Harley Merlin 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix

by Forrest, Bella

  “Bring them back… please, Alton, please bring them back.”

  “Harley… I can’t. I did all I could, but they were already gone.” His voice caught in his throat, his eyes filling with tears. Now I understood why he’d talked about everything else instead. Alton blamed himself for not being able to bring Isadora back, for being too late to do more. His guilt had disconnected him from his grief, because he had to be strong. My anger toward him faded away, replaced with a bittersweet gratitude that he’d tried.

  I felt hands on my shoulders and whirled around to find Wade kneeling behind me. If he hugged me now, I’d disintegrate into a million fragments of Chaos and grief.

  “I’m so sorry, Harley,” he whispered as he put his arms around me. I thought about fighting him, for the sake of my sanity, but I couldn’t. I sank back into his chest and let him hold me, feeling him take the weight of me as I leaned into him. His arms tightened around me, and I shattered completely. How many more would I have to lose before I ended Katherine? Would I have to lose Wade, too?

  “She’s gone, Wade,” I murmured, finding some semblance of my voice. If Alton couldn’t bring my aunt back, then she really was dead. “She’s gone, and it’s all my fault. Katherine warned me. She warned me, and I didn’t listen, and now Isadora is dead.”

  “This isn’t on you. My God, this isn’t on you.” Wade held me closer. “Don’t even think that for a second.”

  “This is Katherine, not you,” a familiar voice said. I blinked the tears from my eyes to find Finch kneeling in front of me. He put out a tentative hand and held mine. “This is her evil. She killed Isadora out of spite, and because she always wanted to. It’s not your fault, and it never will be. She’s a heartless, vicious, cruel bitch. You’re good, and kind, and sweet, and she hates that, because she hates what she can’t understand. She wants to break you, but you can’t let her. You can’t, Harley.”

  Louella sucked in a breath, distracting me from my overwhelming pain. She was leaning over Jacob, touching his face in a tender way. “It’s coming back,” she murmured.

  “What is?” Astrid replied.

  “My Telepath abilities.” Louella put both her palms to Jacob’s temples. “I can feel him in there. He’s alive. I can’t hear anything clear, but he’s definitely in there!”

  Nobody jumped for joy, but it was a fragile hope that there might be a way to wake him up. It felt like putting a bandage over someone who’d been blown in half. However, it seemed to stir Imogene from her sedated doziness. I realized she must have been the one to find Isadora and Suri dead in Krieger’s office, with Jacob out cold. The haunted look in her eyes was a tell-tale sign, and I knew it sounded sick and twisted, but I envied her for being the one to find them. If there’d been a sliver of life left in my aunt, I would have given everything to speak to her, one last time.

  “What is he saying?” Imogene croaked. “Is he saying anything? Oh, please tell me he’ll live through this.”

  Louella shook her head. “I can only feel him. There’s nothing clear. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You’re doing all you can.” She reached her hand across the covers of her bed.

  “Thank you, Imogene,” Louella murmured. “I wish I could do more, but Kenneth broke my brain. I’ve been working on my Telepathy, but it’s like I can’t get control of it anymore.”

  “I will do all I can to help once I recover from this.” Imogene sank back into the pillows, tears running down her face. She looked as broken as I felt.

  “We all will.” Santana pulled away from Raffe and crossed the infirmary toward me. “We’re all going to be here for you, Harley, so you can bring this pendeja down. Whatever you need, whenever you need it. We’ll be here for Jacob, too. He’s one of us. And so are you.”

  I couldn’t even look at her. If I did, I’d shatter all over again. I wanted her words to bring me strength, but I didn’t have the capacity for that right now. My only thoughts were of Isadora and Suri and Jacob, and the terrible things that Katherine had done to them. She’d used Rita’s form to get in here, and they wouldn’t have suspected a thing until it was too late. Until the detector had revealed the truth. I guessed I shouldn’t have been too surprised. She could drift in and out of places like a ghost, given her Shapeshifting ability, disappearing again without a trace.

