Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris

by Forrest, Bella

  Her wispy hands sailed right through my shoulders, leaving a chill. I’d never know how warm she was, in real life. This was all I got, and I had to remind myself to be grateful. I could have gone on for the rest of my life without even seeing her, but at least I had this moment.

  “Don’t blame your father, Harley. He did what he could to try and stop himself, but she was too strong. That curse she used on him was too powerful,” she said, her tone desperately sad. “He managed to save you because Katherine wasn’t there at the time. She didn’t know anything about you, and Hiram used that opportunity to take you away while she was busy elsewhere.”

  “Was Katherine there when he… when he killed you?” I asked.

  My mom nodded. “His proximity to her meant he couldn’t fight off the curse. She was the source, and she was in the room when it happened. She trapped my spirit as soon as Hiram killed me, because she was hiding in the shadows.”

  “Why didn’t she kill you herself? If she hated you so much, why didn’t she—” My voice broke.

  She gave me a sympathetic smile. “It was precisely because she hated me so much that she wanted to watch me die at the hands of the person I loved most. And she wanted to punish me, even after I was gone.”

  “I’ll rip her freaking head off.” I wanted to use much stronger language, but this was my mom. I didn’t want to give her a bad impression of the woman I’d become.

  She chuckled sadly. “You are strong, Harley, stronger than any of us who’ve gone before you. I suppose I knew you’d be extraordinary, even before you were born. I thought it was just a mother’s pride, you know, thinking my child was better than everyone else’s. But you are. You’re strong and fierce and kind and good, and that’s all I could’ve asked for.”

  “I’ve missed you so much.” I choked on the words, my vision blurry. “Every day, I wondered what I’d done wrong, to get dropped at some orphanage. But, even then, I missed you. I didn’t know who you were, but I missed you so much. It was like a huge hole in my heart that I couldn’t fill up. And then, I found out who you were, and what had happened, and that hole got so much bigger. I knew I’d never be able to fill it up, because you’d been taken from me, and you were never coming back from that. What made it worse was the fact that I knew, after all that time, that I’d actually been loved. I’d spent so long thinking nobody loved me and nobody cared, but that wasn’t the truth at all.” I sank to the ground, struggling to breathe. It felt like I was having an all-out panic attack. My chest had seized up, my heart pounding, my throat narrow.

  “Oh, Harley.” Her voice made it all the more painful. I could feel the agony flowing away from her, wrapping around my heart, squeezing the air out of my lungs. This was so much harder than I’d ever imagined. “If I could have changed it all, I would’ve. If I could’ve killed Katherine, or stopped her in some way, I would’ve done everything in my power to do that. But know this: you’ve always been loved, even though it had to be from afar. You’ve always been right here, every day of your life.” She pressed her wispy hand to her breast, her face so sad that it broke me all over again.

  “Then why did you let him kill you? Why didn’t you fight?” The tears kept flowing down my face.

  “I didn’t have the strength to fight him,” she replied. “I’d given birth to you, and I’d hidden you away. I had nothing left to give. But, even when he killed me, I knew he didn’t want to. I could see it in his eyes as he held my gaze, right up until the last moment. He was crying when it happened, and his hands were shaking, as if he was trying to fight back. If she hadn’t been there, he would have defeated that curse. He loved me, and he loved you, and he loved the world we’d created together. He’d been so excited about meeting you, and he used to talk all the time about what we’d be like as a family. It was all he’d ever wanted.”

  “Then why did he leave me?” All of my insecurities were bubbling to the surface.

  “To save you, sweetheart. You know that. He had to, so that you could live. If Katherine had ever found out about you while you were a child, she would’ve murdered you. He had no choice. He loved you so much. He used to press his ear to my belly while you were growing and sing to you, and tell you all the things he was going to buy you, and all the things you were going to do together as you grew up.”

  I held my head in my hands. “He could’ve found a way to break Katherine’s spell.”

