Harley Merlin 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris

by Forrest, Bella

  Finch smirked. “Ah, so the kid doesn’t know everything.”

  “You want to share, Finch? We’re kind of running out of time here.” I gave him a warning look.

  “Well, we need to find Katherine’s exact location in Tartarus, right?”

  “Stating the obvious there, Finch.”

  “I’ve got just the thing we need to find her,” he replied, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He pulled a simple-looking fountain pen out of his pocket and handed it to Jacob with a smug flourish.

  Jacob frowned. “What’s this?”

  “Call it our compass.”

  “I don’t follow,” Jacob replied. Even Isadora looked dubious.

  Finch rolled his eyes. “Don’t they teach you anything at portal school? If you have a personal item belonging to someone, you can use it to track their location anywhere. You can only use it once, though. It’ll disintegrate as soon as the portal opens, but it’ll lead us right to Katherine. I swiped this off her desk before we escaped from her office.”

  Isadora shook her head. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

  “Believe me, it’ll work,” Finch insisted. “With the right focus, the Portal Opener can open a portal close to the person an item belongs to in order to find them. I’m surprised nobody’s ever told you about it. Then again, who were you going to ask? It’s not like your kind are swarming about the place. Luckily, I had a whole library of rare books at my disposal, and I spent my time very wisely. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve got up here.” He tapped his temple pointedly, grinning.

  “Yeah, we could do with a bit more of whatever you’ve learned. You know, just whenever you feel like sharing,” I said. “All these last-minute admissions of yours are starting to give me gray hairs.”

  He chuckled. “What can I say? I like to keep folks on their toes. Always act a little bit stupider than you are. Then, nobody asks you for anything. It’s foolproof.” He glanced at Wade and Krieger. “You know, like, actually foolproof. Unlike that emergency button thingie you made.”

  Dr. Krieger paled. “There was very little time to test them, in my defense.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Dr. Krieger. He’s just trying to rile you up.” I offered the good doctor a reassuring smile. He’d done so much for us already, at great risk to his career. Yeah, those buttons hadn’t worked perfectly, but the island had messed up a lot of stuff, including Isadora’s portal. That reminds me, I need to get my St. Christopher back at some point. I noticed it still hanging around Finch’s neck and decided not to mention it. Weirdly, it felt comforting to see it on him.

  “Can you make it work, Jacob?” Wade asked, his arm still firmly around my waist.

  Jacob nodded. “I think so.”

  “Okay then, let’s stop talking about it and get on with it. We’ve got a cult leader to get rid of.” I locked eyes with everyone in the group, feeling the anticipation rise through my body, setting my Chaos alight. I wished I had a crystal ball to let me know what the outcome of this was going to be, if only so I could be sure that I’d see every single face in this room when we came back. There were no assurances, but I knew my people—I knew how tough they were and how determined they were to stop Katherine dead in her tracks. We were ready for this, readier than we’d ever been. We’d spent the time since the last ritual honing our abilities, and this time, she wouldn’t get the better of us.

  Jacob held the pen tightly in his hands and fed his energy into his palm, the bronzed light enveloping the object. He closed his eyes, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. A moment later, a small blast of light forced his hand wide open, and the pen floated out on a wave of thrumming Chaos. It drifted up into the center of the room, hovering for a moment, before it exploded outward in a blinding blast of rushing air and vivid sparks. It disintegrated entirely, and the particles spread out, forming a weirdly uniform line. As Jacob pushed his Chaos energy toward the line of particles, a huge hole tore through the fabric of the atmosphere, creating a stable portal that, hopefully, would lead us straight to Katherine.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” I murmured, casting an anxious glance at Wade. It felt so good to be back beside him again, and I prayed we’d make it through this together. After all, we had a lot of catching up to do.

  I walked toward the crackling portal and stepped through, bracing myself for what we would find on the other side. Taking my lead, the rest of the Rag Team followed, with Astrid, Alton, Isadora, Louella, and Dr. Krieger watching us go with anxious eyes.

