Harley Merlin 8: Harley Merlin and the Challenge of Chaos Read online

  Harley Merlin 8: Harley Merlin and the Challenge of Chaos

  Bella Forrest

  Contents

  Problems reading?

  1. Harley

  2. Harley

  3. Harley

  4. Katherine

  5. Katherine

  6. Harley

  7. Harley

  8. Harley

  9. Katherine

  10. Harley

  11. Harley

  12. Katherine

  13. Harley

  14. Harley

  15. Harley

  16. Harley

  17. Katherine

  18. Harley

  19. Harley

  20. Katherine

  21. Harley

  22. Harley

  23. Harley

  24. Harley

  25. Katherine

  26. Harley

  27. Harley

  28. Harley

  29. Harley

  30. Harley

  31. Harley

  32. Katherine

  33. Harley

  34. Harley

  35. Harley

  36. Harley

  37. Katherine

  38. Harley

  39. Harley

  40. Katherine

  41. Harley

  42. Katherine

  43. Harley

  44. Harley

  45. Katherine

  46. Harley

  47. Harley

  48. Katherine

  The next Harley Merlin book

  Read more by Bella Forrest

  Copyright © 2019

  Nightlight Press

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  One

  Harley

  “Talk to me, Harley,” Imogene urged.

  Fury burned in my stomach, dampened only by the tears that kept falling. I realized I hadn’t said a word for a few minutes. I’d just been sitting there in my own private torment, thinking of all the ways I wanted to destroy Katherine—for Isadora, Suri, Jacob, Shinsuke, Tess, my mom, my dad, and every other person she’d killed or hurt for her own sick amusement.

  The unfairness of it all made me want to tear a hole in the universe or pick up Imogene’s desk and throw it against the back wall. She’d insisted I join her in her office, but I knew it was just a way to get me out of the infirmary, far from anything sharp or dangerous. One moment, I was geared up to fight, the next… I just wanted the ground to swallow me up.

  “What do you want me to say?” I replied. A few hours had passed, but it didn’t feel like it. Finding out about Isadora might as well have happened five seconds ago, because it still felt pretty freaking raw. “Nothing I say is going to bring my aunt and Suri back. It’s not going to fix Jacob and bring him out of his coma. It’s not going to bring the magical detector back.”

  “I know you’re hurting, Harley. We all are.” Imogene sighed. “We all want answers, but I don’t want you to destroy yourself over this. That won’t do anyone any good, least of all you.”

  I glared at her. “So, you’re saying I should just get over the fact that my aunt was brutally murdered?”

  “No, I want you to speak honestly. I want you to vent everything you’re feeling, so that you can use that pain to fuel what’s to come.” She paused. “When someone you love dies, they take a piece of you with them. You can’t get that piece back, no matter how much time may pass. Even if you were able to resurrect them, the pain of the initial loss would remain. Look at Alton—he looks at Astrid with the pain of that loss, the grief he felt when he thought he might lose her forever. The Mage Council knew what he did for her after that terrible encounter with Katherine, which is why we allowed it without any repercussions. It is only natural to want to save those you love, and it is all the more painful when that is impossible. Your pain is no different. It will linger for the rest of your days. I’m simply asking you not to keep everything to yourself, so that your emotions don’t corrupt you from the inside out.”

  The tears started to fall again, hot and bitter down my cheeks. “I hate all of this.” My hands trembled into fists. “I want to smash Katherine’s stupid face into the dirt for what she’s done. I want to stomp on her chest until her heart explodes so she can feel what I’m feeling right now. I want to see her pay the price for the lives she’s taken, and I want to be the one to collect that debt.”

  “That’s better. Release your anger.”

  “I want to march Alton right down to the Crypt and keep him there until he can bring Isadora and Suri back.” I heaved out a choked sob. “I want him to tell me he can do it. I want him to keep trying until he does. I don’t care if he’s saying that Katherine has tampered with their bodies. I don’t care about the spirit rules. I want him to drag them back into the land of the living. I don’t want to hear, ‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.’ It’s not good enough. They deserve more.”

  Imogene nodded sympathetically, her eyes still puffy from her own crying. “I’m sorry that Alton wasn’t able to restore them to life. It must hurt all the more, to know that he has done so on several occasions but couldn’t for them. But his failure is Katherine’s fault. She did something terrible to them, to make their spirits flee so quickly.”

  I held my face in my hands, the tears flowing through my fingertips. “Yeah, I know Alton did everything he could, but I can’t deal with the fact that they’re really gone. I keep thinking of them walking around, breathing and talking and laughing… but they’re never going to do that again.”

  “I know, Harley. I know.” Her tone was soft and sad, but that made it worse. Isadora would’ve shown me tough love, urging me to get on with the Grimoire for the sake of the world. I didn’t need sorrow; I needed a kick in the ass. Otherwise, I’d just wallow until Katherine had won.

