Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris

by Forrest, Bella

  I snorted. “We giving each other gifts now?”

  “It’s not a gift. I want it back,” she replied firmly.

  “Then why are you giving it to me?”

  She smiled in that sick way that let me know she was thinking about Wonderboy. “These are the pendants Wade and Krieger charmed, for when we need to get out of here. But he also charmed them in case we got into trouble here and we needed to warn each other. Three presses for emergency exit, one for a warning. Don’t get it mixed up. Krieger cloaked them so they’d pass under any of the cult’s scanners. All you do is press down hard on it, once, if you need to warn me, or if you spot anyone approaching the hut and need me to get my ass back ASAP. It’ll trigger my end and let me know something’s up.”

  “Bit convenient.” I frowned. “How come nobody told me about this earlier?”

  “Krieger wanted me to be sure I could trust you before I gave you one.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He thought I’d hand it over to Katherine or something? Give her a one-way ticket to Isadora? Real nice.”

  Harley sighed. “You can’t blame them for being suspicious.”

  A small smile crept onto my lips. “So this means you trust me, huh? I’m touched. And not just in the head, before you make some snappy joke.”

  She chuckled. “Just don’t make me regret it, okay? If you have to call me back, I’ll just pretend I was around the corner getting some fresh air. I’m sure they’ll understand, given what we’ve just been through. Just remember to press the medallion once if you need me to get back here, okay?” She smiled with Tess’s face, and I had to remind myself that this was Harley.

  “I’m not an idiot, Harley.”

  She grinned. “You sure about that?”

  “Make sure you avoid the real Tess, or you’ll be in trouble.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Finch,” she mimicked.

  “And make sure you keep your questions vague if you ask anyone about your mom’s spirit or the Hexagon. Your Empathy voodoo might be good, but we don’t want any lingering memories of Tess asking a bunch of weird questions, you hear me?”

  “I know what I’m doing, Finch,” she said. “It’ll just be some casual recon to see if my mom’s spirit is still where you think it is. People are bound to be talking about it, and I’m not wasting any time, if there’s even the slightest chance that you’re wrong. And don’t worry, I’ll keep a low profile.”

  “Then you don’t know Tess at all. She isn’t a low-profile kind of gal.”

  “Well, she is tonight.” Harley left the bathroom and disappeared through the front door.

  Please don’t screw this up...

  It wasn’t like me to be cautious, but I knew the stakes in this place. Asking questions and being discreet was fine, but there was a fine line to tread. I had faith in Harley’s abilities, but the danger of Katherine finding out about us was a terrifying undercurrent that I was having a hard time ignoring. It was making any risk seem huge.

  I looked down at the medallion in my hand and turned it over. I’d never been a religious sort of person, so I didn’t really know what it was supposed to do. Bring comfort, I guessed. I slipped it around my neck and headed out into the main space of the hut. I really was bored out of my brain.

  As I kicked back on one of the beds, my mind drifted toward Harley again. She was impressing me more and more. Not only with her skills, but with her resilience, too. It wasn’t every person who could see humans being tortured and carry on. She was made of tougher stuff than I’d thought. It kept surprising me, to the point where I was starting to look forward to what she’d do next.

  Thinking about Harley immediately led to my mind turning to the Muppet Babies waiting patiently back at the SDC. I wondered how they’d be feeling right about now. They were probably going out of their minds. Wade, especially. I wished I had some way of contacting them, just to rile Wonderboy up a little. Coven drones needed to be put in their place from time to time. And he’d be worrying more than the rest of them, having left his precious Harley in my care. He didn’t think much of me, that was for sure. But then, he didn’t know that I was starting to give a damn. It’d surprised me, too. I even knew what I might say: “Your girlfriend is quite the firecracker. She’s definitely a Shipton. By morning, we either die or join the cult. Stand by for details once it’s safe to talk. Sleep tight, buttercup. F.” Wade would’ve loved that. Shame I didn’t have a way to send him the message. He’d just have to keep on worrying.

