Harley Merlin 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix

by Forrest, Bella

  “As long as you leave Suri out of this. Let her go home,” I said in a low voice.

  “Not a chance.” She paused. “Does that mean you’re agreeing?”

  I sneered. “Over my dead body.”

  “Ugh, so cliché. But fair enough, have it your way.” She lifted her palms. But before she could conjure a single strand, a portal tore open right behind me. Katherine’s eyes flew wide, and a roar of surprise slipped out of Naima’s mouth.

  Elan appeared beside me, Lethe’s strange light making him phase in and out of a solid body. He hadn’t come out of the portal, but he was enough to distract Katherine and Naima.

  “You!” Katherine narrowed her eyes at him. “I was wondering if you’d make an appearance, you slimy son of a—” The words died on her lips as Isadora stepped out of the portal with Louella, the two of them sprinting at Suri and me. They dragged us into the portal, just as my dad sent out a bright white light. It hurtled straight for Katherine and Naima, knocking the latter back. Katherine stayed standing.

  As the portal began to close, my dad turned and smiled at me. One last time. He hadn’t abandoned me. He’d been watching this whole time, looking out for me.

  Katherine rolled her eyes. “You were never one for theatrics, Elan. What changed?”

  “Necessity,” he replied.

  “This won’t stop me, you realize.”

  “No, it won’t.” My dad grinned wider. “But it’ll get my son away from you.”

  The portal closed before I could hear any more. As we stumbled back into the SDC, I was relieved to see Suri in Louella’s grasp. But that was about the only relief I was going to get from this. Katherine had completed the fourth ritual. She’d done it so easily that it seemed ridiculous. We were supposed to be making it harder for her, not easier.

  And then there was my dad… I’d never see him again. Even if I went back to Lethe, he might not be there anymore. Katherine had gotten stronger, and I didn’t know the limits to her newly absorbed power. Could she kill a spirit all over again? Would she? Or would she lock him in a jar, the way she’d done with Harley’s mom? I couldn’t see a single outcome where I’d get to speak with him again. That stung. Right in my heart. I’d spent so many years wanting to see my parents again, and now that road had come to an end. There were no loopholes.

  I’d had a lot of hopes in Lethe, and they’d all been dashed. I hadn’t saved Echidna. I hadn’t stopped Katherine. And I wouldn’t have gotten Suri out if it hadn’t been for Isadora. And now, Katherine would be on to the fifth ritual before we could even blink.

  Twenty

  Jacob

  “I don’t understand what happened. What was that place? And what were they doing? There was all this glowing stuff and sparks and… what did I see back there? Seriously, what did I see?” Suri glanced up at Louella, while Krieger prepared a syringe. She was clinging to Louella like a life raft while she rocked backward and forward on a chair in the infirmary.

  “You’re safe now,” Krieger replied. He took the syringe off a silver tray and injected its contents into her arm. Slowly, she relaxed into the chair. Her eyes closed. Soon, she looked like she was asleep. I realized he must have given her a mild sedative, which was probably for the best. She hadn’t stopped murmuring since we’d come back through the portal. I kept trying to talk to her, but she kept turning her face away, like she didn’t want to see me. I couldn’t blame her for that. Not after what I’d just put her through.

  “Don’t do anything else to her,” I said. Krieger looked like he was preparing something else. “Don’t wipe her memory, please. Not yet.”

  “I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” Krieger replied. “She needs to be calmer before we can wipe her memory. Otherwise, there’s a chance the spell will not stick as it should. That is usually the case with younger humans. They have surprisingly resilient minds.”

  Isadora nodded. “We probably shouldn’t overwhelm her until she comes around again.” She looked to me. “How are you doing?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Not great.”

  “You did a brave thing back there.”

  “No, I did a stupid thing.” I balled my hands into fists to keep the tears away. “I should’ve known Katherine would be watching the SDC. I put Suri in danger. There wasn’t anything brave about it.”

