Harley Merlin 8: Harley Merlin and the Challenge of Chaos

by Forrest, Bella

  “On the contrary, I’ve actually reached out to all of the remaining Necromancers who I thought might be able to assist us.”

  My eyes widened. “Have any of them said yes?”

  “I’m getting to that,” he replied sharply. “Unfortunately, one of them was recently killed in a raid on the Wellington Coven’s repository in New Zealand, presumably by Katherine’s cultists. I didn’t know her well, but it pained me to hear that she’d been murdered so cruelly. Anyway, that left me with two options.”

  A stab of fear hit me in the chest. If the cultists had killed another Necromancer, then that meant she was the second one to die because of Katherine, after the one who’d botched Grandpa Shipton’s resurrection. Why was she going around murdering Necromancers? Surely, she needed them for her messed-up new world? Then again, I guessed she only really needed one, in order to make more.

  “What about the other two?” I pressed.

  “One of them vehemently refused to get involved. The mere mention of what I was asking sent her into hysterics, and she slammed the phone down on me, after screaming, ‘No!’ I can still hear it ringing in my ears. She didn’t want to know what it was for, so I didn’t exactly get to explain what was at stake. The moment I said ‘Katherine’ she was already out of the running.”

  “And the other one?” My hopes were starting to fade.

  Alton sighed. “Well… he did say yes.”

  “What?” I gasped. “Are you serious?”

  “As luck would have it, I’m very serious. However, given the highly illegal and insanely risky nature of what we’re asking of him, he’s insisted that we be discreet about it and tell no one. He’s a very well-respected magical, and I get the feeling he doesn’t want his name dragged through the dirt if anyone were to find out about what we’re going to do. Or go to Purgatory, for that matter.”

  “That was our plan anyway,” I muttered.

  He nodded. “I just wanted to let you know what his terms were, so don’t go shooting the messenger.”

  I raised my hands in mock surrender. “No guns here, Alton.”

  “Good.”

  “Who is this dude?”

  “His name is Davin Doncaster,” he replied. “And he’s an exceptionally gifted and powerful Necromancer, so we’re very lucky to have him on board. If anyone can pull off something of this magnitude, it’s him.”

  I smiled. “Hey, you’ve got talent. I’m sure he’s nothing compared to you.”

  Alton chuckled. “While I’d love to believe that, Davin is infinitely better at Necromancy than I am. He’s had a lot more practice.”

  “Oh?” I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, given everyone’s thoughts on that particular ability.

  “I said he was a very well-respected magical, but there’s a tricky side to him, too. Davin is a Neutral, with roguish tendencies. The elite adore him, but that’s only because he offers something that they want. In some parts of the world, they revere what he can do, and that has made him arrogant over the years. Plus, it has made him extremely difficult to work with, especially since he believes the hype about himself and his abilities. But, as he’s the only one willing to help, we don’t really have any other options. I’d prefer not to work with him at all, but desperate times… Just be prepared for a lot of egotism and a devil-may-care manner to go with it.”

  I gave a nervous laugh. “You’re not exactly painting the best picture here, Alton.”

  “I want to paint an honest picture,” he replied. “Davin is unlike any other Necromancer I’ve ever met. He flaunts his abilities, and he doesn’t care what people think of it. He thinks he’s superior, and, while he has the talent to back it up, it doesn’t make him a pleasant person to be around.”

  “You sound like you’re intimidated by him.” I put it out there, bluntly.

  Alton sighed. “Perhaps. He’s just an… extreme individual, that’s all. I want you to be ready, if you decide to go ahead with this, because both of us will be the ones putting up with him. And, like I said, I’d prefer to be as far away from that man as possible, not because he’s inherently dangerous, but because he can be reckless.”

  “I hate to say it, but reckless is what we need,” I said. “We have to go ahead with this, even if he’s a tool.”

  Alton laughed weakly. “I know we do, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.” His expression darkened. “I don’t trust Davin, but you’re right. We need to take risks, going forward. If we want to do the Hidden Things spell, then he’s our only chance. But don’t say I haven’t warned you, when he starts smarming about.”

