I ran a hand through my hair, only to find I had little, and gave myself a mental kick. I’m still Tess, idiot. I’d been in such a panic over Finch that I’d forgotten to shift right before entering. That would have backfired if Tess had been in the room.
Then it hit me. Finch was worried about me. He’d called me back because he didn’t like me being out there on my own.
Saying nothing, I closed my eyes and shifted back into the form of Volla Mazinov. The new energy still thrummed inside me, powered up by my extra Chaos and clinging on for dear life… I knew I couldn’t risk doing this again, in spite of my urge to look around. Until all of this was over, I’d have to stick with Volla, now, for both of our sakes. If I failed, he failed.
In the tense silence that followed, I took a moment to think about my odd new relationship with my half-brother. Was Finch’s concern for me purely about not compromising the mission, or was it something more than that? Was it some fledgling brotherly streak in him, some urge to protect me? Is your heart growing a couple sizes, Grinch?
I wasn’t going to let him see me softening up toward him, even if I was. I still didn’t trust him completely. Not yet. And maybe not ever. He’d yet to fully prove himself, to the point where I could forget all the bad things he’d done, and I didn’t honestly know if he’d ever be able to.
“What’s the time?” I changed the subject. Delving too deep into emotions wasn’t the kind of thing I needed at the minute, with so much going on.
He rolled over to check the clock on the bedside table. “Two a.m.”
“So we’ve got a couple hours until morning.” I walked to the other bed and lay down on the covers. There was no use changing out of my clothes, since they were pretty much stuck to me. “We should get some sleep before dawn. I’ve got a nasty feeling this third trial is going to kick our asses.”
I turned over before he could answer and tried very hard not to think of what was to come.
* * *
Darkness surrounded me on all sides, with a thin sliver of anemic light casting a sickly pool down onto me. Around the edges of the faint light, creatures snapped and drooled, jaws and glittering eyes flashing in the shadows. Howls pierced the air, sending a shiver of dread up my spine. Claws raked at my legs and leathery wings flapped out of sight, all these beasts desperate for a taste of me. And I was struggling to hold them off.
A flicker of movement caught my eye. Someone was coming toward me in the dim light. Finch… The monsters didn’t touch him. Instead, they parted like water to let him through, bowing on their paws as he passed by to reach me. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words faded on my lips as another figure appeared behind Finch.
Katherine Shipton breezed through the monsters as if they weren’t even there. I didn’t know if it was the darkness or something else, but she looked different, like she was actually bringing light with her. As she got closer, I realized that was precisely what she was doing. The ethereal glow was coming from inside her, illuminating her skin with a pulsing, bronze light. The way she moved, she resembled some goddess, bright and beautiful and serene, unfazed by anything happening around her.
Finch smiled at me as he neared. “It’s going to be okay.”
I wanted to scream, to tell him to watch out for the figure behind him, but the words wouldn’t come. My mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. I was mute… and Katherine was getting nearer by the second. Finch seemed totally oblivious to her presence, and I didn’t know what to do to get him to see her. I tried to move forward, but a claw swiped at my ankle, and I stumbled. He was so close, but I couldn’t reach him.
Katherine entered the pool of light. If she got her hands on us, we’d never make it out of this monster pit alive. I wasn’t fooled for a second by her godlike appearance. Even Lucifer had been an angel once, and Katherine was far worse in my books.
She came up behind him and leaned toward his ear. Her mouth moved in a whisper, and I couldn’t hear what she was saying. A moment later, Finch smiled back at me and took a knife from his pocket. His eyes were fixed on mine, his smile turning sour and strange. The blade flashed in the glow of Katherine’s ethereal light, and realization dawned. He was going to kill me. She’d given the order, and he was going to execute me on the spot.
Finch stepped toward me, but I couldn’t move. My limbs were completely frozen. I couldn’t do anything to stop him or defend myself. This was it. After everything I’d been through, and everything I’d done to try and stop Katherine, I was about to die. Finch was under her spell again, and my death was the only thing in his mind.
