“Are you okay?” Alton asked softly.
Astrid turned to him. “I’m fine,” she said, her voice flat.
“Are you sure?”
“I feel fine. A bit tired, maybe.” That same dead tone exited her lips.
Alton pulled her closer, relief washing over all of us. “I thought I’d lost you, my little one. I thought I got to you too late. Every time I reached for you, you got further and further away, and I felt you slipping… oh, I felt you slipping out of my hands. I didn’t think I could hold on to you. I’m so sorry, Astrid. I should never have let this happen. I should never have let you out of my sight.”
“You can’t stop me from living,” she replied. “My team needed me. I felt you reaching for me, but I didn’t think I would make it, either. For a moment, I thought I hadn’t.” The others were smiling and crying. I couldn’t stop focusing on the void inside her. It was in every hollow word, and I couldn’t understand why nobody else was hearing it. There was no smile in her eyes or on her lips, only a blank expression that didn’t fit with the words she was saying.
“We should get you to Krieger so he can run a full checkup on you,” Alton suggested.
Astrid nodded slowly. “I agree.”
Is nobody hearing this? Seriously? Something was wrong with her. Her whole manner was off. It was like she’d turned into a changeling—an echo of the person she used to be. I realized, with a sinking feeling, that we hadn’t got her back quick enough. Alton had fought with everything he had, but he hadn’t been able to bring every part of her back to the land of the living. It broke my heart, to think of what Astrid must be going through. She must have been so lost and baffled, having been a spirit one moment, and then being dragged back into the human world a moment later. I hoped that it might only be temporary, a brief side effect of being resurrected after being dead too long.
Alton helped Astrid to her feet and lifted her into his arms. They set off down the corridor together. It was a sweet sight, marred only by the knowledge of what was going on inside her. The infirmary wasn’t much further, but none of us felt as though we should follow. They needed some father-daughter time, after what they had just endured. Plus, Alton was probably going to have to disappear to Purge as soon as he’d taken her to Krieger.
“So, what now?” Dylan asked, wiping his eyes.
“We debrief Alton once he’s done in the infirmary and done with the Purge that is probably going to hit him soon, and we try and send a team back through to the Asphodel Meadows. Katherine may still be there and, if she is, we will need stronger firepower,” Wade replied. “After that, we set to work on figuring out the rest of these rituals, to try and stay ahead of her.”
I shook my head. “We can’t send a team back there. Isadora is too weak, and Jacob will be exhausted by now. If he can even reopen a portal there, we’ve got no assurances that he’ll be able to get back. Not now, at any rate.”
“So… what? We just let her go?”
“She already completed the ritual, Wade. Sending a team back there would be a suicide mission,” I explained. “It’s going to take her a while to get out of that place, with no Portal Opener to use. That gives us some time to look into the next rituals and try and get the jump on her. We need to use this window wisely, instead of risking more lives.”
“I agree,” Santana said. “While she’s stuck there, she’s not causing trouble for us. I say we use the time to get ahead of the game, before she and her pet lioness find a way out.”
“Weird, wasn’t it, seeing another Purge beast like Tobe walking about?” Dylan said. It was a welcome break in tension.
“Very weird,” I agreed. “It was like Tobe in drag.”
“She was kind of pretty for a Purge beast,” Raffe mused, getting a punch in the arm from Santana.
Garrett still hadn’t spoken.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I can’t stand around here talking like nothing has happened,” he replied wearily. “Sorry, but I need to go to the infirmary. I need to know she’s okay. I’ll come back and find you later for the debriefing, but I have to be with her right now.”
I put my hand on his arm. “We understand, Garrett. We’ll be along soon; I think it’d just be better if we didn’t crowd her at the minute. You go, be with her. She’ll want you there.” Before I told anyone about the weirdness that I’d felt from her, I wanted to find out what was wrong with her myself. Maybe it would go away in its own time. Maybe it was just the residual effect of being brought back so many times.
