“Yeah, I guess.” To be honest, I probably felt most disheartened by Jacob’s decision to leave. Without his help, we’d have to track down the missing kids on our own, fumbling blindly through dried-up leads. Then there were these spies to consider. If one of them was a Shapeshifter, which I was pretty sure they were, then the mole could look like absolutely anyone. They’d already tried Preceptor Bellmore on for size. Speaking of which, I wondered if the real Preceptor Bellmore was okay. I guessed we’d find out soon enough.
The situation reminded me of Finch and the way he’d morphed into Tobe, setting him up for planting the charms under the Bestiary boxes. They’d almost thrown the Beast Master in Purgatory for something he didn’t do. What if these spies wanted to set up someone else? I doubted they’d try Preceptor Bellmore again. A flashbulb went off in my mind. They know who has Shapeshifter abilities in the coven. They picked Bellmore on purpose.
We knew from Garrett that the Shapeshifters of the SDC had their own private group, keeping their secret between themselves. With the spy being a Shapeshifter, too, I guessed that narrowed down our list of suspects. I didn’t like to think of any of them being traitors, but one of them had to be. If they’d been outsiders, there was no way they’d be able to get in and out of the coven undetected. No, this was definitely another inside job.
Images of Garrett and O’Halloran popped into my head. If it’s one of you, I swear to God I’ll kick your ass. My mind refused to believe it could be one of them. Honestly, the pool of candidates was pretty big. There were at least thirty Shapeshifters within the coven, and it could be any one of them.
Yeah, but what about that big old man hand? I’d seen a masculine hand in the flicker of the Shapeshifter’s fading disguise, but that didn’t mean we could rule out the women. We didn’t all have dainty little fingers. My hands, for example, looked like they belonged to a friggin’ lumberjack.
No, right now, every Shapeshifter was a suspect.
No exceptions.
Not even those I called friends.
Thirteen
Santana
My eyes itched like there were grains of sand caught beneath my lids. I wanted to tear them out and hurl them across the room or pour one of the coffee urns straight into my eye sockets. It was taking too long for the caffeine to get into my system properly. Besides, the coven brew was garbage. It might as well have been colored water for all the good it was doing.
“Earth to Santana!” Harley’s voice conked me right on the head. I looked up from my mug and found her staring down at me.
“Huh? What? Did you say something?”
She frowned. “I’ve been calling you for, like, five minutes.”
“Sorry… I must’ve drifted off somewhere.”
I’d stayed up with Raffe and the djinn until four that morning, keeping them both company. A weird situation. Like, intensely weird. The djinn had proven himself to be an interesting change of pace, about a million miles away from the Raffe that got my heart racing. Knowing that he had the djinn inside him, twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five, was crazy to wrap my head around, even now. Fighting that rude son of a bitch had to be hard for Raffe to keep up with, too.
“Alton wants us in his office,” Harley continued.
“Why?”
She shrugged. “No idea. He’s just called us all into a meeting—GI Joe and Jane, too.”
“Still not warming to them?” I chuckled.
“Hell’s going to freeze over first.”
I scraped my chair back and followed her out into the hallway, cradling my coffee mug like a damn lifeline. I hadn’t seen Raffe this morning, but I figured he’d be sleeping off last night’s events. Dealing with the djinn had to leave a monster of a hangover.
The coven was eerily silent as we wandered through the hallways, tracing a familiar route toward the ominous black double doors of Alton’s office. I liked Alton and everything, but his office gave me the creeps—always made me feel like I was in some kind of trouble. The brass lion heads that served as knockers seemed to roar as we passed straight through, the doors creaking when they swung wide. The spacious office beyond looked like a bomb had hit it. Papers and books were strewn all over the place, everything jumbled in a trail of hurried activity. However, the red roses still bloomed in their crystal vases, dotted about the place on decorative wall shelves.
Alton, Alton, Alton, what’s been going on here? Someone’s been doing some late-night rummaging.
