Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven

by Bella Forrest

  We moved as well, staying close to our team leader. Anger boiled inside me, and it was all mine. The gargoyles had nearly killed me, and Finch had been the one to set them loose, bypassing Bestiary protections. My Daisy was done for because of him. My apartment.

  “The magic doesn’t lie. Chaos does not lie!” Santana added.

  All around us were expressions of awe, confusion, and increasing discontentment, as the attention gradually shifted from us—the Rag Team, the magical underdogs—to Finch Anker. The saboteur. The traitor. The looks on their faces confirmed what Santana had just said. Chaos does not lie.

  “Tobe is innocent!” I said, drawing more befuddlement from the magicals around me. They hadn’t been told yet. Tobe was stuck in a cell downstairs, and the coven didn’t even know that he’d been wrongfully accused. Oh well, leave that to Alton to explain. “And you!” I pointed an angry finger at Finch, gritting my teeth. “You almost killed me. Twice! You’ve been bypassing security and Bestiary charms, letting those things loose! Why?”

  “Guys, seriously. You’ve gone off the rails!” Finch said, slowly taking a couple of steps back. “I didn’t do anything!”

  Garrett seemed to be in shock, his movements slow. The rest of their group was baffled. They couldn’t deny the tracer spell, but they were having trouble coping with the facts. Garrett finally spoke, getting up to face Finch. “What the hell did you do, man?”

  “I didn’t do anything! Didn’t you just hear me? I’m innocent!” Finch replied.

  “You can stop pretending, Finch,” Alton said, his expression sour, his heart bleeding. He was disappointed, and it made my stomach churn, painfully. “I know the type of spell they used to point you out. I’ve heard about it before—a long time ago, before I got to this coven. I didn’t even know we kept one here. It may be forbidden, but, if done right, it’s infallible, and it cannot be contested. It only shows the truth.”

  “I—No,” Finch tried again, but gave up when he saw the looks on everyone’s faces, particularly Garrett’s. I couldn’t feel Garrett either, but that was the expression of a boy with a broken heart—the worst kind, too. The one caused by a best friend letting you down in an irreparable way.

  Finch’s shoulders dropped, as he exhaled and shook his head, his bearing morphing from outraged to bitterly amused. “I mean, I could only keep this up for so long, right?” He chuckled then, and Garrett, Poe, Rowena, and the others moved back, finally seeing him for who he truly was.

  “You almost killed me, you son of a—” I lashed out and grabbed hold of his throat with my Telekinesis. He choked under my mental grip, and laughed at the same time, mocking me. I waved my hand and tossed him across the banquet hall. He landed on his side in the middle, between two rows of tables, as the rest of the magicals stood up.

  Finch kept laughing as he stood once more, evil and defiant. “You’re a quick learner, I’ve got to give credit where it’s due,” he replied. “But you’ll never be as fast as me. You’re a Mediocre, after all.”

  He didn’t give me time to respond or prepare for what came next. His hand shot out, and his incredible mental strength closed around my throat and instantly cut off my air supply—his Telekinesis was much more potent than mine. I frantically grabbed at my own neck, my brain switching to survival mode. I was being choked, and I needed to relieve the pressure. The only problem was that there was no physical pressure, nothing to pull back or break in order to set myself free.

  He grinned, then waved his hand up, tossing me upward. I heard screams and gasps and boots thundering across the marble floor. The banquet hall got smaller, down to a bird’s eye view, as I was slammed into the ceiling. Pain burned through my spine, my ribs, my shoulders, and my hips—the impact was one hell of a doozy.

  Then, I fell. From that height, I was going to break plenty of bones. I held my breath and tried to do something, anything, but I was still limp from my ceiling slam. Wade shot back into view and caught me with a grunt. He fell backward, and I landed on top of him with a sloppy thump, but I survived. My whole body hurt like hell, but I was breathing again.

  Security magicals flashed around Finch, their Esprits burning bright in a variety of colors—watches, rings, cufflinks, and bracelets, all loaded and ready to amplify the power of Chaos straight at Finch. He slowly raised his hands, constantly smirking. My palms itched to wipe that smug look from his face.