Garrett nodded and hurried away toward the infirmary. The rest of us stood around uncertainly, though a plan of action was steadily forming in my head. Jacob had put us in a dangerous position back there, and some words needed to be had. Although I had to admit I was eager to see Isadora again, despite my anger.
“I can’t believe Quetzi is dead,” Santana said quietly.
“What was she even doing to him?” Dylan replied.
I sighed heavily. “Absorbing his energy to make herself stronger. I think she might have sapped some energy from Nyx’s dimension too, using Quetzi as the conduit. It’s the first step in this plan of hers, and it worked. That woman is crazy powerful now, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Says you, with your weird, foggy beast,” Raffe teased. Part of me wondered if the djinn was in there, having a laugh at my expense. The djinns were closely related to Erebus, and I’d almost brought him down from whichever dimension he existed in.
“Yeah, you and I need to have a little chat about that summoning stuff,” Wade said suddenly, shattering my reverie.
“Not now,” I shot back.
“You could’ve hurt yourself back there, not to mention the rest of us.”
That stung, after what had happened to Astrid. “I had to stop Katherine, and I didn’t see any other option. I know it could’ve ended badly, but Katherine was about to slaughter us. You saw the way she flicked Dylan and Raffe, like they were annoying little bugs. Imagine what else she could have done.” I turned to Santana. “I’m sorry you had to deal with the aftermath, though. I just wanted a way to stop Katherine. I figured that, if I managed to call Erebus, I could offer Katherine’s life as payment. That way, we wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore.”
Santana put her arm around my shoulders. “You’re forgiven. Although,” she lowered her voice, “I still don’t know how you did that without the book. You think it’s your parents’ mojo, giving you some extra juice?”
“That’s what I was thinking. I couldn’t read any of the unfinished ones in New York without the book in front of me, but I didn’t try it with my mom and dad’s.”
“Could be the blood tie you have to it, then. Man, it was scary impressive though.”
“I’m still sorry. I know you could’ve gotten hurt, cleaning up after me.”
She smiled. “Apology accepted. I get what you were trying to do, and if it had worked, I’d have been grateful. Just don’t go making a habit out of this summoning stuff, you hear me?”
“I promise.”
Wade frowned. “Do I get the same promise?”
“I promise—no more summoning all-powerful entities.”
“Glad to hear it.” He eyed me cautiously. “What’s your plan for now, until Alton comes out of the infirmary?”
“I’m going to find Jacob and deliver a couple of harsh truths.”
“You want company?”
I shook my head. “Not for this one.”
“Call me if you need backup. They’re hiding out in one of the rooms at the back of the Aquarium, by the way. I saw Jacob sneak off while we were running with Astrid.”
“Thanks, Wade.” I looked up at him, wanting to say so much more but not knowing where to begin. My stomach had tied itself in knots.
I set off toward the Aquarium, ready to launch a tirade at Jacob. Not all of my anger was directed at him, but he had messed up big-time, and that couldn’t go unpunished. Plus, I wasn’t exactly dea
ling with Quetzi’s death well. I had wanted to save him, and I’d failed. After all, the serpent had saved me from Katherine, and she’d literally torn him apart.
Anger and grief were mixing in a great big ball inside my stomach, twisting and turning, and tearing me up. If Jacob had done as I’d asked, would things have turned out differently? It was like missing a train by a couple of minutes. All of the could-haves and might-have-beens came swarming into my brain.
Right now, I was on the warpath.
Thirty-Two
Harley
I stormed through the double doors of the Aquarium with anger pulsing in my veins. Not the best way to go about speaking to someone, but I couldn’t get my feelings to simmer down.
Before I could open my mouth to call out for Jacob and Isadora, though, a searing pain shot through me. It was white-hot, like a million blades being pushed through my veins. I sank to my knees, clamping a hand to my chest. A cry escaped my lips, and my eyes squeezed shut as I fought against the sudden pain. What the hell was going on? I hadn’t been hurt in the blast, aside from a couple of scrapes and bruises.
