Harley Merlin 18: Persie Merlin and Leviathan’s Gift

by Forrest, Bella

  Genie’s mouth turned up in a grin. “I can keep it PG-13.”

  “I’m good, too.” Kes nodded. “Although, you two should pretend you’ve got colds or sore throats if anyone tries to talk to you, so you don’t have to worry about your voices giving us away. As for me, I can do a heck of an impression of Cy.”

  “Noted. Okay then… how do we do this?” I looked to the Shifting expert. Even though I’d never used Chaos before, I had a basic idea of the process from class. I had to feel for it and let it move through me. The more relaxed I was, the easier it would be. At least in theory.

  He held up his hands and Shifted into little Cy. Hazel eyes blinked adorably in a face that had lost some of its childhood chub, which matched the rest of Cy’s gangly frame. A few years younger than Kes, Cy was going to be a tall one someday. Kes ran a hand across his borrowed hair, buzzed hedgehog-short.

  “The hair is always the weirdest part,” he admitted.

  I tried not to let first-Chaos nerves overwhelm me. “You might have to tell me how to do it. Showing didn’t really help.”

  “Feel for the vibration of the Chaos and bring it into your body,” Genie stepped in as my cheerleader slash coach. “From what I know of Shapeshifting, you have to let it wash over your skin. Here, we can do it together.”

  She took my hand for moral support, while I did my best to find the temporary energy inside me. It took a few minutes until I felt what I hoped was the Shifting power—a shivering, building sort of electricity that prickled in my forearms, like I’d put my hands on a generator. Honestly, I didn’t quite know how to feel about it. It wasn’t the bells and whistles I’d been anticipating, a big power surge that was undeniably magical. This seemed subtler, with the same kind of buzz I’d felt once when I’d downed about a gallon of energy drink and stayed up all night to work on a massive canvas. Only this didn’t make me feel like I could see sounds. It just… hummed along at a steady pace. A sensation that I could get used to. Now, how I pushed that feeling into the rest of my body was the next step, and totally baffling. For magicals, I imagined it came as easily as hiccupping or coughing or blinking. For me, I hovered firmly at square one.

  “Do you feel it?” Genie asked.

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “Okay, so imagine you’re bringing it into your chest. Take your time.” Her patience made me calmer. I had to remain relaxed, just like the textbooks said.

  Closing my eyes, I pictured the energy moving into my center. To my surprise, the Chaos responded, pooling into the middle of my chest. I could actually feel the weight of it above my lungs, as though someone was pushing their hand down against me.

  “I’m doing it!” I yelped.

  Genie laughed. “You’re doing great. I knew you’d be a natural at this. Next, you need to imagine that energy running down into your hands.”

  I obeyed, and the Chaos began to ebb away from my chest, trickling down my arms and into my fingertips. Everything buzzed with a much stronger sort of static electricity, the hum intensifying, and my heart racing at the exhilaration of it all. Eighteen years without a proper ability, and I was finally getting to experience it. This was the birthday present I should’ve had, not Leviathan’s spiteful, self-serving curse.

  “It’s in my fingertips!” I wanted to dance around the dragon garden.

  “Perfect, Persie.” Genie gripped my hand tighter. “I can feel what you’re feeling. Now, all you need to do is imagine the energy washing over you.”

  Kes chimed in. “And imagine the person you want to look like while you’re doing it.” I opened my eyes to find him hopping about excitedly, his eyes shining with pride.

  Feeling more confident, I pictured the energy in my fingertips coursing back the way it had come and enveloping my body in a shrink-wrapped sheen of Shifting Chaos. A second skin. I almost screamed with happiness when it responded, moving back through me like honey until it infiltrated every limb, every cell, every vein with that slow-moving bronze.

  “You did it!” Kes whooped. “Persie who? The only person I can see is Azar Catemaco-Levi.”

  I dared a peek down at myself. My skin had changed from hermit white to goddess olive, with freckles on the back of my hand that weren’t mine. I wore the floral, gypsy-sleeved dress that she’d worn in class last week, and had the kind of long, slim legs that didn’t turn crabby when they ran.

