With surprising strength that made me giggle against his lips, he lifted me up and carried me over to the table, where he set me on the edge. He gazed down at me for a moment, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. I stared back, my heart thundering in my chest. He smiled and tilted my chin up, before leaning down to meet my eager kiss. Every nerve ending in my body was ablaze, my skin flushed and hot, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The slightest pressure of his lips on mine felt like the world had stopped spinning, and the stars were somehow aligning. I couldn’t get enough—every sense was amplified tenfold, intensifying everything.
Somehow, I had a feeling we had Kadar to thank for this.
Twenty-Six
Santana
In a haze of complete happiness and full-body tingles, I wandered back to the living quarters. Humming to myself, I couldn’t wipe the smile away from my face. Every time I replayed the kiss in my head, I wanted to do it all over again. I could still feel the graze of his lips on mine. Really, Santana—humming? You’ve never hummed a tune in your damn life, you sap. Still, the tune wouldn’t stop. I was too damn happy to make it stop.
Letting myself into my room, I flopped down on the bed and pulled a pillow to my chest. I grinned like an idiot as I gazed up at the ceiling. Those kinds of kisses only happened in cheesy romcoms, usually in the rain. Rain would’ve been nice.
I jolted upright. A spark of electricity shivered through my nerves, but not the good kind that had been there moments before. The Orishas started to whisper around me, their voices getting louder and louder in a cacophony of panic. It felt like a thousand alarm bells ringing at once in my brain.
The magical charm I’d given Marjorie… it was going off.
“Take me to her,” I urged the Orishas. I jumped off the bed and hurried for the door. My palms shone a bright blue, my eyes burning with the light of the spirits as the wispy forms of the Orishas danced around my field of vision. They shot off down the hallway, and I followed, sprinting with every scrap of energy I had left. No way, Shipton. You are not ruining tonight for me!
I leapt down the stairs two at a time and powered along the corridor toward the Aquarium, keeping an eye out for anything moving in the shadows around me. It was almost one in the morning. Clearly, the spy had waited until they thought everyone was in bed and used that peace and quiet to strike at Marjorie in the dark. Fury surged through my veins. Whoever this punk was, I wanted to strangle them for all the hell they were putting us through.
I followed the Orishas past the banquet hall, the path looping back around and leading me toward the Aquarium instead. They seemed to be tracing the scent of wherever the charm had been. I only hoped I wasn’t too late.
Rounding the corner that led up to the Aquarium doors, I skidded to a halt as a figure jumped out of the darkness. My heart leapt into my throat, fearing it might be the spy. I’d been two seconds from slamming straight into them. However, as I calmed my racing pulse and steadied myself, I saw there was nothing to worry about. Catching my breath, I grasped Marjorie by the shoulders. She’d evidently crept out of the shadows at the sound of my footsteps approaching, though my presence had done nothing to shake the panicked expression in her wide eyes. Her whole body was trembling, her lips bitten raw with nerves.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m here now,” I murmured, pulling her into a hug. She gripped onto me for dear life as I moved her back into the shadows. If someone was watching her, I didn’t want them to see us standing in the hallway. I’m not making this easy for you, you bastards. You want her, you’re going to have to go through me and my Orishas.
“I was so scared,” she whispered, her tears drenching my t-shirt.
“What happened?” I pulled away, looking her dead in the eyes.
“Someone knocked out my security guards,” she replied, her voice shaking. “They got the one outside my door first, then they took out the one in the chair at the foot of my bed. They tried to come for me next, but I managed to get away. The security guard… well, the guard held her back so I could run. I don’t know what happened to him. Oh God… do you think he might be—”
“Wait, her?” I cut her off. There was no time to worry about the guards now.
Marjorie nodded. “Yeah, the one who—”
A fireball whizzed past my face, hitting Marjorie square in the shoulder and knocking her back. She sprawled across the floor, her face contorted in a grimace of pain. Smoke smoldered from the hole in her gray hoodie, but the damage didn’t look too severe. Knowing she was in a lot more trouble than a simple burn, I whirled around to face the assailant. Right, you’ve really pissed me off now.
