Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris

by Forrest, Bella

  “Well, then, what are we waiting for?”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” With a mysterious smirk on his face, he led me away from the titans and headed toward the beach in the distance. There was no clear path to wherever we were going, forcing us to push through dense undergrowth and slithering creepers to reach our destination. I shuddered as glowing eyes peered at us through the canopy, making me wonder if Naima kept some of her beasties a little more free range.

  “Isn’t there an easier way to get there?” I muttered, as a branch swiped me in the face.

  Finch laughed. “You want to get spotted by the cameras?”

  “No, obviously.”

  “So quit your whining.”

  I wished we still had Astrid’s camera-tampering device, but trying to sneak in with what we already had was risky enough. And that device wasn’t exactly small. Still, at least we wouldn’t have had to go traipsing through creature-infested rainforest. I was admittedly glad to have Finch’s sharp sense of direction and his knowledge of the cult’s intricate layout.

  We stumbled out of the rainforest about fifteen minutes later, finding ourselves in a secluded inlet of the island’s beautiful beach. Ahead sat a huge beach house, with white-washed walls and balconies stretching out from every window. A porch wrapped around the entire ground floor, with swinging loveseats and wicker armchairs. It didn’t exactly fit with what I’d imagined Katherine’s private residence to look like, given how… well, nice it was.

  “This way,” Finch whispered. I followed him along a seashell path toward the back of the house, where he ducked down to unearth the doors of a storm shelter. It was hidden behind some huge potted palm trees, which he quickly shoved out of the way. Working his magic on the lock, he opened the right-hand door and slipped inside, with me hurrying after him.

  It turned out that the storm shelter had been made into some kind of wine cellar, with rows upon rows of dusty, expensive-looking bottles lining the walls. There were wooden boxes, too, which seemed to whisper to me as I went past. Grimoires? Whatever they were, I wasn’t going to get the chance to take a closer look, since Finch was already heading for the door out of there.

  He opened it and peered into the hallway beyond before beckoning for me to follow him. We tiptoed down the darkened corridor, eventually reaching a narrow set of wooden stairs and heading up them. With every step I made, paranoia gripped me. One misplaced foot, one creak, and we’d be done for. Finch didn’t seem nearly as bothered. He pushed open the door at the top and took another look around.

  In silence, we escaped the subterranean depths of Katherine’s house and entered the main body of it. I gasped at the beautiful kitchen spread out before me, with a granite-topped breakfast island and walls that had been tiled with sea glass and mother-of-pearl. Everything looked way too quaint and pretty to be Katherine’s, but then, what was I expecting? Dungeons, chains, fire, and brimstone?

  Key? I mouthed to Finch.

  He frowned and shook his head, pointing farther up the hallway. I rolled my eyes and followed him.

  Finch led me out into the main hall, where calming seascapes adorned the bird-egg blue walls. A wide staircase led up to the first floor, the steps seemingly carved from reclaimed driftwood, but it didn’t look as though we were headed that way. Instead, Finch ushered me down the main hall toward a room at the very back of the house. As we edged along, I peered into the other rooms we passed. There was an elegant lounge behind one, with huge sofas and an endless array of books, and a bathroom with a tub the size of a pool and a rainforest shower that I would’ve given anything to stand under.

  We stopped beside the last door in the hallway, which was partially closed. I ducked down beside Finch, the two of us crouched low. From inside, I could hear the rumble of a familiar voice. Katherine’s voice. And, while I couldn’t quite see her, I could make out the bedroom through the gap in the doorway. It was dimly lit, the windows shrouded in gauzy curtains. And, instead of a bed, there was a casket of some kind, set in the center of the room. What the heck? Is she a vampire or something?

  The casket had glass walls instead of the usual wood—and there was a man inside. He looked ancient, his skin purplish and wrinkled like a raisin, his body unmoving.

  I glanced at Finch and opened my mouth, but he lifted a finger to his lips. If I said a word, Katherine would hear us, even though she seemed pretty intent on enjoying her “personal time” with whoever this dead guy was.

