Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris

by Forrest, Bella

  That’s quite enough from you, Crux. With the mission on the line, it was us or her, as much as I hated to be backed into a corner like this. She could’ve been an ally, after all.

  “What a load of self-serving horsecrap!” I shouted back. “You were trying to steal this, and we stopped you. You want to stop Eris from completing the third ritual. Don’t try to lie. You threatened to kill us if we didn’t hand it over.” I looked to my mother and swallowed the urge to throw her against the wall. “Tess is the snitch, Eris. She’s your mole.”

  Thirty-Three

  Harley

  Are you out of your freaking mind?

  I wanted to say it out loud, but that would have given us away as the traitors. Still, I couldn’t believe what Finch had just done.

  Tess was trying to help the magical world, and we’d just signed her death warrant. Well, if Katherine believed us, that was. Granted, Tess had no idea who we really were, and she’d been about to sell us out to Katherine, but that didn’t mean we had the right to get her killed. This was so many shades of moral gray area that I had no idea what to think. Right and wrong had gotten so blurred since we came here.

  One thing was for sure, everyone was out for themselves in this place. And, if we didn’t jump on the selfish bandwagon, it’d be our necks on the line.

  Greater good, greater good, greater good. I kept repeating the mantra, but it didn’t make this any easier to handle.

  “Explain, now. With details. And quickly, before my itchy trigger finger slips and I decide to deal with this in a more direct manner.” Katherine was keeping her calm exterior, but I wondered what was going on beneath the surface. Regardless, I had no time to think about the morality of this. We had to act fast or risk being splattered.

  Finch stepped forward. “I received word yesterday from my source in the National Council, but I couldn’t find Tess to confront her. Regardless, they did identify her as the informant. She’s been selling your secrets because she’s bitter and angry about her sister’s death, and the fact that you wouldn’t permit her to bring her sister’s body back to the island.” He was going at this full-throttle, no remorse necessary. “She just told us that you only use people, that you don’t care about your followers beyond what they can do for you. She told us, outright, how much she hates you now, and how much your vision has changed from the one you promised everyone. She wanted us to find a way to escape this place—she told us we had to get out before we got suckered in.”

  Oh… clever. Even if Tess didn’t make it out of this alive, airing all of Katherine’s dirty laundry would mean she didn’t die in vain. Everyone was listening, rapt. They were hearing everything that Finch had to say and would undoubtedly make their own opinions from it. Perhaps they’d share in some of Tess’s thoughts—thoughts they’d been too afraid to admit to themselves.

  Even so, I couldn’t find my voice. Finch was doing all the talking, and I just felt numb and scared. This could only end one way, with either Tess’s head on the chopping block, or ours. Maybe both, if Katherine was pissed enough. All of this had taken me by surprise, and I honestly had no clue how to react. It was all happening way too fast, leaving my mind spinning.

  “You liar!” Tess roared.

  Finch smirked. “Oh, really? Then how come I have a recording of you, saying exactly what I’ve just said?”

  “You don’t. You can’t.” Tess wavered, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether or not Finch was bluffing. Neither was I, in all honesty.

  He opened out his palms and closed his eyes, a holographic bubble appearing in his hands. Tess’s face wavered inside it. A moment later, her voice echoed through the now-silent library. “Even others in the cult are starting to doubt her. The vibe is bad here, seriously bad...”

  I gaped at Finch. I had no idea he could do something like this, but then, I didn’t know everything he’d learned in this place. It looked like he’d picked up a devious spell or two along the way. Now, everyone had heard what Tess said, and the whole congregation was reeling in shock. Even Tess looked stunned, her eyes wide and panicked. She’d underestimated Finch’s cunning, and so had I.

  A moment later, everyone turned to look at Katherine. All bets were off. The calm, calculating figure everyone was used to had morphed into something else—a fiery hell-demon who’d finally had her buttons pushed. Her eyes flashed with poison, her lips curling into a grimace of sheer fury.