  “Don’t even think about trying something else,” O’Halloran hissed, taking his position behind Finch, with the rest of the security detail. They were all fuming, and deep down, they were worried. Finch was far too relaxed for this situation. His life was practically over. He was looking at decades in a four-by-four cell, for sure.

  “Why did you do it, Finch?” Alton asked, and moved in closer. “What possible reason could you have to do such a thing? This coven took you in, protected you—”

  “Will you just shut up with all that motivational crap?” Finch cut him off, then rolled his eyes, his hands slowly raising and meeting behind the back of his head. His gaze followed Alton as he came around to face him. “You’ve been droning on like this for the two whole years I’ve been here. Aren’t you tired, or do you really love the sound of your voice that much?”

  “Why’d you do it, Finch?” I asked, trembling with rage, as Wade held me up. His hands gripped my shoulders, soothing me enough to keep me from going after Finch again, though every fiber in my body ached to hurt him.

  Finch shifted his focus to me, his sneer stirring bile up to my throat. “I’ve had a bone to pick with the magicals since they drove my mother away,” he hissed. “I just had to wait for the perfect opportunity to get the plan going. I needed the Bestiary in the hands of absolute incompetents, and… well, the rest is history.”

  “What do you mean? Who is your mother?” Alton asked. “I don’t know of any Ankers who—”

  “Anker isn’t my last name,” Finch spat. “It’s Shipton.”

  My heart dropped, so hard and so fast that I nearly collapsed. “What… What did you just say?” I managed, a whirlwind of questions clobbering me as I looked right into his sky-blue eyes and saw everything that had been right under my nose this whole time.

  “You know, by now, what happened between Hiram Merlin, Hester Merlin, and Katherine Shipton, right?” Finch replied. The shockwave was instant, as the rest of the people around me, including my team, came to the same conclusion. “Hiram had an affair with Katherine, before he married Hester. A son was born from that first union. Me. My mother had someone else raise me. She couldn’t bear the shame of being a single mother, you see. Humiliated by her own sister. Rejected by Hiram and our grandparents. It was a travesty, really. The kind of blue-blooded elitism that has plunged the magical society into uselessness and weakness.”

  I nodded, ever so slowly, as his words filled in the gaps in my accounts of what had happened between my parents. “That makes you my—”

  “Half-brother. Yes. Hello, Sis.” Finch chuckled.

  “You tried to kill me just now.”

  “I’ll do a lot worse by the end of the day, I promise you,” Finch continued. The man was an exquisite sociopath and psychopath, both rolled into a powerful magical whose emotions I couldn’t read. “While I was being raised by a hateful, scrawny old woman named Agnes Anker—there you go, Alton, in case you were wondering,”—he winked at Alton, then went back to smirking at me—“Hiram was living it up with Hester. Both pillars of the community, so on and so forth. Everybody loved them. My mother wasn’t done with Hiram, though. She reclaimed him the way she knew best, and boy, did Hiram come back with a bang! He ended up killing Hester, after which my mother dumped him. She’d gotten her revenge, after all.”

  I still couldn’t wrap my head around my father killing my mother. I thought they were madly in love. They’d all said so, according to what I’d read so far. And what did he mean about Katherine reclaiming my father “the way she knew best”?

  Finch wasn’t going to tell me anything
about that, but I figured Katherine might’ve had something concrete to do with my father’s murderous rampage. I’ll find out, eventually…

  Nausea threatened to turn me inside out, but Wade’s grip on me was firm. “Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you?” I whispered, no longer able to stop tears from rolling down my burning cheeks.

  “You wouldn’t understand. Up until the other day, I didn’t even know you existed, so take it down a notch with the melodrama, okay?” Finch replied. “You have made things harder here, I’ll give you that. Nevertheless, I thought you were still in Hester’s womb when Hiram killed her. Mom lost track of Hiram after the deed was done, and not much was left of Hester’s body to identify… Oh, well. I’ve had to readjust my plans, too. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed.”

  “Why did you do it?” I screamed, letting my anger take over just so I’d stop crying.