Oh, no…
My overwhelming anger and the intense pain were linked, I’d have staked my life on it. I’d cracked the Suppressor by calling on Erebus, and this was the result. Deep inside me, some of the pent-up energy was leaking out, tipping the balance toward Darkness. Everything I’d striven to avoid had happened. Now, I felt as though I was in a worse position than the one I’d started in. At least, before, there’d been no crack in the Suppressor, meaning everything was sort of in balance. But what now—would it keep on leaking, and pushing me toward the Dark?
“Harley?” a sheepish voice called from the shadows.
“Jacob, get out of here now,” I shot back, sweat dripping down the back of my neck. With enormous effort, I hauled myself back into a standing position. I wasn’t going to speak to Jacob on my knees, looking like I was on the edge of an aneurysm.
Two figures emerged, though one was limping. Jacob and Isadora, reunited. For a moment, I lost all sense of my anger. It was good to see her in a safe place again, away from Katherine’s clutches. Then again, with the hex looming over her, there was no telling how long she’d actually be safe for. That notion spurred on my fury at what Jacob had done. I could see on his face that he was expecting a lecture, and I wasn’t about to disappoint.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I hissed, my body pulsating. The light was dim in the Aquarium, but I was convinced that there were black veins throbbing beneath my skin. I blinked, and they disappeared, but the paranoia remained. What’s happening to me?
“I had to save her,” Jacob replied firmly.
“At the expense of everything we’d been working toward? We could’ve stopped Katherine, right there and then, if you’d just done as I’d asked. We could’ve prevented her from completing the first ritual!”
Isadora stepped in front of Jacob. “You know that isn’t true, Harley. Katherine would have found a way out of the situation, as she does every time. I’m not saying that what he did was right, but don’t lay that sort of blame at his feet. She had already absorbed a great deal of Quetzi’s energy before Jacob jumped through that portal—she would’ve been too strong to defeat, regardless.”
“He messed up, Isadora,” I said, my eyes narrowing.
“He knows what he did, and he’s sorry for it,” she replied evenly. “He was doing what he thought was best. And besides, we will have the chance to stop her from completing the next rituals. Yes, it’s troubling, but all is not lost.”
“No, if we’d stopped her killing Quetzi, then we’d have stopped her completing the first ritual and becoming even more powerful. She managed it, and that’s on Jacob.” I needed to calm down, but the fury was pouring out of me like molten metal. “I asked him to help me take Quetzi. We wouldn’t have left you behind, Isadora. We’d have found a way to rescue you.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “I know you would have, Harley. As I said, Jacob knows he made an error in judgment back there.”
“I’ve yet to hear him say a word about it. Is that what you’ve been doing here, huh? Having a chat about how to spin this in a better light?” I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, the pain subsiding.
“I’m sorry,” Jacob muttered. “I saw her, and I couldn’t help it. I had to save her. It felt like the right thing to do, at the time.”
Don’t tell me, your intentions were good? I knew the dangers of doing things with good intentions. I’d convinced the coven to leave Micah and the other magical kids with their foster parents, under magical supervision, even though the Ryders were circling. And look how well that had turned out.
“Yeah, and some of the most catastrophic things that have happened on this planet were done with the best intentions. Atomic bomb, anyone? That research was supposed to be used for good, not to build a great big nuke that could decimate cities and affect generations afterwards.” My words were tumbling out at a rapid pace, my breath coming in stilted gasps.
“Are you okay?” Isadora asked, her brows pinched in worry.
“No… I don’t think I am.” I staggered forward, losing my balance. Jacob caught me and held me up as I forced my legs to stop shaking.
“Maybe we should sit down,” Isadora suggested. Rather than risk sinking to my knees again, I agreed, plonking myself down in the center of the Aquarium’s marble floor. Some of the sea creatures were edging nearer to the glass, to take a closer look at us. Either that, or they were drawn by the energy that was leaking out of my Suppressor, the same way Katherine drew gargoyles to her.
“What happened to you?” Jacob said quietly, seeming afraid to meet my gaze.
