Harley Merlin 8: Harley Merlin and the Challenge of Chaos

by Forrest, Bella

  A cold bark of a laugh rasped from Levi’s throat. “Is that right?”

  “Yes, we’re quickly running out of time.”

  “And I bet you’re just loving watching that clock run down, aren’t you?” A faint blush of red had covered Levi’s skin, his eyes turning a dark, unsettling shade of crimson.

  I leaned closer, intrigued. “Levi has a djinn?”

  “Didn’t you know? He’s gone back to sleep, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know how much you hate witnesses, Katherine. It is lucky for you that Raffe’s djinn isn’t able to detect you, given his juvenile state. If he were connected to the wider hive mind of Erebus, he would have seen what I have seen.”

  I smiled. “Well, this is an interesting twist. I’d like to say I never suspected it, but I always wondered if you ran in the family, so to speak. I know how you creatures of Erebus like your routines, and what’s better than a family of willing hosts?”

  “I wouldn’t call them willing. A curse is a curse, even if some of us happen to get along better than others.”

  “And I’m guessing that’s not the case for you and Levi?” I chuckled, delighted to see someone more my speed. Monsters were infinitely preferable to magicals, and anything was preferable to Levi.

  “We have our differences.”

  “Ooh, do tell.”

  He smirked. “I wouldn’t want to give you all my trade secrets, Katherine.”

  “Eris, if you don’t mind,” I replied. It wasn’t a request.

  “Nice choice.”

  I smiled. “Thanks. I love a rich history, don’t you? What can I say, hers struck a chord. Or, rather, a discord.”

  “You’re funny, too? I didn’t expect that.”

  “There’s no fun in being predictable.” I eyed him curiously. “Speaking of which, I don’t always expect fear and terror from the people I meet, but it helps. And you don’t seem to be scared of me at all. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or insulted.”

  He laughed coldly. “Why would I be scared of you?”

  I shrugged. “Most people find some reason to be.”

  “I’m not a person, I’m a djinn.”

  “Potato, potahto.”

  “You dare call me a potato?”

  I chuckled. “What else should I call you?”

  “Zalaam.”

  “You missed a trick there. I’d have gone for Alakazam.”

  He narrowed his ruby eyes. “It means ‘darkness.’”

  “Is that supposed to intimidate me? Katherine means ‘pure,’ and you can see how that turned out.”

  “Names mean more to a djinn, evidently.”

  “Yeah, evidently.” I laughed. “You’d have to blame my parents for that one. They were clearly hoping for something different, but what kind of bar were they setting? I’d never have been able to live up to that. Now, Hester, on the other hand—”

  “It means ‘star.’ It is Persian in origin; I am more than familiar with it,” Zalaam interjected.

  “Well done. Ten points to you.” I shot him a warning look. I didn’t like being interrupted while I was getting into monologue mode. “She was definitely a star, until she wasn’t. She got the better end of the deal, if you ask me. Even now, people talk about her like she was a celebrity. I just thought she was a ball of hot air, all glow and no substance. I guess both fit the bill.”

  “You like to talk, don’t you?”

  I fought the urge to push up the button on his meds. “I enjoy the art of conversation, if that’s what you mean. Although, good conversation requires two minds of equal intellect, so I can forgive you if you’re struggling.”

  “What game are you playing, Katherine? Why are you playing this role of Imogene?” Zalaam looked me over. “I can tell you despise it. Others might not be able to sense that, but I can.”

  “Good for you,” I replied. “A bit disappointing if that’s all your djinn powers can do, though.”

  “They can do so much more, as you well know.”

  I grinned. “Again, are you trying to intimidate me? It takes more than a few empty threats to pique my interest.”

  “You should be scared of me.”

  I allowed myself a quick glare. “No, Alakazam, you should be scared of me. You should be very scared of me, because I’ve got the power to end your entire lineage, right here, right now. And once I ascend, I’ll have the power to wipe out all the djinn from existence. I’ll tweak Chaos itself, if I have to. It could use a tune-up. Far too much trash has been allowed to slip through, these past decades.”

