Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris

by Forrest, Bella

  “A little help?” I wheezed.

  “I’m trying!” he shouted back. “It’s not easy moving a million-ton golem off your back.”

  “Well, it’s going to squish me if you don’t!” I felt a rush of air close to my face and turned to find the gargoyle crouched on the ground, staring at me with hungry eyes. I could have sworn it even licked its lips. Here I was, stuck under the golem’s foot with no way out, with a ravenous, wild gargoyle about ready to eat me.

  Suddenly, the golem lurched forward, taking its foot off me. It staggered clumsily, kicking out at the nearest thing, which just so happened to be the gargoyle. The winged beast went flying, tumbling backward. Its sharp claws shot out, raking across the earth to slow itself down, while the golem lumbered off in the opposite direction. Finch still sat on its shoulders, tugging harder at the invisible reins of his Telekinesis in an attempt to wrangle the creature.

  “Use your neurotoxin!” I shouted, dragging myself to my feet. The gargoyle was on its way back.

  “What?”

  “Use. Your. Toxin!”

  “This rock stuff will break my Esprit!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Then put it directly in its freaking mouth!”

  “Nice to see your dark side peeking out.” Finch laughed, but I saw him pull his Esprit from his pocket. He reached for the golem’s mouth and pulled back as hard as he could, the monster arching and stumbling around. A moment later, Finch jabbed the tip of the blade right into the golem’s tongue.

  The golem collapsed forward, unleashing a wounded groan. It hit the deck with an enormous thud that made everything shake, cracks appearing all around its fallen body as it lay still.

  “Is it breathing?” I returned my focus to the gargoyle, narrowly avoiding its sharp claws as it slashed at my head.

  Finch gave the monster a sharp kick. It groaned in response. “Yep, looks like it. I took the fight right out of it.”

  “Good for you. You want to give me a hand here?” I whirled away from a second set of claws in my face. The gargoyle was pissed now. As it divebombed me from the very top of the bubble, I staggered back. Not seeing the hunk of rock that protruded from the ground, I sprawled backward, grimacing as a jolt of pain shot through my nerves.

  “Give me a minute. I need to make sure this thing is properly down.” Finch turned his back on me, leaning in to open the eye of the golem. It didn’t move, but my opponent was a different story.

  The gargoyle seized its opportunity, landing nearby and scuttling toward me like a grounded bat. Before I had the chance to get back up, it crawled on top of me, its sharp teeth dripping as it sniffed at my face. I stared up at it, paralyzed with fear, my gaze fixed on the black pools of its eyes. It wanted to swallow me whole. It wanted to taste my flesh and savor every morsel. It reeled back and opened its mouth wide, preparing to devour me.

  Panic flooded my senses. “Don’t! Don’t hurt me!” I screamed. Only, the voice that came out didn’t sound anything like my own. It wasn’t Volla’s Russian accent, it wasn’t my San Diego lilt—it belonged to someone else entirely.

  The gargoyle reared back, baring its fangs at me. But it made no move to attack.

  I stared at it, wondering what I’d done. I kept expecting it to lean forward again, but it didn’t. Why wasn’t it moving? What did I do? I propped myself up cautiously on my elbows, holding the beast’s gaze. It looked confused but still made no move to attack me. Instead, it closed its mouth and sat there on my legs, as if it were waiting for something.

  “Did you do that?” Finch asked, surprised.

  I nodded in complete confusion. “I think so.”

  “How? Did you use your reverse Empathy thing?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Glad I didn’t have to compete with you in school. Here I am, using neurotoxin to subdue my monster, and you go and get yours to behave by shouting at it.” He folded his arms across his chest, sulking a little.

  To be honest, I had no idea what I’d just done. I didn’t think I’d used any reverse Empathy, but then, it was hard to tell when I was panicked. My emotions and energies got all jumbled up, doing their own thing. Still, I had to test the theory, before this gargoyle snapped out of it and smelled the coffee. Gathering the same sensation of panic inside me, I pushed the emotions into my voice and stared at the monster.