  Forty-Three

  Harley

  I stumbled out into pitch darkness. Had I somehow gotten stuck in the portal tunnel? Gaia, this better not be you again. No time for side trips right now. I couldn’t see a single thing in front of me, but there were sounds all around me, getting closer.

  “Guys?” I whispered.

  “Yep, this is not a drill. It’s pitch black in here.” It was Santana’s voice, coming from just behind me.

  “Watch your step,” Tatyana whispered. “I can sense something.”

  I frowned. “Spirits?”

  “No, not spirits exactly. It’s something else,” she replied.

  The sounds got louder as I took a tentative step forward. I heard the rumble of a growl, deep in the throat of an unseen creature, followed by the snap of jaws. An undercurrent of hisses and slavering tongues peppered the louder noises, though I wasn’t sure which unnerved me the most. One thing was for sure: I’d seen this before. I’d been here before, in that dream I’d had back at the stone hut.

  If Finch comes toward me with a knife, I’m going to scream.

  A second later, I became aware of shapes shifting in the darkness, dangerously close to where we were standing. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel their presence, and I didn’t need any spiritual insight to know that wasn’t good.

  “Any sign of Katherine?” Jacob hissed.

  “I think you might have dropped us a little too far,” I replied. In the distance, I could see a barely discernible, glowing light, with figures standing in front of some kind of object—an altar.

  “There are three of them,” Raffe said, his voice weird and raspy. Great, just what we need. A rabid djinn.

  “Can you see who they are?” I asked, praying Raffe could keep a lid on the djinn until we got closer to Katherine.

  “Katherine, Naima, and Kenneth,” he said, without a pause. I turned over my shoulder and saw two small, glowing red orbs in the darkness. The djinn was out in full force, no doubt sensing the presence of its leader, Erebus. Well, this is creepy. Combined with the unseen creatures all around us, this was getting more unnerving by the second.

  “Raffe, hang on, okay?” Santana urged.

  An eerie chuckle split the air. “Oh, he’s not home right now. Call back later.”

  “Kadar, behave yourself.” Santana sounded worried.

  “What are you afraid of? A little darkness?” The djinn chuckled again, somewhere close to me. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. Ugh.

  “We need to get closer,” I said, ignoring the djinn. If this was the otherworld of his leader, then he might prove useful here. As long as he didn’t try to eat us first.

  “Anyone going to mention whatever’s lurking in these shadows?” Jacob’s voice squeaked.

  “We need some light.” I heard Wade’s voice beside me, the tone calming my rapidly beating heart.

  I heard a crackle of energy as a fireball burst into life in Wade’s palms, his ten rings glowing. The moment it cast its light on our surroundings, the Chaos monsters in the darkness surged forward in a snarling, snapping horde of jaws and fangs and glinting eyes. For a split second, it revealed the mass of Chaos monsters that waited in the shadows. They stretched as far as the eye could see, freezing my blood in my veins with sudden terror. Evidently, the torn page that had spoken about this place had got it slightly wrong—there were no tortured souls, only a heap of these Chaos monsters.

  I caught sight of a blur out of the corner
of my eye as Finch lurched forward and sputtered out the glowing fireball with a wave of Telekinesis, pushing it into the darkness, where it dissipated into a star of sparks.

  “Run!” Finch hissed. “We need to run!”

  He brushed past me, his footsteps echoing in the black otherworld. With no other option, I raced after him, heading for the distant glow of doom. The footsteps thundering behind me let me know that the rest of the Rag Team was following suit.

  I jumped in fright as a rush of air swept forward from behind me. I saw the telltale crackle of a portal and started to freak out. Had Jacob abandoned us? That wasn’t his vibe at all. Another portal opened up ahead, closer to the altar and frazzling in an alarming way, with Jacob just visible in the faraway light. I realized he was using that dangerous initiative of his again, using his portal energy to analyze the situation closer up. He was way faster than these monsters, and they didn’t stand a chance of catching him. I guessed, in this place, he could only hold the portals open for a short time, and in sharp bursts. Too quick and temperamental for all of us to pile through them.