Alton paced the back of the room. The others were already here. I noticed that two sides had formed in the office itself, with the LA newcomers standing on the right, while the Rag Team sat in chairs on the left. Garrett sat somewhere in the middle, which gave me a satisfying flush of irony. It faded a moment later. With all the chairs taken up on the left, it meant Harley and I would have to break ranks and sit on the right with the LA robots. Glancing at Harley, I could tell she’d rather stand in the hallway than stand with the newbies. I guess we never really get over high school, do we?
“Santana, Harley, glad you could join us,” Alton said stiffly. Someone else needed their coffee this morning. He looked the way I felt.
“Sorry, it was my fault. I only just heard this little gathering was going on,” I replied. “Plus, coffee beckoned.”
Raffe leaned over the armrest and offered me a shy smile. I grinned back. Adorable bastard. He looked exhausted, his body slumped in the high-backed armchair, his eyes bloodshot and ringed with red. Dealing with the djinn definitely took its toll. I almost felt bad for having laughed at some of the rude things that the djinn had said. That devil had zero filter.
“Well, you’re here now.” Alton perked up a little, doing a subtle jig to get his energy going. “And I’m pleased to announce that we have some good news.”
“We do?” Garrett arched a suspicious eyebrow.
The rest of the Rag Team turned in unison to look at Stella and Channing. We hadn’t patrolled last night, and we hadn’t gathered in Astrid’s room to talk about strategy. We had nothing to announce. I knew my and Raffe’s reasons, but everyone else’s excuses in the group texts had been lazy at best. Tatyana and Dylan had mentioned something about looking over books on the Children of Chaos, which meant they’d spent the evening in a veritable flirt-fest. Astrid had shared her evening in Smartie’s loving embrace. Garrett had spent his time stuffing his face in the banquet hall with the rest of his blockhead pals and hadn’t bothered to give a reason for not doing anything else. And Harley and Wade had said something about checking Waterfront Park for a magical object that Harley was curious about. BS, if ever I’d heard it.
Then again, my excuse had been just as bad. I’d told them that I had a stomachache, and that Raffe was in a bad mood after seeing his dad. Everyone but Harley would have understood the subtext in the last bit. Part of me wanted to tell her what was going on with Raffe, but that was his secret to tell.
Alton nodded. “Yes, Stella and Channing did some digging last night, and they’ve managed to pick up a trail for Marjorie Phillips.”
Channing smirked with glee, satisfaction oozing out of him, and even Stella looked a little smug. You wouldn’t even have a lead if it weren’t for Astrid and her crazy-smart genius, so wipe those looks off your faces. We’d done the legwork, and they were snatching up the prize.
“Has she been spotted somewhere?” Tatyana asked, her voice cool and calm. A freaking ice goddess amongst women. My emotions were far less easy to smother.
“She was seen on the outskirts of the city,” Alton continued. “I want you to go after her as soon as we’re finished here. Harley, Wade, Santana, Raffe, Channing, and Stella—you will go out in the field and check her last known location. See if you can pick up on anything else that can take us to her. Tatyana and Dylan, I need you to follow up on another lead that Astrid gave me this morning—a shifty sighting of magical behavior not far from La Jolla.”
I shot a pointed look at the Californian cyborgs. Anything you do, Astrid can do b
etter… and single-handed. See how you like those manzanas.
“What about me?” Garrett asked.
“I was getting to you,” Alton replied sharply. “You will join Astrid in the command center—our eye in the sky, if you will. You’ll observe the live cameras and watch for any online chatter. The others will have earpieces. It will be your job to guide them through any tricky situations so they can catch Marjorie.” He turned his attention back to the field team. “As soon as you have her, I need you to bring her back to the coven without delay. She’ll be safe here, but Katherine’s agents may be watching you, and they may attempt to intercept Marjorie on your way back.”
Astrid was perched on the armrest of Garrett’s chair. She shuffled closer, her leg brushing his and a shy smile appearing on her face. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me, chica! There was definitely some coziness going on that I hadn’t seen before. To my surprise, he seemed to welcome it, throwing her a devil-may-care expression. I knew that look from firsthand experience. You treat her badly, Garrett Kyteler, you’ll have me to deal with. If you like your huevos where they are, do not break her sweet friggin’ heart.