  “Sit, over there!” I pointed to an empty patch of grass beside me. My voice sounded different again—there was a deep, echoey resonance to it that seemed to erupt from way down inside my lungs. It was such a strange sound, and it kind of hurt to speak like that, my ribs burning with the strain.

  To my shock, the gargoyle scuttled off my legs and sat down in the place I’d pointed to. Curious, I got to my feet and walked to the meat box, reaching in and taking out a chunk. The gargoyle licked its lips as it stared at the meat, but it didn’t move a muscle to snatch it from me.

  “Roll over,” I instructed, in that same tone of voice. It did as I asked, rolling over on the grass and sitting back up. I threw it the chunk of meat, watching in disgust as it gulped the flesh down in one go. “Now, play dead.” It collapsed on the floor with its wings spread out, unmoving. I threw it another chunk of meat, which it furtively swiped into its mouth with a long, slithering tongue. “And, sit.” It did so, receiving a third chunk of meat. The gargoyle was catching on—if it did something I wanted, it got food. A fair exchange.

  “You going to name it and take it on walks?” Finch asked, distracting me. “It’s like watching Katherine play with her gargoyles…”

  I glowered at him. “Don’t say that.”

  “I can’t help it. I feel like I’m having déjà vu.”

  “I mean it, don’t say that.”

  “I don’t mean any offense by it. It’s just… well, I’ve seen Katherine do the same thing. And she wasn’t the only one.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe there’s more Shipton blood in you than you think.”

  “Yeah, my mother’s.”

  He shook his head. “It’s all the same stuff, Sis. You can’t pick and choose. See, Drake Shipton could do the same thing. He could control gargoyles. He had a fleet of them that watched his trade ships, making sure nobody tried to steal his goods. A little-known fact. If a pirate ship or a competitor’s ship went down, he blamed it on bad weather. And, well, there were no survivors left to tell the truth.”

  “Could Hester do this, too?” I wanted the answer to be yes. Somehow, I felt that, if my mom had this ability, I wasn’t riddled with all the bad blood from her side of the family.

  “Not that I know of, but Katherine didn’t talk about her much.”

  I didn’t know whether to be worried or thrilled by this development in my ability armory. In the end, it didn’t really matter right now. We’d both completed our tasks and tamed these monsters.

  “That gargoyle on a leash?” Finch eyed it hesitantly.

  “I think so.” I chucked another hunk of meat at it for good measure.

  “Naima and Tess don’t need to know the gory details. If they ask, we tell them I used Fire and you used Water and Earth, and a bit of Purge beast know-how. That’s all there is to it, okay?”

  I nodded. “Got it.”

  “When this time-lapse expires, they’re going to expect to find a whole mess of Mazinov all over the place.” He smirked. “Man, are they going to be in for a big surprise.”

  Twenty-One

  Finch

  The time-lapse was set to expire at any moment. Harley and I were perched on the meat box, waiting. The gargoyle sat at her side like a freaking lapdog. A second later, the bubble evaporated around us. A nice, dramatic reveal for Naima and Tess. They stood on the other side with wry smiles on their faces. Those smiles faded as soon as they saw us. Ha, things didn’t go your way, huh?

  “You are… alive?” Naima sounded stunned. She looked at the gargoyle and the semi-conscious golem. She was no doubt boiling that she hadn’t been able to g
et them under control herself.

  “You didn’t think we would be?” I replied.

  Naima floundered. “Not many Mediocre magicals make it past this stage.”

  “Well, here we are.” I gestured to the wiped-out golem. Harley seemed dazed, but I knew she had to be thrilled about this. Deep down. Really deep down, past all the Shipton worries. Controlling a Chaos monster was a rare ability, one more to add to her collection. Seemed like the adrenaline rush was the best part. I remembered Katherine telling me it was unlike anything else, the biggest high a person could get. Maybe that was all this dazed look was—Harley, high as a kite from controlling the gargoyle.