He put his hand on my shoulder and rested the tip of the blade against my chest, between two ribs. I tried to cry out as he leaned in, the full weight of his body pushing pressure against the blade as he moved to embrace me, but I couldn’t breathe a word.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered in my ear, the blade lodged in my chest. “This will all be over soon.”
I woke up with a start, blinking up at the ceiling overhead. My body was drenched in sweat, my lungs clawing for breath as I looked around. I didn’t recognize anything, prompting panic to make my heart race even faster. Why wasn’t I in my room at the SDC? Where was I? What was going on?
You’re in the Cult of Eris. Relax. I sat up sharply and noticed that multiple objects were hovering in the room: a lampshade, a clock, a potted plant, and a couple of cushions. I glanced at the bed opposite and saw Finch sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at me as if I’d just grown snakes for hair. He wasn’t saying anything, which was even more unnerving. It wasn’t like him to be silent.
“It’s my Telekinesis,” I said sheepishly, as I brought the objects back down. “It acts up sometimes when I’m sleeping.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You’re lucky I got rid of those spying hexes.”
“I know.” I shook off the last of the tension in my muscles and tried to relax. “It usually happens if I’m having a nightmare. I can’t stop it.”
He nodded. “When did it start?”
“After my Suppressor broke.”
“Figures. All that power inside you needs a way to manifest, balance or not.” He smiled. “You’ve got a doozy of a heritage from Hester and Hiram. No wonder you’re having… floating issues.” A note of bitterness lingered in his voice.
“I could say the same about you, with Hiram and Katherine, but I don’t see you making things hover in your sleep.” I cast him a wry smile, but he didn’t seem to be in the mood for jokes.
“I was destined to go down a dark path. It’s in my blood to be bad. You got lucky with your goody-two-shoes parents. Seriously, you’ve got no idea what it’s like, trying to fight your own nature.”
I thought about the pills that he had to take for his psychosis and wondered if that was part of what he meant. He thought those issues had stemmed from a hex, after all. Katherine had used his mental health struggles against him, just adding to the vast list of terrible things she’d done. I wanted to reassure him that his psychosis didn’t mean he was bad, by any means, because it was as much a part of him as the blood in his veins. It wasn’t put there. It had always been in him, which wasn’t easy to live with, or to come to terms with.
I held his saddened gaze. “Goody-two-shoes? Come on, Hiram and Hester weren’t perfect at all. You know that as well as I do,” I said. “At the end of the day, it’s got nothing to do with how good or evil your family is. If you check the family tree close enough, you’ll see there’s a bunch of both—good, bad, and everything in between. It’s not about blood; it’s about what you do with your abilities, when you’re called upon to use them. It’s your choice, not your bloodline’s. You make your fate, not them.”
“Nice after-school special there, Harley,” he replied, with a cold laugh.
“I mean it.”
“You can say that because you know our dad was hexed, so he wasn’t really that bad, and your mother was a saint. They were like a celebrity couple, your parents.” He pa
used. “Do you remember anything about our father?”
I nodded slowly. “Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well… I’ve got a couple of memories of him, but I’ve only ever remembered them in weird, dream-like situations. I was little in both of them, probably around two or three. He was throwing me up into the air in one of them, and he was smiling. In the other, he was watching me sleep and talking about how he was going to protect me.” I dropped my chin to my chest. “He sacrificed himself for me. And, someday, I’ll clear his name.”
Finch gave a wry smile. “Nice guy, huh?”
“Yeah. I was trying to catch these silver fish in this stream, and he was helping me. He kept laughing each time I missed, and it was infectious.” I closed my eyes to try and remember my Euphoria dream more clearly. I’d clung to it ever since it had come to me, and I’d vowed never to let it go. It was all I had of him, other than the first dream, where he’d stood with Isadora, discussing how they could save me.
“And… he loved you?” The desperate tone of his voice made my heart break.