  I had to distract myself. Reaching over to my bedside table, I opened the top drawer and pulled out a book. It was a history of Eris. I almost detached my retinas looking at the cover. This Eris thing was getting way too literal.

  As I flicked to the first page, figuring I had a little time to see what tale Katherine wanted her cultists to believe, my eyes flitted up to the door. Harley was right about us running out of time. And who was I to stop her from running some recon? She was right, I might have been wrong about the location of Hester’s spirit.

  And yet, I couldn’t shake my nerves.

  I toyed with the idea of shifting into someone else and trying to follow Harley out into the compound, just to see if she’d listened to my warning about the Hexagon. Something held me back. The risk of both of us getting caught, mostly. On her own, she was less exposed. She knew how to hide. I just hoped that’d be enough to keep her out of trouble here.

  Steeling my nerves, I turned back to the book. I only got through a few sentences before what I wanted to say to Wade came back to bite me in the ass. The prospect of Harley possibly dying here would be driving him nuts, even without a message.

  But the truth of the matter was, she really could die tomorrow morning. And, I realized with a sinking feeling, the idea wasn’t sitting too well with me, either.

  Twenty-Two

  Harley

  Disguised as Thessaly Crux, complete with bandaged hands, and praying my Shifter ability didn’t let me down, I snuck along the network of walkways in search of people.

  I wanted to see what these cultists really did in their spare time, and I wanted to put together a lay of the land so I had my bearings. Finch’s warning about the Hexagon had made me want to go there even more, as that was likely where Katherine’s office was. That had to be the reason he’d been so intent on me avoiding the place. If I was careful and kept to the shadows, I felt I could pull it off.

  Besides, all I wanted to do was get an idea of the security there and, most importantly, try to find out what people knew about this upcoming ritual, and whether they had any idea where my mom’s spirit was being kept. As I’d told Finch, I couldn’t risk him being wrong about that.

  Still, I decided to take a detour first to check out the nightlife in the cult and see what these people did with their evenings. It was more to decipher how much security I might come across than anything else. It didn’t take long before I found myself back in front of the beehive that Tess had shown us on her whistle-stop tour of the cult, my eyes drawn like a moth to the glowing lights coming from within.

  I peered in through one of the windows and saw that most of the tables were full now. Drinks were flowing, and the people inside looked happy. They were all talking and laughing, the sound floating out into the night, as if what they were doing was the most natural and wonderful thing in the world. If it weren’t for the human experimentation on the opposite end of this island, an onlooker would think that the Cult of Eris was just some in-touch-with-nature, grassroots sanctuary for magical misfits.

  I turned away from the beehive and headed down another set of walkways, toward the path that Tess had led us across to reach the Hexagon on the other side of the island. Twenty minutes later, I found myself in the shadows of the jungle, looking at the hulking great building, with its rusty exterior and looming walls. Katherine seemed to have styled all of the other buildings on the island in this design, sticking with the hexagon. It was interesting that she’d chosen to implement this shape in the making of her
interdimensional realm. I’d read that bees did the same, using hexagons because they required the least amount of material to hold the most weight in their hives. And Katherine clearly thought of herself as the queen bee.

  Up ahead, I saw lights flickering and people moving around, crossing a slanting bridge between the walkways above and chattering amongst themselves. They were coming in and out of a central doorway in the center of the Hexagon, which seemed to be the only way to get inside. I knew I had to be careful if I wanted to check it out. The real Tess could be around here somewhere, and us encountering each other would be nothing short of a disaster.

  I sank back into the shadows cast by the overhanging trees and wondered what Wade was doing right now. I missed him so badly that it was actually starting to hurt. What I wouldn’t have given to have him here with me, right now, taking away all my worries and fears. We’d only been apart for less than twenty-four hours, and I was acting like we’d been separated for a lifetime. Then again, it had been a heck of a long day, and it wasn’t even over yet.

