Ryann looked heartbroken. “You said she was okay!”
He wrapped an arm around her. “She is okay, but I think he’s preparing for her sunset, so to speak. She’s already had a freakishly long life as a Familiar, but even that won’t last forever, and she’s getting tired.”
“It’s going to kill him.” Tears filled Ryann’s eyes.
“Hey, she’s not gone yet.” Finch kissed her forehead softly. “Why don’t we head out to the cabin soon? You can bury your face in her fur, feed her something naughty by the fire, and make sure she has a sunset that no one will ever forget.”
Life and death had a funny way of making everyday problems shrink into insignificance. Nash loved Huntress, and he had to brace himself for a future without her. I loved Persie, and I wanted to protect her to my last breath, so I’d never have to face the same fate.
“I’d like that,” Ryann murmured.
Wade smiled at them and gave my hand a squeeze that said, “I love you.” I squeezed back. Regardless of how bad things got with Persie, I still had him by my side, through thick and thin. We’d started this journey together, and I knew he wasn’t going anywhere. My partner in everything, even navigating the treacherous waters of a teenage daughter bound to an evil monster.
“Speaking of old friends, I got word from Erebus the other day.” Finch sounded nervous. Barely a week went by when Erebus didn’t check in about something or other, though the former Child of Darkness had adjusted to mortal life fairly smoothly, in the end. Mostly thanks to Finch playing advice columnist over the smallest human problems. Bigger ones, too. I could still remember the day Kaya went into labor and Erebus had the freak-out to end all freak-outs. He’d kept phoning Finch, insisting he come to Italy to help. Apparently, he hadn’t been there for the births of his ill-fated hybrid children in antiquity. Finch had refused, but he had talked Erebus through the labor, which was a conversation I’d never forget. I doubted Finch ever would, either.
“And what did he have to say?” Wade’s guard went up. He’d never really agreed with the decision to just let the two of them wander off into a very different kind of sunset together. I hadn’t either, but we’d been overruled. And I supposed they’d kept their promise to stay out of the way.
Finch fumbled with his cutlery. “They’re thinking about sending Jason to the SDC.”
I almost spat my mimosa all over the table. “Pardon?”
“They might be a pair of happy hermits, but Jason’s a sociable kid—they want him to be around normal magicals, so he can integrate into society. Which begs the question, why do they want to send him to the SDC? Normal, we are not.” Finch forced a laugh. “Anyway, I think that’s parent talk for, ‘We don’t want to screw up our kid.’ Little do they know, it doesn’t matter what you do, they all end up a little screwy.”
“Finch, don’t say that.” Ryann gave him a disapproving look.
He put up his hands in mock surrender. “I don’t make the rules.” A sly grin tugged at the corners of his lips. “Man, imagine if Jason turned out to be the most normal one out of all our kids.”
“Ours have good heads on their shoulders,” Santana replied defiantly. “Cy might be slightly obsessed with bugs, but I’m sure it’s just a phase. Or a sign that he’s going to be a great entomologist one day.”
“Merrick knows what he wants out of life. That boy has his sights set on a government position—envoy to covens all over the globe. He wants to help wherever he can.” Garrett smiled proudly, and Astrid shared in it.
Finch chuckled. “Any coven will jump to attention if all eight feet of him turns up on their doorstep.”
“I think Diana’s still weighing her options, and we don’t have to worry about Kes for a while.” Ryann added to the customary child exhibition, where we took turns crowing about the merits of our offspring. Usually, I had a good brag about Persie’s art, but with talk turning to other covens, my mouth stayed shut.
The only one who never weighed in on the child parade was Dylan. He and Tatyana still spoke, and they’d managed to keep up a firm friendship, but we were all waiting for the day when both of them found someone special. There’d been partners here and there, but none of them stuck. Not because they still wanted to be with each other, but because… Actually, I had no idea why they could never get a relationship to stick. Both of them were catches.
