Harley Merlin 18: Persie Merlin and Leviathan’s Gift

by Forrest, Bella

  After a few silent, breathless seconds, Jacob sighed. “I guess that’s my theory out the window.” He took another syringe and injected Howard, who quickly flopped back and started to snore. Jacob’s brow furrowed before he went on. “But Howard’s reaction, it looked more like conditioning, or reinforcement. I’m not saying it’s definitely deliberate, but he had a pretty intense response. More intense than Zara’s response to me or Wade.”

  “Why would someone do that?” Wade approached me and held out a steadying hand. The fright had almost knocked me to the ground.

  Jacob smiled faintly. “Do you remember how Finch put a dent in that love spell when he was in Atlantis? You know, he started feeling like things were off when he should’ve been head over heels?”

  “He won’t shut up about it, especially when he’s in the doghouse with Ryann.” My heart rate finally slowed to a normal pace.

  “It could be that the people who did this are trying to prevent a similar problem. Howard has a wife. Maybe his torturers thought he might remember something if he made it back to her, so they conditioned him not to say a word, on top of the mind-wiping.” Jacob took off his latex gloves with an elastic snap. “It would explain the differing reactions. But it’s only speculation. It could just as easily be the simpler explanation—Zara had a male torturer; Howard had a female.”

  Wade went up to the bed and put his hands on Howard’s temples. “There’s an easier way to find out if you’re right.” As before, he sent in the white threads, and then the pink. I watched him concentrate until he came out of his focused trance.

  “Well?” I prompted.

  “There have been serious cowboys tromping through there. More damage across his brain, as a whole. They definitely added something extra that’s not in Zara.” Wade lowered his hands. “Whether that fits your hypothesis or not, I don’t know. But, these two have been mind-wiped in very customized ways. Another fact that points to someone very powerful performing these spells. I wonder if it’s the same across the board for the returnees.”

  Jacob pulled out his phone and wafted a hand over the disc. “I’ll update Astrid and see if she can get you in to see any more of the victims. There might be some red tape to cut. But that’s your thing, isn’t it?” He meant it as a joke, but it hit a nerve. One that had been bugging me a lot recently.

  I want that quieter world. Being Secret Agent Harley and running through mission after mission had lost its sheen. A long time ago, to be honest. The Merlin legacy came with a crap ton of responsibility. And it was exhausting. Ten years ago, maybe even five years ago, I was still riding the wave. Now it had crested, and I felt beached. I was tired of seeing sad things and cleaning up the mess, only to take it all home with me.

  “You know us,” Wade replied with a grin. “We eat red tape for breakfast.”

  But what if I’ve lost the taste for it? I was tired of everyone looking to me for salvation, because, well… it hurt to take on their problems. They became my problems. My emotions. My stress, my strain, my energy. Yes, I’d saved the world. I’d had to. But maybe Persie was right—not everything had to be life and death.

  “Harley?” Wade gave me a nudge.

  I forced a smile. “Our favorite meal.”

  Wade gestured to the two sleeping figures. “The number of vanishing magicals is steady, but we need to get ahead of it before it gets worse.”

  Around me, Wade and Jacob continued to talk about important matters, but my mind wandered to the idea of that quieter life. Where my decisions and duties weren’t filled with danger, other people’s suffering, and wild goose chases. I wanted career fulfilment that didn’t rely on the turn of a key in a prison lock as the endgame. I wanted to help people, but in a career where there weren’t such high stakes—maybe working with children who needed care.

  “It’s going to need a special task force. I’ll speak to O’Halloran about it on our way out. Hopefully, the UCA won’t take their time in agreeing. Harley?”

  “Huh?” I snapped out of it.

  “What do you think?” Wade pressed.

  I sighed. “I think it’s time to dig deeper and get to the bottom of this.”

  I’d fight until I had no fight left in me. A quieter life would have to wait.

