“Persie?” Dad’s voice cut through the deafening buzz in my ears.
Mom joined him, both of them walking quickly toward me. “Persie, we need to get you out of here. You’re going to be okay, but we need to go. Now.” She didn’t sound sure, and I didn’t trust whatever was happening to me. It hurt like someone had lit a fire in every cell, and it felt powerful. Like I could explode at any moment and take everyone down with me. It didn’t make sense, but I didn’t want anyone getting hurt.
“Stay back!” I screamed. A weird echo of the dream I’d had this morning. Only, they weren’t monsters. I was the one acting like a wild creature. “Please, stay back.” My throat burned white hot, my tongue feeling as though it had swollen to twice its normal size. My chest clenched in a vise of pain, like I was trying to breathe through a snorkel that someone had stuffed full of cotton wool, overworking my lungs to try and catch some air. And my vision now refused to clear, no matter how many times I blinked.
“Persie, you’re not well. We need to help you.” My mom took another step forward.
“Don’t! Just stay back! Stay away!” My brain felt like it was moments away from blowing out of my skull. In front of my blurred eyes, an image flashed—a watery cave, with shadows darting between the rocks. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, but it left behind a stone of dread in the pit of my roiling stomach.
Finch pushed to the front of the crowd. “Tell us what’s happening, Persie. Do you feel something? Explain it to us.”
I fought to lift my head. “Something’s… coming.” I sensed it, clawing into my skull and body. A numbing cold, akin to being trapped in a block of ice. Only, the ice was in my veins, my organs, and my skin. It came from within. All of a sudden, my vision went black. I could feel my eyelids blinking, but it made no difference. Darkness surrounded me. Not unconsciousness, but shadow. Thick and impenetrable.
A voice whispered in the back of my mind, startling me. A voice I didn’t know, and yet… recognized.
Happy Birthday, my darling…
Eight
Harley
Panic set in, adrenaline shooting through me. Persie looked like a ghost. All the color had drained from her face, replaced by a bluish, waxy sheen. Her lips turned a deathly purple, and faint cracks of broken capillaries spiderwebbed across her cheeks. And her eyes… Chaos help me, her eyes. They’d turned milky white with blindness. Her hands flailed wildly, trying to touch something solid.
“Persie, we’re going to help you,” I said with a trembling voice, trying to get closer to my daughter. “You have to come with us.” I knew who was responsible for this, and I wanted to tear his neck off his slimy shoulders. Ordinarily, I could compartmentalize and focus, to solve a problem. But this was my daughter we were talking about. And, at the moment, I wanted to hold her and take the pain away so badly that I could barely think. I reached out for her and she batted me away hard enough for the impact to reverberate.
“Don’t come near me!” she shrieked, as eerie, pearly white tears trickled down her face. “It’s not safe! Don’t come near me!”
“What? I need to take you out of here!” I tried to reach for her again, only to get another panicked flailing. She suddenly pitched forward and hit the ground, her fingers clawing at the grass, tearing up big tufts. That was the final straw. I couldn’t watch anymore. I had to help her. She could bat me away all she liked, but I was carrying her out of there. I made to lunge for her, but a tight hand grasped me by the elbow and pulled me back.
“Listen to her, Harley.” Melody looked as pale as Persie. Her big eyes shone with concern.
“I can’t stand here while my daughter’s in pain!” I barked.
Melody swallowed anxiously. “Harley, she’s Purging.”
“What?” Wade shook his head in disbelief. He tried to run for Persie, but this time Luke caught him before he could, holding him back.
“She can’t be. You need to be magical to Purge. It’s not possible!” I snapped, pulling away. But Melody held tightly to my arm. “Let go of me, Melody! I need to get to her. This isn’t a Purge; this is some trick Leviathan is pulling. And I swear to Chaos, if she… if she…” I couldn’t even say it. No mother could. The thought couldn’t be put into words. But I felt the stab of it in my heart nonetheless. If anything happened to her, I’d be… There wasn’t an entry in the English dictionary that covered what I’d feel.