  “I know this is hard for you, but you can’t blame him,” she urged, her phantom hands drifting through me again. This time, I felt the cold echo of her touch on my cheek. “He loved you. We both loved you with all our hearts. I remember looking down at you when you were first born. Even then, you were a determined little thing. You had this scowl on your face, and it made me laugh so hard. I didn’t get a long time with you, but I savored every moment. I kissed you all over your pudgy little face and munched your little hands and held you so tight. I remember you falling asleep on my chest, listening to my heartbeat. That’s the memory I’ve kept the closest, all these years.”

  “I wish we’d had longer,” I murmured.

  “Me, too. More than anything.”

  “Did you know I’d be like this?” I looked up at her, my muscles relaxing slightly, at least enough to drag in a decent lungful of air.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you know I’d be powerful like this?”

  She smiled. “We weren’t sure. Given our heritage, I presumed you’d be special, but there was always the chance that my side and Hiram’s would counteract each other and you’d end up either Mediocre or magicless.”

  “I’d still have come here, to find you.”

  “I know you would’ve, honey. That’s the woman you’ve become.” She paused for a moment. “There’s just one thing that troubles me.”

  “What’s that?”

  She sighed. “I can sense the conflict in you, between Light and Dark. You’ve been having some problems with it, I’m guessing?”

  “That’s putting it mildly.” I managed a wry chuckle.

  “The thing is, when it comes to your Darkness, you’ll always have trouble taming it. Even without the Light competing for power, you’d have had problems controlling it. That’s always been the way with the Shipton family,” she explained. “The secret to getting it to do what you want, when you want, is to feed it when it demands feeding.”

  “That explains all of the wild things I’ve been doing lately.” Controlling Purge beasts, for one.

  She nodded. “If you don’t feed it, it’ll fight to gain control. And if you’re not careful, it can end up controlling you. My sister is the perfect example. Although, with her, it’s more a case of overfeeding.”

  I was about to ask for more information when a portal tore open in front of me, blasting me with a rush of cold air. Isadora staggered through the hole a moment later, looking pale and exhausted. She barely acknowledged Hester’s spirit as she stooped to catch her breath.

  “Isadora, what’s wrong?” I jumped up, hurrying toward her.

  She looked up at me with worried eyes. “We’ve got a problem.”

  Too right we did. Finch was alone in an office with his mother, and there was every chance that he’d snap and reveal himself. Or worse, that Katherine would be able to get him back on the cultist train. She’d done it before, and despite the progress Finch had made, there was still that lost little boy in him who was just desperate to have a mother.

  Thirty-Seven

  Finch

  “So, you see the colossal mess Tess has left me in?” Katherine said.

  She’d been yakking on about Tess’s responsibilities for the last half hour. Tess had had her hands full, that was for sure. The list of responsibilities was as long as my arm, and to be honest, I’d already forgotten half of them. I just had to make sure it looked like I was listening. Playing the role of Pieter Mazinov to Oscar-worthy perfection.

  “Quite the stink, yeah.”

  Katherine nodded. “Now, let’s g
et down to the important stuff. All these duties are secondary to the third ritual, which I need to get off the ground ASAP. Tartarus is going to be a bitch, I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s Erebus’s domain, so it was never going to be a picnic. It’s just irritating, because I was relying on Tess to get everything ready for our Bestiary snatch so we could get going with the fourth ritual as soon as this one’s over. I need Echidna, and the Bestiary has Echidna, but now I’ve lost my way in, so to speak. Ergo, I’m in a bit of a fix, which is where you come in. I knew Electros were tricky, but this takes the cake.”

  The great and mighty Oz has no other solutions? You disappoint me, Mother.

  “Don’t you have a backup plan?”

  She smiled. “Of course I’ve got other solutions. Not that I’m against advice, if you’ve got any pearls of wisdom to hurl my way?”

  My blood was boiling. This was the longest I’d been alone in a room with Katherine since before I got shuffled off to Purgatory, so focus was proving difficult. All I could think about were a million ways to kill her and remove the evidence, before anyone even knew she was dead.

  “I’m as stumped as you. I’d need to know more details,” I replied.

  “If you needed to break into a Bestiary, how would you do it?”