  “And then there’s Jacob,” I muttered, looking up at her. “I know Louella’s trying with her broken Telepathy, but Kenneth did a number on her head. It’s not enough to know he’s in there—I want him back, with us, where he’s supposed to be. Where they’re all supposed to be. It’s like everyone’s got these abilities, but nobody can do a damn thing to make any of this right. It makes me want to flip your freaking desk.”

  “I’d prefer it if you didn’t.” She offered a nervous smile.

  I shook my head. “There’s all this pressure on me, and I don’t know what to do with it. And there’s nothing the Rag Team can do to help me. It’s not like they can find these stupid spells for me. Frankly, I’m sick of Chaos, and I’m sick of Katherine.”

  “Your friends are doing what they can,” Imogene replied. “At this very moment, they’re investigating what happened in the infirmary. Even with the CCTV ruined, they are endeavoring to find evidence of how Katherine was able to do this. They have yet to give up, and neither should you, as impossible as all of this feels right now.”

  “They won’t find anything. She’s too clever for that. They’ll only find out what we already know: Katherine knew exactly when to come in and do this,” I shot back. “She was waiting, all this time, for the detector to be com
pleted. Isadora, Suri, and Jacob likely got in her way, so she killed them and put Jacob in a coma.”

  “They may find something more. We can’t assume anything at this moment.”

  I glanced at Imogene, a moment of clarity emerging from the foggy mist in my head. An unsettling thought was forming, and it left a sour taste in my mouth. I wasn’t even sure I could say it out loud, but I knew I had to, if only to put my sense of unease to rest. One way or another. “You were the first one on the scene, right, before anyone else?”

  She frowned. “I was.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a little interesting?” I held my hands under the table, ready to pour Chaos into them if this went south. I didn’t want Imogene to be in on this, but there was no denying it was a bit suspicious. Besides, I had enough grief and anger in me right now to take Imogene down, if she was in any way connected with that evil bitch. Emotion had always served me in the past, and I hoped it’d do so again, if I had to fight her.

  “Interesting?” She arched an elegant eyebrow. “I hope you’re not insinuating anything, Harley.”

  I couldn’t look at her, hardly believing what I was about to say. “You were in the infirmary, and so was Katherine, before anyone else could get there. That’s a little suspicious.”

  “I can understand your wariness, considering your current state of mind, but allow me to clarify before you come to the wrong conclusion,” Imogene said. “You must remember, I arrived to find Rita Bonnello in the infirmary, not Katherine. I was confused when I saw Isadora and Suri in a pool of blood, and then I saw the detector flashing up Katherine’s name as Jacob pointed it at her. I strove to fight, the moment I realized that Katherine was masquerading as Rita.”

  I kept my hands flexed, staring at Imogene intently, trying to detect any holes in her story.

  Imogene continued. “She injured me in the attempt, using that moment in which I was stemming the blood to knock Jacob unconscious and steal the detector. I tried to help your aunt and Suri, as soon as I was able, but they were already dead, and Katherine had vanished. I did everything within my power to help Jacob, but he was on the floor, unmoving.” A muscle twitched in her jaw as she blinked away a tear. “You can’t know the guilt and regret I feel, that I didn’t arrive sooner. If I had… there may have been something I could do to stop her. I’ll replay my actions over and over in my mind for a long time to come, wondering if I might have done something differently. Had I not paused for coffee, might I have arrived in time? Had I not spent hours on the phone with the Seoul Coven, might I have saved them? It’s not easy to come to terms with.”

  I sank back in my chair, still mulling things over. My suspicions hadn’t exactly evaporated, but they were starting to ebb. She had the wounds to back up her story, but there was one thing still nagging away at the back of my mind, a hesitancy in Imogene’s actions that kept me wary. “Have you got plans to deal with Rita? What if she’s working for Katherine? Heck, what if she still is Katherine?”

  “We’ve arranged an interrogation. I’m going to ask Astrid to execute it, using Smartie’s technology. I would ask you to sit in with her, to feel out Rita’s emotions, but this is much too personal for you. You would already be on the attack, the moment you stepped in the room.” She paused. “Once the initial interrogation has been conducted, you can check Rita to ensure she isn’t a Shapeshifter. Until then, she will be kept under close watch.”

  I frowned, sensing the genuine concern in Imogene’s voice. “You get why I had to ask about you, right?”

  “As much as it hurts to hear you accuse me, I do.” She brushed away a stray tear. “Katherine must have had spies close to the tight-knit circle we’ve forged. At this point, we must admit that everyone is a suspect. And, if it makes you feel better, you may continue to suspect me, too. But it won’t change the truth. I’d be more than happy to have you test and interrogate me, alongside Rita, if it will put your mind at ease.”