Going into attack mode, every cell pumped up with the energy the Orishas fed into me, I scanned the darkness beyond. A figure stepped out.
“You,” I growled.
Stella Chan stood in front of me, a half-smile on her lips. Before she could take another step, the Orishas swept toward her, launching a barrage of fierce energy in her direction. The blue-tinged sparks singed Stella’s skin, prompting her to duck and dive to avoid them.
Using them as a screen, I charged at Stella and knocked her to the floor. With savage fury, I clocked her in the jaw with a neat right-hook and wrapped my hands around her throat, squeezing hard. Meanwhile, the Orishas continued their onslaught of fiery rage. If I could just get her to slip into unconsciousness, I’d be able to restrain her properly and call for help. Stop wriggling! Her dark eyes met mine as she pressed her palms flat to the ground, a tremor of an earthquake rumbling underneath. She rolled out of the way as a tree shot up, slamming hard into my ribs.
I gritted my teeth, a sharp punch of pain searing through my right side. Ignoring it, I scrabbled to my feet and tackled her to the floor once again. We both went down hard, her fingertips clawing to get hold of Marjorie, who was struggling to sit up. The Orishas swirled around Stella’s wrists, trapping them behind her back, while the others darted in and out of her skin in an attempt to freeze her in place. After my ill-advised spell in New York, I wasn’t as strong as I could’ve been. Every pulse of the Orishas sapped me of what little energy I had left.
Hang back, I urged them. Please, hang back for a moment. I’ve got this.
The Orishas did as I’d asked, except the ones who swirled around Stella’s wrists. I straddled her back and shoved her face into the cold marble, pressing my knee between her shoulder blades. My breath came short and fast, my lungs burning with the strain of trying to keep her under control. Thanks to the LA Coven’s bootcamps, she was in crazy good shape and was way stronger than me.
Without warning, she twisted out from under me and kicked me halfway across the corridor, her boot cracking into my sternum and knocking the air out of my struggling lungs. A second rumble followed, though I managed to dive out of the way of another tree as it shot out of the ground. Jumping back up, I wrestled with the branches of the tree as they curled toward me, the twigs snapping at my face like bullwhips.
Up the hallway, Marjorie stood on shaky legs, trying to harness the power of her Air Elemental abilities. A gust of icy wind blew open the doors of the Aquarium up ahead, the surging squall whistling toward Stella. It knocked her off her feet as she tried to grasp at Marjorie, who fumbled to create a second gust of wind. That gave Stella the window of opportunity she needed. I lunged forward to stop her from reaching Marjorie, missing her by half a foot. Stella’s hand locked around Marjorie’s wrist.
Marjorie’s eyes turned black, her Clairvoyant powers taking over at Stella’s touch. She began to judder violently, her knees giving way as she crashed into the ground. Stella tried to haul her back up onto her feet, but she wouldn’t budge. Somehow, the Clairvoyance was keeping her frozen to the floor.
“What’s going on?” Dylan sprinted around the corner, with Tatyana in tow.
Her icy blue eyes fixed on Stella. “We heard a loud crash.”
“It’s Stella—the spy is Stella! She’s trying to take Marjorie,” I shouted, holding my side as an
other spike of pain shot through me. The Orishas were flitting around me, worried about my wellbeing. I didn’t have the strength to send them after Stella again. The cost of every blast was becoming too much for me to handle.
Tatyana’s eyes glowed white as she drew on the spirits around her, using their powers to supercharge her own. Meanwhile, Dylan took off, barreling toward Stella and severing the link between her and Marjorie. Stella flew back against the wall as Dylan scooped Marjorie into his arms and set her down a short distance away. Recovering quickly, and evidently seeing that she was fighting a losing battle, Stella shot two huge fireballs at Tatyana and me and used our evasive reflexes to make her getaway.
“Dylan, go after her!” I yelled, unable to run. “Call for backup!”