  I shrugged. “I might use a Gemini device, if I had one. They can work pretty well, and you don’t necessarily need to put them somewhere yourself. You can have someone else do it and trigger the other end from the outside.” I figured it was a relatively innocent answer to give. Katherine would just assume someone in the cult had told me about it.

  Her eyes widened suddenly. “A Gemini device?”

  “Yeah, they’re not too hard to get ahold of.”

  “You’ve used one before?”

  “We were taught about them by the secret services. Same way I learned how to use that replay spell.”

  She paused. “But, you know, those replay spells aren’t always accurate. They can be manipulated, if the user is skilled enough, right?”

  What was she getting at?

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve always thought they were dead on. Not much you can do to doctor them.”

  She smiled. “No, I suppose not. You must’ve been around a lot of great magicals in St. Petersburg?”

  “A few.”

  “Name some for me,” she said.

  “Konstantin Rasputin, for one. Marina Skoptsy. Zlatan Selivanov. They all moved in our circles.” I had to think fast on my feet.

  “Noble company indeed. I’ve been trying to get Konstantin for years.”

  I chuckled. “He’s evasive. Comes with the territory, I guess.”

  “So, humor me again for a moment—how would you do it?” she asked.

  “Huh? You mean break into the Bestiary?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, I mean how would you kill me, if you had the chance?”

  I froze. “What do you mean? I don’t want to kill you.” There it is, boys and girls, the biggest lie I’ve ever told.

  She laughed wildly. “Oh, come on, how long are you going to keep up this charade, Finch? Don’t get me wrong, you’re doing an excellent job, but it’s getting a little tiresome. You should have gone a bit more ‘method’ if you really wanted to convince me. You know, really embody Pieter Mazinov instead of making simple, Finch-like mistakes.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am Pieter Mazinov.”

  “And I’m the Queen of England.” She smirked at me, and I knew it was hopeless. She knew, beyond all doubt. “You know, I’ve been wondering if I should get myself a proper crown. What do you think? Too much?”

  “It wouldn’t fit on your fat head,” I sniped back. It was childish, but I needed to say something while I fought to come up with the quickest exit plan ever. Trying to talk my way out wasn’t an option. Sweat was already pouring down my face. My heart was racing wildly. Come on, Finch—think! My eyes glanced toward the door. There were guards lining the hallway outside, but I figured I had worse odds if I stayed in here, with her.

  She chuckled. “Ah, Finch. Believe it or not, I’ve missed you.”

  “Yeah? I doubt that. You tried to have me killed, remember?” I peered over her shoulder at the aquariums and wondered if I could break them and distract Katherine. There were a bunch of amphibious monsters in there that wouldn’t have minded a taste of her.

  “Don’t you want to know how I knew? I bet you’re dying to.”

  I glowered at her. “Even if I don’t, you’re going to tell me anyway.” Moving away from the tanks, I fixed my eyes on a large plant pot on the back shelf. With my hands under the table, I sent out fine tendrils and lashed them around the base. One swift knock to the back of the head and I’d be able to buy myself some time.

  “To see the look on your precious little face? Absolutely.” She grinned like a maniac. “I figured out it was you the moment you mentioned the Gemini device. A silly move, even for you. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together based on that. Only two people knew about that device, and they’re harder to come by than you’d think. Plus, those two people were under strict instructions to keep that failure to themselves. They wouldn’t have mentioned it to you, under any circumstances. It all started making sense. Coincidental, is it not, that you happened to stumble across Naima and grab her attention? And that all these doors happened to be open? I confess, I should’ve figured it out sooner. I guess I’ve gone soft.”

  I snorted. “You’re about as soft as a block of granite.” The plant pot edged forward.

  “Anyway, I should’ve known it was you when you sold Tess out like that. You were merciless, just the way Momma taught you.” She chuckled to herself. “And I know a lot more than you think. I knew Garrett Kyteler was feeding the SDC information from the National Council. So, if the SDC knew about Azarius, then so did Harley. That girl can’t help herself. What can I say? She’s obsessed with me.” She took out her phone, her fingers dancing across the screen. I didn’t know who she was messaging or what she was saying, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

  I didn’t know whether to be shocked or disappointed. We’d come so far, only to end up like this. Maybe I should’ve stayed in my cell.