  “I thought of you today, Grandfather,” she said softly. “It has been a good day—one you’d be proud of.”

  Oh my God, that’s Drake Shipton! The realization smacked me in the face, making me feel sick. How long had that guy been dead? And why did Katherine have him in her bedroom? This was all getting a bit too Psycho for me.

  “We had two new members join today. You’d like them, particularly the girl. That goes without saying, huh? She’s got fire in her belly, that’s for sure, but I’ll have to keep my eye on both of them. Bold is good, but I can’t have it getting us in trouble.” She paused. “The rest are out collecting artifacts and rare magicals to add to our ranks. Everything is going as planned, and each day I take a step closer to fulfilling your dream, on your behalf. You might not be able to become a Child of Chaos, but I will… for you. I’ve only managed to get this far because of you, Grandfather. I won’t disappoint you now.”

  This was beyond creepy, even for Katherine. She had her grandfather’s body in a glass case and was telling him about her day, insisting this was all for him and not for her own self-gratification. I had to be partially thankful that he was behind a glass case, and she wasn’t snuggling up to him or sitting in his lap to tell him everything. I shuddered and realized we should probably get out of here before Katherine finished up her game of show-and-tell.

  Where’s the key? I mouthed.

  Not here, Finch replied.

  Terrified we’d get caught, I pointed to the kitchen, at the top of the hallway, and Finch nodded. If there was no key, then we were going to have to get into the library the old-fashioned way—through the front door. Guards or no guards. Moving stealthily away from the door, we made a quick exit, running back through the wine cellar and the storm doors, and back into the relative safety of the rainforest.

  Pausing to catch my breath, I stared up at Finch. “What in the name of everything that is ordinary and normal was that?”

  He laughed. “I did warn you.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t warn me I was going to see Katherine yakking to a freaking corpse!”

  “Not technically a corpse.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes, Finch. That was a dead guy! And, since she was calling him ‘Grandfather,’ I can only assume it was Drake Shipton. Geez, man, you could have prepared me, at least.” I sank down on the ground as a wave of nausea crashed over me.

  “Oh, it’s so much more messed up than that. He’s not dead, he’s just half dead. Katherine had him resurrected a while back, for ‘emotional comfort.’ That purple color to his skin is where the Necromancy went wrong. When he died, he ordered her to lock his spirit to the earth, same way Hester’s is, so she’d be able to bring him back in the future. But the Necromancer botched it, when the time came, and that shriveled prune up there is the result,” he explained. “Katherine was so mad at the Necromancer that she killed him. So, now there are only four left. One of them being Alton. Not that she’ll ever get her hands on him.”

  I realized that Finch didn’t know just how close Katherine had come to pulling Alton’s strings, but it didn’t seem like the time to mention it. Instead, I focused on Finch’s story and tried not to hurl at the idea of a botched Necromancy. Not to mention Katherine dragging her grandpa back from the dead for some “emotional comfort.” How messed up could this woman get?

  If what Finch said was correct, then Katherine had killed the only Necromancer she had in her ranks. Poor guy. That was a lose-lose situation if ever I’d seen one. Anyway, it meant she was likely
on the lookout for another. That was why she wanted Micah. It made sense now. Although, she’d agreed to let Micah go, so maybe she wasn’t that desperate after all. She probably figured she could get Micah back when she became a Child of Chaos. Either that, or she already had a different Necromancer in her sights, whom she could persuade into joining the cult.

  “How long had Drake been dead when she resurrected him?” I asked, standing up again. I doubted I’d ever forget what I’d just seen, but at least I didn’t want to throw up anymore.

  “At least fifteen years. Nobody has ever been brought back after being dead for so long, even with their spirit locked to the earth. His body was kept on ice, per his request, but it was still a little… ripe. It’s one of the stupider things Katherine has done,” Finch replied bitterly. “What did she think was going to happen? Of course it got botched and she ended up with a raisin. It was never going to work. I told her that. Then again, she can get a little irrational when it comes to personal stuff.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Well, anything related to the Shiptons and the Merlins just sends her over the edge. Big time. Like, the kind of explosion you want to run the hell away from.”