“I’m as stunned as you, but it’s the truth. I can sense it building inside her. She’s Purging. And it’s going to be a powerful one.” Melody raised her palms to release a spell, only to drop them again. “There’s nothing I can do to help her. If I put a buffer on her to ease the pain, it’d only prolong the experience.”
“Then what do we do? I can’t just leave her like this!” I hissed as Persie began to scream. It was the sound of someone in unbearable agony, pushed through choked sobs. Her muscles stretched and strained, her entire body turning a blotchy red. The purple spiderwebs raced faster through my daughter’s blood network, as if her veins were collapsing. She strained harder, her cheeks turning an angry shade of red. More spiderwebs forked down her bare arms, right down to her fingertips. I could see every ridge of her spine, as though the bones were trying to push right through her skin.
Beside me, Kadar overtook Raffe. “I can restrain her, to stop her from hurting herself.”
I stared helplessly at my daughter as Melody continued to restrain me.
Kadar ran toward her, only to stagger back as Persie abruptly stood. Her milky white eyes had turned black, blinking alien-like at Kadar’s shocked face. Unnerving silence echoed across the riverside. Everyone waiting. Everyone watching. No one knowing what would happen next. Kadar took a step forward.
And then all hell broke loose. Black fire erupted in a circle around Persie. Her body bent violently, her arms splayed out and her head flung back, as though she couldn’t contain what was inside her. Suddenly, the ring of black flames lifted up, spinning faster and faster around her. It stopped abruptly with a deafening crack before imploding into Persie’s chest.
“Persie!” I howled.
A glowing black streak painted her throat, and dark smoke began to spill out of her mouth in a powerful torrent. It pooled on the grass in front of her, only feet from Kadar. Huge limbs formed and rapidly took shape. Four scaly legs with glinting talons led to a bulky body, complete with a whipping tail that carried a spiny barb. My first thought was: dragon. But then the neck and the head started to form multiple necks and heads. Armored scales climbed from the communal belly and slotted up each neck toward gnashing fangs. They had dragon-like faces, with long snouts and fanned-out bone frills. They were dark red with black armored scales, covered in shivering spines, and weaponized with two pointed horns apiece.
“A hydra!” Genie’s eyes bugged. “Atlantis used to have one protecting the bank vaults. They had to get rid of it when it… ate a few of the guards.”
Tobe narrowed his feline eyes. “I do not believe one has been Purged since the days of Ancient Greece. The last was Purged by a Child of Chaos’s hybrid offspring, shortly before the endeavor tore them apart.” He rested a paw on my shoulder, realizing what he’d said. “Hybrids were too powerful to be contained in mortal bodies, which is why they died. Miss Persie is no hybrid.”
But what is she? A magical with no magic, who could Purge without ever using a drop of Chaos? It didn’t make sense. And it didn’t matter now. Persie was in danger, and a hydra stood between me and her.
“Rag Team, with me!” I shouted, taking command. It’d been a while since I’d used that term, but I didn’t just mean the originals. Melody, Luke, Nash, and Huntress were part of us now. Even if the old dog wasn’t as spry as she once was.
The youngest kids were pushed back by the older children, while the old crew formed a line, palms going up in quick succession. Nash swiped a few sharp knives off the buffet table, and Ryann took out the channeler that Krieger had made for her. A silver orb with a conductor
in the center, it allowed her to use the residual Chaos that had clung on, long after Lux had left her. She only had a weak Fire ability, but we needed everything we had.
“Back me up!” I yelled to the group. Grounding my feet, I dug deep into my twin affinities and pulled a strand of each into my core. I felt it swirl in my chest, forming the ball of raw power that let me control monsters. Only, I had no idea if it would work on something as powerful as this.
A hydra head shot forward, aiming for Huntress.
“STOP!” I bellowed, my throat burning with the sheer volume.
Spotting the danger, Tobe tore off at a pounding sprint. He barreled into Huntress a moment before the hydra, grabbing the husky and rolling free of the creature’s jaws. Infuriated, the seven hydra heads screeched. Two more heads shot forward, targeting Melody and Ryann.
“STOP!” I boomed, louder this time.