“Any further questions?” Alton asked, not seeming to notice that he’d become Astrid and Garrett’s matchmaker.
A rumble of assent made its way around the group.
“Good, then you’re dismissed. Tell Astrid and Garrett as soon as you reach the location. I’ll be popping in and out to check up on things,” Alton continued. “Good luck, all of you. Let’s bring back at least one of these magical kids, safe and sound.”
The group got up and headed for the door. Naturally, I gravitated toward Raffe, though he didn’t seem too talkative this morning. All through the hallway, he kept casting me hesitant glances, before dropping his gaze to the marble floor, over and over again. I knew there couldn’t be anything that interesting on the ground. Making it to the foyer of the Fleet Science Center with the looks still darting my way, I reached the end of my rope.
“What’s up with you? Something you wanna say to me?” I asked bluntly.
He blushed, making me wish I’d reined in my sharp tongue. “I wanted to know if you were okay—after last night, I mean,” he whispered. “I was going to come find you this morning, but Wade dragged me to Alton’s office before I could.”
I frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be okay? You’re the one I’m worried about.”
“I guess I was wondering if your opinion of me might’ve changed. You haven’t met the djinn before, and he’s… well, he’s different.”
I stopped walking and looked him dead in the eye. “Of course my opinion of you hasn’t changed. Are you kidding? If anything, I admire you even more than I did before. I can’t even begin to imagine the kind of strength it takes to keep that demon at bay.”
Raffe smiled, his cheeks reddening again. “Are you sure you’re not completely freaked out?”
“No way. It takes more than a smutty-mouthed demon to frighten me,” I replied. “Anyway, we had a pretty good conversation, once he’d calmed down. I named him, remember? There’s power in that.”
“Maybe there is, but the djinn is way more dangerous than you give him credit for. He can’t be trusted, under any circumstances,” Raffe said, urgency in his voice. “If he managed to overcome me, and ran free with my body, the djinn could kill everyone in the coven, and he’d laugh like a hyena while he was at it. He takes pleasure in pain. It’s who he is.”
Across the foyer, Harley cast us a curious look. I noticed that Raffe kept his voice down whenever he spoke about the djinn in Harley’s presence. It saddened me to see him hide like that. None of us had judged Harley for her past. She wouldn’t judge Raffe for his.
“You know, you can’t keep distancing yourself from other people, just because you’re afraid of what they’ll think,” I said pointedly. “Everyone has a dark side. Yours just happens to be a little more… vocal than others’.”
“That’s a cute way of putting it,” he replied dryly.
“You need to give Harley a chance to see the real you, the two sides that make up who you are. Let her decide for herself. She’s our colleague and friend.” I glanced at Harley. “Plus, she’s got some idea that something’s going on with you. I imagine she’s having a tricky time reading two sets of emotions at once. Honestly, it’s probably a dead giveaway.”
He sighed. “But the djinn isn’t really a part of me… Well, he is and he isn’t. He’s not part of who I am, as a person. He just happens to inhabit the same body.”
“I hate to say it, but you wouldn’t be who you are without Kadar, whether you want to admit it or not,” I said. “He is a part of who you are. And I like every part of you.”
Raffe broke into a grin. “You do?”
“Hell yeah.”
I didn’t want to toot my own horn, but Raffe looked pretty smitten at my declaration of adoration. That could only be a good thing, in taking our simmering flirtations to the next level. I liked him, and he liked me. The ball was firmly in his court now. I’ll make the first move, but I’m not doing all the legwork. Get your ass in gear, Raffe, and sweep me off my feet!
“Hey! Raffe! Santana! You coming or what?” Wade shouted, his voice echoing across the foyer.
“Coming!” I yelled back.
“Good, then keep up with the group!”
Raffe and I exchanged a look, the two of us chuckling all the way out the door.