  “I must congratulate you,” Naima said. “How did you achieve it?” A hint of annoyance lurked in her voice.

  Harley snapped out of it. “What can I say? That meat is really good.”

  “You only used the meat?” Naima wasn’t buying it, and neither was Tess. She kept eyeing the creatures and looking back at us. “Confused” didn’t even begin to cover it. Bet you wish you’d let down that time-lapse bubble to get a closer look.

  “Does it matter?” I cut in. I didn’t want them reading too much into it. “We completed your trial, so what’s next?”

  Naima sneered. “You will have to wait until morning. In the meantime, if you have anyone you wish to say goodbye to back in the real world, now would be the time to make those calls. There are phones that may be used, just outside the room where you came in through the Strainer.”

  “Thanks.” I cast her a saccharine smile. As if I’d go anywhere near those phones. They were tapped for security, and I wasn’t about to have anyone listening in to what we had to say. Besides, there was no need for goodbyes. We weren’t staying here long.

  * * *

  Back at the stone hut, Harley and I sat in the bathroom. It’d become our sanctuary, in a way. She sat on the floor opposite, with me perched on the tub. She was still worried about spying hexes, and this put an extra wall between us and anyone listening. Plus, I’d checked the place again and found no new additions to the eavesdropping party. Not that she was convinced. We were both exhausted from what had just happened, and she was reeling. Gaining an ability like that wasn’t an everyday sort of jam. I could almost see her head spinning as she tried to come to terms with it.

  “You want to play a card game? Take your mind off stuff?” She hadn’t spoken in about twenty minutes, and I hated silence.

  She shook her head. “I’m not in the mood.”

  “Well, we’ve got until morning. So, we can either wait here like saps or do something.”

  “I guess we could take a look around the compound?”

  I frowned. “Not sure about that. I might be bored, but I haven’t lost my mind. People are wary enough of us as it is.”

  She smiled. “I didn’t mean as the Mazinovs. Krieger said I should be all right to shift as long as I don’t shift back into myself, and this gem is still going strong. Plus, I managed to shift back after the Strainer incident, and it didn’t seem to affect this thing.” She glanced down at the shrunken orb at the end of the chain. Sure enough, it was glowing steadily.

  “It’d technically still be using the same burst of energy, so he’s probably right. And, hey, if you want to head out there gussied up as some cultist, you be my guest. I’m not going to stop you, but I’m also not going to come with you. If I go, there’s more chance we’ll bump into the people we’ve shifted into.” I glanced at her. “Why do you want to look around the compound, anyway?”

  She hesitated, running her tongue over her lower lip. “Curiosity.”

  Yeah, right. “No, the real reason.” I arched an eyebrow at her.

  She sighed. “Fine, I want to go and look for my mother’s spirit.”

  “I thought as much,” I muttered. Of course she wanted to go and look for her mom’s spirit. I knew the urge had to be overwhelming for her, just on a personal level, let alone a mission-related one. But I didn’t think it was a good idea right now. I understood the urgency of the situation. All Hallows’ Eve was a week away. That gigantic clock over our heads was booming. But we had so many eyes on us already, and that spirit was locked up tight.

  “You going to give up the goods, then?” she asked. “Shed some light on where she is? If these trials don’t go the way we want them to, we need to make sure we’ve got the location of her spirit. We’ve only got a week, remember? It’d be extremely useful to get some insider intel, like making sure that Hester’s spirit actually is where you think it is and gauging the types of security. It’s been a while since you were last here, Finch. Things might’ve changed.”

  I released a slow breath. “I know. But it would be better to wait it out, Harley. It’ll be easier for us to get to Hester’s spirit once we’re official cult members. If we start sneaking around in those areas now, people are going to get suspicious.” I held Harley’s firm gaze. “Seriously, don’t go looking for Hester’s spirit. You won’t be able to find it. It’s already in the safest place it can be.”