  “Noted.” I flashed him an encouraging grin.

  “All right, then.” Alton braced himself. “I’ve given Davin the location where we’re going to meet up and do this, but I’ll tell you more about it when we rendezvous tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I almost fell off my chair.

  “Too soon?” He looked genuinely worried.

  I shook my head. “No, no, not at all. I just wasn’t expecting you to hit me with that.”

  “I thought we should move quickly.”

  “For sure. Sorry, you just caught me off guard there.”

  “I’m sorry,” he replied, with a smile. “So, with such a short timeframe, I suggest you spend the rest of the day collecting all of the ingredients you need for the spell. Is that doable?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.” I took a piece of paper out of my pocket, before sliding it over the desk. I’d written down all the ingredients the Hidden Things spell required. They’d been tiny footnotes to that mind-boggling poem, and the list was as long as my elbow.

  He looked over it, nodding to himself. “Some of these are fairly rare, but the majority can be found in the coven or at Waterfront Park. I’ll put you in touch with some magical smug—uh, traders, that I know, in case you have trouble getting what you need.”

  “You were going to say ‘smugglers,’ weren’t you?”

  He smiled. “I wasn’t a director for all those years without pulling a string here and there. Just let me write the numbers down, and you should be good to go.”

  As he took out his phone and jotted numbers and names down, I watched him closely, grateful to have him on my side. This spell was going to be difficult, and it was going to be scary as hell. I hadn’t forgotten his warning about the possibility of the land of the living clashing with the realm of the afterlife, letting billions of the dead back into our world. He’d also warned me about everything that could go awry with my mom and dad—zombies, mixed memories, all that worrying stuff. There was every chance that it could go horribly wrong, and I needed to be ready for any and all outcomes. But that wasn’t going to stop me from being a little bit hopeful that we might just pull this thing off. It didn’t have to be all doom and gloom just yet.

  “There you go.” He slid the note back across the desk, like we were finishing up a dirty deal.

  “What are you going to do while I’m foraging for all of this?” I slipped the note in my pocket.

  “I’ll make sure we have two bodies ready by midnight,” he replied, his tone strange and unsettled. “As you know, I can’t use Isadora and Suri, not that I’d want to. But I have some ideas.”

  “It’s probably best I don’t know about that, right?”

  He chuckled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes, it’s probably best.”

  Alton the Graverobber was a prospect I couldn’t quite deal with right now, but I trusted him to get the job done. Just as he trusted me to do my part. The secrets of the Grimoire were in my grasp, so close I could almost feel them.

  Twenty

  Katherine

  Suitably smug about my little chat with Alakazoosh, or whatever he called himself, I had to put my perfect nose back to the proverbial grindstone.

  Well, Imogene’s nose.

  I might’ve loathed her, but playing this role came with its perks. There was something so titillating about wandering amongst these people, without them
having a single clue that their greatest enemy was literally staring them in the face. I got a kick out of it every damn time.

  My bracelet had come in exceptionally handy. I’d been gifted it by a mystical shaman in the middle of the Arabian desert, when I was four days into a journey of enlightenment, and close to death, with no food, no water, and no hope. He’d appeared out of nowhere, leading a camel, and guided me to safety, to a Bedouin camp where the children gathered around me and welcomed me like a hero.

  Only kidding—I stole it from a vault of ancient artifacts in Vilnius, Lithuania, early on in my journey to become a Child of Chaos, around the time I’d decided I needed to infiltrate a Mage Council or two. I’d lied to Harley about it being an emotion blocker; that stupid girl couldn’t sense my emotions, since I was a Shapeshifter and all. She didn’t know about this particular party trick. It was one of the reasons I’d gone after the pretty piece in the first place. I’d known, years ago, that if I really wanted to make the Imogene scheme work—I love a rhyme—I’d have to find something that would keep out pesky Empaths. Or, rather, find something that could cover the reason they couldn’t sense me, and stop them from realizing I was a Shapeshifter.

