Harley Merlin 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix

by Forrest, Bella

  “Do you know what the National Council is actually doing about Katherine?” I asked.

  Wade shook his head. “No idea. Everything’s a bit weird where that’s concerned.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Well, Levi is keeping a lid on the whole Echidna incident, which you probably already know from your mousey infiltration. Apparently, the whole issue is being resolved internally, with the National Council and the president, but I’m finding it hard to believe that they wouldn’t have sent someone to investigate the Bestiary.”

  “There haven’t been any new arrivals since then?”

  “None at all. I asked Tobe, and he corroborated. Tobe was told to write an official report, stating that what happened in the Bestiary was just a glitch. I know that’s partially true, but it’s leaving out a huge piece of the action. That’s what’s being fed to the covens worldwide, to try and placate them, and Tobe didn’t feel as if he could go against Levi again.”

  I frowned. “Why would he do that? Why would Levi keep a lid on something like that?”

  “Because the magical world is already crapping their pants over Katherine. If they found out she’d nicked the Mother of Monsters, even if they didn’t know about the rituals, that’d be enough to get everyone’s panties in a bunch. There’d be mass panic,” Finch replied, as if I was a dumbass.

  “You agree with Levi, then?” I replied.

  Finch smiled. “Nah, I’m just guessing that’s the sort of bull he’s feeding everyone. There are already rumors that magicals are jumping ship from covens everywhere, from here to Timbuktu. Whether that’s to hide or join Katherine, who knows, but it’s getting the covens’ asses in gear. Meanwhile, Levi gets to be the one in the know and in control.”

  “And if the National Council members are actually doing something to find Katherine, then they’re probably wasting a lot of resources,” Wade said. “They need to be rallying people, but if their focus is on Katherine, plus everything else, then they’re going to wind up spreading themselves way too thin and get nothing done at all. Least of all find Katherine.”

  Finch nodded. “Exactly, they’re half-assing a bunch of things instead of whole-assing one thing.”

  “Which is why we need to get this Grimoire,” I replied. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that this was the only way to go, especially since my Suppressor broke. My instincts kept drawing my mind back to it, and that had to mean something. “It might just help us do what the National Council has failed to do up till now. Not that I think they’re incompetent tools, as you like to say, Finch, but Katherine is more powerful than they know how to handle. We’ve got abilities and knowledge that they don’t. That gives us an edge, and we really need one of those if we’re going to bring Katherine down.”

  “Yeah, so incompetent tools.” Finch chuckled to himself.

  “I’m sick of Katherine getting away with everything, and the rest of us constantly stumbling at the last hurdle.” I paused uncertainly. “And I’ve got this funny feeling that I’m supposed to go to my parents’ Grimoire. It’s something Katherine can’t touch. Finch told me that she wanted it so badly, ages ago, but she couldn’t get her grimy little hands on it. That pull I feel has to mean something. I’m bound to that Grimoire by Chaos itself, and I have this weird sense that it’s pointing me in that direction for a reason.”

  “Chaos is talking to you now?” Finch smirked.

  “No, that’s not what I mean, but it’s maybe driving me.”

  Wade nodded. “I think you might be right. If Katherine wanted the Grimoire, as you say, then maybe she wanted it so nobody else could have it. We need to ask why she didn’t want anyone else to have it. I’m not saying it might be her weakness, because I don’t think she actually has one, but we need to explore every avenue we’ve got.”

  Her weakness… I didn’t feel the same as Wade. I knew she had to have a weakness somewhere inside her. Nobody was invincible. Not even Katherine pain-in-my-neck Shipton. And even if her Kryptonite had nothing to do with my parents’ Grimoire, I’d sure as heck find it. Maybe with that “finding hidden things” spell. Maybe it didn’t just work on physical objects—maybe it worked on intangible things, too. I wouldn’t know for sure until I held that book in my hands again.

  “Even if we go after the Grimoire, we’ve still got the issue of boots on the ground,” Wade added. “We need someone with National Council ties who can help us navigate the new security measures and keep us up to date with what the National Council is actually doing.”