Smartie beeped, cutting through the conversation before it got too competitive. Astrid swiped the screen on autopilot. Even at brunch, she never let her first love out of sight. Her eyes scanned a series of windows that popped up, taking in information at a mile a minute.
“What’s happening in the cyberverse?” Finch craned his neck to get a better look.
Astrid furrowed her brow. “Another magical has gone missing. Texas, this time.”
“That’s the third this month, right?” My heart sank. We always got there too late.
“There’s a potential fourth, but we’re still waiting to hear more about the circumstances. One of them was… how shall I put it? Shady. So they might have disappeared for a different reason.” Astrid started typing frantically. “I’m sending a message to the field teams to get them over there. The longer we delay, the less chance we have of finding this latest missing magical.”
“Has there been any news of any of the others?” Wade interjected.
Astrid shook her head. “Nothing. It’s like they just—”
“Vanished.” I finished the sentence for her.
Six
Persie
Breathless in a world with a violet sun and scarlet skies, I raced across a barren landscape. Huge drops of black rain crashed to the ground, inky splashes spreading underfoot. One struck my shoulder and sent an icy cold shiver down my arm. But I kept running, silky fabric billowing behind me. I’d always been a jeans and t-shirt girl, with the occasional summer dress thrown in just to surprise people, but glancing down, I saw a dark crimson gown. Grecian style, pinned at each shoulder with a gold Medusa head pin, it draped my sprinting figure. The silky fabric wrapped around my legs whenever the hot wind blew in a new direction, feeling like Medusa’s snakes had slithered down to trip me up.
Just keep running. Don’t look back. My golden sandals snagged in a tangle of black roots, their thorns biting my skin. I stumbled for a split second, only to regain my balance and dart forward with renewed adrenaline.
Suddenly, my feet skidded to a stop at the brink of a gaping canyon. With the terrain so flat, I’d almost missed it. Panting hard, I dared a look over the edge. Nothing but darkness, stretching down into an abyss.
Crap, crap, crap, crap! I couldn’t jump it. My golden sandals might’ve looked Grecian, but they didn’t have wings.
A blood-curdling roar split the air, and my shoulders hunched against the sound. Fear pierced my heart like a javelin. My brain didn’t want to look, but my body had other ideas. Slowly, I turned.
In the distance, getting closer by the moment, a cloud of red dust churned across the harsh terrain. Something big was coming. It can’t hurt you. Not here. It’s not real, remember? I tried to convince myself this was true as the dust cloud neared.
I glanced left and right, searching for an exit, but there was nothing but jagged canyon edge and desolate landscape as far as the eye could see. And if I stepped back, I faced a long fall with a messy ending. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a different creature, watching from a tumble of thorny weeds. Small and round, and seemingly made entirely from white fluff, it stood out against the hellish world. Big black eyes observed me. I blinked, and it disappeared, making me wonder if it had ever been there at all. It didn’t matter. I had bigger fish to fry. Much bigger.
The dust cloud stopped, and a gigantic figure loomed out of the red vapor. Walking tall on two muscular legs, the creature showed itself. Its body bulged with strength, dark gray fur displaying the hard contours of a humanoid torso, which grew more wolf-like at the extremities. Coarse, oily fur spiked up from its thick, overlong arms an
d legs, and its hunched shoulders made it look perpetually stooped. Its face was all wolf, with a long snout and dark lips peeled back to reveal dripping fangs. Two pointed ears flicked back and forth, while a set of glaring yellow eyes observed me hungrily.
A loup-garou. I had no idea how I knew the name, but I was certain of it. Not to be confused with your run-of-the-mill werewolf. This beast had a different pedigree—bigger, stronger, faster, hungrier.
“Stand back!” I shouted desperately, panic rising. The hot wind blew, and my dress whipped back with the current.
The loup-garou didn’t listen. It stepped closer, and the ground trembled beneath me.
“Don’t come any closer, or I’ll—” What would I do? Shout it to death?
It took another step, and I braced myself for the impact. But instead of sinking its horrible fangs into me, it did something very strange. Slowly, it sank to one knee and bowed its head, chin touching chest. Its great claws sank into the dirt, its ridged spine rising up and down with every breath.
