Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris (Harley Merlin, #6)

“I don’t… understand.” He choked, a splatter of blood spitting across his chin. His lungs would already be filling up, his life close to its end.

“Well, speaking of thorns in my side, you’ve been one from the very start,” she replied, stroking her bloodied fingertip across his cheek, smearing a streak of scarlet across his skin. “You’re beyond useless, really. And yet, I took pity on you. I gave you task after task, and you fumbled every single one. Even if you were standing in front of a target, you’d miss.” Her voice was eerily calm. The steady serenity of a total, dyed-in-the-wool psychopath.

“Eris… I will… do better,” he wheezed, his fingertips groping helplessly at the hilt of the blade in his chest.

“Do you need some help? Can you not even manage that by yourself?” She gripped the hilt and yanked it out of him, blood gushing everywhere. “At least I found one use for you. Otherwise, you’d have been dead a long time ago. You poor, stupid fool.” She laughed coldly.

“I… don’t… understand.” He sagged against the altar, his hands slipping on the marble.

“Only the blood of an evil child can kill a spirit, Kenneth. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” She pushed him to one side, and his knees buckled as he collapsed to the ground. “Oh, that’s right… you don’t have one, do you?”

What? Now it made sense. That was the reason Katherine had been keeping Kenneth close, all this time, despite all of his failures. The evil bastard had had no idea. He’d genuinely thought that being part of a ritual was a promotion, instead of a death sentence. I’d have felt sorry for him, if I didn’t hate him almost as much as Katherine.

This is what you get for killing kids, Kenneth. Those actions had filled him with the evil energy that Katherine needed to make this work, and she’d groomed him to perfection. She’d encouraged every bad impulse in him, knowing it would give her what she wanted. This woman wasn’t just one step ahead of everyone—she was a million miles out in front, laughing at us the whole way.

The funny thing was, even Naima seemed shocked. Nobody’s safe, you idiot. Not even you.

Wielding the dripping blade, Katherine brought it down with all the force she possessed and thrust it deep into Tess’s spirit. For a moment, nothing happened, but Katherine’s confident expression never wavered. And then, an almighty explosion went off. The rush of fierce energy pummeled out of Tess’s spirit in violent waves. The forcefield splintered into a million pieces, and the altar imploded beneath Tess, leaving her soul hovering above the plinth. The blast powered out, smashing into all of us and taking out the endless rows of beasts that still lingered in the dark. It hit me right in the chest, pushing the air out of my lungs and sending me sprawling backward. Hot, fiery streams carrying tendrils of blue light in the center throbbed over the top of me.

A gut-wrenching scream went up from Katherine, who was holding her ground through sheer willpower and strength as the explosion pounded through her, blow after blow after blow. Her own body turned transparent for a moment as the flow of the tornado shifted. It began to power down instead of up, thrumming right into her and filling her with every particle of that spiraling blue-and-white energy. Naima was on the ground at her feet, covering her head with her hands, her amber eyes staring at Kenneth’s limp, dead body.

As the initial explosion ebbed, I saw that Tess’s spirit wasn’t glowing anymore. It had turned a dull gray, though it still hovered in the center of this circle of light. Katherine, panting heavily with her eyes glowing a terrifying shade of silver, approached the dulled spirit.

“Et ex sanguine nati, et ad cinerem revertetur. Convertantur orationis humo munus ut consummare. Vos have been taken a puero sanguis mala. Nunc te mea,” Katherine murmured, her hands pressing into Tess’s altered spirit. Her ethereal figure fell apart, and what remained twisted into a spiral of dark gray mist. Katherine closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, drawing the particles of Tess’s being deep into her lungs, like smoke.

I didn’t know how much longer I had to stop this, nor did I know what steps were left in the ritual. I just knew that I couldn’t let her finish this. There was only one option left, and I had to take it. I had to try the spell from my parents’ Grimoire again—the one that would summon Erebus himself.

Everything comes at a price. But there was nothing else in this world that would stop Katherine. It was going to cost me a life, and I didn’t know whose it might be, but this was our only chance. Our one, final shot at victory.

It hadn’t gone well the last two times I’d tried this, with Astrid getting knocked into the altar and almost losing her life, and Santana Purging a serpent after stopping me, but then I’d never managed to complete the spell before. Erebus was a master of destruction. If we weren’t completely desperate, I wouldn’t have even been contemplating it. But the fact was, we were desperate.

Guilt and helplessness fought for the top spot in my head. Someone was going to die because of this, but there was the slightest chance that Erebus might ask for Katherine’s life in return for being summoned, and I’d be only too happy to give him that.

We’d been backed into a corner. There really was no other way.

Forgive me. Please, forgive me.





Forty-Four





Finch





I staggered back as black smoke billowed around Harley. What the hell? It had come out of nowhere. Was Katherine doing this? I looked toward the altar, but Katherine was in full demon mode, bleeding what was left of Tess’s spirit dry.

I looked back at Harley. Was one of us supposed to stop her? Nobody else seemed to be moving. Then again, nobody else seemed able to move. They were all transfixed by Harley, who was muttering a spell under her breath. With every word, she drew the black mist out of thin air. It swirled like a thunderstorm, getting darker by the second. What little light we had from the altar’s circle was soon in shade. Even the beasts looked like they wanted to get out of dodge real fast. They sensed something. Something bad.

Behind me, Raffe had covered his ears and was twisting and turning like he’d been possessed. Which, in a way, was his natural state. This was different, though. His eyes were flashing wildly—the djinn was winning. But why?

A deep rumble shot through the ground beneath us, and the last of the beasts went running. If they were scared, then something was coming. Something we probably didn’t want to be around for. I couldn’t even see Harley anymore—the black mist had shrouded her completely. But I could still hear her voice muttering in the eye of the storm.

It hit me like a bullet to the head: this kind of Chaos magic was dark and ancient. I could feel the power of it prickling my arms into gooseflesh. Even Harley’s voice had changed. It was deeper, with an eerie echo that sent invisible ants racing up my spine. She was calling on something. No, not something… someone.

Erebus…

Yeah, one of us should really have been trying to stop her. And yet, it was like we were frozen to the ground. My legs had turned to logs. We were in his realm, and he was holding us prisoner. I knew the stakes when calling on Erebus. He’d want to have the biggest selection so he could handpick whose life he was going to take in return for being summoned. Sure, we were fresh out of options, but this was madness.