  “My name is Zalaam,” he muttered, though the bravado had slipped from his voice.

  “And it’s Eris to you,” I shot back. “You’d do well to remember that, if you want to live. I reward those who join me, and I punish those who don’t. Choose your side carefully. Very carefully.”

  “You don’t scare—”

  “Yes, you’ve said. But I’ve got the feeling that might change,” I said sharply. “Oh, and if you’re thinking of threatening me by swearing to tell Levi you know who I am, just know that I’m already onto you. I made a deal with Erebus back in Tartarus, but I’m guessing you already knew that? That hive mind of yours is a wonderful thing. But the crux of that deal is, your lips are sealed, whether you like it or not. You can’t say a word about me. You’re bound by Erebus’s rules, and he’s got a vested interest in me. He doesn’t want me picking him for the final Challenge, now, does he? So, if you say a word, he’ll snuff you out before you even open your smoky little mouth.”

  Zalaam sat in stunned silence. “How can you know that?”

  “I’ve got a hive mind of my own. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve got locked away in here.” I tapped the side of my head, glad I could nip any betrayal in the bud before he started throwing warnings about.

  At the time, that deal with Erebus, to stop him from killing me in Tartarus, had been a thorn in my side. Harley had almost caught me out with that particular move. But, now, it was paying dividends. Erebus wasn’t an idiot—he realized what he had in his grasp, when I’d been put in that position, and he’d sworn to stay out of proceedings as long as I didn’t choose him for the last Challenge. I was a woman of my word, as long as he kept his pesky djinn in line. There was no way Zalaam would dare to cross his maker, not unless he had an instant death wish. All djinn were born of Erebus, and it was his power that connected them all. If Zalaam tried anything, Erebus would come down on him so hard it’d make his ruby eyes pop out. I could see all of that running through the djinn’s head as I watched and waited.

  “You are a learned woman,” he said, at last. “I underestimated you.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Most people do, and they come to regret it.”

  “Although, you should know, I haven’t spoken of you previously to Leonidas, though I sensed who you were a while ago. Not as long ago as I might’ve liked, but I certainly had an inkling. You see, at first, it was harder to detect, but as your strength has grown, so has the telltale power signature that you are not who you appear to be.”

  “You said nothing because you weren’t able to.” I gave a wry chuckle. “Levi had you squashed right down, unable to influence him or speak to him in any way. That’s my guess, anyway, judging by the fact that he almost got his head caved in by Raffe’s djinn and you didn’t miraculously pop out of nowhere, all red and fiery. And he’d have used you if he could, rather than have his brain turned to mush, which would suggest you were buried way way down. So don’t try and pretend your silence about me was anything other than Levi putting a big djinn gag on you.”

  He dipped his head in a jaunty bow. “I can see it would be foolish of me to pretend otherwise. But I must ask, what do you want from me now that you know of my existence?”

  “Who says I want anything from you?”

  “If you know so much about what I am, then you know I can be useful to your cause. You wouldn’t have mentioned Erebus, otherwise. You want something. What is it?” />
  I smiled, cracking my knuckles in satisfaction. “Oof, now you’re talking my language…”

  Eighteen

  Harley

  The searing pain faded away from my eyes, and the milky mist retreated so I could actually see what was going on inside the box. Leviathan stood right beside me, swaying like a drunk after last orders. I could see that he was fighting my reverse Empathy tooth and nail. Dragging myself to my feet and kicking away the barbed seaweed, I stared at him. Tentatively, I approached.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked, but he didn’t respond. “Hello? Anyone home?”

  Silence. Well, silence and a lot of weird swaying.

  Holy crap!

  I turned around to look at Wade and Finch, whose faces were plastered to the glass. Tobe still stood by the door, waiting for me to come out. A smile spread across my face as I looked at my brother and my boyfriend, who were grinning through the box.

