Harley Merlin 3: Harley Merlin and the Stolen Magicals

by Bella Forrest

  He hurled himself at the glass, the violent impact shuddering through the ground toward me. Staggering back, he grinned a nasty grin. Every feature of Raffe’s face looked wrong and unfamiliar.

  “You don’t frighten me… djinn.” I shrugged off my initial fear, knowing the glass box would hold him.

  “Want to see a cool trick?” he purred.

  I frowned at him. “Not really.”

  “You demanded to stay here. I have to keep you entertained.” He laughed coldly, the sound echoing as though it was coming from somewhere other than his mouth. It was similar to the way my Orishas sounded when they spoke through me. I guessed it was the same kind of deal.

  His skin rippled, pockets of flesh bunching and swirling as though he had a snake trapped beneath the surface. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to throw up my lunch. A moment later, his entire body set alight, flames licking from his toes to the top of his skull, turning every inch of his skin an alarming shade of crimson. Fire burned behind his eyes.

  “Very impressive,” I choked, hoping the real Raffe was okay in there. Weirdly, no smoke filled the glass box, the flames burning clean.

  “I’m not done yet,” he growled. Heaving in an enormous breath that made the glass walls shake, he exhaled a violent gust of wind that extinguished the flames. Black smoke billowed around his red-tinged body, clinging to him like a magnet, before swirling upward and disappearing into thin air. Hunkering down, he tilted his twisted face skyward and let out a spine-chilling roar. It shivered through every nerve in my body, setting the Orishas on edge. They didn’t like being so close to a creature like this. I could feel them wanting to rush to my aid, and it was taking a hell of a lot of energy to keep them at bay.

  Through a few of the gaps in his clothes, where the heat of his body had burned holes in the fabric, I could see some of the taut muscle underneath. My throat tightened, my eyes widening in appreciation. He might’ve been a demon, but the body was all Raffe’s. If a little on the scarlet side.

  “Like I said, impressive.” The body, too. Dios mio, that’s nice!

  He grinned, returning to his smokeless form. “I thought you’d like that. Besides, I needed to stretch out these pathetic limbs. Everything is wound up so tight,” he murmured, shaking his body like a wet dog. “Tell me, sugar-lips, do you have any idea what kind of self-discipline it takes not to punch Daddio in the jaw when he’s acting like a total asshat?”

  “I can imagine.”

  He laughed, the sound sending a shudder through me. “I could devour you whole, do you know that? I bet your skin tastes of spice and caramel, seasoned with the baking heat of the Mexican sun.” His eyes rolled back into his head as he licked his lips, a smirk twisting up the corner of his mouth.

  I stared at him in complete shock. I’d only ever seen the djinn from a distance, like the day Raffe let the monster loose so he could round up all the gargoyles in Balboa Park. This was a different ballgame entirely, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. The way he spoke to me… that wasn’t Raffe at all. I might’ve wanted Raffe to be a little more forthcoming with a much-needed bit of flirtation, to let me know he freaking liked me, but this wasn’t what I meant. This was, for lack of a better word, horrifying.

  Everything I knew about the guy I adored, and everything standing before me… I couldn’t bridge the gap between them. I couldn’t make sense of it. This monster was wearing Raffe’s skin, this monster inhabited Raffe’s body, this monster was part and parcel of who Raffe was, but this wasn’t him.

  In that moment, for the first time in my life, I wanted to run away from something. I wanted to get as far away as humanly possible so I wouldn’t have to hear another voice slithering out of Raffe’s mouth.

  Come back to me, Raffe, I pleaded. Come back to me.

  Seven

  Harley

  Lying on the bed in Astrid’s room, I skimmed the emails Jacob had sent me. A few words from this place and that place, letting me know he was okay. Never too much information, never too specific, but enough to keep me from going out of my mind with worry. Wherever the two of them were, Isadora and Jacob had each other. They were safe… for now.

  Yeah, until you bring them back out into the open, where they’re vulnerable and exposed.

