not as my gaze rested on a small figure who lay crumpled at the foot of the altar. She held one of those bomb balls in her hand.
Astrid… No…
The blast that had surged out of me had knocked her into the stone as she’d tried to edge back toward the walls of the ruin. Blood trickled down her temple and out of her ear, pooling on the dust beside her.
“Is she—?” I choked out.
“Her spirit is about to leave her body,” Tatyana gasped, her breath coming in short, sharp drags. “We have to get her to Alton—now! She can’t hold on much longer.”
I jumped up, despite the weakness in my limbs, and sprinted for Astrid with the rest of the Rag Team. Santana had managed to dispense with the shadow beast and followed close behind us. Garrett was the one who scooped Astrid into his arms, cradling her limp head, though none of us knew what we were going to do next. There was no way out of this place, and Astrid was fading fast. If we didn’t get her to Alton soon… I couldn’t even think about it.
“How do we get out of here?” Garrett asked through gritted teeth.
“And what do we do about her?” Santana pointed to Katherine. She started to stir at that very moment, dragging herself up from the ground. Her body still glowed with the energy she’d absorbed, though the shield was fading, and we’d soon be on the receiving end. Meanwhile, Naima was still bound by the entrapment stones, but the blast seemed to have weakened them.
No sooner had Katherine started to get to her feet than a loud snap burst through the air. A portal gaped open close by. Jacob stepped out of it.
He scanned the ruins until he found us. “Come on!” he yelled. Isadora was nowhere to be seen. My eyes narrowed at him, a pulsing rage bursting inside me. This had all gone to crap because he’d made the wrong choice. With anger still bubbling within me, we ran for the tear, and leapt through it, leaving Katherine and this weird underworld to each other.
Thirty-One
Harley
“Alton, you need to get to us now!” Wade shouted down the phone. “We’re heading for the infirmary. Astrid needs you. Tatyana keeps saying she doesn’t have long, that she’s almost gone.” His face said everything I needed to know. We were losing Astrid. Necromancy was still a pretty mysterious thing, but I guessed there had to be a limit on when you could and couldn’t perform a resurrection. Maybe, if a spirit was too far gone, there was nothing to be done.
Come on, Astrid, just hold on! I looked at her, limp in Garrett’s arms. Her lips were pale, her eyes closed, her body lolling like a rag doll. Garrett was doing his best to cradle her head, but speed was of the essence, and that speed wasn’t particularly graceful. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he clutched her to him. It was painful to watch, not only because I shared in his grief, but because they’d argued. If she died now, he’d never be able to make peace with her. She’d be gone, and there’d be nothing we could do about it.
“She isn’t going to make it,” Garrett rasped. “By the time we get her to the infirmary, she’ll be dead. Tatyana, is there anything you can do for her? There has to be something. There has to be.”
Tatyana had tears in her eyes. “I wish I could, but I can only speak with spirits. I can’t stop them from leaving this world. Her ties to the land of the living are looser than most of ours, because of her previous deaths. She’s finding it very hard to hold on this time.”
“You can see her?”
Tatyana’s face crumpled. “Yes. She’s standing beside you. She’s holding on to your arm, because she thinks it might ground her enough to buy another few minutes. She is doing everything she can, but the light is pulling her.”
“Please don’t go,” Garrett begged, staring down at her closed eyes.
“Stay with us,” Tatyana urged. “Alton will be here soon.”
Jacob had made himself scarce, slinking off to wherever he’d taken Isadora. Part of me had wanted to go after him and confront him, but right now Astrid’s life was on the line. If I abandoned her now, I would never forgive myself. My wrath toward Jacob’s selfish actions would come later, though I couldn’t make any promises that I’d be calmer about it. There was one silver lining in all of this—Isadora was safe for now. I knew Katherine well enough; she would dangle that killing spell over us, until she was certain she couldn’t get Isadora back. Isadora was valuable to her, after all.
Alton appeared a few minutes later as we turned the corner onto the main stretch of hallway. His face was deathly white, his eyes wide in panic. He hurtled toward us at breakneck speed. Garrett skidded to a halt and laid Astrid down on the marble floor—we didn’t have time to waste on getting her all the way to the infirmary, not when Alton could work his magic here.
Breathless from the sprint, Alton sank to his knees and pulled Astrid into his arms. Now that we all knew the real relationship between them, it broke my heart all the more. He’d done this three times for her. He’d lost his daughter three times, and had been forced to bring her back from the grips of death. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the weight of that, being carried around every day of his life.
“Oh, Astrid,” he whispered, pulling her face close to his as he rocked her gently. “Stay with me.”
He closed his eyes and held her in one arm, his hand positioned on her ribcage while his other palm flattened against her chest. His fingertips lit up with purple energy, flecked with black, the rippling vines sinking deep beneath Astrid’s skin. This wasn’t the same process we’d seen on the table in the Escher Reading Room, but I could sense that the magic was the same. The freezing temperatures were already creeping across the ground toward us, my breath coming out in hot plumes. Alton’s veins pulsated with that dark, purple power. His eyes stayed closed, and his face twisted up in a mask of agony as the purple threads found their way into Astrid.