The hydra jolted to a standstill, the three attacking heads twitching as though they were buffering. But I knew my hold was weak. With so many heads to deal with, this wasn’t your average beast to control. It was more like trying to wrangle a herd.
One head broke free of my influence. It lunged for Kes, who had slipped away from the group of kids for a closer look.
“OBEY ME!” I screamed as loud as my lungs would allow. They seared inside my chest, the effort threatening to crack my ribs.
The head stopped, inches from Kes’s head. He stood there in shock, all the color drained out of his face. Almost nose-to-nose with a hydra head, the poor boy looked like he might pass out.
Just then, Tobe began to sing. He held Huntress in his strong arms as he walked back over to where I stood, not missing a note. The song drifted across the riverbank and the hydra heads reeled back, listening to the sad tune. They swayed strangely as the ballad mesmerized them. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. Not for the first time, I felt as though I was hearing something I shouldn’t be: an ancient melody, unheard for generations. I didn’t understand the language, but the hydra did. And, between my beast control and Tobe’s voice, we had the creature where we wanted it.
With the hydra heads swaying like reeds, Tobe plucked a Mason jar from inside the shadow of his wings. I’d never understood how he kept so many things in there, but gratitude overcame the mystique. Unscrewing the lid, he approached the hydra and set the jar at its feet. Not once did he stop singing. Transfixed by the melody, the heads didn’t even seem to notice as they began to disintegrate. They turned to black smoke and spiraled into the confines of the Mason jar until just Persie’s limp body remained on the ground. Only then did Tobe stop and screw the lid on tight.
I raced forward with Wade at my side. “Persie?” I hauled her body into my arms while Wade supported her flopping head. The spiderwebs had gone, but she still looked deathly pale. I shook her gently. “Persie? Can you hear me?”
Please, please, please, wake up! Tears welled, and my heart felt as though it were on the brink of shattering. I needed her to pull through. I needed her. My little girl. If I lost her because of that vile snake, there’d be no power on this Earth that could stop me from decimating the bastard. And I’d blow away anyone who stood in my path. I shook her a little more, seconds shy of pounding on her chest until my arms gave out. She had a whole life ahead of her. This couldn’t be it. It just couldn’t.
She stirred, blinking her blue eyes. Immediately, hysterics took over. She struggled against me, panting hard. “What’s going on? What the hell just happened?”
Wade looked at me, and realization dawned. “This is the gift he was talking about,” he said bitterly.
“What gift? What are you talking about?” Persie stared at us both, on the verge of tears. She sounded so small and frightened, and all because we’d withheld one not-so-tiny detail. The time for honesty was long overdue.
“Leviathan’s.” Tears jabbed at my eyes. I’d been right—of course Leviathan’s gift wasn’t going to be something nice. And this was it. A gift unlike any other. No, not a gift… a curse. One that was as much of a surprise to us as it was to her; the revelation that Persie wasn’t quite the non-magical we’d thought.
Persie peered up at me. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“You Purged,” Finch said. He knelt beside her, his voice calm.
“I… what?” She scrambled out of my arms and gaped in disbelief. “That’s not possible!”
No, it shouldn’t be. But I just watched it happen. I kept my thoughts to myself. Something had clearly changed, but we didn’t know what. Persie had no abilities to speak of, yet she’d just spewed a hydra, a rare and legendary beast not seen since Ancient Greece. None of this made sense. But it all pointed to one entity. The one who’d started all of this.
“It has to do with Leviathan,” Wade said.
Persie hit us with a defiant glare. “You know what’s happening, and I want to hear the whole truth. Now. You owe me that much.”
A tear dropped onto my cheek. “Yes. Yes, we do.”
Nine
Persie
All that glittered was not gold, and all that had sparkled on this riverbank had lost its shine, too. The party atmosphere morphed into tense anticipation before everyone ventured back to the SDC to give my parents and me some space to talk at the long trestle table. Even the willows ceased their whispering, eager to hear the truth. The food went cold, the fizz went flat, and the mythical creatures retreated back to their Mason jars, obeying the specific lilt of Tobe’s songs—one for each species.
I folded my arms across my chest. Defensive or protective, I didn’t know yet. “Go on.”