  What this bracelet actually did was fake emotions. It had itty-bitty canisters of pilfered emotions inside it, stolen from some poor saps and trapped within. All I had to do was pick one and push the right teeny-weeny button, and bingo—I could trick anyone into thinking I was warm and fuzzy, my insides marshmallow soft. The emotions emanated from the bracelet, not me. All I had to do was put in the amateur dramatics of taking it off, as though I were baring my soul, and the bracelet did the rest. Screw all those Tiffany monstrosities covered in garish diamonds; I’d take one of these babies, any day of the week.

  Good thing I never told anyone about it. I smirked, thinking of Finch. That little worm thought he had all my secrets, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Mama had kept a few choice morsels to herself, and they just happened to be the finest cuts.

  Giving the infirmary a wide berth for now, since the bookworm and the German had decided to get back to business, I headed for Geek HQ, also known as Astrid’s Control Room. I knew the djinn was bound by Erebus not to say a word about me, but I didn’t feel like chancing it with an audience. One fleeting hint of rebellion by Alakazam and my entire charade would be toast, and I’d worked too hard to let that happen.

  I was halfway down the corridor, when I happened upon two of Harley’s Merry Men. The Jock and the Russian. I never liked to think about many people by their real names. Creating amusing nicknames was part of the fun. Although, I confess, I was getting sloppy with so many other things on my mind. The Jock and the Russian were hardly inventive. Beefcake and the Koldun-What-Now? That was better.

  “Tatyana, Dylan, is something the matter?” They looked like crap and didn’t seem to be speaking to each other. Ah, young love. The squabbles and the making up, the squabbles and the making up, in an endless freaking cycle of hormones and weakness.

  Tatyana shot a look at Dylan that could’ve felled a smaller man. “No, Imogene, everything’s fine. We reached a dead end, that’s all.”

  “In your pursuit of the cultists?” Oh yes, I knew everything these insipid critters were up to. I even got hourly reports, which was just perfection. Who needed the hassle of trackers when they literally texted me where they were and what they were doing?

  Dylan nodded. “Yeah, we managed to find Constance and Ozzy, and we tried to go after them, but we lost them after a while. Taty said we should go one way and I said we should go another. Turns out, if we’d gone my way, we might’ve found them again.” He sighed. “Anyway, it was a dead end. They vanished, and there haven’t been any more alerts on them, so who knows where they are now?”

  Back at Eris Island, where they ought to be. I’d had Naima portal them back, after a suitable period of time had passed, once I’d heard these two had planned to go after them.

  “You don’t know that,” Tatyana shot back. This was about to get juicy. I loved a PDA—public display of animosity.

  “Know what?” he replied.

  “That we’d have found them if we’d gone your way.”

  He shrugged. “I’m just saying, I’ve got a better sense of direction than you. You almost sent us down the wrong turn-off on the way there and back.”

  “I was listening to the GPS!” Tatyana protested. As if you could trust those useless things.

  “Arguing is not the way to resolve problems,” I cut in, though I was desperate to see things turn nasty. Imogene wouldn’t have allowed it to get that far, so I couldn’t, either. “It’s unfortunate that those cultists managed to escape, but there will be other opportunities. I was just on my way to see Astrid and the others, to see how they were coming along. Perhaps you could join me so that you can see if there are other cultists you can go after?”

  Tatyana offered me a grateful smile that made my insides giddy. No clue. “Yes, I think that’d be a good idea. This one’s phone died on the way back and mine is barely hanging on, or we would’ve called ahead to let everyone know what had happened.”

  “What, and that’s my fault, too?” Dylan muttered. “I don’t control phone battery.”

  “I wasn’t saying that,” Tatyana shot back. “I just meant we didn’t have a way to call anyone.”

  “It would seem as though the stress of destroying Katherine is getting to everyone, which is only to be expected,” I said. “Come with me to see Astrid and try to hug it out along the way. This is nobody’s fault.”