  The others were surprised by my outburst. Wade’s fingers were digging into my flesh. I could feel he wanted to tell me something, anything to soothe me, but no words felt right.

  “Because I can, Harley. Because I want to. Because this world needs a drastic change, and it will come in the form of Katherine Shipton.” Finch raised his voice, fear crippling the magicals around me. “This was just the first step to what will be the most memorable ascension of a magical to a godly status. You will all burn. The weaklings, the Mediocres.” He gave me a brief smirk, just to twist the knife in. “They will not survive. My mother will become a true Child of Chaos, and only a select few will be honored to stand by her side. Should you resist, your skulls will be crushed under her feet.”

  “Katherine Shipton is alive,” Alton concluded. There was dread inside him, and howling through me, as well. Clearly, I didn’t know enough about her to fully understand the extent of that statement.

  “Oh, yes.” Finch grinned. “And she’s coming for all of you.”

  “When?” Alton replied. “And how the hell does she plan to become a Child of Chaos?”

  “That’s for me to know, and for you to find out.”

  “We’ll be ready,” I said, as everything became all too clear.

  “I very much doubt that,” Finch sneered. “You’re not even ready for what comes next.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re about to get arrested. You’re surrounded. You’re not going anywhere,” Wade said. He seemed calm, but his rings had a reddish glow about them. His instinct rattled mine and, somehow, I found myself prepared for something—though I didn’t know what, exactly.

  “It doesn’t matter what happens to me,” Finch replied. “Though, I doubt I’ll still be here by the end of the day. You’re too late.”

  We all fell silent.

  Only then did I notice his sterling silver lighter, gleaming white between the fingers of his left hand. Oh, no…

  “His Esprit!” I croaked, pointing at it.

  O’Halloran was the first to make a move to grab it, but a bloodcurdling shriek echoed through the coven and made him freeze—horror set in, as we all understood.

  Finch burst into hysterical laughter, as that first shriek was followed by dozens more. Wings flapped. Objects fell and crashed against the hallway floors, the noises getting closer with every second. The banquet hall erupted into wave upon wave of shrills and screams as black shadows fluttered over us.

  I looked up and felt my throat close up. Gargoyles, dozens of them, flew in. Their claws were out, their fangs glistening as they swooped down on the crowd of magicals. O’Halloran got over his moment of freezing panic and reached for the lighter.

  Finch dodged him, his Esprit glowing white as it turned into a long knife. He swiftly turned around and stabbed O’Halloran in the stomach. I screamed, and Alton tried to tackle Finch, his dragonhead cufflinks beaming yellow. Finch evaded his attack, and I caught a glimpse of the knife headed straight for the side of his neck.

  “No!” I cried out, and Telekinetically latched onto Finch’s hand, then waved it away. The knife slid across the floor to the side.

  Chaos ensued as magicals used a variety of spells and Telekinesis of their own to try and capture as many gargoyles as they could. My team spread out to help, while I kept my focus on Finch. The bastard was going down—I was going to make sure of that.

  Tables were turned. Glasses crashed and crumbled against the marble floor. Blood sprayed across the pristine walls and linen tablecloths where gargoyles’ claws went through magical flesh. The security magicals fanned out, as did the preceptors, using every ability and every spell handy to bring the monsters down.

  Growls emerged from the hallway, and more gargoyles flew in. “Oh, my God,” I breathed, watching the scene unfold for a couple of seconds, then glared at Finch. “You’re not getting away with this!” I shouted.

  Alton’s hands glowed yellow as he said a spell under his breath, his eyes on Finch.

  “Not gonna happen,” Finch said, and his skin began to ripple. In a fraction of a second, before Alton could grab him, he turned into someone else—Clara Fairmont, Wade’s failed date. The real Clara was fighting alongside the preceptors against ferocious gargoyles. Holy crap, Finch can turn into other people.

  Alton seemed just as stunned as I was, and it didn’t work in our favor, because Finch took advantage of that blank moment and, in the form of a blonde female, vanished into the crowd. “Crap!” I croaked, and chased after him—her.