  “Get her out of my sight!” she bellowed. “Take her to my private quarters this minute! If it weren’t for the third ritual, I’d deal with you right now, you venomous snake.”

  Tess was shaking, her eyes wide in desperation. “Eris, please, you know me. I would never—”

  “While you’re waiting for me, I want you to think about what you’ve done,” Katherine interjected, her tone lowering to a hiss. “I want you to think really, really hard. And, once you’ve realized the stupidity of your actions, I want you to think about your death.” She took a step closer to Tess, getting right up in her face. “It’s going to be painful beyond your imagination. I’m going to sift through every dark and terrible spell I have and pick the worst one for you. Just for you. It will be so slow that you’ll wish your mother had never squeezed you, wailing and screaming, into this world. You’ll wish you’d died in your sister’s place, you can count on that.”

  Even though she’d tried to throw us under the bus, I felt sorry for Tess, not to mention guilty. Nobody deserved what she was going to face, especially not somebody who was working on the same side as us. Katherine meant it, too. She didn’t use words lightly. She was going to annihilate Tess in the most horrific way possible, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. I glanced at Finch, who’d gone pale. He wasn’t the remorseful type, per se, but he looked pretty shaken up right now. He’d given Katherine the evidence she needed, and now Tess was going to die. I knew they’d been friends, once upon a time. This had to be hitting him hard. His body was stiff with tension, as though he didn’t trust himself to move a muscle.

  The guards surged forward and seized Tess before she had the chance to make a run for it.

  “Katherine, please, you’ve got to listen to me!” she screamed, as the guards took her away.

  “It’s Eris to you, you traitorous wretch!” Katherine howled in her face. “And I’ve heard quite enough from you. One more word and I will make your insides your outsides, in front of everyone here.”

  With fear in her eyes, Tess unleashed a searing crackle of Electro energy, sending the guards around her into spasms. As if she’d been expecting the attack, Katherine immediately sent out a lasso of Telekinesis, wrapping it around Tess’s neck and squeezing, in a horrible replay of what we’d done to the guards. A few moments later, she was limp on the ground, her cheeks purple. I quickly sent out a wave of Empathy to check whether she was still alive. The pulse of her frightened emotions was still there, deep inside her, though fainter than it had been before.

  Fresh guards replaced those who were writhing in pain on the floor, hauling Tess up by her arms and dragging her out of the library and away to Katherine’s private quarters. I got the feeling Katherine wasn’t quite done yet. She turned to the rest of the cultists who’d gathered at the entrance.

  “Don’t you have work to get to? Do you all think this is a free ride? That I’ll do all the hard stuff, so you don’t have to? I suggest you all get on with your duties, before I decide to add a few more to my kill list.” She glowered at them, and they scampered. Only the security detail remained, all of them trembling before the sight of a furious Katherine. I sensed that they hadn’t seen her lose her cool, either. “I want double security on this room, do you understand? Nobody is to get in or out until midnight on All Hallows’ Eve. I want a rotation, twenty-four hours a day. If even one of you takes so much as a toilet break, I’ll have your bladders removed. As for the two of you who were supposed to be guarding this place, I’ll be coming for you.”

  They bowed low, a ripple of assent vibratin
g through them. Those guards were a problem. They hadn’t seen our faces, but they’d tell Katherine they were attacked, in order to save their skins. I guessed we could always tell Katherine that we’d heard a commotion inside and had found the guards knocked out by Tess. That might work. Still, panic was bristling through my body in a torrent. We would be relying a lot on her faith in us, and I doubted she had any, right about now.

  “Now, you two.” She shot a look at us. “I want you in my study in fifteen minutes, so I can make sure Tess is put away in a Bestiary box and doesn’t try any of her shock tricks again. And give me that jar, or I’ll have your hands for wall ornaments.”