  “You went after her. That was brave. You could’ve left her, but you didn’t,” Louella chimed in. “And I know you, Jake. I know you were probably trying to think of a way to get Echidna out, too.”

  I shrugged. “What does it matter what I wanted to do? I couldn’t do any of it. Suri probably would’ve been mulch if you hadn’t arrived when you did.”

  “What happened?” Krieger sat on the stool opposite me.

  “Katherine… she completed the fourth ritual. Echidna is dead, and she sucked up all that energy.” Tears welled in my eyes. “I couldn’t stop her. I couldn’t do a damn thing. I tried portaling, but she was one step ahead of me. It was a trap, and I walked into it. Katherine wanted me to join her and used Suri as leverage. I was never going to agree, but Suri was bait.”

  “You couldn’t have known that,” Isadora said.

  “No, but I should’ve.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Jake. Katherine has probably been planning something like this for a while. It’s not your fault.” Louella held my gaze. I could tell she meant well, but disappointment colored her tone. They were all disappointed. And scared, probably, for the same reasons I was.

  Katherine was one step closer to her goal. I had so much grief and disappointment and frustration and anger running through me that it was hard to string a simple sentence together. I’d tried to do something good, and I’d failed miserably. I’d tried to be the hero, and I’d almost gotten Suri killed.

  “Wait…” I looked to Isadora. “How can you be here? Aren’t you supposed to be in the cells? How did you know where to find me?”

  She walked over and hugged me. I didn’t resist. “We can talk about that later. I just want you to know that you did your best under impossible circumstances. Suri is alive because of you. I saw Katherine—she was brimming with power. The fact that you were still alive is a testament to how well you coped.”

  I clung to her. I tried to take her words and make myself feel better, but it wasn’t working. I just kept thinking about Echidna and Katherine, and how we were in an even worse position. I kept trying to think of what else I could’ve done. Would I have changed the outcome if I hadn’t gone into the Fleet Science Center this morning? Would Echidna still be alive if I hadn’t? Or would it only have been a delay of the inevitable?

  “Seriously, how are you here?” I pulled away from Isadora. I could at least get an answer to that question.

  “Turns out, that tracker Levi put on your neck works. It alerted him to the fact that you’d gone missing, but he couldn’t locate you with any of his own magic. Being in an otherworld skews conventional trackers. He came to me in the hopes that I’d have an idea of how to find you.” She paused. “I told Levi I could help if he released me back into the coven, for good. He did, given the stakes of you being missing. It was actually the info Finch gave us that helped. Now that we know you can use a personal item to open a portal to someone, I used one of your t-shirts—sorry if it was one of your favorites. But it led me right to you.”

  I frowned. “Why would Levi have come to you?”

  “Actually, O’Halloran suggested it. He was talking with Krieger when the news broke and convinced Levi to ask me for help. The portal took me to Lethe, but I wasn’t expecting to find you the way I did. Katherine is clearly moving way faster than any of us anticipated.”

  “Who’s the girl?” Louella nodded to the slumped figure of Suri.

  “I’m Suri,” she mumbled, half asleep. “And you’ve got some seriously good drugs in this place…” She passed out again, her arms going limp.

  Krieger chuckled. “She’s been through a lot, especially for a human.�
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  “Does Levi know she’s here?” I looked up at the CCTV camera in the corner of the room.

  Isadora shook her head. “He knows you’re back, and you’re recovering, but he doesn’t know about Suri here. I called Astrid to tell her to tamper with the security footage. We don’t want him knowing there’s a human in the building. Me and Astrid have got a decent code going. It’s necessary, given Levi’s latest wave of doom and gloom.”

  “I guess that’s good.” I dipped my chin to my chest. “I just wish I could’ve stopped Katherine.”

  Louella came to sit beside me. “You can’t think like that. We need to look forward now.”

  I sighed. “She still has one ritual, I guess. That’s one more chance to stop her.”

  Isadora nodded. “The LA Coven head honchos already have the recovered, rare magical children in protective custody. With reinforced security.”