  “You’re not alone in this, Harley.” Tatyana joined Santana beside me. “We’re not going to let you do this alone.”

  “If I could punch my way through that Grimoire for you, I would.” Dylan smiled as he put his arm around Tatyana’s waist.

  “I know we can’t read the Grimoire for you, but we’ll do the rest—just tell us what you need from us, and we’ll be on it. No matter what time, or how weird,” Raffe added, letting Santana lean against him.

  “Me and Smartie are at your beck and call.” Astrid gazed at me with her empty eyes, but I could tell she was trying to show emotion, with what little spirit she had left.

  Louella nodded. “And I’ll ransack every library I have to, to find a way to bring Jacob back and to make things easier for you in any way I can.”

  “And I’ll… I’ll be here for you, Harley.” Garrett looked awkward and sad, like he wasn’t quite sure what to say.

  Finch squeezed my hands. “None of us are going anywhere. See, look around you—you’ve got a tribe. And what does Katherine have? Nothing but a puffed-up ego. She has to force people to back her. You’ve got us because we want to be here. Because we’re rooting for you, every step of the way.”

  “We love you, Harley,” Wade murmured against my ear. “We love you, and we’re with you until the end. We’ll figure out another way to find Katherine, while you keep on studying that book and find those pages, just the way your mom and dad wanted you to. They’re here, too, even if you can’t see them.”

  Alton approached, looking tired. “I really am sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, and that I couldn’t do more.” He paused. “I won’t let it happen again. I’ll be here for you.”

  “And you have me, Harley,” Imogene rasped. “You’ve come too far to turn back now, though I know it will be hard to persevere, after all you’ve lost. I’m sorry, Harley. So very, very sorry that I couldn’t stop Katherine.”

  Imogene’s words lingered in my head as I looked at the people around me. I wouldn’t let Katherine get her claws into any more of them. I would keep Isadora’s memory alive. The worst thing I could do would be to let her death be in vain. I would use that grief and direct it all into uncovering the secrets of the Grimoire. My parents’ message had been clear: if I could get through the Grimoire in its entirety, I’d have the power to stop Katherine for good. And I couldn’t wait to watch her burn for everything she’d done and everything she’d taken from me.

  I might have been broken, but I wasn’t dead yet. As long as my heart was still beating, and I still had the Grimoire, I had hope. And that was more powerful than anything in this world.

  * * *

  Ready for the *penultimate* book in Harley’s journey?

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for reading Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix!

  See the details for Harley’s next book, Harley Merlin and the Challenge of Chaos, right after the following announcement:

  On April 29th, 2019, I will be releasing my first ever contemporary romance novel, called A Love that Endures.

  Below I have shared with you a special sneak peek of the first three chapters! Keep turning the pages to give it a try:

  A Love that Endures

  Chapter 1: David

  Embankment, London

  From the shadows of a stone underpass, a man stepped out into a yellowing pool of old-fashioned lamplight, a round wooden clock clutched in both hands. Before him stretched a dark swathe of cardboard, dim torchlight, and hunched figures—a small colony of makeshift homes perched by the river. It was where the invisibles of Waterloo lived. The residents of the city that the brisk traders, excited tourists, and galler
y-goers didn’t want to see.

  David’s clothes were as worn-down as those of the rest of the homeless, his hair and thick beard just as unkempt, his name unknown to most. Few Londoners ever stopped to look at him. But if they had, they might have paused for a moment—taken aback by his unusually upright posture. By the stark handsomeness of his face, an angular, arrogant jawline and Roman nose, and his youth, at odds with the rest of his shabby appearance. By the long, elegant fingers, better suited to the keys of a piano than riffling through waste bins.

  Eventually, though, the observer would have turned away. The most marked similarity between David and the rest of his kind was all too obvious: the same haunted and defeated look that shadowed his face.