  We, on the other hand, had nothing but our legs to carry us through this nightmare world, and I could already feel the shadows pressing in on us. Unseen claws swiped at my ankles, just as they’d done in my dream, the snapping jaws way too close for comfort. I heard a yelp behind me, but I didn’t know who it had come from. I wanted to yell back and find out whether everyone was all right, but the din of the creatures had grown to a deafening volume. There were growls and roars and howls everywhere I turned, with eyes flashing in the dark.

  I stumbled and fell as something snagged my leg, dragging me to the ground. The creatures swept in, their breath foul and hot on my skin, their jaws gnashing. I dragged myself to my feet and kicked outward, smacking something in the face. It whined in pain, but I knew another creature would just take its place.

  “Everyone alive?” I roared.

  A smattering of voices responded. Doing a quick voice-count, it sounded like everyone was still with us. Good… let’s keep going.

  Meeting my mom had filled me with fresh determination and a renewed hatred for Katherine that would see me through any challenge. And this was probably going to be the hardest one I’d ever faced.

  She’d locked my mom in a jar and kept her spirit bound to this earth. Nobody got away with that. Nobody. I could think about the bigger picture all I wanted, but there was something to be said for personal vendettas—and mine was ready to crush Katherine, for the sake of the big picture and the smaller snapshots of my life that she’d destroyed.

  Powering through the Chaos monsters, we neared Katherine and her altar. A mass of bluish white light undulated on the altar’s surface. My gaze flitted to a jar on the altar with a swirling mist inside. Tess… I’m so sorry. Even though she was a spirit, I could feel her terror and her grief. It flowed through the glass jar in painful waves that gripped my heart with ice-cold claws. Still, it meant Katherine hadn’t completed the ritual yet.

  Meanwhile, the Chaos monsters weren’t letting up, flowing like a liquid tide toward us. The more we kicked them away and tried to batter them with the weapons Astrid had loaded us up with, the more they fought back. Right now, I had two knives on the ends of Telekinesis tendrils, slashing them aimlessly in front of me. Sometimes the blades made contact; sometimes they didn’t. I just hoped I didn’t accidentally injure one of the Rag Team in my blind fury to get at Katherine.

  We were so close now. Barely ten yards stood between us and her, but there was still a swarm of monsters. It was becoming painfully obvious that we couldn’t use our usual methods of attack to defeat Katherine. Not this time. Even if we got close, we’d have monsters at our back and Naima and Kenneth to deal with up front.

  Katherine looked up, just as a tornado of fierce white light shot up into the sky.

  “Well, well, well, here comes the Scooby Gang to fail to save the day, once again.” She smirked. “You know, I was wondering if you would show up. Part of me was hoping you were all sitting around a table, toasting your success. Watching you die will be just as satisfying.”

  She raised her hands as if she were simply checking her nails and sent up a protective bubble of bronzed light. It stretched to encompass all of them—Katherine, Naima, and Kenneth, as well as Tess’s spirit.

  Don’t you freaking dare!

  I lashed out toward an oncoming creature, feeling something ooze over my hand as the blade of my knife bit into its face. It evaporated a moment later, and the beast dissipated into the atmosphere. Gritting my teeth in determination, I ploughed through the Chaos monsters, swiping my hands like a windmill as I fought to reach Katherine.

  In the glow that dispersed from the eerie altar, I saw the rest of the Rag Team battling for their lives. Sparks of Chaos flew, and I could hear the swish of Shinsuke’s swords as he took down a bunch of creatures. All around me, it looked like everyone was using a mixture of magic and brute force to get through. Jacob kept bursting in and out of scarily crackling portals, trying to find a way through the forcefield. So far, it didn’t seem to be working. That thing was keeping him out, which I was almost grateful for. If he got inside, he’d have to be quick to break it down before Katherine retaliated. But I was getting closer, ready to help him if he managed to get through.