  “Are you on detail tonight?” My ears pricked up as I heard voices up ahead, two figures walking together on the lower walkway beside where I stood. It led up to the bridge into the Hexagon.

  “Yeah, I’m covering Georgia and Arlo on guard duty,” a second voice replied.

  “Until when?”

  “Until I get told I can leave.”

  The first voice snickered. “Hey, at least it’s a promotion. I’m watching the labs until six. Might as well be in a pigsty.”

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  “Funny what happens when you take away their humanity, isn’t it? It’s like they really are animals underneath.” The first speaker sighed. “I envy you, man. I’d give anything to guard the ingredient instead.”

  The second voice snorted. “Ingredient? Is that what we’re calling it now? This isn’t Masterchef, dude.”

  Their voices drifted out of range, leaving my mind racing. Was the ingredient my mother’s spirit? It seemed pretty likely, given where we were, but then, I didn’t know the ins and outs of the rituals. There might’ve been more than one thing Katherine needed to make it work.

  Determined, I crept along the walkway in an attempt to follow them, keeping my distance. Nobody would bat an eyelid if Tess went inside the Hexagon, but I was still worried she might already be in there.

  Glancing behind me to make sure nobody was following, my mind turned toward Finch. Would he be okay at the hut on his own? He had the medallion if anything went wrong, and I couldn’t feel him calling for help. I didn’t know what it would feel like, exactly, but Krieger and Wade had charmed my pendant to pulsate against my chest if either of us was in trouble. If I had to run back, the hut wasn’t that far.

  I kept to the lower walkway for as long as I could, trying to get a better look at what was going on, spotting the two guards a little way ahead. Even in my Tess disguise, I had to be wary. There were more guards stationed in front of the main entrance, and pretty much every cultist would be looking out for suspicious behavior. I’d have to play it cool to get past them and act like Tess would—no nonsense, no drama, all ferocity. The National Council and their agents had set them all on edge, which wasn’t exactly useful for us. But, surely, they wouldn’t say a word to me, looking like this?

  The flow of people was almost like a hive, with them coming and going to different parts of the island in an endless flurry of activity, meandering across the interlinking walkways to either head back to the main compound or go into the Hexagon for their nightly duties. I could see the lights of the beehive clusters I’d left, in the distance, but I couldn’t go back now. Those two guards were headed into the Hexagon, and I needed to follow them, in case they led me right to my mom’s spirit.

  “What are you doing out here, sneaking around like a thief in the night?” A voice hissed from behind me, making me jump. I whirled around and came face-to-face with Kenneth Willow.

  Panic ricocheted through me like a gunshot, making my heart beat so hard I thought it might fall out of my chest. Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap! And then, I remembered who I was masquerading as. In my fright, I’d forgotten. Tess wouldn’t take any trash from this guy, and I wasn’t going to, either.

  “None of your business, Willow,” I shot back. “Shouldn’t you be in the infirmary, licking your wounds?” I assumed they had an infirmary. If they had a torture playground, they had to have some kind of hospital. Priorities, right?

  He scowled. “I wasn’t even hurt. I have no wounds to lick, thank you very much.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. The way you were flat on your ass, I thought you’d never get up.” I smirked at him. “Oh, wait, no, I wished you’d never get up.”

  “I only stepped in because you were too weak to do the job.”

  “Ah, so you admit it, you were second choice?”

  He glared at me. “I wasn’t second choice! Eris knows how powerful I am, so she makes sure I don’t have to do all the trivial stuff—she needs me to put my energy elsewhere, where it’s actually needed. You’re just lucky I covered your ass, instead of making you do the trial with your sad little hands.”

  “You forgetting the reason I burned my hands, momma’s boy? I was on a real mission for Eris, not some stupid distraction to get you out from under her feet.”

  “Well, I’ve never been injured in the field.” He stuck his nose in the air.

  “Then you haven’t been working hard enough.”