“W-What are you doing?” I stammered.
It growled, digging its silvered claws deeper into the dirt.
“What do you want me to do?” I swallowed, trying to take away the dryness in my throat.
It growled again and pushed its head forward.
Does it want me to… stroke it? My legs took over, against my will. I walked toward the beast, even while my mind screamed to run in the other direction. But it was almost as if the wind was changing trajectory, giving me a gentle push forward.
For a moment, the beast looked up. Its ragged face softened, its eyes unreadable as they met mine. Its lips slid back over its fangs and it bowed its head again, leaning forward. My hand stretched out like it belonged to someone else, and my fingertips grazed the loup-garou’s furred snout. It whined in the back of its throat, as though it liked it. A huge beast transformed into a puppy by the touch of my hand.
What the—?
The hellish terrain vanished, and the creature and I disappeared, too.
I awoke to birdsong and the pale tinge of dawn creeping through my curtains. Mouth dry and eyes drier, I sat up, upsetting a tin of colored pencils and two sketchbooks. The former clattered to the floor, making me wince. My mom’s bat ears would hear it a mile off, and I didn’t want her to come running. Why undo all the intricate avoidance work I’d put in for the last four days after The Argument?
I didn’t even change into PJs. I poked my face out of the dark green hoodie I’d fallen asleep in, like a mole daring to poke its head above ground. The button of my jeans had made an indent in my stomach, branding me. Most people would’ve been a sweaty mess after waking up from a dream like that, but I’d had so many that I guessed I’d gained immunity. It tended to be the “during” part that had me petrified. Don’t get me wrong, when these dreams had first started, I’d screamed the place down. But once I realized the beasts couldn’t follow me into the waking world, it got easier to deal with. Time had helped, too. I’d had these dreams my whole life, and I’d learned to either put up or shut up.
“Musclebound man-wolf. That’s a new one.” I picked up my sketchbook and made a note in the top right corner of a fresh page: Loup-Garou. Some people had dream diaries; I had a dream sketchbook. Lots of them actually, full of creatures I’d seen in dreams.
Freud would have a field day. I chuckled to rid myself of any residual fear and got up to gather my fallen belongings. Placing them on the desk in my bedroom, I paused by the mirror. Dark circles ringed my eyes, and my cheeks looked feverishly pink. I touched the back of my hand to them and felt a faint heat.
What if this heat had come from that dreamworld’s searing wind? It wouldn’t have been the first time, and it never got easier to consider. The landscape changed each time: jungles, icy tundra, cities, deserts, wetlands, et cetera. I’d woken shivering from snow-blanketed worlds, or soaked through from water worlds, or sweating buckets thanks to rainforest worlds. Cause and effect couldn’t always be shaken off. But they were still just dreams.
Right…? I wondered if I should speak to my mom about it, then immediately stomped on the idea. Hearing about them only put her on edge, and now wasn’t a good time to add to her worries. Or give her any more reason to insist on keeping me here.
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. These dreams were a weirdness that still didn’t make any sense to me. My family had no history of them. Doctors and psychiatrists couldn’t explain them. They just… were.
My phone pinged from somewhere in the mountain peaks of my twisted bedsheets, the sleek circle lighting up. I hurried over and swiped my hand across the surface. A hologram shot up—Atlantean technology that’d been sneakily introduced into mainstream tech—and a slideshow started to play. Pictures of Genie and I, from childhood to now: the two of us wearing elf ears at Christmas; our faces smeared with cake; one of us getting thrown up into the air by Tobe; our first formal dance, and so on. I watched, grinning like an idiot.
“Happy birthday!” Genie’s voice cut through at the end, and a banner exploded to life.