  “Are we talking about the same Katherine here? Calm, calculated, cool-as-a-cucumber Katherine?” Up until our last encounter, when Katherine had tried to kill me, she’d always been eerily serene and collected whenever we’d happened across one another, and I was both Shipton and Merlin. “I figured she just viewed me as the human equivalent of a stone in her shoe. Annoying, but nothing to lose your mind over.”

  Finch snorted. “She hates you most of all, Sis. All of that cool-as-a-cucumber stuff is just a façade. Whenever anyone mentions your name, even in passing, she bottles it all up until she’s gathered up so much anger that she bursts. You wouldn’t want to be around when that happens. That’s when the death rate in this place spikes.” He smiled. “So, yeah, she’s got an irrational streak when it comes to family. She just doesn’t show it often, least of all to you—the one who pisses her off the most.”

  I supposed that made sense. Why would she show me just how much she hated me, when I could use that against her? Katherine didn’t want anyone to know she had a weakness, but it looked as if I’d just discovered hers.

  Thirty

  Harley

  I kept looking for a chance to catch Tess on her own, but she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth—or at least Eris Island.

  Three days had passed with no sign of her, but our last encounter had served as a warning: we needed to be more careful about where we went and how stealthy we were while looking for Hester’s spirit. However, time was running out. Stealth was starting to get pushed to the bottom of the priority list, and my stress levels were rocketing through the roof. I felt useless. And, what was worse, I kept having all-consuming panic attacks about what would happen if we failed. It had happened twice before; it could happen again.

  Since we weren’t yet being trusted to go on field missions, not much had happened in the last few days. The major players, so to speak, were out in the real world, working on Katherine’s behalf, giving us the opportunity to explore the island a little more, in the hopes of finding a way into that library. The giant clock loomed over our heads, ticking down to All Hallows’ Eve. But we still hadn’t managed to come up with a way to divert the guards at the library door, and I was starting to wonder if we’d actually be able to do this.

  The only good thing was that Finch knew his way around, including which areas to avoid if we didn’t want to get spotted by the cameras that were fixed, seemingly at random, around the metal walkways. So that was one less thing to worry about, as we tried to eavesdrop on the passing guards to find out who might be on duty, and at what times. We figured that, if we could somehow slip in while there was a changing of the guard, we might stand a chance. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity hadn’t arisen yet, and that hefty clock was ticking toward the eleventh hour.

  Each morning, we discussed our plan of action and separated for a couple of hours, coming back together at lunchtime. Our sole purpose was to get into the Drake Shipton Library and pray Hester’s spirit was there, and, so far, we’d come up with nothing useful. I’d spent most of my solo time feeding reverse Empathy into some of the cult members who looked important, trying to coax out some information about whether or not they’d been in the Drake Shipton Library and what they might have seen there. Unfortunately, nobody could say, with any real certainty, that my mom’s spirit was actually in there.

  I had managed to find out that the “ingredient” that had been mentioned before, by those guards, was actually the raw materials to make a weapon, which stuck in my gut like a blade. But we could only deal with one thing at a time, as much as that pained me.

  “You get anything from anyone today?” Finch asked, as I met him on the way back from the cluster of beehives.

  I shrugged. “Nothing to do with the spirit. But I did manage to find out from one of the senior members that Kenneth’s team was sent to the Smithsonian to steal some rare artifacts from the Egyptian collection, and Naima’s team was sent to a spell repository in Berlin to steal a bunch of famous Grimoires. Apparently, Katherine is working with a German splinter cell and a Belgian unit to infiltrate the European Council, and has people working for her in most of the major European cities. She’s like a big, fat spider sitting at the center of a web—I mean, this thing stretches even farther than we thought. Plus, I’m guessing that’s how they knew where the Librarian ended up.” The thought made my blood boil. “Anyway, they’re expected back any day. No word on where Tess has gotten to, though, which is annoying.”

