Harley Merlin 8: Harley Merlin and the Challenge of Chaos

by Forrest, Bella

  “Two uses for the price of one. I love a bargain,” she jeered, as she licked the blood away. As soon as it hit her tongue, she started the Latin chant again, her body disappearing inside a haze of blinding light. From within, I heard her shout, at the top of her lungs: “I challenge you, Gaia! Come forward and meet your fate!”

  Gaia?

  I’d always thought she’d choose Nyx when the time came, what with him being the weakest of the Children. But no, in true Katherine style, she’d gone for the big game. And I just hoped Gaia had the strength to pound her into dust, because if Katherine succeeded, then she’d be the mother of them all.

  Forty

  Katherine

  Oh, this felt good. So good. Better than anything I’d ever experienced in my entire life.

  I had my arms wide open, waiting to welcome Gaia into our final showdown. It wasn’t the simplest choice, but it would be the most satisfying. Gaia was the Mother of these Children—the ringleader, the boss, the oldest of them all. Go big or go home, right? And I didn’t plan on leaving the Garden of Hesperides until I had what I’d come for.

  “In lumine chaos ego ad te Gaia!” I called out my challenge again in Latin, just in case she tried to pretend she couldn’t understand. I knew she was listening. Now, all I had to do was wait. The ritual hadn’t specified whether she’d come immediately or take her sweet time, but I was a patient woman.

  The energy from those delicious children pulsated in my veins. I was slightly disappointed at Chaos’s cowardice—I’d been looking forward to watching these twelve die in front of my eyes, but I’d just worked myself up for nothing. And now I had eleven unconscious bodies to deal with, and one dead one. It had protected them in some way, putting them into a trance-like state to keep them from experiencing the hollow despair of having Chaos ripped away. How weak—yeah, I’m talking to you, Chaos. But if they woke up and started crying again, I couldn’t make any promises that I wouldn’t finish the job myself.

  But at least I could enjoy their Chaos, feeling it swell inside me. Purple light shivered beneath my skin, making me look like a real-life blacklight, uncovering all the secrets of this place as I cast my glow about. I felt as though I could rip this whole otherworld apart with a flick of my wrist. I’d earned this power. Nobody was going to take that from me. In fact, it looked like the Garden of Hesperides was already quaking in its boots at my mere presence.

  Good, you should be afraid. You should all be afraid.

  The supernatural haven shuddered and shook, the creatures in the canopies howling for their lives, as birds took flight in a bid to escape me. Poor things. This was all as new to them as it was to me. But the truth was, there was nowhere far enough for them to fly, nowhere they wouldn’t feel the singe of my fire. There was nowhere far enough for anyone to fly.

  “Take them away!” I commanded, gesturing to the bodies on the ground. “But leave Merlin.” The cultists did as they were told, dragging the unconscious children and Louella away to the sidelines. And not a moment too soon.

  The stone circle beneath my feet splintered with a deafening crack, Harley wriggling about like a worm about to get skewered on the end of my hook. I would’ve laughed at how pathetic she looked if I wasn’t watching the skies and trees surrounding me, waiting for Gaia to make her dramatic appearance. All Children of Chaos were the same—they loved the drama. That was why I was the perfect fit. And Gaia had been in the spotlight for much too long. Time for someone else to have a turn. And here I am, ready and waiting. Whenever you feel brave enough, Gaia.

  Tendrils of Darkness slithered out from beneath my emerald skirts, making them billow like Marilyn friggin’ Monroe standing over a grate. I smiled as the Darkness spread out, each vein connecting until a steady black fog swept across the landscape in front of me. In its wake, it left desolation and decay, everything in its path collapsing and withering at its deadly touch—leaves, grass, trees, Gaia’s creatures, all of it. Only those belonging to Homo sapiens seemed able to withstand it. I still needed Harley, and Jacob, and Davin, and the rest of my cultists. I didn’t want them getting swallowed up by this fog, not with their potential still untapped.