  Dylan lowered his gaze. “Sorry, Taty.”

  She smiled. “I’m sorry, too. Being in that car—I think I’ve got cabin fever.”

  And so the cycle begins again. Turning away as they smooshed into one another, I carried on down the hall, leaving them to it. They’d catch up once they realized I’d already gone. That kind of PDA wasn’t something I wanted to have to see, not after I’d just had my lunch.

  Sure enough, they came to a halt beside me as I reached the beating heart of the SDC’s technological prowess—otherwise known as a human and her silly tablet. I had to hold in a snort every time she referred to that thing as “he.” I mean, the girl was pretty weird to begin with, always staring around with big, vacant eyes. She hadn’t always been like that, not when I’d encountered her before, and I had a feeling that was my fault, which only made it funnier. I remembered her cracking her head open on the altar in the Asphodel Meadows, and all her little chums crying and screaming, with that big brute, Garrett, whisking her away like an action hero. It had been laughable then, and it was even more laughable now.

  Clearly, Alton had resurrected her, and things hadn’t quite gone according to plan. That girl had definitely been rapping on death’s door when she’d hit the altar. Poor Papa Waterhouse, left with a fleshy void for a daughter.

  Flanked by the Action Hero and Miss Mexico, said fleshy void turned as I made my grand entrance into her base of operations—it was nothing more than her private study, transformed into a haphazard control room. “Imogene? Has something happened?”

  “No, no, nothing to worry yourselves over. I just thought I’d come to see how things were going,” I replied. Yeah, it was definitely a “lights on but no one’s home” type of vibe with her, now. Tom and Jerry followed sheepishly behind me, evidently devastated that they were going to have to admit defeat. Geez, why are they all so dramatic? They were starting to put me to shame.

  “What’s up with you two?” Santana nodded to the two twerps shuffling beside me. “I thought you were supposed to be in Pasadena.”

  Dylan shook his head. “They disappeared.”

  “Are you friggin’ kidding me?” Santana sat back in her chair. Easy, tiger.

  “They must have gotten wind that we were after them and made a run for it,” Tatyana replied. Well, at least they were working together now. So sweet. Not.

  “How’s it going here?” Dylan approached the bleeping computers that surrounded
Astrid. It was no CIA, that was for sure. My intelligence team was in far better shape than these punks, but then, I had the common sense to put the time and effort into my people, unlike some folks I could mention. Levi…

  Speaking of the CIA, they’d be wetting their pants if they could see my operation. The fact that I was getting away with everything, right under the noses of the humans, was even more satisfying than pulling the wool over the magicals’ eyes. At least they knew what they were up against. With the humans, they had no idea, and they wouldn’t until they were on their knees, bowing to their new and beauteous overlord.

  “Not great,” the Void replied.

  Garrett nodded. “We’ve been scouring every outlet, and we haven’t seen hide or hair of Naima or Katherine… or anyone, really. It’s like they’ve all dropped off the face of the earth.”

  Ha, Naima would rip your throat out if she heard you saying she had a hide.

  As for the curious absence of any and all cultists, that was my doing. I’d warned them all to keep a low profile, though I wasn’t about to cease my operations altogether. I had a world to conquer, after all. I couldn’t just go into lockdown because a couple of jumped-up kiddos were trying to take me down. That would’ve made me a laughingstock. Besides, they didn’t stand a chance. All of this was for nothing. They could scour and pursue and search all they liked. By the time they actually got into a bit of action, it’d be too little, too late.

  And I’m right beside you. I felt like giving my hands a little wave or doing a little jig to say, “Ta-da! Here I am!” but I managed to swallow the urge. I’d get my satisfaction later.

  “Is Raffe not with you?” I couldn’t see him anywhere, but maybe they were keeping him under the desk, like a good little dog.

  Santana shook her head. “He locked himself up hours ago so he could have a word with Kadar. At least I know they can’t do any damage to each other. That’s one benefit of having a boyfriend who’s got two people in one body. No matter how heated things get, they can’t come to blows.”