  Fifteen

  Persie

  Technically I was eighteen, but I might as well have been eighty. Gritty sand had replaced my corneas, my lymph nodes had swollen to the size of golf balls, and my internal organs felt as though they’d done a couple of switcheroos on me. My heart had definitely found a new home in my throat, and I’d forgotten what it felt like to not have my stomach churning like I was in the middle of a continuous ferry voyage. Multiple Purges in a short space of time would do that to a girl. Not to be blasé about it, but I was already sick and tired of this curse.

  I slumped on a chair in one of the Physical Magic training rooms. “How has it only been two days since my birthday?”

  It felt like weeks, and Leviathan’s gift had been the one that just kept on giving. A foolish part of me had hoped it would be an infrequent thing, this Purging lark—perhaps once a week, or once a month, something manageable. Instead, I’d been hit with five Purges in two days. In an effort to lessen the collateral damage of my Purges, I’d seen very little except the inside of my bedroom after returning from Tobe’s den. I didn’t want to admit it, but I’d been glad to have my mom and dad around. They’d bottled up my Purge monsters as fast as I’d Purged them. Fortunately, the beasts hadn’t been as violent as the hydra, but they’d made up for it in quantity. They’d been smaller beasts, though my mom hadn’t given me much chance to see what I’d created, which part of me also felt glad about. But the terror of feeling the Purge coming hadn’t abated. I doubted it would for a long time—another part of the so-called “mastery” that would miraculously make sense, according to Leviathan.

  So much for handling it myself. So far, it was the opposite of what I wanted out of life, which was how Genie and I had ended up in here. Alyssa had agreed to let us use the room to work through some beast-catching tactics. But so far all I’d done was struggle to stay awake. Purges, as it turned out, could come at any moment. Even in the middle of the night, waking me from rare sleep.

  “Time is a fickle mistress when she wants to be.” Genie jogged over and hauled me up. “No snoozing on the job.”

  “What job?” I resisted the tug of her hands. “I just want to sleep forever.”

  “Not on my watch, Sleeping Beauty.” She tried to pull me up again. “You said it yourself, the only way to control this is to control the monsters. Getting ahead of this is right at your fingertips—I can feel it. Which is why I’m here to help you learn.”

  I sighed. “Tobe said something similar.”

  “And Tobe is the Beast Master for a reason.” She pulled me out of the chair and led me to the center of the room, with me dragging my heels the entire way.

  “Is it way too bright in here, or is it just me?” I shielded my eyes against the glare of sunlight that bulldozed through the windows. The Physical Magic room reminded me of a dance studio—not that me and my terrible coordination had ever been inside a dance studio. Well, not without immediately being kicked out again for the safety of everyone else. Mirrors lined one wall, with a mahogany-beamed ceiling overhead. Scuffed parquet floor gave way to large, gray squares of springy stuff, intended to lessen the impact of any falls between competitors. It looked so cozy, primed for curling up and dozing off.

  Genie kept a hand on my arm to stop me from running back to the sidelines. “I think you Purging your very own quintet might have something to do with it.”

  I lolled against her. “Only five? I thought it was more. I definitely blacked out during one of them.” I had to make a joke out of it, or I would actually stop to think about the monsters that had come out of me. Every time I dwelled on it for more than a minute, it wigged me out completely—on top of the exhaustion factor.

  “Here. I brought you a present in c
ase you started to get tired of this, so I probably should’ve given it to you before we even came down here, but hey.” She left me standing and sprinted for her bag. Hurrying back, she pushed a flask into my hands.

  “Coffee?”

  She laughed. “Something much, much better.”

  I unscrewed the top and took a whiff. My nose wrinkled instantly as my nostrils stung against the scent of something fishy. Nope, rotten and fishy, with a hint of sour milk. “What is it? Or do I not want to know?”

  “It’s an Atlantean brew for stamina and energy.” Genie tipped it to my lips. “You get used to the taste after a while.”

  “Because it burns off your taste buds?” I closed my eyes and took a sip. Regret slid across my tongue and down my throat. It didn’t just smell rotten, it tasted rotten, with a frogspawn consistency that added insult to injury. In all my life, I’d never tasted anything like it—sour and foul, with a potent taste of the sea, if the sea had gone bad.

