“I don’t doubt it, but are things really that much worse than they were yesterday?”
She stared at me. “Of course they are. Now that we know something is really up with the security magicals, chances are Katherine has infiltrated the highest levels of the magical authorities with either an operative or some kind of magical influence. To be honest, it’s like they’re not even trying. That’s ringing massive alarm bells in my head, and it should be ringing them in yours, too.”
“You’re probably right, but what can we do about it? These aren’t people we can go up against.”
“We keep on working, in secret. It’s up to you, me, Isadora, Krieger, and the Rag Team, plus a handful of allies like Imogene and Remington, to stop Katherine.”
“You don’t think they might be compromised—Imogene and Remington?” I didn’t think so, but I wanted to hear her thoughts. Louella always had a way of explaining things that made everything make sense.
She shook her head. “They’re way too proactive to be under Katherine’s influence. If they were somehow affected, then Imogene would know about Harley’s mission, and Remington would be trying to stop Harley. Instead, he helped her. Katherine’s subtle, for sure, but if she knew what Harley was up to, she’d be sending everyone in, all guns blazing, to stop her from achieving her goal.”
“I just needed to hear that out loud.”
She grinned. “Happy to help.”
“We should probably get a move on and go see Alton.” I pushed Chaos into my hands and tore open a portal. Together, we stepped through it and stepped back out in the cells below. Ducking into the shadows, I sent a quick text to Astrid to ask her to tweak the security cameras. My phone pinged a moment later: Already on it. Raffe is there. No worries. That woman never seemed to sleep.
We walked along the strip-lit corridor. Sure enough, Raffe sat outside Santana’s cell. He looked up as we approached.
“Looks like we’ve got a crowd tonight,” he said sleepily. Santana sat on the floor on the other side of the bars. She looked tired. Her shoulders were slumped, and she had dark circles under her eyes. It didn’t seem right, her being locked up. We’d all been as involved as she had been in Harley’s trip to the cult. Yet she was being punished way more than the rest of us. And it definitely had more to do with her relationship with Raffe than her actual “crime.”
“Who is it?” Alton’s hand appeared through the bars next door.
“Jacob and Louella,” I replied. “And we’ve got some news.” As quickly as I could, I recounted what I’d heard in Levi’s office. Once I’d finished, nobody spoke for a while. I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“We were hoping you might be able to intervene, Alton,” Louella added.
I nodded, struck by an idea. “Yeah, maybe I could get Isadora down here, and she could plead your case with the California Mage Council. Levi’s just proven that he’s totally unfit to be director. Not that he wasn’t before. But now the Council knows just how dangerous he is in this role.”
“It’d be negligence if they let him continue.” Louella had a determined glint in her eye.
“Oh, this is just too good.”
My head whipped around. It sounded like Raffe’s voice, but different. Darker, with a funny echo to it. And his eyes were red, like two flashing rubies.
“Levi, Levi, Levi, what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into. Useless fool.” Rage twisted up his face, until I barely recognized him as Raffe. I supposed he wasn’t Raffe anymore. The djinn had the reins. “Strutting around like a peacock while putting the whole coven right in the jaws of danger. And yet he keeps Santana here, like a common criminal.”
“Raffe?” I approached him like he was a rabid dog.
“My, my, it’s going to be so delicious when I tear his head from his neck. I can almost hear the ripping tendons. Can’t you?” Raffe’s eyes flashed brighter. “I’ll break that jaw in my hands so I never have to hear another whining word from his mouth. You’ll be able to hear the crunch of it from here. Be ready for it. It’ll be the sweetest sound you’ve ever had the privilege of hearing.”
Realizing I had seconds to get a handle on this, I lunged forward and pinned Raffe against the cell bars. Santana jumped up and tried to grab him around the neck, while Louella ran to block the exit. Please be tougher than you look.
“Raffe? Raffe? Come back to me,” Santana begged.