  “I did it!” I shouted.

  “What?” I couldn’t hear Finch, but I could read his lips.

  “I said, I did it!”

  “You hit him?” Another bad lip-reading from my brother, though I seemed to be quite good at it.

  I rolled my eyes. “No! I. Did. It!”

  “Oh!” Finch mouthed. I guessed he was shouting, but I couldn’t hear him. “Yeah, you did!” No sooner had the words left his mouth than his grin suddenly faded. Wade’s did, too.

  Wade banged his fist against the glass, jabbing at something behind me.

  I whirled around, but Leviathan was nowhere to be seen. He’d disappeared back into the mist.

  I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy. Although, that was the trouble, it hadn’t been easy. I’d been brought to my knees, thinking I was about to die, and even that hadn’t been enough, apparently. I peered through the thick mist, which was getting thicker by the second. It’d gotten so dense that I couldn’t see those pulsing dots anymore.

  A blur whizzed past my head, and I ducked just in time, as a tentacle shrank back into the gloom. Crouching low to the floor, I tried to see if I could spot Leviathan where the mist was thinnest, but that slimy beast was impossible to see. For a creature so big, he was pretty good at hiding himself.

  I reeled back as another tentacle shot out of the haze, collapsing in a heap on the floor as it knocked me off balance. Apparently, those things sticking out of his face could extend at will. I tried to jump back up, only to feel something slimy and muscular wrap around my waist, squeezing until I thought my ribs might crack like an egg.

  Clawing for breath, I placed my palms against the tentacle and pounded round after round of Fire into it. The slithering appendage snaked away, smoking slightly, and filled the whole box with the stench of cooking fish. As if I wasn’t already feeling sick.

  Staggering a little and feeling majorly lightheaded after almost having the life squeezed out of me, I backed into the corner of the box, figuring it lessened the number of angles he could strike from. Another tentacle shot out, but I dodged it, narrowly avoiding braining myself on the glass. I started to gather my emotions back into the center of my chest. If I’d done it once, I could do it again. I just had to make it stronger this time, though I had no clue how I was supposed to do that. My last bout of reverse Empathy had been the strongest yet, and that had still fallen short. This was starting to feel less like a test, and more like a fight for my life. After all, Leviathan stood between me and the door.

  I leapt out of the way as Leviathan charged out of the mist, barreling straight for me with breathtaking speed. He hit the glass with a thud that made the whole box shudder. If I hadn’t gotten out of the way, I’d have been mulch right about now.

  Finch twisted his hands over and over, playing out some kind of charade. He covered his face with his palms, like he was sobbing, before moving them away and laughing weirdly. What is he saying? Was he trying to tell me to use reverse Empathy? That seemed like the most obvious conclusion. Unless he’d just lost his mind.

  “Control him!” Wade mouthed slowly. I resisted the urge to glare at the pair of them, considering I had a massive Purge beast to deal with. What did they think I was doing? Twiddling my thumbs and hoping for a miracle? The last part was sort of right, but I was already doing everything else.

  Sprinting for the other side of the box, I skidded to a halt as Leviathan tore out in front of me, blocking my path. How was he moving so freaking fast? All of that armor plating on him should’ve been slowing him down, but apparently it didn’t weigh a damn thing. How was I supposed to get control over him, when he was moving so fast? A massive wave of reverse Empathy might’ve done it, one that surged through the whole box, but I’d already tried that.

  “You thought you had me there, didn’t you?” Leviathan chuckled.

  “I did, for a second. Admit it.”

  He flashed his fangs. “I fooled you. If you are so easily tricked, you don’t stand a chance.”

  Great, now the big fish-snake thing is calling me weak. I moved backward until my shoulders hit the glass, keeping my eyes on Leviathan. I’d already lost my grip on the ball of emotion, but my goose wasn’t quite cooked yet. Gathering it again, I focused on the swirling vortex in the middle of my chest, trying to hold it steady enough to send out one massive wave.