  “It’ll make you feel better.” She smiled, but we’d never been good at keeping secrets from each other. I could read her like my favorite book. And, on this particular chapter, I saw concern in her gray eyes, glittering with a touch of anxiety.

  I gulped down another mouthful for her sake. “I think it’s more likely to make me hurl, and then Purge again.”

  “What? No! Put it down!” Genie’s bravado cracked like an eggshell. Ironic, since everyone except her had been tiptoeing around me since my birthday. “It was supposed to help you!” She lunged for the flask, but I lifted it out of her reach.

  “I was kidding,” I reassured her, though my friend’s alarm didn’t inspire much confidence. It looked like I wasn’t the only one trying to figure all of this out.

  Her face relaxed. “Oh, thank Chaos. I thought you meant it.”

  “Are you bothered by it?” My stomach clenched, not sure if I wanted to hear the answer.

  Her expression transformed into a mask of astonishment. “No, of course not. You’re still you. I just hate that it’s affecting you like this, and no one would let me near you the past two days.”

  “Maybe this is why.” I waggled the flask at her and coughed up a halfhearted chuckle, plus a glob of whatever I’d just swallowed. It was far worse on the way up than it’d been on the way down.

  She sighed heavily and looked toward the mirrored wall, watching our reflection. “I should’ve been there, even if it was just to hold your hair back.”

  “My mom really sent you away?” I would’ve liked to have my friend there, if only to keep me sane within the four walls of my bedroom. Someone to keep me entertained instead of fretting all the time.

  Genie put her arm around my shoulders. “I think she wanted it to stay in the family for a while, at least with everyone still gossiping about what happened. Don’t worry, though. I’ve been smacking silencing spells on everyone I’ve overheard. Got myself an official warning from Old Halloran for my efforts.”

  “Genie!” I gasped. I admired her chutzpah, but taking such a huge risk wouldn’t do anyone any good. If anything, it would be inclined to make folks more afraid of me if they knew my best friend had turned vigilante.

  “What? I’m not too scared to defend the honor of my best friend. I think O’Halloran understood, but he had to give me some kind of punishment, or people would’ve thought he was playing favorites.” She met my mirror image with sad eyes, determination clear in the set of her lips.

  “Well, maybe ease up on the silencing spells. I don’t want you getting kicked out because of me.” I leaned into her, feeling a faint buzz vibrating through me. The Atlantean brew, and whatever sordid things had been blended up to concoct it, were starting to work their magic.

  Genie grinned. “I’ll save them for the worst offenders.” She spun me around to face her. “Now, what do you say we start beast-catching?”

  “About that.” I took a deep breath, hoping my stomach would settle. “I’m not even sure I can catch them.”

  “Tobe wouldn’t have suggested it if you couldn’t,” she pointed out, not taking any of my nonsense.

  “But I’m not a magical.”

  Genie still wasn’t having it. “Five Purge beasts say otherwise.”

  “This curse hasn’t given me any additional abilities—I’ve tried. And if I don’t have any Chaos aside from this Purging business, then I don’t have the juice to catch what I create.” The gray square of springy stuff looked comfier by the moment. Perhaps, if I slept long enough, I’d wake up and find that none of this had happened. “Maybe it’d be better if they locked me up in the Bestiary. I mean, it’s not always going to be smaller beasts, is it? At least then I wouldn’t be a risk to anyone.”

  She held onto me and ushered me toward the mirrored wall. “What do you see, Persie?”

  “A very tired, grumpy, fed-up girl.” The plump, purple bags under my eyes could’ve seen me through a trip around the world, and my skin seemed so thin and translucent that I could see the bluish tentacles of my veins. A map of my existence, marked on my flesh.

  “Do you know what I see?” Genie’s voice softened with her expression. “I see you. I don’t see the curse, just my smart, funny, creative best friend. And do you know what else I see?”

  I glanced at her. “What?”