He tore away from Santana. I tried to put my full weight against him, but he was too freaking strong. In one swipe, he threw me away. I hit the far wall with a thud that blasted through my body. Even my bones were shaking. I slumped to the ground as Raffe sprinted down the hall in a blur. He tossed Louella to the side like a rag doll. She hit the wall twice as hard as I had. I could almost hear the crack of it. A terrifying omen of the sounds we might hear, soon enough.
I tried to call out to Louella, but darkness was slipping over my eyes.
“Raffe, NO!” Santana roared. He’d already vanished. And I was about to black out. “RAFFE!”
I knew nothing she could say would bring him back. He was too far gone. News of Levi had brought the monster out. And he wasn’t going back in until he’d gotten what he wanted.
Twenty-Nine
Harley
Wade and Garrett worked to put up a barrier around the front of the library, to shield what we were doing from humans who might walk by. It was late, but this was New York—the city that never slept. Already, we’d had a rowdy bunch of drunken guys rattling on the gates, but they’d soon gotten bored and wandered off.
“Anytime today,” Finch said, leaning back against the steps.
“Nothing stopping you from giving us a hand,” Wade replied tersely. Bronzed Chaos surged out of his hands, adding to the energy that flowed from Garrett’s palms, their combined forces merging to make a barrier over the front façade. I’d been relegated to guard dog, standing in front of the steps while they worked so I could tell them when I couldn’t see them anymore.
“Almost there.” I didn’t want them bickering again.
A few minutes later, the barrier was complete, shrouding the whole front of the library in a mirage that made it look like there was nobody standing at the top of the steps. I made my way back to them, slipping easily through the barrier. Finch followed, taking the steps two at a time.
“Who’s going first?” He grinned like an idiot. “Russian roulette, New York Coven style. Who’ll survive? Tune in next week to find out.”
“Are you ever quiet?” Wade peered at him over his shades.
“Not unless I’m really, really bored.”
“I’ll go first.” Garrett volunteered, looking like he wanted to stop an argument, too. He stepped toward the chains, taking a deep breath. I didn’t need to be able to read his emotions to know he was crapping his pants right about now. As long as he was honest, he had nothing to worry about. At least, that was what I was trying to convince myself. Honesty is the best policy, right?
No sooner had he touched the chains than his body went stiff, like someone had rammed a plank of wood up his back. Two bright shards of silver shot out of the chains and plunged into his palms. The veins in his forearms pulsated with a dull, internal light. Freaky. Not only that, but his eyes had gone wide, his mouth gaping, but he wasn’t moving or saying anything at all. He just stood there, paralyzed.
I stepped forward to make sure he was okay, only to stagger backward as a torrent of emotions crashed into me. Wade put out his arm to catch me, though he quickly dropped it once he knew I was steady enough. Meanwhile, wave after wave of emotions pummeled through my body—emotions that didn’t belong to me. Intense sadness, desperation, a hint of happiness, and a peppering of frustration twisted together. It took me longer than it should’ve to realize that the emotions were coming from Garrett. What the heck? How was that even possible? I couldn’t sense Shapeshifters’ emotions, and I’d tried enough times. But these emotions were unmistakably Garrett’s. He was wide open to
me, like a freshly cracked nut.
“What’s wrong?” Wade sounded genuinely concerned.
“I… I can feel him. I can feel what he’s feeling.”
Wade took off his shades and glanced at Garrett. “You can?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how, though.” What made it even weirder was the fact that I couldn’t keep the emotions out. Usually, I could put up a filter, or a blockade, but not with Garrett. The emotions were hammering into me, relentlessly.
“It’s the chains,” Finch said. “Got to be. Chains of Truth, spiked with some deadly, ancient mojo. Those things will force everything out of anyone who touches them.”
I shot him a look. “I thought you didn’t know what these were.”