  I shook off the dark thoughts, knowing my personal feelings were getting in the way. This was for the kids and the coven. A calculated risk, for the greater good.

  “Any luck?” Tatyana asked from the corner of Astrid’s room. She flipped absently through a textbook on the Children of Chaos, looking for anything that might relate to Katherine Shipton’s insane plan to become one.

  “I keep running the emails through this program of yours, Astrid, but every single one is bouncing through a million different servers and VPNs,” I replied miserably. “Isadora’s phenomenally good at this. I guess being on the run for years gives you a lot of practice in covering your tracks.”

  Astrid nodded. “I had a feeling it might be a fruitless task. Looks like Isadora can jump through space, time, and the internet.”

  I chuckled. “Annoying in this scenario, but oddly comforting.”

  “Are you having second thoughts about Alton’s request?” Tatyana asked.

  “Not so much second thoughts as panic-inducing worry that Katherine is waiting for me to sniff them out so she can swoop in and snatch them.”

  “They’ll be safe in the coven,” Astrid reassured me. “We’ve got all these extra people guarding just about everything, and everyone is on super-high alert. It’s probably the safest place for them, aside from where they are right now.”

  I pulled a face. “See, it’s that last part that gets to me. They’re already safe, but we need their skills. They’ll have to put themselves at enormous risk for a coven they don’t even belong to. I’d like to think they’re that selfless, but we’ll have to wait and see.” I rolled onto my back and stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to Astrid’s ceiling. “Besides, the coven isn’t safe anymore. There’s a mole in our midst, and we have no idea who it might be.”

  “It might be one of us, for all you know,” Astrid joked, her laughter dying on her lips. “Sorry… I shouldn’t joke about that kind of thing. After the whole Finch thing, it’s in poor taste.”

  “If we do not laugh, we will cry. Isn’t that the saying?” Tatyana chimed in, setting the book down. “I think I might stretch my legs for a bit. These books are filled with nothing but fairy stories and myths.”

  “Is there nothing in them that might help us—a bit of subtext or something?” I asked, flipping back over onto my stomach.

  “Absolutely nothing, just the usual stuff about the Children being here at the beginning of everything, forged from raw Chaos. Blah, blah, blah, blah…”

  Astrid sighed. “If only we had a step-by-step instruction manual. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?”

  “I think that’d be a terrifying thing,” I replied with a tight laugh. “There’d be crazy folks trying to turn themselves into Children of Chaos left, right, and center.”

  “Ah, you may have a point there.”

  I sat up on the edge of the bed and scooped my hair into a ponytail. “Actually, I think I might stretch my legs, too. We’ve still got a few hours before the evening patrol. I might as well put the time to good use.”

  “What are you thinking?” Tatyana asked.

  “I might pay the Smiths a visit, see if Jacob left anything behind. We may be able to forge a tracer spell from something that belonged to him,” I replied, flashing a nervous grin. “Plus, it’s taco night—it’d be rude not to go.”

  We’d successfully used a tracer spell to expose Finch as the Bestiary’s saboteur. If we used it again to try and trace Jacob, I figured we’d have a hope in hell of finding him. Right now, our options were ridiculously thin on the ground. This way, we kill two birds with one stone. Wherever Jacob is, that’s where Isadora will be, too.

  Astrid frowned. “You haven’t seen them since the inci
dent. Are you sure you’re okay visiting them? Do you want some company?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry, guys, I think this is something I have to do alone. I can’t keep putting it off for my own selfish reasons. I mean, they keep texting to say they miss me, asking when I’m coming around, and I keep telling them I’m busy. I can’t avoid them any longer. They deserve better than that.”

  “I know you’re used to getting things done by yourself, but you’ve got us now… if you ever need us for anything,” Tatyana said. “You know that, right?”

  My heart swelled. “Thank you. I mean it… thank you.” I stood up slowly, feeling overwhelmed. “If there are any spare tacos, I’ll bring them back. Fair exchange?”