  “Here.” Genie whipped out a mirror and showed me my reflection. I gasped as Azar stared back with her unusual green eyes. A dark brown freckle marked one iris: the flagship to the dusting across her cheeks and nose. Her long, chestnut hair tumbled past my shoulders in natural curls.

  “I can’t believe I did it,” I managed, admiring my handiwork.

  Genie smiled. “I can. You can do anything, Persie. Seriously, if you wanted to be an astronaut, or a beast hunter, or freaking queen of the world, no one would be able to stop you!”

  My happy bubble popped, and Genie immediately realized what she’d said. Her eyes got wide and her mouth fell open, while her hand came up to smack herself in the forehead.

  “Persie… I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot.” For a second, she looked like she might cry. Through all of this, she’d been my strength and support. In that moment, I understood that I wasn’t the only one in this garden who was terrified about what the future held for me. I’d seen the crack in her stoic armor. My best friend might’ve been strong for me, but she also felt what I felt, cried when I cried, hurt when I hurt. And neither of us knew how this would play out. All we could do was hope for the best, together. “Forget that last part.”

  “Already forgotten,” I replied, giving her hand a squeeze. “And you’re not an idiot.”

  She gave me a grateful smile. “I’m still sorry.”

  “Have I missed something?” Kes interjected, confused.

  I shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

  “We should hop to it, before we miss this entrance obstacle course exam test thingie.” Genie brought the conversation back around and Shifted into an identical image of Marius. I waited for the lusty jokes to come, but they didn’t. A sure sign that my friend still had her mind on what she’d said.

  Instead, Kes puffed out a sigh. “He really does have perfect hair and chocolate-pool eyes.”

  Genie and I paused a moment before bursting into laughter, diffusing any residual discomfort.

  “Well! He does!” Kes protested, sending us further into hysterics.

  A few minutes later, our outburst subsided. But it had been precisely what the doctor ordered to get me and Genie back into a positive mindset. Shifted and ready for action, our trio headed out of the dragon garden and away to the mirror room.

  I’d heard that the mirrors used to be in the Assembly Hall, but that had changed when the SDC moved locations. Nowadays, the mirrors had a room all of their own: a hall not far from the library, where people came and went at all hours of the day. I hoped there wouldn’t be too many people around to mess up our plan.

  “This is going to work, right?” I whispered to Kes, as we made our way through the coven. The corridors were fairly empty, with only a few weary souls meandering to the Banquet Hall for breakfast. One or two gave us a bleary nod, but the path seemed blissfully clear.

  Kes looked over at me. “Which part?”

  “Getting through the mirrors.”

  “Oh.” He fidgeted, which didn’t fill me with confidence. “It should. I’ve snuck through a couple of times without being detected. Trips to the museums in New York, that kind of thing.”

  I gaped at him. “On your own?!”

  The idea of my cousin wandering about in the Big Apple by himself made me feel instantly protective, and a little bit sick. He was thirteen, for crying out loud! What if something happened to him out there? No one would even know, until it was too late. Ah… I see. That scraped a little too close to the Mom bone. Looking at Kes, I started to understand my mom’s thought process in a way I hadn’t before.

  “I can take
care of myself,” he insisted.

  “Promise me you won’t do that again!” My relief that the mirrors would likely work mixed with sudden panic for my cousin and his little jaunts.

  He shrugged mutinously. “It depends what exhibits they have.”

  I was about to protest further, when we reached the mirror room. The doors stood open and the space beyond looked empty. Seizing our opportunity, the three of us snuck inside. Five mirrors loomed on a raised stage, their silvery surfaces rippling faintly. The room itself didn’t have much else going for it—vaulted ceilings, a few side tables with potted plants to pretty the place up, and a black marble floor that echoed unnervingly as we scuttled across it.

  “Anyone coming?” Kes murmured.

  I glanced back. “Nope. It’s now or… well, we wait until it’s empty again.”

  Kes put his hand up against the farthest mirror on the right and whispered a spell I didn’t recognize. “Dare ingressum, Basani Institute.”