“Let’s just say I had my memory jogged. I’d just about managed to block Iceland out, and then these damn chains get shoved in my face again.” He dropped his gaze. “Just to be clear, I wasn’t part of the team who went to Reykjavik. But I was in the debrief. I heard about the chains there.”
Remember what he gave up. It didn’t exonerate him from everything he’d done during his time with the cult, but it meant I could let these little reminders slide more easily. Wade, on the other hand, was glaring at him like he’d just shot Elmo. Leaving them to their glowering match, I turned my attention back to Garrett. He was stuck there, frozen, being forced to answer whatever the chains wanted to know. We couldn’t hear what was being asked, which was insanely infuriating. Then again, I’d just been schooled by Wade for prying into other people’s business, so maybe it was better that I couldn’t hear what was going on.
After a few minutes of him standing like a petrified statue, Garrett began to spasm. “I want to save the world!” he blurted out, his eyes finally blinking. He was going to need some eyedrops after this. He paused, then answered again, more mobility coming back into his body. “Because it’s the only one I know. I don’t belong anywhere else, dammit! I’m lost without these people!”
Well, I guess we know what the chains asked you. It was a sweet revelation, but I knew better than to say anything to Garrett about it. We were all going to have to go through this, and there was every chance that one of us might get asked something that they really didn’t want anyone else to hear. I was still freaking out about what they were going to ask me.
Silence settled across the library porch as the chains unfurled like a bulky metal snake, releasing Garrett from their paralyzing grip. The library doors opened wide for him, creaking on their old hinges. Garrett stepped through and turned over his shoulder with a smile on his face.
“Looks like we’re in,” he said confidently.
Finch snorted. “Nope, you’re in. We aren’t. Not yet.”
We got one last look at Garrett’s shocked face before the library doors slammed shut, the chains slithering back into position like Medusa’s latest haircut. They tightened around the door handles with a strain of metal, the lock slotting back into place. Garrett was stuck inside, beyond the wooden doors. I could see a glimpse of him through the cracks in the planks, but he didn’t seem to know we could see him. He was pacing frantically, no doubt terrified that he’d be the only one to make it through. He wasn’t the only one. The mood had shifted considerably, a sense of foreboding settling across the three of us.
“Who’s next?” I asked.
Wade sighed and stepped up to the chains without a word. Just like Garrett, the moment he put his hands on the chains, two bolts of silver light shot out and into his hands. He froze, his body paralyzed by the ancient magic pouring out of these things. I got closer, wondering if I might be able to hear his question if I was near enough. I guessed I hadn’t learned anything about privacy, but this was Wade. I needed him to survive this.
His brow furrowed, as if he was in some kind of pain. Tiny thread veins splintered across his wide-open eyeballs as he stared at the chains, his face turning red from the pressure of whatever these chains were doing… or asking. It took everything I had not to pull him away from the door, terrified that he might die if I did. This was pure torment, to watch the man I loved suffer while not being able to do a damn thing about it.
Less than a minute later, his body started to shake. “Because I want to keep her safe!” he shouted. I waited for a second part that might cast some more light on the question he’d been asked, but it didn’t come. Instead, the chains seemed satisfied. They unfurled once again, letting Wade go and opening the doors wide for him to enter. He paused on the threshold, fixing his gaze on me.
“I’ll be waiting for you inside,” he said. “But just know that the quicker you answer, the less it’ll hurt. I’m guessing this pain is going to stay for a while, so make it as quick as you can.” He shook out his arms like they’d seized up and stepped into the darkness beyond. The fact that he’d even looked at me gave me a boost of confidence. He was worried about me being in unnecessary pain. Maybe that meant his frosty attitude was thawing.
Finch rolled his eyes. “How bad can it be?”
He found out, a moment later, as he put his hands on the chains. The silver light that shot out of the metal was way brighter than it had been for Garrett and Wade. The glow of veins beneath his skin pulsated, slithering all the way up his arms and spreading across his chest, pooling at his heart like a city seen from space at night. Even through his T-shirt, I could see the outline of every vein. Instead of freezing, like the others had, he dropped to his knees and fought to tear his hands away from the chains.