  “Strength. So much strength.” She sounded proud and sad, all at once. “You demanded that your mom take you to face Leviathan. You could’ve run or tried to hide from this, but you didn’t. You stood up at your party and you let everyone know you weren’t going to let this beat you. The Purges have taken it out of you, but you can push through. I’ve seen you do it before. I’ve seen you stay up all night to finish a painting, or a book, or cram for a test. You’ve always finished what you started, and I’ve always been there to wave the pom-poms. I know you can do it again. And I’m going to be here, cheering you on the whole damn way.”

  I reached deep to drag myself away from the edge of a pit of despair. “Do you promise one thing?”

  “Anything,” she replied, not missing a beat.

  “No more special brews.” I adored this girl. No one did motivational speeches quite like her, and having my own personal cheerleader felt nothing short of incredible. It was the fire I needed to get over my fatigue and my fear.

  She flung her arms around me and pulled me into a bear hug. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  A few minutes later, we stood on opposite sides of the gray fighting square. And I may or may not have felt like a prize idiot, clutching a Mason jar in one hand and a bag of entrapment stones in the other, with no idea what to do with either. Genie had dug a book out of her bag called Art of the Hunt by someone named Victoria Jules. A list of practice drills took up the first four chapters, and we were trying out a few of them.

  “Pretend I’m that hydra, but with fewer heads.” Genie stuck out her hands like naked sock puppets, making them twist and snap like raptors as she stalked up and down the far edge.

  I covered my mouth and laughed into my palm. “How am I supposed to take this seriously when you do that?”

  “Hey, I’m giving you my best monster moves here.” Genie put her hands on her hips. “Should I pretend to be something a bit more human? A vampire, maybe?” She pulled a funny face, her lips retracting to show her perfect teeth. She gnashed them together, as frightening as a mildly irritated bunny.

  I set down the jar and the stones. “I don’t think this is going to work without a real monster. I won’t know if I can actually do it. It’s not like I can catch you in a jar.”

  “Are you feeling Purgey?” Genie arched a hesitant eyebrow. After her last reaction to me potentially Purging, she was evidently worried about the prospect. And who could blame her? I had no clue what might come out if I did Purge. Spinning the roulette wheel of beasts wasn’t a game I wanted to play, even with Genie here as backup. If it escaped and ran rampant through the SDC, we’d be in humongous trouble.

  I paused and searched for any of the usual symptoms�
��cold sweats, itchy eyes and skin, a burning in my chest, and the sudden influx of saliva you got when you were about to be sick. I had the itchy eyes, but that had nothing to do with Purging; only a side effect of the sleepless nights.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, semi-hopefully.

  She tapped her chin in thought. “Well, if you want to try with a real one, maybe we could ask Tobe to borrow one? You know, for safety’s sake.” Her eyes widened in a lightbulb moment. “Oh, or we could take a look at some material from the Basani Institute. I read an article about it the other night, after your mom kicked me out.”

  “The what institute?” The name rang a bell.

  “Basani Institute. Home of the Monster Hunters.” She nodded her head excitedly. “They’ve developed these puzzle box things that bypass the need for entrapment stones. Very… uh, what’s that film your uncle dressed up as for Halloween?”

  “Ghostbusters?” I remembered Diana dying of embarrassment when he’d turned up in a khaki boiler suit, pretending to skid a box at her feet. Although the embarrassment might’ve had more to do with him licking Ryann’s face and calling himself “Slimer.”

  “That’s the one!” Genie shouted triumphantly. “And those things are way more efficient than entrapment stones, if you believe what you read on the internet.”

  I bought into her infectious enthusiasm. “Do you think we could get our hands on some?”

  “If you name drop hard enough, I reckon we might be able to.” Genie winked. “There are perks to having the Merlin name.”

  After two days of hurling up Purge beasts, I was ready for a dose of hope. Leviathan’s shadow loomed over me, but shadows couldn’t thrive in the light. If I fed the flames of optimism, maybe I could chase Leviathan so far away that I could almost pretend this wasn’t his fault.

  “Don’t find fault, find a remedy,” I thought aloud.

  Genie frowned. “Huh?”

  “Henry Ford.”

  “The old car guy?”