  Finch grinned. “Who’s behind door number four?”

  “Eh?” I stared at him.

  “Oh come on, you don’t know who Wonderboy is referring to?”

  “No idea.”

  “Wonderboy?” Wade muttered.

  “Garrett Kyteler. The one. The only.” Finch smirked. “He’s helped you Muppet Babies before, and he’ll help you again.”

  “Hey, don’t forget that you’re a Muppet Baby now.” I nudged Finch in the arm, getting a scowl in return. Still, it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which looked pretty pleased. He liked being part of a team, I could tell.

  “The good news is that Garrett isn’t at the LA Coven today,” Wade said. “He swung by the SDC to speak with Astrid, and she told us that he had a meeting with Remington Knightshade. It could be useful for us to go and speak with Remington, too, to ask what he thinks about the secrecy surrounding Echidna. Maybe he’ll have the real reason for us.”

  I nodded. “Good idea. Then, once we have Garrett’s help, we can start planning our way in and out of the New York Coven. It’s going to need to be airtight, or we’ll end up spending the rest of our lives rotting in Purgatory. Who knows, they might even bring back the death penalty as a special treat.”

  “They’re not touching you.” Wade squeezed my hand again, making me smile despite the terror in my veins. “I mean it. No matter what happens, you’re not going to Purgatory. And we’ll make sure we have a clear entry and exit strategy in place for New York, so you can get that Grimoire and prove to the magical world that you’ve got the strength to take Katherine down, in a way that nobody else has. That’ll shut Levi up, for sure. And I’ll be by your side the whole way.”

  “I wouldn’t do it without you.”

  He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it, sending a jolt of lightning through me. “You never have to. We’re in this together. We have been from the start, from the moment you agreed to come into the SDC.”

  And now we’re so much more… He wasn’t just my friend and work partner anymore; he was the man I loved. That might have weakened some people or made them foggy about what needed to be done, but that wasn’t the case for us. Yeah, we wanted each other to be safe and did some stupid stuff to make sure that happened, but we were better together. We worked better together, and we complemented each other. He had more experience and insight, which I needed right now, and I had the means to get this Grimoire and use it to track down that evil witch to whatever rock she was hiding under. It was a perfect match.

  And, to be honest, I needed him now more than ever. I needed that support to lean on for encouragement and logical critique, since I’d—hopefully temporarily—lost the stability of the coven that had taken me in. I was going against them by carrying on with the mission, and they’d turned against me for refusing to back down. Then again, without Alton at the helm, it wasn’t the same coven anymore.

  In that moment, a sudden thought struck me: What if I could never go back?

  Eleven

  Harley

  I leaned against Daisy’s hood, fanning my face with an old magazine I’d found in the footwell. Finch and I had driven the eight hours from San Diego without pausing, right up the coast, while Wade was coming via the more conventional route of having Jacob portal him here from the SDC. Jacob couldn’t come with him, but he could at least open the portal for Wade. We were supposed to meet him in a circular expanse of ground in front of the manmade lake beside th
e Palace of Fine Arts, as per Finch’s strange instructions, but we still had twenty minutes before he was due to arrive. Wade couldn’t be gone for too long at a time, with Levi watching everyone so closely.

  “I could eat a walrus,” Finch said.

  “You ate an hour ago.”

  “Half a pack of ancient gumdrops doesn’t count, and neither does a greasy sandwich six hours ago, before you say anything about that.”

  I smiled. “At least you’ve had something.”

  “I still don’t get why you wouldn’t let me drive half the way. This thing is a beauty.” He smoothed his hand across Daisy’s chassis with quiet appreciation. He’d taken her from the Fleet Science Center parking lot, having shifted into an impound official from San Diego Parking Enforcement, but as soon as he’d brought her to me, I’d taken over in the driver’s seat. Nobody got to drive Daisy but me.