  I kicked out my leg and knocked a salivating beast back into the shadows, giving me a direct path to Katherine and her bubble. Seizing the opportunity, I sprinted toward it, gathering a powerful ball of Fire in my palms as I ran. I hurled it at the bubble with every ounce of strength I had. It bounced back, exploding in a shower of sparking fragments.

  I used Telekinesis next, pummeling a wave of it directly into the bubble, but the forcefield wouldn’t budge. I tried to step through it, but that ended with my face being smushed against the shimmering shield, my nose stinging as I staggered back.

  I expected some witty retort from Katherine, but she was entirely focused on the ritual. She reached for Tess’s jar, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. That tornado of pure energy continued to surge upward, making the darkness spike and fork with Chaos-induced lightning. Trying to break through the bubble and simultaneously fight off the monsters was turning into a Sisyphean task. The monsters were drawn to the light of this central point, but they seemed wary about entering. Even so, there wasn’t much space left to fight in the light, and we could barely see our own hands in front of our faces if we stayed in the darkness.

  I hammered on the forcefield with every ability I had, trying to make a crack in Katherine’s defenses. But it was no good. I couldn’t break through. I couldn’t even make a dent, and she freaking knew it. That made it even worse, knowing just how smug she was feeling right now.

  With the sound of the ongoing battle clamoring behind me, I gaped in horror as Katherine unscrewed the lid of Tess’s jar and let her spirit loose. Her figure became clear, the fine mist stretching out into limbs, and a body, and a face. She hovered in the air for a moment before the bluish light that writhed on the altar snaked upward, the tendrils wrapping around the spirit and dragging it down to the altar.

  Come on, come on, COME ON! I slammed wave after wave of Telekinesis and Fire and Water and Earth and Air into the bubble, but nothing was working. Behind me, the monsters were starting to edge into the circle of light. Glaring over my shoulder, I peered at the rabid creatures.

  “Leave me alone!” I snapped, my body overflowing with frustrated energy. My voice echoed across the beasts, carrying that weird, distant tone that didn’t sound like it had come from me at all.

  The beasts immediately backed off, looking confused by their own impulsive reactions. It was the same thing that had happened with the gargoyle in Katherine’s second trial—only, on a much larger scale, my emotions amplified by my desperation.

  Thinking fast, I turned to the sea of beasts that were in the middle of attacking my friends. “Leave them alone! Back off, now!” The words bellowed out of my lungs, my ribs searin
g with breathless pain.

  The creatures looked at one another and backed away, melting into the darkness. It had worked. It had freaking worked! The Rag Team looked completely baffled, aside from Finch. As he stepped into the circle of light, he flashed me a grin.

  “Way to go, Sis. Beast wrangler extraordinaire.”

  “Let’s just hope it holds them,” I muttered, turning back to the bubble. I’d seen flashes of crackling light exploding close to the bubble, letting me know that Jacob was trying to break through, but it didn’t seem to be having any effect this time. Katherine had clearly added some extra juice to her forcefield, having learned from her previous mistakes.

  Jacob stumbled out of a portal beside me, breathing heavily. All of this portal making was definitely taking its toll on him.

  “Are you okay?” I rested my hand on his shoulder.

  He nodded, panting. “I can’t get through. She’s got some sort of block on her portal.”

  Katherine laughed from inside the bubble. “What did you expect? I’m not too old to learn a lesson or two. And that portal ability was getting to be something of a thorn in my side.” A sickening dread sank in the pit of my stomach as she took out a knife and turned to Kenneth, who was hopping like an excited puppy at her side. “Now it’s your turn to prove yourself, Kenneth. Are you ready to participate in the ritual?”

  “Of course, Eris.” He grinned like a maniac.

  “Come closer,” she urged.

  He did as he was told, practically licking his lips at the sight of Tess’s spirit trapped by the strange, undulating light. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Just stay where you are,” she replied with a smirk. “This will be the easiest thing you’ve ever done.”

  “I’m ready, Eris.”

  She chuckled. “I’m so glad to hear that.”

  Katherine plunged the knife into his chest. A bloom of scarlet spread out across his shirt. He stared up at her with the confused eyes of someone who didn’t realize he was about to die.