After resurrecting the Shapeshifter, I knew he had to be exhausted already. Astrid had told us that it took a lot out of him every time he performed Necromancy like this, and the recovery was lengthy. Not enough time had passed for him to be fully himself again, his abilities weakened. I could see the strain on his face as he struggled to control the energy.
His emotions were all over the place, flooding my senses with grief, and sorrow, and anger, and pain, and desperation, and love… above all, love. That kept him going. His love for Astrid stopped him from giving in, though I could feel his fatigue. It would have been easy for me to shut his emotions out, but I couldn’t bring myself to block them. Instead, I concentrated my mind and tried to reverse the feelings he was sending me, offering encouragement and strength back to him in an invisible wave of hazy energy. His body seemed to straighten up as that expression hit him. Somehow, it had worked. I’d sent good emotions back to him, feeding them into his soul, so he might find the last scraps of resilience to see him through this.
That crack I’d felt earlier, during my summoning of Erebus—it hit me like a punch to the gut that I might’ve actually cracked my Suppressor, allowing my abilities to expand to the point where I could do this… where I could transfer emotions into someone, instead of just feeling them.
“Stay with me,” Alton murmured against her blood-soaked hair, as he forced wave after wave after wave of purple energy into her system. Wherever Astrid was, she was clearly in a deeper state of crossing over than the Shapeshifter had been. Tatyana was right about that. Alton was fighting to keep her in this world. It was clear from the sweat pouring off him.
“Is she still in the spirit world?” I whispered to Tatyana, whose eyes were still lit up with white.
She nodded. “It’s taking a lot for her to come back this time. I’m with her. I’m helping her, but it is hard.”
“Don’t leave,” Alton pleaded. “You can’t go yet.”
We all stood and watched as Alton waged war against death. I thought of a surgeon hand-pumping a heart long after the patient has already passed the point of no return. Alton refused to give up, though his own strength was waning with every minute that passed. The color had all but gone from his face, his body vibrating with Necromantic energy.
Slowly, Alton stopped conjuring the purple-tinged magic, his body sagging into an exhausted heap. He wrapped his arms around his daughter, but I doubted he could expend more energy without killing himself, too. Judging by the emotions coming off him, I got the feeling he would have welcomed death over a lifetime without Astrid, but he was too tired to keep going. Self-loathing and despair found their way into the mix of his feelings, my senses reacting to every bombardment of it. Here lay a broken man, holding his dead daughter in his arms.
I sank down to my knees. My blast had caused this. I’d knocked her into the altar. Tears poured down my face, a choked sob rasping from my throat. She was dead because of me, and all the cracked Suppressors in the world couldn’t change that.
“Is she here?” Santana asked Tatyana.
“I can’t tell anymore.”
Alton shook his head miserably. “I can’t feel her presence.”
“Is that good or bad?” I murmured, my voice catching in my throat.
“Bad,” Wade replied, his face stoic. Nevertheless, his eyes held a glimmer of tears.
“I think… I think she’s gone,” Alton wept. “I was too late. Her spirit was already too far gone.”
“She was struggling this time,” Tatyana replied sadly.
Dylan folded his arms across his chest. “She can’t be gone. No way.”
“Are you sure she isn’t here still?” Raffe added.
Only Garrett remained silent, his eyes fixed on Astrid’s face. His eyes held a haunted expression, his mouth agape. Tears rolled down his cheeks unchecked, his hands trembling. With him being a Shapeshifter, I couldn’t feel his emotions, but I didn’t need to. They w
ere etched onto his features. Loss… devastating loss.
I leant back in fright as Astrid sat up suddenly, her lungs clawing for air with a terrifying rasp. She dragged the oxygen down in heaving gulps, the whites of her eyes showing as she glanced around in confusion. Alton grasped her, rocking her in his arms, smoothing down her hair. She was clearly in a state of shock, her body reacting violently to being brought back to life.
“Hush, my little one, you’re safe now. You’re okay,” Alton murmured. “Everything is going to be okay. You’re in the coven, you’re surrounded by friends, and you’re doing just fine. You’ve had a nasty shock, that’s all, but you’ll be okay again soon. I promise.”
“Astrid!” My voice came out as a tight squeak. She was alive. Thank God, she was alive!
She continued to look about her, a weird look in her eyes. My joy turned to confusion as a weird sensation hit me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something wasn’t quite right about her. I mean, I knew she’d just come back from the dead, but the Shapeshifter hadn’t been like this when he’d been resurrected. Her limbs were shaking and her teeth were chattering, while her eyes simply stared at things, as though hardly recognizing what she saw. It was like she was overwhelmed by life somehow.
I reached toward her with Empathy. Immediately, I withdrew my feelers, like a snake recoiling in fear. Where there ought to have been clear emotions, I felt nothing but a gaping void—an absence of feeling. It was cold and odd and unsettling. She wouldn’t meet my eye as I tried to catch her gaze, her whole demeanor panicked and confused.