  With every fresh death of a blade of grass or curled-up leaf or branch bleached white and fragile, the life essence trickled back toward me through the earth, bolstering the extreme glow that shone through every pore of my being. My body was positively thrumming, as if I’d just swallowed an entire sun and lived to tell the tale. I was metamorphosing. I’d been trapped in my cocoon of ordinariness for so long, and now I was breaking out, more magnificent than ever. A rare creature, seen once in a lifetime.

  This is it… the moment you’ve all been waiting for. I grinned as I reached my arms skyward, feeling the power growing exponentially inside me, consuming my flesh like wildfire. You would’ve thought it would hurt, but it felt like nirvana. As if this was always supposed to happen. As if this had always been my true state, and I was finally having it realized. Plus, I didn’t plan to be a watery haze of energized goo. I had Harley to fix that. Other Children of Chaos might have been happy to drift about the place, only materializing when called or when they were in their otherworlds, but that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be worshipped, and for that I needed a solid body.

  I wasn’t an ordinary magical, and I didn’t plan on being an ordinary Child of Chaos, either. Ordinary was for those with limited imaginations, and mine… well, it stretched beyond all possible limits.

  “Stop,” Harley wheezed at my feet, the dark smoke filling her lungs and turning her eyes a suitably creepy shade of black.

  “Why, because you’re asking me to?” I shot back.

  I wanted to smack her head into the stone circle, if only to knock some sense into her. Hadn’t she just watched me kill her little pal and absorb the Chaos of the rest? Hadn’t she just watched me drink in all of their sweet, sweet abilities? Hadn’t she just watched me call upon Gaia? I guessed she had to make a show of defiance, but I was getting sick of her endless whining.

  “Because you’re a monster. Look at what you’re doing,” she rasped. “You’re killing everything you touch. If you do this, the world will burn. You won’t make it better. You’ll be ruling over a wasteland and a sea of skeletons.”

  I grinned. “Am I supposed to be scared?”

  “You should be.”

  “I don’t know the meaning of fear, Harley, but you should.” My eyes hardened. “You should be very afraid, not only for yourself, but for your little chums back at home. I might need you still, which, believe me, is as much of an inconvenience to me as it is to you, but I don’t need them. And I’m going to make you pay for all of your indiscretions. Did you think I’d let you waltz away into the sunset? Did you think I’d let your infiltration of my cult slide? Did you think I’d forget all of the irritation you’ve caused me?”

  There were tears in her eyes as she forced a smile onto her face. A surprisingly dark one. “You mean like taking away your precious lieutenant? Haven’t you been wondering where she is? She’s supposed to be your most loyal follower, isn’t she, but I don’t see her anywhere. Do you?”

  “I will find my lieutenant when I ascend,” I replied. “I haven’t had the time to go searching for her. I’m an incredibly busy woman. She’s probably out searching for more children, as a way of proving she’s not entirely useless. Still, she’ll be so very disappointed when she finds out that I’ve gone on without her. She was eager to see the final ritual in action.”

  Naima was my loyal sidekick. Nothing on this earth would have stopped her from coming back to me. This was nothing but Harley attempting to taunt me, and it wouldn’t work. I wasn’t fond of many people, and Naima had pissed me off more than most, but she was a part of me. I would know if something had happened to her… wouldn’t I?

  “She isn’t searching for anything, Katherine.” Harley smirked. “It’s pretty hard to look for things when you’re dead.”

  I froze. “What did you say?”

>   “She’s dead, Katherine. I killed her myself. If you had bothered to look for her, you’d know that.”

  “Impossible. She would never have allowed herself to die at your weak hands.”

  “She probably thought that, too, until I squeezed the life out of her.” Harley held my gaze, unwavering.

  “You won’t get a rise out of me, Harley.” I smiled back defiantly. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re trying to buy yourself some more precious time, but you’re fresh out, sweet-cheeks.”

  Harley shook her head. “You don’t have to believe me. It doesn’t change the facts. I killed her. It was her or me, and I did what anyone would’ve done. I chose me.”