  “I don’t think anything can put my mind at ease right now.” I gave a bitter laugh. “I’d like to ask one more thing, though.”

  “Go on.”

  “Can I read your emotions?”

  She smiled. “Of course. Your mind is likely running wild right now. So, here, allow me to settle your paranoia.” Imogene reached for the bracelet on her wrist, the one that blocked her emotions from Empaths like me, and removed it. She set it on the desk beside her and waited. It was a gesture of open honesty, and I appreciated it.

  Encouraging my Empathy to do its job, I felt tendrils of emotion flowing toward me, from her. Anguish, grief, pain, terror, frustration… it was all there, weaving a story of her struggles. They weren’t the emotions of a spy, or the emotions of someone who’d played a part in murder and knocking a kid unconscious. They were the emotions of someone who was genuinely devastated and frustrated.

  “How did you get that thing, anyway?” I nodded to the bracelet.

  “I found this piece many moons ago after realizing I needed to acquire something to prevent Empaths from sensing me, for my own protection. I had a rather unpleasant experience with an Empath, you see, and it made me wary of appearing vulnerable. Plus, people don’t like to see weakness in those in positions of power, and I wear this bracelet to stop others sensing my weaknesses—my fear, my nerves, my sorrow.”

  I sighed. “You would’ve made it easier on me if I’d felt crazy glee or something.”

  “As I’ve said, I cannot alter the truth. I arrived too late, and I’ll have to think about that for years to come.” She echoed my sigh.

  I slumped back in my chair. “I guess, if you were involved, you wouldn’t be stupid enough to hang around. You’d have ridden off into the sunset with the Queen of Evil and the magical detector.” I dug my nails hard into my palms. “Katherine said she’d push me to my breaking point. She promised she’d bring me misery. It looks like she got what she wanted.”

  “It pains me to know that her influence has spread this far, even to the edges of our inner circle,” Imogene replied. “It will make things all the more difficult, if everyone is to be suspected. They may not even realize that they’re party to her manipulation.”

  “Well, there’s one person we can cross off the list, as much as I’d like to pin the blame on him,” I muttered.

  Imogene frowned. “You mean Leonidas?”

  I nodded. “He’s still in the ICU, and still comatose.”

  “What about Wade?” She sounded hesitant. “He was briefly affected by the hex on your pendant. Perhaps the hex ran deeper than we first thought?”

  “No, no way. I kept feeling out his emotions when he had that hex on him, and I didn’t feel anything… suspicious.” I knew I had to suspect everyone, but I couldn’t bring myself to accuse the guy I was in love with. Was I being biased? Maybe. Was I willing to change my mind? I’d have to wait and see.

  “You may be right.” She smiled sadly at me. “I’ll try to find a replacement pendant for you, one of these days.”

  “You don’t need to do that. If you hadn’t destroyed it, Wade would still be trying to tear my throat out.”

  “No, but I’d like to, nevertheless. It’s the least I can do.” She looked like she might cry again, and I didn’t know if I could deal with that. My heart and soul were already teetering on a knife edge of self-destruction, and any sight of shared grief or kindness would make me topple over.

  “There’s one thing that’s bugging me, though,” I went on, avoiding her teary eyes. “Why did Katherine let Jacob live? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad; otherwise, I’d be a puddle of uselessness right now. But, surely, in her book, that’s messy—leaving a potential witness behind.”

  Imogene picked up a pen and toyed with it. “Perhaps she still needs him for something.”

  “What, she’s keeping him on ice?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But what would she want him for?”

  Imogene tapped the pen against the side of her jaw. “I suppose she no longer requir
es a Portal Opener, so it can’t be that.”

  “Well, not in the way we might think.” An idea jumped into my head, emerging from a memory of something Krieger had said. “Maybe she needs to add his abilities to her rare magical directory. Krieger said something about abilities having to exist to be used, and she’ll want to be able to create magicals with every ability possible. With Isadora dead, Jacob is the only person left, as far as we know, who has the Portal Opening ability. If she’d killed him, too, she wouldn’t be able to use that power in any of her new magicals.”

  Imogene nodded thoughtfully. “Ah yes, the theory that Chaos abilities cannot be created from nothing.”

  “If that’s the case, then it makes sense that she’d keep him around, though she’d want him quiet since he’s a witness. Plus, Katherine might’ve been worried that Jacob would try to portal Isadora and Suri out of there, in an attempt to get them to Krieger or to some kind of medical help, or even Alton. That would’ve created more witnesses, if they’d somehow… survived.” The word stuck in my throat. “That could’ve been what spurred her on to knock him out when she did.”

  “That’s a definite possibility. It makes a great deal of sense.”

  “But why leave him here? Why not take him?”