He nodded and took off down the hallway at breakneck speed, his phone to his ear, before disappearing into the shadows. In the near distance, fireballs sizzled as they found a target, and Dylan shouted at Stella to stop. Given his Herculean abilities, I hoped he’d be able to catch up to her. If he couldn’t, we were well and truly screwed. Stella had a lot of intel on us.
I knew we shouldn’t have trusted her! What the hell was Alton thinking, even letting her come here in the first place? If we made it out of this without a whole heap of collateral damage, I had a couple of bones to pick with the director. He would end up feeling the sharp end of my wrath before dawn rose.
“Are you okay?” Tatyana asked, her eyes returning to normal.
I nodded. “I’m fine, just go and help Marjorie.”
“Are you sure? You look like you might keel over at any moment.”
“Marjorie needs more help than me,” I urged. Taking a second to drag air into my exhausted lungs, I staggered over to where Dylan had set Marjorie down. She was curled in a ball at the foot of a bronze dragon, tears streaming down her face. Raw flesh showed through the hole in her sweater, where Stella’s fireball had singed her.
“Is she gone?” Marjorie whimpered.
I sank down next to her. “We’re trying to catch her. Tatyana, can you do something about this?” I gestured to the burn on Marjorie’s shoulder.
“I can help it heal,” she replied, kneeling beside Marjorie and placing her hands over the wound. A white light shone beneath her palms, her eyes turning the same shade. I sat back against the dragon, feeling hideous after such a huge expense of magic. Sweat covered every inch of my skin. Every muscle hung on my bones like so many lead weights, a dull throb squeezing at my ribs, my eyelids heavy as all hell. I’d never felt so tired in my life.
“I’m grateful for the intervention and everything,” I muttered, forcing myself to stay awake, “but where did you and Dylan come from? It’s one o’clock in the morning. Shouldn’t you have been in your rooms?”
She glanced at me for a moment, with her eerie white eyes. “We were in one of the empty classrooms.”
“And what, pray tell, were you doing in there? A little late-night studying?” A weary grin tugged at the corners of my lips. I wanted to laugh, but I was worried my ribcage might implode.
Tatyana gave the ghost of a smile.
“Ah, a little lesson in human biology, eh?”
She chuckled, saying nothing as she returned to the task at hand.
“What happened back there, mi changuita?” I cast a tired glance at Marjorie. “You went all black-eyed on us. Did you see something?”
Marjorie nodded. “I think I saw Micah when I touched Stella. I recognized him from all the pictures and objects that I’ve touched of his, and I guess he must’ve been on my mind when Stella grabbed me,” she replied nervously. “He’s all I’ve been focusing on all day, so I knew it was him right away.”
I sat up a little taller. “You saw Micah Cranston?”
“Yeah.”
“Holy crapbags, do you know what that means?” I gaped at her. “It means Stella is one-hundred-percent involved in the missing kids… and, therefore, Katherine friggin’ Shipton. I knew there was something up with the GI twins. I just knew it!” Channing wasn’t off my radar, either. If Stella was involved, it was likely that Channing was, too.
Tatyana sat back on her haunches. “Did you see anything else, or was it just Micah?”
“I saw an old abandoned factory. There was some rusty paintwork on the side—the name of a place. Hoffman something.”
“Hoffman Millwork?” I pressed. I typed the name into my phone’s Google search, with some snippets of information coming up. It was an old company that dealt in wood and metalwork, though I’d never heard of it.
Her eyes widened. “Yeah, that was it. Hoffman Millwork. I don’t know if that’s where he’s being kept, or if that was where he was being kept, but he was definitely there at some point. A big old factory—nothing inside, just a bunch of junk and machinery.”
“This is the lead we’ve been looking for, you absolute hermosa!” I went to hug her, then remembered she was in the middle of being fixed by Tatyana. “This is the kind of good news we need. We should tell the rest of the Rag Team, right now.”
Tatyana nodded. “Marjorie, you should be well enough to stand. I have done what I can with the burn, and it shouldn’t scar, but there will be some tenderness for a couple of days.”
“I’m okay to walk, just a bit shaken up,” she replied.