  “I would know.”

  “Well, apparently you don’t. She’s dead, Katherine. What, did you think you could reach this point without any casualties on your side? This is war, if you needed reminding. So, tell me, what are you going to do without your loyal muscle beside you? I bet you had this whole vision, didn’t you? You as a goddess with Naima at your side, instilling fear just by snapping her jaws at anyone who tried to cross you. You threatened my people—what did you expect? Did you think we’d just roll over? You take from me; I take from you. You took Louella and Isadora, and so many others, so it only seems fair that I even the score a bit.”

  I stared at Harley as anger burned inside me. Despite her shortcomings, I’d cared about Naima in my own way, and being told that she was dead was starting a strange reaction in my veins that made me glow even brighter.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?” Harley hissed.

  “You really aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? Do you think it wise to tell me this, after I’ve already completed the final ritual? Thanks to you, everyone you’ve ever cared about now has a massive target on their backs. Anyone who’s ever come into your life—I’ll crush them all, even if it’s just the delivery guy who spoke to you once. Anyone who’s ever been associated with you has gone right to the top of my list, where they’ll meet the same fate as Louella and Isadora.”

  My voice carried a bitter edge. Naima had been part of my future vision, just as Harley had said, and she’d dashed that. I hated the destruction of a perfectly crafted aesthetic. A giant, half-tigress woman standing beside me would have made me all the more formidable, and now I’d have to do all of that fearmongering myself. I’d miss having someone I could trust entirely.

  She faltered, as I knew she would. “You won’t touch anyone I care about, or you won’t get anything out of me.”

  I smirked. “I will, and, what’s more, you know I will. You’re out of options, dear.”

  Her eyes glittered with hilarious anger. “I bet it just boils you up inside that we managed to kill her, doesn’t it? And she won’t be the last, I promise you that. When I’m done, you won’t have a single person left in this world who’s devoted to you. And then what will you do? You might have all these dreams of becoming a great goddess, but it’s lonely at the top, Katherine. You’ll find that out when you have nobody left who gives a damn about you. You see, I’ve got my own list.”

  “Ooh, I wouldn’t poke the bear if I were you.” I was prone to acts of impulse, and I was about ten seconds away from smashing her skull wide open like a juicy watermelon. I would never have admitted it, but I realized I’d made a mistake. I should’ve stopped to find Naima, but I just hadn’t had the time, in the end. The Challenge was more important than traipsing after errant cultists I could always find later. Only, there wouldn’t be a later for Naima. I turned away from Harley, wondering where the heck Gaia was. That coward was taking her time.

  “Nothing to say, Katherine?” Harley jeered.

  “You should learn when to keep your mouth shut,” I shot back. “Although, I’ve got to commend you. It seems you’re more like me than you’d care to admit. Removing the hurdles that stand in your way, without being afraid to get your hands dirty—that’s very me, even if you won’t admit it. You could’ve been something tremendous, if you’d chosen the right side. I would have paved the way for you to reach your full potential, but now you’re going to be nothing but a shell, destined to hold my energy for the rest of time. I hope that burns you up inside.”

  Her mouth set in a grim line. “You’ve still got a Child of Chaos to kill. I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you. You’ve had it easy so far, but Gaia is going to stop you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You haven’t been paying attention. That’s very disappointing. Do you think I’d put myself through this if I didn’t know I was going to win? I’m not a fool, Harley. Every risk I take is calculated, and failure is never an option. I haven’t reached this point by blind luck. I know my enemy, and I always know how to defeat them.”

  “You’re all talk, Katherine. You’re frightened, I know you are.”

  I laughed. “Please. I’ve never felt more confident in my entire life.”

  I had to pause as energy surged through me, more powerful than ever. I was getting stronger by the second, the fabric of time and space opening before me, like doors I could walk through whenever I pleased. Bliss pounded through my veins. This was what it must feel like to be a Child of Chaos, to be able to transcend every facet of the universe, bending it to my will. Chaos rules? Pfft, more like my rules. And I was getting tired of waiting for this last challenge, before I could take my throne, once and for all.