Eighteen years old. The hologram faded, and I picked up the phone to message her back. And ask what she was doing up at half past five in the morning. Genie was not an early bird. I paused as I saw a different message from Genie—one I’d missed last night, having fallen asleep before: Hey! After ur bday, we should get moving on the future. Let’s chat about new covens. Take a step 2ward beautiful, beautiful independence. Mwah x. Her dad had kept her busy over the past few days as penance for the Bestiary thing, so we’d only spoken in passing. I considered asking her to come and talk about it now, but the little blue light that indicated Genie’s availability had gone out. Evidently she’d programmed the hologram to send so it’d be the first thing I saw when I got up.
I couldn’t love you more, Genie Vertis. I typed out a thank you and slipped the disc into my pocket. Facing the mirror again, I stared at my reflection.
“Austin. I think Austin could be good for us.” Sure, a Mediocre program might not do much for me, but they had other programs. They even had a non-magical program, if memory served. It didn’t have the prestige the SDC’s had, but it wasn’t in San Diego, or anywhere near my family or Leviathan. That put it way up there in my book.
Anyway, I can think about all of that tomorrow. Right now, I had a birthday to look forward to.
* * *
I perched awkwardly on the beautiful fountain at the front of the Grand Del Mar, waiting for Uncle Finch to arrive. I’d never been anywhere this fancy before. Palm fronds rustled in the warm breeze, and the tumbling water made me wish I’d gone to the bathroom before leaving the SDC. The hotel itself was a terracotta masterpiece of Mediterranean and Arabian fusion, which had somehow found its way to San Diego. And I was here to have a special birthday lunch with my uncle at the Addison restaurant. My mom had definitely shanghaied him into picking this place, to make it memorable. I’d have been happy with tacos from a truck. Naturally, I was already thinking about forks, and trying to remember if the salad fork was the longer one.
One of the busboys came out to check on me, asking, “Can I help you, miss?”
“Oh, um, no thanks. I’m just… waiting for someone,” I replied nervously, checking my phone. If the preceptors thought I liked to be quiet during their classes, they’d never seen me out in public. Another reason I needed to get out there, into the world, before I gave up and slapped “hermit” on my forehead.
Late, as always. I looked up again, but the busboy hadn’t gone.
He smiled. “Would you prefer to wait in the lobby? You might get wet, sitting there.”
“No, I’ll be okay.”
“Well, feel free to change your mind.” The busboy wandered off, with a glance back at me. I’d done my best to dress up a bit. My mom had tried to get me to put on one of her fancy dresses, but I’d settled on one of my favorite summer dresses instead: a black maxi dress with red roses embroidered onto it, with capped sleeves that made me feel like I
could flamenco, if I knew how. Now, I wished I’d swallowed my pride and accepted one of my mom’s dresses, which would have suited the unprecedented levels of fanciness. I looked nice, but not posh nice. Not designer label nice.
It’s fine. Once my uncle is here, I won’t notice. I scanned the driveway for any sign of him, though I doubted he’d arrive by car. Excitement bubbled up inside me, taking over the awkward nerves. Uncle Finch sat at the very top of my list of favorite people in the whole world, just behind Genie. He also held the title of being my closest friend in the family. An ally, through and through. We hadn’t had much of a chance to spend time together lately, which I guessed was why he and my mom had planned this lunch. A chance to catch up without being stuck inside the SDC.
As though summoned, he tumbled out of a hedgerow to the right of the driveway and dusted himself off. He strolled toward me casually, a couple of leaves and a twig clinging to his tufty, strawberry blond hair. Not a speck of gray, thanks to his Mimicry.
“Sorry I’m late. I got caught in traffic.” He scooped me in for a hug.
“You came by chalk-door,” I retorted, unable to resist laughing.
He pulled away and gestured to the empty hotel forecourt. “And you wouldn’t believe how many people were all headed here. Rush hour in the chalk-door network.”
“What really happened?” Already, I felt calmer.
“Kes wanted to show me a spell he’d been working on.” Finch smiled fondly. “He toasted the lab. Seriously, fire everywhere. I think I’ve still got a lungful of smoke.”
I gaped at him. “Is he okay? Do you need to go back and help him?”
Harley Merlin 18: Persie Merlin and Leviathan’s Gift Page 6