  She breezed toward us and tore the jar out of Finch’s hands, striding over to an empty case on the far side of the room. There, she slammed it into the case and closed her eyes, whispering a spell that made the box light up with fierce red light. With that done, she stormed out of the room, leaving us to wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into. Now, we risked losing my mother’s spirit forever, unable to do a damned thing to stop Katherine before she used Hester to complete the third ritual.

  “I hope you’ve got a clever way out of this, too,” I hissed at Finch.

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  Great… That’s just great.

  Thirty-Four

  Harley

  With the library closed, my mom’s spirit safely inside the locked box, and the guards restored to their positions, Finch and I had been frog-marched to Katherine’s office so we could await her return. The injured ones had gone to the infirmary to get their frazzled skin seen to, while others had taken their place, all along the hallway. Fortunately for us, however, the guards who’d escorted us here seemed preoccupied with what had just happened, the three of them clustered a short distance away, speaking in scared whispers.

  “Do you think she’ll really kill Henry and Jenna?” one asked.

  Another shrugged. “Of course she will. They allowed themselves to be compromised.”

  Meanwhile, I gaped at Finch. “So you’re telling me there might have been a way out of that library this whole time, and you didn’t think to mention it the moment we had my mother’s spirit?” He’d just told me about the secret door he’d caught sight of, though a little too late for it to be any use.

  He shrugged. “I’m telling you now, aren’t I?”

  “And what good is that?”

  “Well, now we have a way out, even with all this added security. We can use it to escape when we snatch your mom’s spirit again. Anyway, it wasn’t like I saw it as soon as we got in. It was a last-minute spot.”

  “Yeah, provided we make it out of this meeting in one piece. What do you think the chances of that are?”

  He smiled. “Fifty-fifty?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Oh, come on, what are you so worried about? We’ve got our alibis covered. Those guards will attest to what we say. I can’t say the same for Tess. As soon as we leave this meeting, we can get back into the library through that secret door and take the jar. It’s not just an exit, Sis—doors go both ways.”

  I paused. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Now who’s the idiot? I just have to find out where the entrance is. Katherine once said something about ‘looking for Lux’ to find it, but I don’t know what that means. Not that I won’t figure it out.” The smugness was radiating off him, no Empathy needed. Glancing at him, I had to smile. If what he said was true, and he really knew the way back into the library through that second door, then we were closer to victory than I’d thought. This was the break we needed, and with Katherine distracted by Tess, it might be the perfect timing, too. Not that I felt good about it. I didn’t want Tess to suffer like this. If we’d had more time, I would’ve tried to save her, but I didn’t know if that was even a possibility now.

  “We haven’t won yet,” I reminded him. “And can we not just talk about Tess like that? She’s going to die because of your trick with the replay thing. Like, really die. In a horrible, horrible way. This isn’t a casual threat.”

  He shrugged, visibly chastened. “But we can see the finish line, right?”

  “Come on, let’s just get through this and try not to get ourselves killed. And remember what Tess is giving up for us… because of us. Okay?”

  “Killjoy.”

  We put on solemn expressions as Katherine rounded the corner, sweeping past us into the office. The door slammed behind her, leaving us confused. Were we supposed to just go in? Finch made the first move, knocking and waiting for her to reply, the two of us sharing one last, conspiratorial look before we entered the lion’s den.

  “Come in,” Katherine called.

  Gathering every ounce of courage I had left, I pushed through the door and into Katherine’s study. She sat behind the expansive desk, flipping casually through a stack of large books with covers made out of a material that resembled human skin.

  “What do you think, Volla—death by flaying to the bone and making her eat what comes off, or death by cellular disintegration, killing her one cell at a time? They’re both time consuming, but that is what I promised. I can’t let Tess down now, can I?” She chuckled darkly. My stomach churned.

  Every scrap of Katherine’s former anger appeared to have dissipated, leaving the composed Katherine we were used to. Her left hand glowed as she scanned it over the pages, revealing hidden words and symbols.