  “In lumine chaos ego ad te Gaia. Venite ad me et detrimentum faciat animae tuae est,” I called to Gaia again, changing it up so she couldn’t avoid me any longer. It was part of the Challenge instructions, that if she didn’t come, she automatically forfeited.

  “Well, looks like you got what you asked for,” Harley muttered, her gaze fixed on something behind me.

  I turned as Gaia emerged from behind the crashing waterfall and drifted toward me. What did I say about a flair for the dramatic? Coming out of a waterfall was more conceited than anything I’d ever done. The sight of her threw me for a second, though. She had long red hair and bright green eyes, her face a mirror image of mine. She was even wearing an emerald dress, which annoyed me. Nobody liked showing up to a party in the same outfit as someone else. Only, hers seemed to be a delicate patchwork of leaves and flowers, woven together to look like fabric, ending in a train of gauzy petals that swept across the sea of dead grass. How is she even keeping that together? It wasn’t practical, but I sure as heck wanted one when I took her place.

  “You summoned me,” Gaia said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Did I?” Sarcasm dripped from my words.

  “I do not wish to do this, as I do not believe in violence. But you have left me with no alternative.” Even her voice sounded like mine, only more distant, like it was coming from the crumbling trees around us.

  “Lucky for you, I just love a bit of violence.” I flashed her a defiant grin.

  “Don’t let her win, Gaia,” Harley begged. “Don’t let her win.”

  I threw back my head and laughed, feeling no hint of fear whatsoever. After all, who was more deserving than me?

  Forty-One

  Harley

  In the end, I knew it wasn’t up to Gaia.

  All she could do was fight and try to win, but I had no idea if these two were evenly matched. Katherine was glowing like a purple beacon, turning everything she touched to death, while Gaia was her usual, majestic self.

  “You have Challenged me and I have answered, and so our battle must begin,” Gaia said, dipping her chin to her chest and opening out her arms.

  “Let the best Child of Chaos win,” Katherine shot back, as she followed suit.

  The two women erupted into blasts of blinding light. I squeezed my eyes shut to avoid burning my retinas. Only when the light had faded did I dare to look at what they’d become. Towering over the Garden of Hesperides were two gigantic, humanoid masses of pure energy, churning and fizzing as they faced off. Katherine had turned into a seething swarm of obsidian black peppered with purple sparks, while Gaia had turned into a mass of e
merald green. It was a silly thing to notice, but I knew it would be burning Katherine up inside to see someone else take her favorite color.

  Katherine made the first move. A tentacle of smoky black shot out and grasped one of the ancient spires of the ruins, hurling it right at Gaia. She moved effortlessly out of range, grasping for a chunk of rock from the waterfall and sending it careening into Katherine, who exploded outward, before gathering herself back together.

  They’d become titans, fighting for supremacy. They grabbed for whatever they could find—mountains, clumps of forest, enormous pieces of ruins—and sent them smashing into one another. Sometimes, one of them would get out of the way in time, but sometimes it would barrel into them, sending parts of their teeming masses splintering off before they got drawn back in again. As terrifying as it was, it was freaking mind-blowing to watch.

  “Don’t let her win, Gaia!” I yelled, as I scrambled back toward Jacob, covering him from the falling debris that blasted everywhere. I wanted to protect Louella’s body, and the still-living children, but the cultists had hauled them away to the far edge of the ruins. I’d already been hit by twigs and stones and shards of exploding rock, my body stinging with the impact, but it was nothing compared to the thundering blows these two supernatural beings were raining down on each other. I could feel each one ricocheting through the earth, causing it to crack.

  “Are you trying to tickle me or fight me, Gaia?” Katherine taunted, her voice echoing weirdly from the center of her titan self.

  “Pride comes before a fall, Katherine,” Gaia replied, weirdly calm. Did she know something I didn’t? Because, right now, they looked like they were on even footing.