  A roll of thunder echoed overhead, and David kept moving. He approached the colony, his eyes fixed on the far corner, where a group of four was huddled in front of a low wall.

  “Whoa. It’s…Clock Man?” One of the group—a wiry, plastic-swaddled male—rose from where he’d been crouched, his pale, grime-streaked face stretching into a broad grin.

  “Shut up,” David muttered, heading for the short wall.

  “Where did you find that?” the man asked as David passed. “And isn’t it for me?” His ginger eyebrows rose in offense.

  “Not tonight, Charles,” David replied, ignoring the first question. “Didn’t you hear the thunder?” He placed the large, old clock on the ground and leaned over the brick wall, where he had hidden the materials for his own shelter.

  Charles groaned. “Don’t care, mate. When it’s this bloody cold, it’ll be worth burning even if we only get five minutes from it.”

  “Don’t be daft,” a coarse female voice reprimanded. “That thing’ll last us a few hours. We’re not risking ruining it in the rain! Here, hand it to me, David, love—I’ll keep it with me. My box is always dry.”

  “I’ll bet it is...” Charles replied.

  “Oh shut it.”

  David sighed as he turned back around, his arms loaded with materials. “Help yourself, then, Tina,” he addressed the thirty-something-year-old woman. He nodded at the clock before proceeding toward the patch of empty ground next to Giles’s shelter.

  “Long day, eh?” the older man asked as David passed his tent.

  David paused to look the ex-businessman in the eyes. “Yeah,” he replied simply.

  The lines of Giles’ tired face deepened as he chuckled—then some more as he rasped out a heavy cough.

  David managed to return a faint smile. “You’d better get inside, old man. You’ve still got that fleece blanket, right?”

  Giles nodded slowly. “Yeah. Don’t worry about me.”

  David nodded and continued on his way. He had to get set up before the rain started.

  “Hey—wait, Tina!” Charles called out behind him. “Hand me that thing for a sec. It looks antique.”

  “Says the man who was about to burn it on sight,” Tina snapped.

  Letting the bickering of his neighbors fade into the background, David arranged his collection of plastics and cardboard and got to work on his pop-up home. He set up as quickly as he could in a race against the blackening sky, then pushed open the plastic flap leading to his shelter’s dark, musty interior and crawled inside.

  He fumbled in his pocket for his rusty light, switched it on, and began to organize himself for the night. He pushed his boots and coat to one end of the shelter while gathering some newspapers he had collected and smoothing them out over his coarse woolen blanket. They would provide extra warmth during the night, as well as help to absorb any water that seeped through the ceiling. He was almost done laying them out when rain began to batter the roof. The newspaper right in front of him crumpled, then began to stain under an onslaught of drops.

  But the tent roof had held fast. This was not the rain. This water was spilling from his own eyes.

  For they’d caught a glimpse of a bold line of text. A headline that drove the cold already inhabiting his limbs straight to his heart.

  Barely breathing, he clutched the sheet of paper and shook it straight with one hand, his other illuminating the text with his light.

  “Princess in London for Grand Engagement at Palace” the headline blared.

  The princess in question was Princess Katerina De Courtes, touted by the media to be one of the most beautiful and eligible bachelorettes in the world. “A modern day Grace Kelly,” no less.

  And at the sight of her picture, every memory David had fought to forget over the past five years came crashing back into him, ripping the breath from his lungs and crushing his windpipe.

  The shock. The pain. The grief. The anger. The disgrace.

  The injustice.

  Each one a searing bolt of emotion, hot-wired to his chest.

  Flashes of scenes lit up his mind like an unstoppable movie, forcing him to relive every second of it all.

  He tore his eyes away from the paper, gasping for breath.

  “You okay, David?” the muffled voice of Giles called from his left.

  David swallowed hard, realizing his tears had been accompanied by sounds. Too loud sounds. He quickly cleared his throat. “Fine,” he grated out.