  “Fair exchange,” Astrid replied. “Just be careful out there, okay? You’re not really supposed to go anywhere on your own right now.”

  Tatyana nodded. “Take a cab straight there, and keep your phone on. Let us know when you’re done. We’ll probably be heading out on patrol by the time you’ve finished there, so we’ll rendezvous or something. If this weather lets up, that is. Weird for San Diego, but I guess it needs a storm from time to time.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll text you if I finish early.” I’d never had any friends care so much about me before. Although, I’d never really had friends before, so I had nothing to compare it to.

  I slid my phone into my pocket and grabbed my leather jacket from Astrid’s coat stand, slinging it on as I headed out into the corridor. A few people wandered about, meandering back from the banquet hall. I hurried along, taking the steps two at a time, then skirted past the magnolia trees.

  Not long after, I exited the main entrance to the coven and walked through an empty Kid City, making my way toward the exit of the Fleet Science Center. Against the glass, the first spatters of rain had begun to fall. I paused at the revolving doors and sent a text to Dicky’s number. I didn’t need the card anymore—I had it memorized. It would’ve been easier to put it into my phone, but I figured it was safer not to. I’d thought about driving Daisy to the Smiths, but this seemed like the safer course of action, since we weren’t supposed to be heading out alone. Dicky was my loophole.

  He appeared ten minutes later, flashing his headlights as he rolled up to the sidewalk. I sprinted to the cab and got in, a fine mist of rain sprinkling my hair. It was gloomy out, the sky overcast and plump with swollen gray clouds that threatened an imminent torrent. San Diego was due a storm.

  “I hadn’t expected to hear from you anytime soon, Harley,” Dicky said after I’d fastened my seatbelt and given him directions. He already knew the house—he’d dropped me off there when I’d gone to check on Jacob—but if he recognized the address he didn’t bat an eyelid.

  “No?”

  “I haven’t heard from Isadora in a while. Thought she might be lying low,” he replied. “Figured something must have happened that night I dropped you off.”

  I nodded. “Mm-hm. And then some.”

  “Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell old Dicky about any of it. I drive, that’s it. Don’t ask no questions, don’t want to know no answers.”

  I smiled. How refreshing.

  “Harley!” Mrs. Smith cried as she answered the door. “My goodness, I’d almost forgotten what you looked like.”

  My heart wrenched in my chest. The cleanup team had made her forget the Death by a Thousand Cuts hex, the wrecked house, and all the terrible things that the Ryder twins had done to her and Mr. Smith. Instead of the truth, the cleanup crew had implanted false memories about a home invasion, taking every magical element out of the equation. They’d dealt with the cuts in the only way they could, casting an illusion over Mrs. Smith’s legs and plying her with numbing serums in the night while she slept. As far as she was concerned, her legs were completely fine, even though she still had a few more days of healing to do. The serums quickened the process, but they weren’t instantaneous.

  What hurt most of all, however, was the fact that they’d wiped all memory of Jacob from the Smiths’ minds—about adopting him, about bringing him here, about everything. It had been the kindest thing to do, but it still stung.

  At least they didn’t make her forget about me.

  “I had a few hours to spare, so I thought I’d come visit,” I murmured. “I’m sorry for not coming sooner, to check on how you were both doing after the home invasion. This new job is kicking my ass.”

  “Language,” Mrs. Smith chided.

  I smiled. “Sorry. I’ve had a long day.”

  “And don’t you worry about not having the time to visit,” she insisted. “You’re doing so well, from what you’ve been telling us. Homeland Security wasn’t what I thought you’d do with your life, but still! It’s nice to see you happy in a job. Besides, you sent us those beautiful flowers and that gift basket from St. Clair’s. That’s enough to win me over.” She winked, ushering me inside the house. The scent of Mexican spices wafted through from the kitchen, making my mouth water.

  “Still, I should’ve come to visit. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “Enough of that. You’re here now, and that’s all that counts.” She enveloped me in a warm embrace. I hugged her back twice as hard. Man, it’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you so much. I wanted to say the words out loud, but I knew the tears wouldn’t stop if I did. The defense mechanisms were firmly back in place.