  I saw Finch pick up the knife-shaped Esprit, and I used it as a visual marker, in case I lost him again. Using my mental lasso, I managed to grip him—her—by the throat and pulled back with all my strength. A gargoyle flew overhead, and I ducked as it swooped down. It was yet another window of opportunity for Finch to escape my hold.

  “Dammit!” I breathed, and went deeper into the crowd, my eyes fixed on the glowing knife. Finch sneaked through and made it to one of the enormous, floor-to-ceiling windows. Magicals screamed and grunted around me, as they struggled to contain as many gargoyles as they could. At first glance, several lives had already been lost, their bodies lying on the floor in puddles of blood. A couple of gargoyles had fallen, too, and were rapidly disintegrating into puffs of black smoke. They were gone, lost forever, but plenty were still roaming freely through the banquet hall. They were too fast and vicious, and there weren’t enough Mason jars handy to actually capture them properly. Given the dire situation we were all in, the fastest and safest option was to kill as many of them as possible, before moving on to capture the rest.

  “It’s too late, Harley,” Finch said, turning to face me. He rippled back to his original form, but he did seem irritated that I was still onto him. Whatever that ability was, I was far too determined to let him confuse me.

  I didn’t care whether it was too late or too soon. I summoned every ounce of energy inside me and focused it all on my Telekinetic abilities. They were the only thing I could control in an efficient manner and without an Esprit, at that point.

  “It’s never too late to set things right, Finch. You don’t have to do this,” I said.

  “You see, that’s where you’re wrong,” he replied bitterly, and raised his knife. He twisted the glowing white blade in his hand and muttered something in Latin, then shoved it into the glass behind him.

  “No!” I shouted and launched a mental lasso at him. I caught hold of his throat and pulled him back. He didn’t let go of the knife, though—in that pull, and as the blade was removed, the glass crackled all over, spreading out in an intricate spiderweb. The window then came down with a loud, thundering crash. Glass scattered all over, and the coven collectively held its breath.

  This wasn’t just a window breaking. This was the interdimensional pocket cut open right into the human world, the park behind Fleet Science Center now in full view. There were plenty of people out walking their dogs and doing their morning runs, and some children playing around the fountain, too.

  My worst nightmare came true. Finch fell to his knees, and I didn’t let go of my Telekinetic hold th
is time.

  The gargoyles purred with delight, then let out deafening growls, leaving the magicals behind as they flew outside. Humans were first stunned, then horrified and screaming as they ran away from the sound, tripping over each other.

  “Contain them!” Alton bellowed from behind.

  “Too late.” Finch grinned, looking up at me from the floor. That’s it.

  I punched him hard, my knuckles ramming into his jaw. “I’ve had enough of your crap!”

  Finch’s blade slashed at my leg and caught me by surprise. Pain burned through my calf, which I could no longer feel. I knew, right then and there, that it was no ordinary knife. He cut me again, just below the knee, and I screamed, while he sneered, his teeth smeared with blood.

  I fell backward, and he instantly moved on top of me, his hands clutching my throat. His grip tightened as he sneered, looking all too happy to choke the life out of me. I slapped and punched as hard as I could, but I couldn’t breathe anymore. Focus, Harley, focus!

  People’s lives were in danger. Gargoyles were out there, spreading out through San Diego, released from the Bestiary. And Finch was choking me to death.

  Fire swallowed him whole, and he jumped back, grunting and flailing and desperately shrieking as the flames consumed him. I looked up and saw Wade running toward me, his rings glowing red. “Harley!” he breathed, then helped me up. I could stand, though only on one leg. The lower half of my right leg was still bleeding and paralyzed.

  Finch was just five feet away, in the park. The fountain was twenty feet farther back. I limped toward him, watching as he struggled with the flames. I latched onto him again and swung him backward. He landed in the water, steam and smoke rising from the surface, and I rushed forward. Wade tried to get to him first, but I waved him away with a thought. He fell to the ground. Something had come undone inside me, and there was a surge of anger I needed to quell.

  “Go help the others,” I shouted, as Wade stumbled back to his feet, staring at me with befuddlement.