  He looked about ready to explode. I was tugging at all his little insecurities, knowing exactly how to get him riled up. The kid tried to act so damn tough, yet he couldn’t even spring Le Fay or kill Finch. He probably had the lowest success rate of any member here. It was a miracle Katherine hadn’t offed him yet, and I had no idea how he’d managed to weasel his way through the trials. Maybe, thanks to the Ryders, he hadn’t had to endure them.

  “Anyway, the field missions don’t matter to me. They’re trivial labor, too, as far as I’m concerned.” He leaned back on the walkway fence. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that I am integral to the rituals. You aren’t. You’re nobody, as much as you’d like to think otherwise. I don’t recall Eris assigning you to an important position.” He tutted smugly. “Green isn’t a good color on you, Tess.”

  “Oh yeah?” I balled my hands into fists. This conversation was about to get violent. Kenneth seemed to be itching for a fight, and I was more than ready to give him a second round. I’d knock him flat on his ass again, same as before. Although, you don’t have any Electro ability, remember? I kept forgetting I had rules to conform to.

  “You want me to prove just how easily I can beat you?” Kenneth’s eyes narrowed.

  I was about to reply when I felt a warm, burning sensation at the top of my chest, right where the pendant lay. It was too bizarre not to be the warning trigger that Krieger had set up. Finch had pressed the medallion, and he was calling me back. He’s in trouble.

  “I wouldn’t want to embarrass you for a second time today,” I retorted. “Anyway, I’m busy. I don’t have time for stupid games or you peacocking around the place. Go and do your rounds, or whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.” I pushed my reverse Empathy onto him, just to make sure he did as I asked. I filled him with a sudden feeling of anxiety and a desperate need to go and check on his duties. His face changed immediately, his gaze veering over my shoulder toward those distant lights.

  “Same goes for you, Crux.”

  I let him have the final word as he shoved past me, heading into the gloom. As soon as he was gone, I took off down the walkways at breakneck speed, sprinting for the stone hut. I just hoped that, wherever the twerp was headed, he didn’t end up running into the real Tess. If he did, they’d have a very confused exchange. I mean, nobody could point a finger at me or Finch as the Mazinovs, but there’d definitely be word of a Shapeshifter messing around with Kenneth.

  Then again, I wondered how many people here would love the
chance to mess with Kenneth’s head. There’d probably be a line-up as long as my arm if anyone suspected any foul play.

  Safe in that thought, I ran through the darkness, praying I wasn’t too late to help Finch.

  Twenty-Three

  Harley

  I burst through the door of the stone hut to find Finch lounging on one of the beds. He was reading a book called The Art of the Demon Deal, his foot jiggling as his eyes moved from left to right. I didn’t know where he’d gotten the book, and I didn’t really care. I swept my eyes around the room to check there were no hidden assailants. The medallion lay on his chest, innocent enough. Nothing seemed to be wrong at all. In fact, he seemed to be having the time of his life.

  “Why did you call me back?” I snapped.

  He shrugged and set down the book. “I was getting bored. And this book was bumming me out.”

  “Are you serious?” Just when I’d been starting to warm to him, he went and did something like this. Something so ridiculously Finch-like.

  “What?”

  “I was about to infiltrate the compound! I was following some guards who were talking about an ‘ingredient.’ I was right there, looking at these beehive thingies, and then you call me back because you’re freaking bored? Why didn’t you take a nap or something, like an ordinary person?”

  He sat up, frowning. “Then you were looking in the wrong place, and you’d have ended up following those idiots to nowhere. That ‘ingredient’ could have been anything. We might as well finish these trials, get full-member status, and then go crazy on the snooping afterward. We can’t get into the place where Hester’s spirit is being kept until we’re full members.”

  “Which means losing time we don’t have—we discussed this already!”

  “I know, but I chickened out. There’s no use risking our necks now. I didn’t want you going there and getting us outed. It’ll just get us killed quicker. You should be thanking me, not sniping at me.”