  “That’s good to know.” It gave me a little bit of relief.

  “You’ve been gone longer than you think,” Krieger explained. “Time seems to work strangely in this Lethe place.”

  “How long have I been gone?”

  “Eight hours.”

  I gaped at him. “What?”

  “Who was the guy with the light show?” Louella asked.

  The tears came flooding back. “He was my dad.”

  “Elan?” Isadora looked suddenly sad.

  “Yeah. I found him when I landed in Lethe. He died there. His spirit is trapped there. I don’t really want to talk about it.” My voice croaked.

  “Then tell us more about the girl,” Isadora urged, putting her hand on my shoulder. I hated pity. And it was coming off all of them. I didn’t need to be an Empath to feel it.

  “She was just some girl I met in the Science Center. We got to talking after I saved her from a group of schoolkids. She’s one of the tour guides.” I pushed down my sad thoughts.

  Louella nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen her a couple times, when I’ve been passing through. She works in the gift shop too, right?”

  “Yeah.” My mouth twisted into a grimace. “But she was just an opportunity for Naima to pounce, according to Katherine. They were waiting for me to slip up. Katherine wanted me in Lethe, one way or another—she wanted me to see what she did to Echidna, and she wanted me to switch to her side. I think she wanted to send some kind of message, to back me into a corner. Her usual ‘look how powerful I am’ bullcrap.”

  “So, she’s on the last ritual?” Louella dragged in a nervous breath. “Do you think she has enough rare magicals to perform it?”

  Isadora shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. And, without Finch here, we can’t exactly ask.”

  “Plus, she may be saving her own rare magicals for her future army so she doesn’t run out of specific abilities. From what I understand, if a particular power goes out of existence, she may not be able to resurrect that ability when she gives abilities as a Child of Chaos. I may be wrong, but that’s the theory,” Krieger added. “She may wish to use magicals who are, for lack of a better word, expendable. Those children would fit that description.”

  “Either way, we can be sure Katherine’s got a backup plan for her backup plan. Harley said that, remember?” I gritted my teeth. I hated Katherine so much that it actually burned in my chest. “If she has to use her own magicals, she will. To her, everyone is expendable.”

  “Seems like there’s a pattern in Katherine’s behavior.” Isadora leaned forward in her chair. “She may have tried to have you and Harley killed, but the majority of her interactions with you two have revealed a certain level of… obsession. She wants to break you down until you’ve got nothing left to give. My guess is she’s doing it so that, when she becomes Eris, she can be there to pick up the pieces. So she can use you and give you no choice but to bow to her.”

  Krieger nodded. “Katherine is no fool. She can appreciate the value of natural talent and rare ability. And she would probably like to nurture it, given the chance. There’s a reason she has so many loyal followers, and while that has something to do with her power, it likely has more to do with her charisma. That’s why people are running from their covens to join her—because they may feel they ought to be on the winning side, and the side that is offering more.”

  “I’ve known Katherine for a long time, and I think you’re right,” Isadora replied. “She has a way of persuading people to do things. It’s the same trait that can be found in many influential leaders across history—the most evil ones.”

  “We should tell Harley about what happened,” I said.

  “I was just about to suggest that. Do you have a way of getting in touch with her?” Isadora glanced at me.

  “I’ve got a burner phone.” I patted my pockets, feeling the outline of it. “Yeah, I still have it.”

  “Good, because right now, she might be the only hope we have left.”

  Twenty-One

  Harley

  We were back in the Palace of Fine Arts, and Wade and I were sitting by the lake, watching the fountains erupt. The sun was high in the sky and warm on my face, the earthy scent of the cypress trees drifting on the breeze. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend that nothing bad was going on, and we were just sitting here in the pretty afternoon, admiring the beauty of this place.