  “You still want to confront her about being the mole?”

  “Yeah, she might be able to help us out. But she seems to have vanished into thin air. I’ve asked around, but none of the seniors have seen her, and nobody’s heard anything about her being sent on a last-minute mission. So, either she’s avoiding us, or something has happened to her.”

  “We’d only be wasting time trying to pry anything out of her. Besides, you can’t be entirely sure it’s her. Maybe you got it wrong.” Finch suddenly pointed to a figure walking along one of the walkways above our heads. “See, that’s probably your real mole, right there! I’d stake my pants on it. If nothing else, he might know where Tess is.”

  Shinsuke walked alone, his head down, moving quickly along the suspended path. I tried to send my Empathy toward him to get a feel for his emotions, but he was too far away.

  “Why your pants?” I pulled a face.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It was the first thing I thought of. Let’s just stick with the twenty dollars. No pants necessary. If Shinsuke’s our man, you owe me. If Tess is our woman, I owe you. Now, come on, he’s getting away, and I’ve got some questions for our little friend.”

  “He’s hardly little, Finch. He’s got arms bigger than your head, which is no easy task.”

  “Pfft, let’s not forget who floored whom in the arena.”

  I smirked. “He didn’t have an Esprit full of neurotoxin.”

  “Hey, a win’s a win. Now, hurry your ass up before we lose him.” He set off up one of the sloping walkways, half running to catch up to Shinsuke. My gut told me I was right about Tess, but I figured talking to Shinsuke wouldn’t be such a bad idea. After all, him not being the mole didn’t mean he wasn’t still eager to get out of this place, and we could use all the allies we could get.

  We followed him all the way to one of the distant clusters of the beehive structures. I hadn’t been this far into the rainforest, but Tess had informed us that the training halls were around here. I guessed Shinsuke needed to blow off some steam.

  Together, Finch and I entered the nearest beehive and found that it was separated into two floors, with two training pods on either side. They reminded me of squash courts, with glass panels offering some seclusion to solo trainers, while others could watch from the sidel
ines. However, right now, nobody was in here except Shinsuke. He’d taken the farthest pod on the bottom floor and was in the middle of a warm-up with his impressive swords.

  Finch rapped on the glass. “Hey, you want some company?”

  Shinsuke tilted his head. “If you need someone to spar with.”

  “Sure. I want to see those swords in action again.” Finch grinned, but Shinsuke could barely muster a smile. Now that I was closer to him, I sensed the perpetual undercurrent of fear and concern within him, and it had nothing to do with Finch. He hated this place, I could tell.

  “Do you mind if I join in?” I asked. “I didn’t get the chance to fight you last time, and I’d be interested to see you work.”

  Shinsuke nodded. “The more the merrier, I suppose.”

  We gathered in a triangle and started small. I let Finch go first. He began by using small bursts of Fire, in an attempt to preserve whatever he had left in his Ephemera. Mine was going strong, but I’d noticed Finch’s gem fading slightly. Shinsuke didn’t seem to notice that the world-renowned Firestarter was being overly cautious, as he started to twirl his swords through the air, swiping in a blur of steel. I pushed my reverse Empathy toward him. I wanted him to feel remorse and nostalgia, and I sent through my own sad feelings about Hiro Nomura, to get the right emotions flowing.

  A moment later, a tear trickled down Shinsuke’s cheek. He brushed it away as quickly as he could, but not before I’d spotted it. My reverse Empathy was working great. All those sessions with Wade were paying off, even though I’d hated making my boyfriend cry. It wasn’t any easier with Shinsuke. He was tough and stoic by nature, and seeing him tear up was difficult to stomach, even if it opened him up to giving us the answers we wanted.

  “Your dad doesn’t have that cool Magneton-Earth ability, does he?” I started off the questions, knowing how to get right to Shinsuke’s core. His father was a sore spot, but also one that was easy to manipulate.