“I’ll stop! I’ll stop!” he howled, finally managing to pull his hands back. He sank back onto his haunches, dragging breath into his lungs and wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. I waited until the silver light had faded before I stooped to help him up. The chains hadn’t given him an easy ride, that much was clear.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just peachy. Feel like I got hit in the chest by a sumo wrestler, but otherwise I’m grand,” he wheezed. “You go next. I need to catch my breath.”
“What happened?” I was getting more nervous by the second. My heart was having palpitations, just thinking about everything that could go wrong. At least Finch wasn’t dead, but what if he couldn’t get through the doors? I’d deal with the rest of the mission on my own, if I had to, but it was nice to have someone to hype me up. Finch was surprisingly good at that, and he also had a knack for talking me down off a ledge when my mind was getting the better of me.
“I wasn’t ready, that’s all.” He clutched at his heart. “They gave me a chance to think hard before I answered. I thought I could trick them. They could’ve killed me, but they decided to show a little mercy. They blamed Katherine’s influence on my shortcomings, which is sort of affirming. Hey, it’s what I’ve been telling everyone since Purgatory, so at least they agree.”
“Did you try to lie?”
He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I tried to skirt around the question. I didn’t lie. There’s a nuance. Anyway, they want me to go away and sit on the naughty step, and then come back. But you’ll be fine, as long as you’re honest. If you don’t have an answer, you back out. I doubt they’ll cut you any slack if you try and trick them, so don’t. Unfortunately, I don’t think you get to play the Katherine card.”
“Well then, here goes nothing.”
With a shaky breath, I touched the chains. Immediately, the silver energy shot out, and a current surged through my veins so powerfully I almost screamed. It stung like a million electric shocks, sending my heartrate into overdrive. On instinct, I battled to try and pull my hands away, but they were glued fast to the chains. All I could do was hold on and try not to pass out from the jarring pain that exploded in my chest, my arms burning with the strain of whatever was searing through me.
All of a sudden, I wasn’t standing on the top step of the library anymore. Everything melted away, leaving nothing but white light wherever I looked. At least I could move again, though I was pretty certain I wasn’t in my physical body. T
his felt similar to astral projection, only I still had to endure every sharp pain the chains were inflicting. My lungs were already fighting for air, my whole body on fire.
I struggled to focus my blurry vision as three figures rose from the endless white light in front of me, clad in glittering robes that looked as though they were encrusted in thousands of diamonds. Their hoods were brought so low over their heads that I couldn’t make out their faces. If they even had faces. Although they looked humanoid, they moved in an unsettling way that verged on the spiritual—floating, rather than standing.
“Who are you?” My voice echoed across the never-ending sea of white.
“We are agents of Chaos, embedded within the Chains of Truth.” I had no clue which of them was doing the talking. The words seemed to resonate from all three of them at once, booming through my skull and making the pain worse.
“We are Truth.”
“And Lies.”
“And Ignorance.”
Okay, where’s the White Rabbit—I want a word. This was starting to feel like a page from Alice in Wonderland, in one of the drafts that never made it into the finished version. For very good reason. These beings, whatever they were, were scaring the bejeezus out of me. They held my life in their hands, and if I didn’t give them what they wanted, they’d take it.
“What do you want from me?” I had to fight to speak now that my throat had decided to close up. My entire body was having a violent reaction to these agents of Chaos and their slithering chains, and I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on.
“We have one question for you. If you answer with truth, you may pass. If you answer falsely, you will die. If you take too long to answer, your body will suffer grievously. You cannot fight the pain within you. It will break you before long, forcing you to answer or relinquish the possibility of entry. These are your only choices.” Again, I had no idea which one of the hovering trio had spoken. Not that it mattered. They’d made their point, and then some.
Harley Merlin 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix Page 24