I tilted my head from side to side, trying to get my vision to clear. “What happened to me? I’ll tell you what happened to me—because of your little stunt, I had to think of something big to distract Katherine. I summoned Erebus—or partially summoned him, anyway. I wanted to sacrifice Katherine’s life, in return for summoning him, but I didn’t get that far. Somewhere along the line, while I was doing my magical best, the spell’s power cracked my Suppressor. It’s not fully broken, because I can still feel the limitations, but there’s definitely something not right. Hence the falling and sweating and overwhelming anger.”
Isadora sighed. “I warned you about this.”
“Hey, I didn’t do it on purpose. Not exactly. I mean, yeah, I did the spell, but only because we needed a way to get out of there. We had no idea if Jacob was even coming back!”
“I’d never have left you there,” Jacob murmured.
“I know you wouldn’t, but it was terrifying to be abandoned in some otherworld,” I shot back.
“I’m not blaming you for performing the spell, Harley,” Isadora said. “I’m angry with myself, that I didn’t predict this in some way. I should have tried to put a fail-safe in place or done more to bolster the defenses around the Suppressor—at least for a little while.”
I turned to her. “I don’t need more defenses; I need a quicker, safer way of breaking this thing. If you’d given me that, then we could’ve avoided all of this. Hell, if you and dad hadn’t put this stupid thing in me in the first place, that’d have been swell.” I knew it was the leaking energy talking, but I couldn’t get my mouth to stop yapping.
She shook her head. “We installed the Suppressor to keep you safe from detection. You know that.”
“It doesn’t make it easier to swallow,” I muttered.
“I know it doesn’t, and I know you’re frustrated by it, but all of that means nothing now anyway.” Isadora dropped her gaze, her foot tapping on the marble floor. Sadness drifted off her, peppered with regret.
I arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“If the Suppressor is cracked, then you need to break it properly as soon as you can. The leaking energy can become poisonous to you, as it’s being fed through your system in waves, almost like adrenaline. If you inject too much
adrenaline in one go, then your heart can’t cope. It’s the same with the Chaos energy inside you. At least, with one release—though that comes at great risk—it’s able to dissipate as soon as it’s been sent outward. With these smaller batches, it almost has nowhere to go, and builds up in a dangerous way.”
I lifted my hands in confusion. “Wait… so now you want me to break it?”
“It’s not a case of wanting, it’s a case of needing.”
“How long do I have?”
Isadora shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Days, maybe, or weeks. It depends on how badly the Suppressor has cracked.”
“Can you help me?” My voice was tinged with desperation.
“I don’t know enough about these things, Harley. I’m so sorry,” she replied, tears flashing in her eyes. “Aside from the spell that cracked the Suppressor in the first place, I can’t think of another one that would be strong enough. Plus, I wouldn’t advise you using that spell again, if it caused that much damage. Anything to do with Erebus is an accident waiting to happen.”
“Would a Sanguine spell work?”
Her eyes shot up. “How do you know about those?”
“I’ve been doing some research of my own,” I replied.
“A Sanguine spell might work, if you had the right one. You’d need something powerful enough to break the Suppressor, which also balanced out the Light and Dark within you. If you can’t get your affinities in equilibrium, then there’s no telling what might start happening to you.”
“And if I knew of a spell like that?” The Sanguine spell that Alton had mentioned popped into my head—the one that had been sent over from the Reykjavik repository. I hadn’t managed to get my hands on it, but from what Alton had said, it seemed like the jackpot. Breaking and balancing, rolled into one. All I’d need was the blood of a powerful Light magical and a powerful Dark magical. No easy task, but not impossible.
She frowned. “I’d start to worry what kind of coven you’d ended up in.”
“But say I did have a spell like that? Is there anything else I could do to make the break safer? I mean, I’ve already caused enough mayhem with Erebus. I don’t want to put anyone else in danger, if I can help it.” My heart was in my throat, the anticipation killing me.
Harley Merlin 4: Harley Merlin and the First Ritual Page 35