  Before I could even get a tendril out, Leviathan’s tail whipped out like Indiana Jones on adrenaline, snapping around my ankles and dragging me to the ground. I screamed as it lifted me up into the air, the sound fading to a groan as he slammed me against the glass, right in front of where Finch and Wade were standing. They stumbled backward, as if I was going to come right through the freaking thing. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t.

  I’d just about shaken the dizziness out of my head when he lifted me up again, leaving me dangling off the end of his tail like a wriggling fish on a hook. I fought back, trying to reach up to untangle my feet, reminding me of those insane magicians who willingly had themselves shoved in a straitjacket and suspended from a crane or something. Bringing me closer to his face, he laughed, before smacking me against the other side of the box. This time, I felt his tail snake away, leaving me to sit there, in a daze, wondering what else he had up his fishy sleeve.

  “Can you not do that?” I yelled into the mist. “I’ve got a phobia of being upside down.”

  Leviathan chuckled, the fact that I couldn’t see him making it all the creepier. “You should never tell the enemy your weakness, Merlin.”

  His tail shot out, but I was ready for it. I leapt over the slithering thing and bolted for the opposite corner. “Missed!”

  “You should also never let the enemy know where you are.” His tail hissed out again, grasping me in a place that was a little too intimate for my liking.

  “If you want to keep that promise to your mother, you’d better let go of me, right now!”

  He instantly retracted his tail. “My apologies. It is hard to see in all this fog.”

  “You don’t say,” I shot back, making him laugh again. I was going to wipe that smirk off his face if it was the last thing I did.

  Trying to be clever, I crouched to the ground and pressed myself flat against the glass floor. On my belly, I dragged myself forward, getting right under the swirling mist until I found what I was looking for. I knew I looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. I was going to get this sucker. Right ahead of me, I saw the coiled scales of Leviathan’s tail, the spiky end tapping the glass lightly. Is that how he’s sensing me? Was he feeling out my vibrations, and using that to strike? Hoping that was the case, I held my breath and continued to crawl forward at a snail’s pace, making as little noise and vibration as possible.

  With my eyes bulging at the strain of not breathing, I pulled myself right past the nasty creature, until I was staring at the back of him. I eyed the jagged spikes that ran down his spine, wondering how much they’d hurt if I accidentally impaled myself on one. Still, I didn’t have too many options right now, and Leviathan didn’t seem
to know where I was.

  “You can’t hide from me, Merlin,” he said.

  Oh, can’t I? Carefully lifting myself up into a squatting position, I leapt at him, wrapping my arms tight around his neck. He jolted in surprise, tossing me this way and that like I was a rag doll. It only made me cling tighter. I locked my hands together in a vise as I struggled to stay on the wildest bucking bronco I’d ever experienced. Squeezing my eyes shut and hoping that I wouldn’t hurl right onto the back of Leviathan’s head, I set about gathering the ball of emotions back into my chest. I had to give this everything, or I’d never stand a chance against Naima. Then again, she didn’t have a tail and friggin’ tentacles to deal with.

  I focused on the strongest emotions that churned inside me, dragging up the most powerful memories I had and siphoning the energy from them in volatile tendrils of raw feeling. I thought of avenging my parents and Isadora, bringing my mind back to the way I’d felt when I saw the blood pooling under Krieger’s office door. I thought of Suri underneath the black cloth, and Isadora’s vacant eyes, her face left with that pained expression of grief and pain. I thought of Jacob, motionless in his hospital bed, with no idea if he’d ever wake up again. I thought about stopping Katherine, once and for all, and saving every creature on this spinning rock we called home. Including the people I loved, more than anything: Wade, Finch, Santana, Tatyana, Astrid, Raffe, Dylan, Garrett, Jacob, Louella, all of them. The ability to keep them safe was in my hands, but how could I hope to do that if I couldn’t even control Leviathan? I had to do this. I just had to.