“He really did. At least, I think he did. From what Isadora has told me, he didn’t want to let go of me, but he knew he had to. I think he would’ve been happy to run with me for the rest of my life, but he couldn’t risk Katherine catching up and killing us both. Even if it was just to make amends for what he did to my mother. I suppose, in a way, he gave everything so that I could live.” Sudden tears filled my eyes, and I tried to wipe them away as discreetly as possible. My feelings surrounding Hiram were always in conflict. I’d seen him with me on that riverbank, and I’d had his note with me for as long as I could remember, before I gave it to Marie Laveau, both of those things reminding me that he’d loved me. But that could never fully blot out the knowledge that he’d killed my mother—curse or no curse.
“What did he look like?”
I glanced at him. “His hair was black, but we’ve got his eyes. You have his nose, and if you turn in a certain light, you’ve got the same jawline. He was tall, too. I guess that might’ve been my perspective as a kid, but he seemed like a giant to me.”
“I wonder what he’d think of the way we turned out,” he said quietly.
“I think he’d be impressed we’re in the same room together. I think he’d be grateful that you’re watching out for me. And I think he’d be happy that I was watching out for you, too. He abandoned us both, in a way, but I don’t know if he would have done that if he hadn’t been cursed, or if he’d thought he could fight Katherine. I suppose I’ll never know for sure, but I always try and convince myself that he wouldn’t.” I paused, not knowing whether to continue. “He’d probably have fought for you, too, if he thought he could win.”
“You think?” His tone brightened slightly.
I nodded. “I’m pretty sure that was the kind of guy he was. He made mistakes, sure, but he also understood that there were consequences for his actions. He’d have been in your life if Katherine had let him.”
“I wish I’d known him.” He sighed heavily. “Even just an hour alone in a room with him. It’s weird not to know what your father even sounds like.”
“He had a deep, comforting voice. I’d play it to you if I had a recording.” If I could’ve reached into my head and plucked out the memory for him, I would’ve. “Did Katherine ever tell you anything about him?”
He snorted. “She told me everything she wanted me to hear. She definitely never described him the way you just did.”
“What did she tell you?”
He shrugged. “That he was a selfish, cruel, cold man who didn’t give a damn about me or her. She told me he’d demanded she get rid of me when he found out she was pregnant. I believed every word. All my life, I thought he was this evil figure in Katherine’s past who’d destroyed her life in every way he could. It made things easier to handle, I suppose, when I found out he’d been killed.”
I thought of all the things he’d said about Hiram after the gargoyle attack and during my visits to Purgatory. His hatred of Hiram had been palpable, as if he loathed our dad with every fiber of his being. Now, it sort of made sense. He’d been fed poison by his mother to make her own evil seem less horrifying.
“He wasn’t like that,” I said, shocked. “He’d never have asked Katherine to do that. He’d have cared, if he’d been given the chance.”
“I’m starting to think you might be right.”
A knock at the door made us both jump out of our skin. I was already in Volla’s form, and Finch quickly shifted into Pieter Mazinov as the door handle turned. It opened a moment later, revealing Naima and Tess. They didn’t need to speak; we knew why they were here.
Dawn had arrived, and the third trial awaited us.
Twenty-Four
Finch
The trials had changed since I was last here. I had no idea what we were heading into. But, judging by what we’d already gone through, it wasn’t going to be a slice of pie. Potential death, imminent death, and more death were pretty much the options.
Dawn streaked across the interdimensional bubble, bolts of pink and red shooting through wisps of cloud, turning the purplish haze to a clear blue. Aside from the occasional storm, this place could be mistaken for paradise. Katherine had chosen well. And so had my great-grandfather, all those years ago. Drake Shipton had more islands to his name than the East India Trading Company used to have. All the places that the National Council had no clue about. I’d have liked to have met the guy, just to test the mettle of his gigantic balls.