Fourteen
Harley
With a clear sky overhead, yesterday’s storm having puffed itself into oblivion, we pulled up in a dingy back alley in the darkest depths of Mount Hope. Wade had taken me back to collect my beloved Daisy earlier in the morning, but we used his Jeep for this mission. Daisy couldn’t possibly fit all of us, plus the gear.
Any good feeling I might’ve had on finding my Daisy intact faded away in an instant. I knew this area. Before the Smiths took me in, I lived a few blocks away from here. I guessed I was one of the lucky ones—I’d managed to get out. But a lot of kids like me didn’t get the chance. Those years had been a steep learning curve, but there was something about these streets that still called to me. They were part of who I was. It was a dangerous neighborhood in San Diego’s southeast. Even with magical powers, this place put me on my guard.
Mount No-Hope, more like.
“You think the Jeep will be safe here?” Wade asked.
I shot him a look. “I think we’ll be lucky if it has four wheels when we get back.” Evidently, Wade had never set foot in a place like this before.
“Right… okay.” With a subtle glow of his ten rings, he forged a bubble around the Jeep that made it disappear. I eyed it suspiciously; it seemed to work like the one that kept a certain spot frozen in a time-dilation bubble.
“Did you just make it vanish?”
He shook his head. “I put it in a reality pocket, so it’s in a slightly different dimensional space than the one we’re standing in. It’s technically here with us, but it’s also not, at the same time. Kind of like the coven.”
“All you had to say was ‘vanishing bubble.’ That’s all you had to say.”
“Once you two have finished bickering,” Channing cut in, “why don’t we get down to business? We’re here to canvass for any sign of Marjorie Phillips. From her last sighting, we know she’s around here somewhere. Now, we need to make sure we keep a low profile. Magic is a last resort. We don’t want to have to get the cleanup crews involved because of some messy mistake, do you understand?”
I felt like a soldier standing before the drill sergeant, being reprimanded after a bad mission. He clearly meant that we’d make a mistake somewhere along the line. In his eyes, we were a liability. Anyone outside the LA Coven was. His superiority complex was great at riling me up.
Well, joke’s on you, pal, because I know this place and you don’t. I hoped it might give me the upper hand.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Santana said sourly, lifting her hand in mock salute.
Cha
nning glared at her. “Good, then let’s move out.”
We set off down the alleyway and came out on the corner of a pretty ragged-looking street. Down the road, perched on the stoop of a corner store, was a cluster of musclebound dudes, dripping in jewelry and clothes that didn’t fit. It wasn’t unusual to see guys like that sitting out in the middle of the day. They were waiting for pick-ups and drop-offs. That was their job.
All around Mount Hope, the streets were riddled with drug gangs and violence. Every single guy and girl in that place had a weapon on them, but they weren’t inherently bad people. They were out there surviving in a way that nobody could understand, unless you came from the same place. Most of them only used their weapons in self-defense, though drive-bys and gang shootings were par for the course. I’d seen it happen. One night, I’d witnessed a bunch of kids running for their lives as bullets sprayed from the windows of an SUV. There were good people, too—people who wanted to get out, people who wanted the best for their families, and people who avoided those who ran the neighborhood, the gangs and pimps and drug-runners. As with all places, the bad and good existed in a delicate balance, but this area of San Diego had played a big part in who I was now. I’d learned a lot.
“Do not approach anyone who looks shifty,” Channing warned. “No confrontation unless absolutely necessary.”
“Everyone looks shifty,” Wade muttered, gaining another hard look from me. Ah, Wade Crowley and his upper-class, magical privilege. Sometimes, his naïveté shocked me.
However, he wasn’t the only one who appeared to be unsettled by his surroundings. I could feel wariness spiking off all of them in sharp waves that ran cold in the pit of my stomach, like swallowing minty-fresh chewing gum. Aside from me, the only person who didn’t seem fazed was Santana, whose calm demeanor kept me from sinking into the others’ fear. I clung to her serenity like it was a life raft. In this neighborhood, I needed to keep my wits about me.
Harley Merlin 3: Harley Merlin and the Stolen Magicals Page 14