We helped Marjorie to her feet and let her lean on us as we headed down the hallway. Well, Tatyana bore most of the weight, while I fought to catch my breath. Marjorie’s knees were still trembling. I felt sorry for her, but there was no time to waste; we were eager to inform the others of our glorious Micah update. After so many days of nothing, this would boost morale and get us all going again.
Quarter of the way to Alton’s office, Tatyana’s phone rang. She held the cellphone to her ear and nodded along, making a few noises as she listened to the speaker on the other end.
She hung up and turned to me. “Dylan lost sight of Stella, but he’s already told Alton about what happened. The others are being brought in as we speak. We’re going to come up with a game plan to decide on our next move, and the coven has been put on lockdown until further notice.”
I was about to reply when something caught my eye. About twenty yards ahead, our hallway crossed another, and Stella walked right through it. The lights were brighter in the junction, and I had no doubt that my eyes weren’t deceiving me.
Practically shoving Marjorie into Tatyana’s arms, I sprinted the length of the corridor and leapt onto Stella, sending us both careening to the ground. Déjà vu. She screamed in surprise, struggling to break free of my grip, but I wasn’t about to let her get loose again. My Orishas twisted around Stella’s wrists, restraining her with very little fuss from Stella herself.
“What the hell, Santana!” she snapped. “What do you think you’re doing? Let go of me, now!” A tremor of fear shivered through her voice, taking me by surprise.
“The only place you’re going is a dark cell, for a very long time!” I shot back. “Don’t play games with me. We know you’re working for Katherine. We know you’re involved in stealing the kids. We know you’re a spy, Stella.”
She stopped writhing. “What?”
Oh, nice try. Am I going to get waterworks next?
“You heard me.”
“Are you kidding? Get off me!” she barked. “I’m not involved with Katherine in any way—have you gone crazy? Seriously, what the hell?”
Puzzled, I glanced down at her neck and realized she had none of the bruises from before. There were no singes on her from where the Orishas had burned her skin. I sat back slowly, keeping the Orisha-driven restraints on her wrists. All I could do was sit and stare at her as a horrifying possibility dawned.
What if there was more than one Shapeshifter working for Katherine? Well, wouldn’t that be the freaking cherry on top of the damn crazy cake. It could well have been the same one who attacked Harley and Wade at Isadora’s hideout, but what if it wasn’t? The uncertainty made me nervous. Shapeshifters made the perfe
ct spies; there was no way of knowing how many Katherine might have at her disposal.
“Come on, we’re going to see Alton,” I said, helping Stella to her feet. I kept a firm hand on her as we walked to the director’s office. If this was a super elaborate trick to get me to look elsewhere for the spy, I wasn’t going to be the one ending up with egg on my face. Until I could be completely sure that Stella was innocent, there was no way I was relinquishing my grasp on her.
If it turned out she was clean… I would owe her an apology for this.
Twenty-Seven
Harley
Everyone assembled in Alton’s office, a tense atmosphere bristling within. The only ones who weren’t present were Raffe and Wade. The latter had gone to check with the Fleet Science Center security guards, to see if they’d seen anyone matching Stella’s description. And the former was apparently coming down with some sort of flu. At least, that’s what Santana had told me. She and Tatyana had quickly brought me up to speed on everything that had happened, which explained why Stella was sitting in one of the high-backed armchairs with two loops of swirling Orishas around her wrists.
Seriously, what else can go wrong tonight? Better not answer that.
After so many days of nothing, everything seemed to be hitting us at once. Although, nobody else knew about Krieger’s particular situation. I’d vowed to keep that to myself, and I wasn’t about to break that confidence.
“Hang on, if Dylan was chasing Stella and lost her, then how come Stella is here?” I asked.
“We think we might be dealing with another Shapeshifter,” Santana replied, with a roll of her eyes. I frowned at her. She might have been trying to put on a show of strength for the others, but I could feel the underlying current of exhaustion and concern running beneath her fierce exterior. She shot me a telling look that pleaded with me not to say anything. Relax, your secret is safe with me. I’d ask her about it later, once we were alone. Clearly, something was up.
Harley Merlin 3: Harley Merlin and the Stolen Magicals Page 27