  Heading through to the kitchen, I tried not to look at her legs, seeking any sign of her injuries, but it was like turning away from a car crash. She must have wondered what on Earth I was doing, glancing down at her calves every couple of minutes, because she gave me a confused smile. Mr. Smith stood at the stove, mixing the taco ingredients together. He turned over his shoulder as we entered, a broad grin splitting his face. See, they’re happier than they’ve ever been. It’s like nothing ever happened.

  “Hey, there’s our high-flyer! Did they turn you loose for an evening?” he chirped, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. He crossed the kitchen and threw his arms around me, pulling me in tight.

  “A couple of hours,” I replied, hugging him back.

  “Well, that suits us just fine. We’ve got plenty of food on the go—we were just wondering how we were going to eat all of this ourselves, weren’t we, hon?”

  Mrs. Smith rested her hand on my shoulder, as though she were scared I might disappear. “We were indeed. Ryann was supposed to come down from UCLA to spend the night with us, but I think there might be a boy in the picture. Her plans changed last minute, so you came at just the right time.”

  I heard the sad note in Mrs. Smith’s voice. It had to be hard for them, with Ryann away at college, me doing my own thing, and no memory of Jacob. He’d been the one giving them a renewed sense of purpose. Without him, I reasoned they were bound to feel a little lost. By all accounts, many folks who had their memories wiped couldn’t remember anything, but they did feel like something was missing. I had a feeling Mrs. Smith fell into that category, though Mr. Smith seemed quite content to fuss around his wife.

  “That’s a shame,” I said. “It would’ve been cool to see Ryann. I haven’t spoken to her in a while.”

  Mrs. Smith smiled. “She always asks after you.”

  “I’ll give her a call sometime soon.”

  She brightened. “You let me know if you hear anything good!”

  “I might have to invoke a vow of sisterly silence, I’m afraid.”

  Mrs. Smith laughed. “I do so miss having the two of you around the place. Everything seems so big, with it being just the two of us bumbling about. You’ll have to come by more often… when work permits, of course. I know how busy you both are.”

  “I will,” I promised. “I mean it this time.”

  “Actually, we’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” she went on shyly.

  “Oh?”

  “Well… we’ve been thinking about fostering another child. We have all this space, and it seems a shame not to use it,” she explained. “It’s al
l thanks to you, really. You’ve inspired us to try and help someone else, the way we helped you. I know there are so many children out there, stuck in the system, and we both feel that it’s time we gave something back again.”

  My face lit up, my heart overflowing with admiration and affection. It may well have been Mrs. Smith’s emotions, mingling with my own, but I couldn’t have been prouder. Even with their memories wiped, and no recollection of Jacob Morales, they still wanted to make a difference in the lives of San Diego’s forgotten kids. There was a bitter irony, too, considering how things had gone last time. Not their fault, of course, but Katherine had used their kindness to get to me and Jacob.

  “What do you think, kiddo?” Mr. Smith chimed in.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” I said, without missing a beat. “Any kid who ends up here is going to be one of the luckiest kids in the world.”

  The Smiths smiled at each other, love flowing effortlessly between them. Even after all these years, they still adored one another. One day, I’ll be one half of an awesomely sickening pair like this, still smooching after decades of marriage—still pinching each other’s butts when they think no one’s looking.

  “We’re so glad you approve,” Mrs. Smith gushed.

  “Actually, speaking of lucky kids, would you mind if I headed up to my old room and had a look around? I’ve been looking for this journal I had from senior year, but I can’t find it anywhere. It has the only good picture of me that’s ever been taken.” I hated lying to them, but there was no other way.

  Mrs. Smith tutted. “Nonsense, Harley, we’ve got lots of beautiful pictures of you.”

  “Then beauty is in the eye of the very blind beholder.”

  “Cheeky!” A contented smile settled across her lips. “Everything’s as you left it. Dinner in ten?”