  The surface rippled wildly for a moment, until a vision appeared and the ripples stilled. A different hall lay beyond, but the image was hazy, as if it had a layer of gauze between us and it.

  “This is it! The moment I’ve been waiting for!” Kes braced to bolt through, but Genie stopped him.

  “First things first, young Mage: we need to de-Shift. If we drop the disguises in the Institute, people will get suspicious.”

  Kes tapped his chin. “Then we should get it done quick, before someone here sees us.”

  I raised a frantic hand. “Uh, guys… How do I undo the Shifting?” Kes and Genie had already shed their fake skin and were back to their usual selves.

  Genie stood in front of me for encouragement. “Let it flow away, like you’re shaking off nerves. Jiggle your arms and legs if you have to.”

  I did what she said, trying to flail discreetly to get rid of the Shifting energy. Although, a part of me felt sorry to let it go. For a moment, I’d had magic… and I liked the sensation. Not just the actual energy part, but the feeling that I was in the same Chaos-hewn boat as everyone around me. Once I gave it up, I’d be back where I started: an anomaly, neither one thing nor another.

  “Or, you could give me the Ephemera,” Kes whispered, seeing my comical struggle.

  I shook my head. “Not yet. There’s still juice left, and I’d like to… hold onto it for a while.”

  “I understand.” He stepped up to help Genie provide instruction. “I always find it helps if you picture the Shifting like a layer of sweat after a long practice, and you’ve just stepped under a hot shower. Imagine it washing away.”

  Using his suggestion, if only to avoid more hopeless jiggling, I pictured Azar’s form sloughing off my skin and down an imaginary drain. Crackling friction bristled across my chest, moving up to my neck and face, and down to my abdomen and legs. I closed my eyes, terrified I’d end up stuck this way, ruining any chance I might’ve had of getting into the Institute.

  “There it is.” Genie gave me a light nudge. “The face we know and love.”

  “Thank Chaos for that.” I heaved a sigh of relief, and not a moment too soon. People were coming, their chatter echoing in the hallway outside the mirror room. With a squeak that might have been fear or excitement, Kes darted through without hesitation, leaving us no choice but to chase after him.

  Bursting out of the other side in an undignified stumble that threatened to turn into an all-out sprawl, my eyes bulged and my jaw dropped. The big gaps in the gray stone ruins of what appeared to be a castle had been filled in with slick sheets of frosted, blue-tinted glass. Overhead, the ceiling curved up in an impressive feat of engineering, involving a web of crisscrossing metal that reminded me of a huge cage, and precision-cut stained glass in an array of greens, blues, and golds. Beneath our feet, polished concrete stretched as far as the eye could see. An architectural blend of the new and the old, somehow working seamlessly, a futuristic cathedral.

  Ahead of us, in the cavernous entrance hall and along the minimalist corridors beyond, figures in sharp, black suits went about their business. A monster hunter had to be able to blend into any part of the world. And nothing blended in quite as well as a plain, black suit.

  Twenty-Two

  Persie

  A few curious eyes scrutinized us from afar, with some heads turned subtly in our direction. For some of them, it was harder to tell where they were looking, seeing as they had sunglasses on. It was more in the body language: a stiffening of the shoulders, a slight turn of the cheek, a partially raised eyebrow.

  Genie eyed them right back, muttering under her breath. “Unless those sunglasses have in-built scanners or something, no one should be wearing them indoors. Only primadonnas and ass-clowns wear sunglasses inside.”

  “My mom says that.” I chuckled. “Well, different words. But the same sentiment.”

  Her expression flickered strangely at the mention of my mom. “That’s because she’s a smart woman.” It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, but I didn’t dwell on it too much. With everything that had gone down with my parents, I assumed she still harbored a slight grudge on my behalf.

  “This is so cool!” Kes distracted me with his awe, taking in our surroundings. He shuffled about happily, ready to bounce off the pristine walls in excitement.

  “We should find the exam hall,” Genie urged, leading the way.

  Taking it slow—mostly so Kes wouldn’t miss anything—we continued through the main hall. The business-formal inhabitants lost interest in us and continued about their business.