  She frowned. “Why? Where is it?”

  “It’s locked away in Katherine’s office.”

  “Where’s that?”

  I sighed again. “I’ll tell you when we’ve passed these trials. We need to do that before we start snooping. One thing at a time.”

  “We don’t have time to waste, Finch!” she said. She hated not knowing. But I wasn’t doing this to be malicious. Holding on to this information until we passed the trials was the safest way to go. I knew how this place worked. If we got caught wandering into secure zones after we’d been initiated, we were more likely to get a slap on the wrist than get murdered. Until then, neither of us could go near Katherine’s office.

  “My way involves taking the least risk for the best gains. Trust me on this.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Well… I need to do something. We’re on a seriously tight deadline here—emphasis on the ‘dead.’ A week is going to trickle away before we know it.”

  “Hey, I understand the time constraints as well as you do, Sis,” I shot back. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t head out and try and get some intel and scope out the security in this place. Just… if you’re going to head out, stay in the compound. If we start wandering around the outskirts of this place, they’ll get suspicious. That’s the last thing we need right now.”

  “What about the Hexagon?” she asked.

  “To do what? Play with the humans?” I had to put her off the idea of going there. “Just avoid that place and stay in the compound. All I’m asking is that you wait until after the last trial, and then I’ll tell you everything.”

  She shot me a dubious look, but seemed to relent. “Maybe I’ll just go and see what the guard details are like in the main compound, then,” she said after a moment. “Clear my head and do a bit of recon on those hive buildings I saw through the trees. Get a feel for the local area, see what sort of security and weaponry they’ve got going on, ask some questions about security on the Hexagon... Maybe see if anyone’s talking about the upcoming ritual, too.”

  I smiled. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “So I can do whatever I want, then?” She got up and walked to the door.

  I snickered. “Just be careful. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. And don’t go outside the main compound, I mean it. If you get caught sneaking around the woods, you’ll ruin this. Oh, and don’t use the phones by the Strainer. They’re tapped.”

  “Like I said, I’m just going to have a little look inside the main area, see what the nightlife is like.”

  “And stretch your Shifter muscles while you’re at it?”

  She paused. “It might come in handy later. I can still feel the Shifter energy pulsing away, and the gems are still glowing.”

  “Plus, that extra juice you’ve got isn’t doing any harm in supercharging that thing.” I arched an amused eyebrow. If she got stuck without her Shifter ability, we were doomed. Not that I thought she w
ould. “For Shifters, phasing from one new person into another is still classed as the same Shift, so to speak. You should be fine.”

  She nodded. “Krieger said I should be able to phase back and forth a couple times without it affecting the energy of the Ephemera. I can still feel the new ability in my veins, and it feels strong. Really strong. It doesn’t feel like it’s fading at all, and the gem is still glowing away, like I said.”

  I smirked. “That’s all peachy with a side of keen. But, if you can’t shift back, I’ll have to come up with one hell of an excuse.”

  She closed her eyes, and a ripple of grayish light swept across her skin. Where Volla Mazinov had been, Tess Crux now stood in the bathroom doorway. I gaped at her. Shifting shouldn’t have been this easy for a newbie. She was hammering through every obstacle like a pro.

  “Am I in one piece?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Yep, no droopy eyes in sight. How’s the Shifter energy feeling?”

  “It’s weird. It’s still here. I can feel it, alongside the rest of my abilities.”

  “Then it’s not weird, it’s a freaking miracle. I’m not using my Fire again unless I really have to. Preservation is key for mere two-bit magicals like me.” I wasn’t a special edition magical like my sister, who had all this extra mojo zipping about inside her. Growing up with her would have been a complete nightmare. If I’d thought I’d had to prove myself as an only child, having a sibling like Harley would’ve been a total ego killer.

  “Oh, before I forget. You should take this, just in case.” She reached for her St. Christopher medallion and handed it over to me. Reluctance was written all over her face.