  “Come on, we should head out.” I flashed him a look. “Let’s hope this goes well.”

  He grinned. “Have I ever let you down before? Pre-gargoyle, naturally.”

  “Jury’s still out.” I grinned too, clapping him on the back.

  Locking Daisy up, we headed across the parking lot and skirted around the side of the more modern part of the Palace of Fine Arts, before entering the beautiful gardens. I’d never been here before, and the sight took my breath away. The architecture was forged from stunning sandstone, with reddish tinged pillars that featured friezes of warriors and beasts carved into the plinths above. They were like ruins from a time that had never existed in continental America, a piece of European history dragged right over the ocean and plonked in the middle of San Francisco. Lush greenery surrounded the ancient-looking structures, with a large lake set in front of its main feature—a domed building with an open interior.

  Fountains burst upward like geysers in the otherwise still lake, genuinely making me feel like we’d come to someplace other than San Francisco. I had no idea why Finch had made us drive all this way. We needed to get to Remington, at the San Francisco Coven beneath Alcatraz, but that island was all the way in the center of the bay, a long way from where we were currently standing in the shade of the pretty, domed structure. Unable to help myself, I walked right to the edge of the lakeside and leaned up against what looked like a twisted cypress tree.

  “Pretty cool, right?” Finch came to stand beside me.

  “I had no idea this place was here.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, Harley. I’d be shocked if you even knew there was a world outside of San Diego.”

  “Hey, I’ve been to New Orleans, and Paris, and I’ve been to Eris Island. Anyway, I’ve met more legends than you could even dream of—Papa Legba, Marie Laveau, Echidna, Gaia… my mom. And if we ever get through this, I’m seeing everything. I’m going to travel this whole world.”

  “I keep forgetting about your Suppressor stuff. You went through a lot to break that, right?”

  I nodded. “More than you’d believe.”

  “Is it getting better?”

  I shrugged. “Yes and no. I have more control, but things are never going to be completely in balance.” I remembered what my mom had told me about feeding my Darkness when it asked to be fed. That still worried me, since I didn’t know just how hungry that side of me might end up getting.

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah… I suppose it does.”

  “The Spiderman paradox.”

  I frowned at him. “Huh?”

  “With great power comes great responsibility.”

  “Ah yes, I forgot you were a massive comic book nerd.”

  He grinned. “They have some good lessons to live by. Lex Luthor, for example: ‘Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story; others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe.’ Comics are pure literature, but snobs like you just think they’re dumb stories with pictures.”

  “What does that even mean? You’re not going to unlock anything with aspartame or whatever.”

  “Maybe that’s because you’re not one of the chosen ones who can read the secrets of the universe.” Finch chuckled to himself. “Your mind isn’t open enough.”

  “My mind is plenty open, thank you very much.”

  A rush of air made us both turn toward the domed building. Wade stumbled out of a portal, blinking in the San Francisco sunlight. Fortunately, there were no ordinary folks around to see a great big hole tear open in space and time. It snapped shut behind him as he spotted us and walked over. Unlike us, he looked fresh as a daisy, his hair clean, his clothes neat and ironed. Meanwhile, Finch and I stank of eight hours in a car and the fast food we’d wolfed down on the way.

  I closed the distance and put my arms around Wade in a way I hadn’t been able to do back at Shiloh’s. He smiled and buried his face in my neck, gripping me tight. This was the reunion I’d craved. I drank in the spiced, dark scent of his cologne and held him closer, as if he might suddenly disappear again. As he pulled away, he leaned down and kissed me tenderly on the lips, my mouth responding in kind, regardless of the fact that Finch was watching us. I didn’t care. I needed to kiss Wade before I went crazy.

  Finch cleared his throat. “Deadlines, guys. Deadlines.”

  I laughed and broke away from Wade. “Seriously, you can’t give us a minute?”

  “You’ve had it.”

  Wade put his hand in mine as we walked back over to Finch, who still stood at the water’s edge. “So, you want to tell us why you chose this place, Finch?” he asked. “I’m not too happy about you making Harley drive eight hours up the coast for this, even if we do have to see Remington.”