  Pushing the newspaper and the light to one corner, he swiped roughly at his eyes with the back of his sleeve and slowly leaned back in the gloom.

  What would he have told his friend, anyway, even if he had wanted to talk?

  For who would have believed it…that an invisible like him could have ever held the heart of a princess?

  Chapter 2: Katy

  Cambridge, Massachusetts.

  Five years earlier.

  Katerina stared at the letter, her heart in her throat. Her eyes zoned in on the closing sentences.

  “Think about it, Katy. Please. I know I’ve been an absolute jerk but I am so, SO sorry for everything, and I’m paying for it now with each day we’re apart. I’m thinking about you all the time, remembering when you stayed with me here in our chalet. I’m missing you, gorgeous, so very much…From Russia with love, Alexei.”

  She scoffed in disgust, then finally tossed the letter aside and slid off the kitchen stool. The heady scent of fresh cupcakes filled the room, but her stomach was roiling.

  How dare the selfish prick contact her again! How dare he. After all he’d done. After all the hell he’d put her through. She always knew the guy had a pair of balls large enough for two, but she had never thought that he would stoop to this.

  “Has the rage-baking session been helping any?” her cousin Cassie murmured, eyeing Katy closely from where she was perched across the table, frosting cupcakes.

  Katy stopped by the counter and leaned against it. Exhaling heavily, she glanced over at the short, blonde-haired girl.

  “He’s already trying to convince me to get back together with him," she replied, struggling to keep her voice even. “Wants me to meet him in Paris over the winter break. We’ve barely started sophomore year, for crying out loud! He must think I’m completely stupid—or an utter narcissist. Like a bunch of smarmy declarations that I’m the center of his universe could erase the fact that he wasted three years of my life.”

  Cassie smiled. “I’ll take that as a no, then…”

  Katy dropped her head into her hands, giving another sigh. Usually, rage-filled baking with Cassie was the ultimate stress reliever. When her dad was being completely unreasonable and wouldn’t let her garden because the hobby was “beneath her”? They’d rage-baked coconut macaroons. When her mom snidely told her she ought to try starving herself once a week? They’d rage-baked a decadent chocolate cake slathered in ganache. When Alexei’s letter had arrived, Katy had immediately proposed making red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

  But today, none of it was helping. Not even the bonus multicolored sprinkles Cassie had discovered in a drawer.

  Alexei had been her first boyfriend, and they’d been together for over three years. They’d explored the world together. Shared times that, even now, she wo
uld struggle to forget. Bonded in ways she’d thought had made them unbreakable. She had never felt so swept up by anyone in her life, and she had been so sure that he felt the same about her too.

  Then, last summer, she had caught him behind the sauna with his pants down, screwing the family housemaid.

  Not a good look, man!

  It had shaken her world to the core, given how unequivocally—and stupidly—she had trusted him. It was the reason she had moved to America and enrolled at Harvard in the first place: to escape his lying, cheating ways and move on with her life.

  Yet here he was, less than six months later, trying to lure her right back into it all—with a cheesy letter no less—even when he knew she wanted nothing more than to forget his face.

  The thought alone was enough to throw her into a dark, sugar-craving mood.

  Katy grabbed the letter and tore it to shreds over the trash can, then strode toward Cassie and started helping her with the frosting.

  “What I don’t get is how he even knows you’re here,” Cassie remarked, licking at a smudge of cream cheese on her wrist. “Maybe he hacked your phone’s location somehow.”

  Katy shook her head, more irritation bubbling to the surface. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I mean, I blocked his number, so he couldn’t have done it through a phone or text conversation.”

  Not even the paparazzi—or any of the girls who shared Cassie and Katy’s house—knew Katy’s true identity as the famed Princess of Lorria. Although the country was the smallest in Europe, it was still influential, and Katy had to be cautious.

  Katy groaned, realization suddenly dawning. “I’ll bet you anything my parents had a hand in it.”