  “Whichever you prefer,” I replied, forcing my voice to stay calm.

  “You’ll get splinters if you sit on the fence, Volla,” she tutted, looking up. “But I can’t knock your punctuality. Sit.”

  We did as she asked, looking like naughty schoolkids who’d been brought into the principal’s office. Only, with much higher stakes.

  “Now, tell me what you were doing in the library. I know you weren’t just trying to apprehend Tess. Before she was locked away in one of my personal Bestiary boxes, she insisted that the two of you were up to no good. I’m inclined to believe her, given how desperate she was. Traitor or not, I sensed it was prudent to listen.” She smiled. “Plus, you’re new. I’m always suspicious of newbies. Call it an occupational quirk.”

  I didn’t know what to say. My mouth had clammed up. Fortunately, Finch took the lead and leaned forward in his chair.

  “I already knew that Tess was the traitor, Eris.” At least he was sticking to the script on this one. We’d figured, before coming here, that it was best to stay as close to the truth as possible, without the obvious discrepancies. “We were passing the library on our way to the war room, when we heard a commotion inside. The door was open, so we went in, and we found two collapsed guards and Tess heading for the door with that jar in her hands. I took it from her and was trying to put it back, when she turned on us and told us all that stuff about you.”

  He was improvising, and I didn’t know if I liked it.

  “When we saw Tess with the jar, that was it. We knew what she was up to, and we had to stop her so she wouldn’t have the chance to ruin your plans,” Finch continued. “The rest is history.”

  Katherine smiled, but there was something deeply unsettling about it. “About that trick you pulled with the replay—very clever. Did they teach you that in Russia?”

  Finch nodded. “Our parents were eager for us to learn how to defend ourselves. We learned from ex-Russian secret magical services.”

  She shrugged, apparently satisfied. “I suppose deception is in your nature.”

  “I only use those skills if I need to, Eris,” Finch replied.

  “Yes, I suppose you do.” That smile crept onto her lips again, sending a shiver through me. “I happen to like spells like that. They’re so much more satisfying than voice recorders or polygraph tests. I can get on board with most technology, but I find these modern cell phones fairly distasteful, making everyone into zombies. ‘Pics or it didn’t happen,’ that sort of vile thing. Once I’ve achieved my goal, I’ll see them banned. Make people actually sit up and
take notice of the world around them. Then, they might see what they’ve been missing while they’ve been staring at their screens. Maybe I’ll post one picture, to let them know that it did happen, on the day their world ends.”

  Katherine on Instagram? There was a strange idea. I couldn’t imagine her posting snaps of her dinner, and hashtagging: #endoftheworld #blessed #cultlife. It made me want to laugh suddenly, but I pushed the giggle down. That was a sure way to get myself blown up.

  “I’m thankful you two were there to intervene. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened. Tess’s treachery is not something I can forgive or forget.” She sighed, as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. “I view all the members here as my children. I suffer when one of them suffers. I feel their pain, as any mother would. Every word Tess said was like a barb in my heart. It’s unjust and untrue. All I want is to give these people their fair shot at a majestic life, free from the shackles of banality and human-run power. And yet, I’m spurned for it.”

  Geez, you’d be the last on the list to win Mom of the Year.

  “I mean to bring them peace and prosperity, but that comes at a price. It comes with blood and sweat and hard work. They would see it handed to them on a silver platter, but I’m not a believer in letting things come to me. I grab what I want by the balls and squeeze until I get it.”

  Nice image. I shuddered discreetly, and Finch did too.

  “Your job can’t come without its sacrifices, right?” he said, surprising me.

  She nodded. “Exactly. I do what I have to do, in order to make this world a better place for my children.”

  Don’t rise to it, Finch! I wanted to reach out and grab his hand, to forcibly pull him away from the trap he was edging toward. But if I’d done that, she would’ve known something was up. Instead, I had to sit there as the carrot dangled in front of him.