As soon as we headed down the main walkway, I realized where we were going—the same disc of black glass where I’d put Shinsuke on his ass. The Red Robes were already sitting in wait. Bunch of sheep. I noticed a few hungover faces in the crowd and smirked. Not that much had changed since I left this place. The cult worked hard and played hard. And while some got their kicks turning humans into mutants, others were a bit more traditional. Booze and music and long nights.
My guts almost erupted from my throat when I noticed the figure sitting in one of the stone thrones. In the gloomy half-dawn, I’d almost missed her.
Ah, Mother… there you are.
I’d been wondering when we might meet again. She didn’t like to fraternize too much with the underlings, but she showed up every now and again to light a fire under everyone’s backside.
I glanced at Harley. She was staring dead ahead, her eyes narrowing. Easy, tiger. Don’t give the game away. I rested a hand on her forearm to remind her we had to keep it cool. She gave a subtle nod and dropped her gaze. This wasn’t going to be a walk in the park for either of us. It’d take every ounce of strength we had, combined, not to try anything stupid.
“This is the third trial,” Naima said, prompting us to halt in the center of the black disc. “No fighting, no taming, merely an interview with our divine leader. If she takes kindly to one or both of you, then you will live, and you will take your place among us. If she does not, then you will die by Death by a Thousand Cuts.”
There it is, the death clause.
“Relax,” I whispered to Harley. She was shaking now. Most likely with rage rather than fear, but it could’ve been a mix of both.
“Easy for you to say.” She kept her gaze down.
This was going to be an awkward conversation. And that was putting it mildly. I’d have taken a golem and another round with Shinsuke over this, any day of the week. Why had Katherine picked this as the third trial? She was a blood and gore kind of woman, and this had none of the above. This was creepily intimate and deeply unsettling. Maybe it had something to do with how I got caught, and how the Ryder twins were outed. We’d been her prize soldiers, and we’d failed. Maybe now she wanted to select members personally, to make sure she got the right people. To avoid those kinds of failures again. Failures like me.
Or Kenneth Willow. I smirked at the thought. Harley had mumbled something about that sad sack in her sleep. Something about him being part of the r
ituals. I couldn’t, for the life of me, think of any reason why Kenneth would be part of any of them. Where did he fit in? A jumped-up hex-thrower with a ridiculous bowtie and a puffed-up ego?
The dweeb himself was currently swooning over the sight of his beloved leader. He almost had anime eyes, he was gazing at her so lovingly. Harley and I weren’t even on his radar, not with Katherine in the vicinity.
Still, I was dying to know what Katherine thought of me now. But I guessed I’d never find out. This wasn’t the time for a mother-son heart-to-heart.
Pushed forward by Naima, Harley and I made our way to the edge of the black disc and bowed before Katherine. An amused smile turned up the corners of her lips. She was dressed in an emerald-green gown that made her look like a Celtic queen, her red hair in a braid over her shoulder. A gold circlet sat on her head, finishing the I’m-an-almighty-goddess look.
“Remember who you are, okay?” I glanced at Harley, in case she needed reminding.
She nodded. “Nothing else matters.”
Naima and Tess had already stepped away from us, making the encounter all the more intimate. Yeah, there were a bunch of people watching, but it was really just us and her, her and us. She tapped her fingers impatiently on the arm of her throne and looked over us both, her eyes drawing in a first impression. Her face was hard to read. It always had been. She constantly wore this dark, amused expression. I’d only seen her lose her cool a handful of times, and the memories weren’t something I wanted to repeat.
Steeling myself, I held her gaze. My muscles were wound so tight I felt like I was dangling off a cliff, holding on for dear life. Which, in a way, I sort of was. This was Katherine Shipton. My mother. The woman who wanted me dead. The woman who gave birth to me. The woman who wanted to destroy her own creation because she hated it so much. The only person on this planet who knew and understood my whole life. She’d shaped it with her own hands, after all. She’d manipulated everything. She’d shown me what she wanted me to see, whether it was about my dad, or the world, or the limits of my own power.
Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris Page 19