  “You were born merciless. You killed Adley just to get back at me, because you thought she’d somehow bend my loyalty. If you’d left her alone, I probably wouldn’t even be here. She had nothing to do with this! You murdered her, in cold blood, and for what? To prove you could? Because I loved her more than you? Which sick part of your Freudian brand of crazy is it, huh?” I brought the plant pot to the very lip of the shelf, trying to keep Katherine distracted before I struck. Not that I didn’t mean what I was saying. I meant every word.

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re not still pouting over that, are you?”

  “You were born cold. You were born without a heart. Funny thing is, you left me with one—I guess I got that from Daddy Merlin, right? Ironic, isn’t it, that the man you hated the most in this world gave me the one thing you couldn’t? A freaking conscience!” I snapped. “When you murdered her, you made me see how much I loved her. How much my heart had felt, and how much it wanted to feel. You tore it to shreds, Katherine. You brought me to this!” I dragged the pot off the shelf, aiming for her head.

  She shot her hand back, the plant pot exploding. “What were you going to do, Finch? Brain me?” She chuckled. “You know how I hate being interrupted while I’m soliloquizing, and I was just coming up with something good. Now, where was I? Oh yes—Harley. Little Volla is going to have her head on the chopping block. Naturally, I’ll make you watch. I’ve still got that Sal Vínna spell around here somewhere. I might make an obedient son out of you yet. Plus, it’ll be so much easier this time. Two people to kill instead of… I don’t even know, I lost count after the first few.”

  I stared at Katherine as if I could somehow melt her flesh from her body, just by glowering hard enough. “You leave her out of this.” The words slipped out before I could stop
them.

  She sneered. “Ah, so you’re the one who’s really gone soft?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Wow, snappy retort. I guess you didn’t gain the gift of banter from me, either,” she muttered, casually eyeing her phone for a moment. “Now, come on, take off that stupid disguise. I’d like to look my son in the eyes. My beloved boy. Apple of my eye. Fruit of my loins.”

  I shifted into my real body, not for her sake but for my own. With all this anger bubbling inside me, it was getting hard to manage the Pieter Mazinov disguise.

  “There he is! How handsome!” She laughed coldly.

  I smirked. “You might know who I am, but it doesn’t matter now. You’re too late. That little mind of yours that you pride yourself on was too slow. Harley has Hester’s spirit by now. She’ll have escaped, and you’ll never get that spirit back.”

  Katherine grinned. “Naima already knows about our runaway and has dispatched teams to intervene. Although, the spirits of All Hallows’ Eve will probably be more useful right now. So, if you’re talking about the tunnels, the ghosts know who their mistress is. They’ll bring her here so I can kill her, and she’ll be out of my hair for good. Wouldn’t that be nice? I could do with some peace and quiet. Plus, this way, I’ll never have to hear about a Merlin ever again. Bliss.”

  I balled my hands into fists. “I thought you needed Harley. You wouldn’t kill her. You’re all talk.”

  “I don’t want her dead, per se, but there are plenty of things far worse than death, Finch. And I’ll get to killing her, eventually. Just thinking about it gives me a buzz. I almost killed her the last time we met, which was a bit of an impulse on my part. But I’ve gone back to my original plan, now. There’s so much power in that girl. It’s tantalizing.” She licked her lips. “She’ll be perfect for me, when the time comes.”

  “Looks like you just want her dead to me. Another notch on your weird old bedpost of death.”

  She pulled a face. “Terrible metaphor, Finch. Come on, you can do better than that. Anyway, the fact of the matter is, I want you to come back to the cult. Yes, I tried to kill you. Yes, I had your sap of a girlfriend killed. And yes, you’re probably a bit peeved. But focus on the bigger picture here. Whether you like it or not, I will win. It’s up to you which side you want to be on when that happens.”