  “What, you’d rather we’d swanned into the SDC, used the mirrors, and gotten ourselves caught?” Finch shot back. He had a point. Either way, we would’ve had to make this drive. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the return journey. Finch’s taste in music was awful, and if I had to listen to one more Blake Shelton song, I was going to rip my hair out. He had no concept of driver comfort.

  “I guess not.”

  Finch smirked and gestured to the lake. “This is how we get into the San Francisco Coven without being seen.”

  “This is a lake, Finch.” Wade didn’t sound convinced.

  “Very perceptive.” Sarcasm dripped from his words. “Yes, it’s a lake, but it’s a lake with hidden passageways underneath it. This is the secret way into the SFC. Not that any of you would know about it. It’s not exactly common knowledge. Hence the ‘secret’ part.”

  Wade gave a cool laugh. “You seem to know a lot of things about other places, and their secret entrances.”

  “It was part of my responsibility as a cult member. And, what can I say, I took my job seriously.” He puffed out his chest. “I was the king of recon and espionage.”

  “Did they give you a crown for that?” I replied.

  “I asked for one, but the budget wasn’t what it could’ve been.” He smirked. “See, there are a lot of hidden details in this world, and you just have to know where to look. There are magical secrets on this planet that you wouldn’t even know existed, even if you walked right past one.”

  I smiled. “That’s why you’ve been wasting your potential with the cult. The good, non-psychotic magical world could use a secret sniffer dog.”

  “King, not sniffer dog. A little respect, please.”

  I chuckled. “Sorry.”

  “And anyway, it’s because of the cult that I learned all this stuff. I guess it’s like learning how to be a really good sniper because you’re about to go into a war and kill people. It’s not ideal, but it brings some useful things with it. Doesn’t make me want to go back and do it again, but at least I’ve got the know-how now.”

  “How very poetic,” I murmured.

  “That’s life, Sis. It’s not all puppies and rose petals. Sometimes, we have to do bad stuff to get some good out of it.”

  Wade raised an eyebrow at me. “
It really bugs me when he starts making sense.”

  “Now, watch this.” Finch turned away and stepped right into the water, disappearing under the surface with a faint ripple. A couple of minutes passed, and he still hadn’t reappeared. Wade and I exchanged a worried look.

  “Do you think he’s okay?” I peered at the water, but I couldn’t see any movement underneath it.

  “I’m not sure.” Wade looked about ready to go in after Finch, when the water churned, exposing a swirling hole in the surface of the lake. A shimmering bubble rose up over it, shrouding us and the opening in some sort of time-lapse or concealment shield. Finch emerged from it a couple of seconds later, dripping wet and grinning like a maniac.

  “What the—?” I gaped at him.

  “Neat, right?” He brushed a hand through his soaked hair, slicking it back. “This is how we get to Alcatraz.”

  “But what is it?”

  He smiled. “During the Salem witch trials, magical communities got so freaked out about getting arrested, beaten up, and executed that they created an entire interdimensional tunnel system underneath the United States. This one wasn’t always under a lake, but additions have been made over the years. Additions that have since been forgotten, because people are idiots.”

  “I’ve never heard of any tunnels like this,” Wade said.

  “Like I said, they’ve been mostly forgotten about because people are stupid and don’t read the history books as often as they should. The authorities know about some of them, and there are entrances all over the place, if you know where to look.”

  “So they’re basically emergency escape routes?” I asked.

  “Yeah, pretty much. Back when they were built, the Bestiary was still in its early days and it wasn’t powerful enough to protect all the covens at the time, so the magicals had to put their own security measures in place.” Finch fluffed out his t-shirt, which was sticking to him. “Not all the tunnels are still standing. Not the last time I checked, anyhow. Some are really old and dangerous, crumbling to pieces, so we’ll have to be careful. This one isn’t in the best state it could be, but I’ve seen way worse.”