My mom glanced at my dad, both sheepish. She fidgeted with the edge of the tablecloth. “Leviathan and I have a history. It started when I needed his mother, Echidna, to break my Suppressor so we could fight Katherine and win. You know that. But you don’t know what I gave her in return.” She picked up a napkin and touched it to her lower eyelid, to catch a tear. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen her cry. Furious and confused and hurt as I may have been, seeing her on the edge of losing it was an added struggle for my overwhelmed mind.
My dad put his hand on her back, rubbing small circles. “It’s important you understand the gravity of the situation your mom was in when she made the deal with Echidna.”
“Deal?” I gulped down a phantom fishbone in my throat, but it wouldn’t dislodge.
They’d never mentioned any deal before. I sensed trouble on the horizon, an ugly truth that I wouldn’t like. But I’d finally reached the point of no return, and so had they.
My mom’s breath hitched, and I pushed away a twinge of pity. Until I knew the full story, I couldn’t settle on an emotion. “In return for breaking the Suppressor, Echidna wanted to name you. My firstborn. Before Katherine killed her, she made sure I knew that her death did not void our deal, but instead passed the mantle on to her son, Leviathan. It became his promise to fulfill.”
My stomach took a nosedive. “But… you said Persephone was a family name.”
“That’s not entirely true.” My dad rubbed his stubbled chin, where grains of gray brushed against dark brown.
“Leviathan visited me after you were born, when I was alone.” My mom cleared her throat. “I was weak from the labor. He named you before I could stop him. It was a spell of some kind, which bound you to him.”
My name came from him. The fact twisted in my gut like a rusty blade. My mom had never referred to me by my full name, ever, but I’d always found it pretty. It flowed off the tongue, full of history and gravitas. Persephone Merlin-Crowley. The kind of name someone could be proud of. To hear that I’d been given it by a monster made me feel sick all over again. And the beauty that I’d once seen in that name faded away, like the glowing lanterns that hung from the trees. It changed everything. He’d molded that name, and so he’d molded me too.
I battled angry tears, but I heard them wavering in my voice. “And that’s why I Purged? Because of that spell?”
“Yes and no.” My mom wiped her nose on the napkin. “He told me, right after he cast the spell to name you, that he’d return on your eighteenth birthday to give you a gift. He didn’t explain what the gift would be before he vanished. I tried to speak to him so many times afterwards—Tobe and Melody, too—but he wouldn’t say another word. I think he enjoyed holding it over us.”
Through tear-blurred eyes, I sought out Genie for encouragement. She’d wandered off to the riverbank, refusing to leave until I was done here. Normally, I was her right-hand woman. Today, she filled that role. Her eyes found mine and a small smile lifted the corners of her lips. A movement that said, loud and clear: I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.
“Wait. That can’t be right.” I returned to the conversation. “Purge beasts can’t leave the Bestiary, so how did Leviathan visit you? And how… how did he get inside my head? He spoke to me. Is that because of the spell, too?”
Air hissed through my mom’s teeth. “He spoke to you?”
“For a moment, back there. He… wished me Happy Birthday.” The bitterest of ironies.
“That scumbag!” My mom looked about ready to tear the tablecloth to shreds. I wondered if there was some backstory to her fury, or if it was just the invasion of my skull. Either way, it was my head he’d tapped into, and I wanted answers.
In the face of her sudden burst of anger, I tried to stay calm. “Which brings us back to the question—how is he doing it? How is that even remotely possible?”
My dad toyed with the stem of an empty glass, while his mouth twisted in shared resentment with my mom. “Leviathan is a Purge beast, yes, but he’s ancient. Older than Tobe, even. He may even be older than the Primus Anglicus. With that sort of heritage comes immense power. That’s why Tobe keeps him on ice.” He paused, his expression hardening. “However, he had to be unfrozen so your mom could learn how to fight against someone with immense power before battling Katherine, and they unfroze him a couple of other times, to collect samples of his blood and tissue for research that Remington was doing.”
Harley Merlin 18: Persie Merlin and Leviathan’s Gift Page 8