  A small smile turned up the corners of my lips as I wondered if Wade and I would ever get the chance to have a vacation together. Maybe he’d be able to come on the Smiths’ next family holiday, if we lived that long. My smile evaporated. That was the trouble with this Katherine stuff—it infiltrated everything else, making it impossible to keep my thoughts light and happy.

  Finch and Garrett were getting snacks and drinks from a stand at the far side of the gardens, laughing at something. The former frostiness that had existed between them seemed to be thawing a bit. Finch looked happier, leaning up against the stand, making a rude gesture with the ketchup bottle. Ah, Finch… ever the joker. And the fact that Garrett was laughing back only spread Finch’s smile wider. I’d almost forgotten how close they’d been, once upon a time.

  Still, even with the Queen of Evil permeating all my waking thoughts, it was kind of nice to have a moment to gather myself before we went, full steam ahead, into the mission to snatch the Grimoire. Moments like this didn’t come along too often, these days. Plus, it was nice to be alone with Wade. The problem was, even though he was sitting right next to me, he couldn’t have been further away. We’d already been sitting for a good five minutes, and he hadn’t said a word apart from, “Yeah, I want sauce on my fries.” Not exactly thrilling conversation.

  Fiddling with my pendant to try and push away the anxiety rising through my stomach, I leaned into his shoulder. He stiffened slightly, but he didn’t move away. Maybe I was just imagining things. Maybe this was his stress showing through, manifesting as distance instead of fear.

  “You okay? You’ve been kind of quiet,” I said, knowing it was a dumb observation but not sure how else to start.

  He looked down at me. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

  “New York stuff?”

  He nodded. “Yeah… it’s a lot, right?”

  “You could say that.” I focused on the fountain as it sprang upward. “You sure that’s all?”

  “I promise.”

  “You’ve been quiet a lot today. Is it something I’ve done? Or something someone’s said?”

  He kissed my forehead. “No, it’s not you. It’s just this mission. It’s a massive risk.”

  “But it’ll be worth it, if we can do it.” I had to keep convincing myself of that, in case I suddenly lost my nerve.

  “Maybe…” He kept his gaze on me and tilted my chin up. He had that intense look in his eyes that I loved, and his stare flickered to my mouth. I knew what came next, and I was only too happy to get involved.

  Slowly, he leaned in and kissed me gently on the lips. As soon as his mouth touched mine, I melted into him, letting all my fears and concerns drift away
, leaving only him and me, and the soothing sound of the fountain cascading back into the lake. I looped my arms around his neck and felt his hands slide around my waist as he kissed me deeper, telling me without words that nothing had changed between us. It was a huge comfort, especially considering the danger we were about to head into. For that, I needed all the support and extra strength I could get.

  As I pulled away, a goofy grin on my face, he kept his arm around my waist. Satisfied, I nestled closer into his chest, listening for the steady beat of his heart. It would have been bliss, had it not been for the wave of unsettling emotions coming off him. I didn’t want to shut them out, because it gave me some idea as to what he was thinking. I knew it was borderline prying, but he’d been acting so odd that I needed a bit of extra insight. Right now, I could feel contentment, a ripple of desire, and a flurry of love, but it was somewhat tainted by the undercurrent of anger and bitterness that bristled alongside.

  “You’ve gone quiet on me again,” I murmured.

  “Have I?”

  I nodded. “Are you sure there’s not something else on your mind?”

  He sighed heavily. “It’s… no, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Come on, tell me. You can tell me anything.”

  He kissed my hair. “It’s Finch.”

  “Finch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about him?”

  Wade shrugged. “I’m worried about his influence on you. He ruined your reputation. He made you run from the SDC. He took away your chance to clear your name. It’s not right. You deserve a future for everything you’ve done, and are doing, not a lifetime in Purgatory.”

  Wow, someone’s been harboring some resentment. The spike in his bitterness hit me like a slap to the cheek. All this time, I’d thought he was just angry about Katherine, but it was Finch he was mad at. I couldn’t exactly disagree with the points he’d made, but I didn’t want to be going into the New York Coven with a fractured team.