  “Look at that!” Kes jabbed a finger downward. A plate of glass interrupted the sleek gray floor, and below… a stone sarcophagus. The sculpted face of a man stared back up, with a golden-hilted broadsword held in place by folded hands. A ruby the size of an egg took pride of place on the hilt, and etched lettering in a language I didn’t understand ran the length of the still-shiny blade.

  I cast Kes an intrigued glance. “Should we know who that is?”

  He looked dumbstruck. “It’s Finn McCool!” He shook his head in disappointment. “Oh, come on, you guys have to know who he is!”

  “No idea,” Genie replied.

  “He’s only the most famous hunter Ireland ever had!” Kes turned googly-eyed over the dead guy. “He still holds the record for most dragons captured. And since there aren’t any left in the wild, I guess he’ll keep it. Legend has it that he built the Giant’s Causeway to Scotland just so he wouldn’t get his feet wet. Oh, and he tried to throw a piece of Ireland at a rival, but it missed and landed in the Irish Sea, and that’s how the Isle of Mann came to be.”

  I stared at the stone figure a while longer. “Are you saying he was a giant? His coffin thing doesn’t look that big.”

  “True or not, he had the guts of a giant.” Kes sighed, clearly in love with the mythos. “This is super cool.”

  Genie laughed. “Or super McCool.”

  “Did you just come up with that?” Kes asked sarcastically, though his eyes twinkled with amusement. “Anyway, he’s a name you should know. He ran this whole ring of monster hunters called the Fianna. Depending on the story, they’re still guarding Finn while he sleeps in this magical cave somewhere, until his services are needed again.”

  “But he’s right here,” I pointed out. “And wasn’t that King Arthur?”

  “His tomb is right here. That doesn’t mean he’s inside.” Kes looked insulted that I’d suggest otherwise. “I guess mythology likes to keep a lot of their heroes asleep somewhere. It comforts people, to think these ancient warriors might come back and save us if we need them to.”

  I snorted. “They must’ve hit snooze when Katherine and Davin came along.”

  “Maybe they knew other people had it under control,” Kes replied, still gazing adoringly at his hero.

  I wonder if they’d come back if Leviathan turned the world into Hell on Earth? I pushed away the thought and kept walking. We hadn’t even made it through the main entrance hall yet, but n
ot for lack of trying. The scale of this place was immense, like one of those European cathedrals that had ceilings so high they made you feel dizzy, with a rabbit warren of secret corridors and tunnels that branched off in every direction. All around us, people strode in and out of frosted glass doors that lined the sides of the vast hallway, moving with an air of purpose.

  Pressing on, we passed display cases of magical artifacts: Esprits and old journals belonging to long-dead monster hunters, odd silver bottles that I guessed were the Mason jars’ predecessors, and sophisticated projections of the Institute’s rarest captures. Kes wanted to stop and stare at everything, but I gently nudged him along. If we stopped we’d invite attention, and we couldn’t risk being late to the exam hall. The only time I almost stopped was in passing a display case that exhibited a single golden feather, taken from one of Tobe’s wings. I wondered if he knew they had an homage to him here.

  “Excuse me.” Genie waved down a stern looking man with a particularly snappy suit and a Claddagh brooch pinned to his lapel. An emerald heart glittered between the curved silver hands that held it.

  The man paused. “Aye?”

  “Could you tell us where the exam hall is?” Evidently, she’d realized the same thing I had—without directions, we’d never find it.

  He laughed with surprising warmth, considering his steely eyes. “Fresh blood, eh?”

  “Something like that,” Genie replied with a half-smile.

  “Well, ye’ll be wantin’ te go up this corridor a way, ‘til ye reach the case with Orion’s bow.” The man pointed. “Take yerself left and keep walkin’ toward the stained glass o’ Artemis. Lass with a bow and a stag beside her, ye’ll not miss her. Head right and walk te the end o’ the corridor, and ye’ll see two raight big doors. That’s the hall yer after.”

  Genie nodded, though her eyes had a glazed look. “Thanks.”

  “Best o’ luck te yez,” he said, watching as we walked away.

  “Do you have any idea what he just said?” Genie whispered, drawing level with me.