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

“H-How?” I managed.

He snorted. “It looks like I’m not the only one you’ve made an enemy of with your dangerous games. I received an anonymous tip that the real Finch wasn’t in Purgatory anymore, and I had the officers there look into it. I knew you had an evil streak in you, Harley Merlin—how could you not, considering where you came from?—but I didn’t think you could stoop this low. Then again, what else should I have expected? You’re just as bad as your half-brother, no doubt. And both of you were stupid enough to get caught in the act!”

“Katherine…” Finch muttered, his eyes flashing with anger. “Spiteful bitch.”

“A nice trick, using those advanced duplicates. I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, but then, I don’t associate with criminals—I don’t see the intricate details that those duplicates missed. But the officers did. Oh yes, they knew right away!” Levi spat. “When the officers confronted it, that Orisha had the decency to float away, which led us right here. The officers wanted to capture it, but I’m very glad they didn’t. If they had, you might have had the chance to weasel your way out of here, and we wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”

I glanced at Santana, who was slumped against Raffe, tears streaming down her face. I had no experience of it, personally, but I figured losing an Orisha had to be a painful ordeal. They were part of her, and she’d just had one torn away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Levi glowered. “As well you might be, Ms. Catemaco. You are an accomplice in this, which makes you as culpable as these two, in my book.” He jabbed a finger at Finch and me. “At any point, you might have said no or come to me with information. I would’ve protected you. But you chose them instead, and you’ll be suitably punished for that.”

I stood my ground. “You leave her out of this.”

“You should learn when to shut your mouth,” he snapped back. “You have nowhere to run to now. Anything you say will only make it worse for you. Not that I’m banking on a lenient sentence. In fact, I’d be inclined to insist on the harshest punishment they can offer. Then you might learn your lesson, Harley!”

“This isn’t possible,” I mumbled, more to myself than anyone else.

“Oh, I can assure you it is very possible.” Levi snorted. “I bet you thought you had everything all tied up with a neat little bow, didn’t you? This must be quite the shock, to find out you aren’t nearly as clever as you think you are. Well, let me tell you how surprised I was when I received a call, a few minutes ago, telling me that someone had killed Harley Merlin in Alaska. Do you know, I almost shed a tear; I was so shocked and distraught that someone had done something awful to you, because I was foolish enough to believe you were trying to better yourself. And then, while the seminar leader was still on the phone, I heard him scream and tell me you’d disintegrated into thousands of bluish sparks and faded away.”

Crap…

“It hit me then, what you’d been up to. I remembered how those last duplicates had disintegrated. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.” He sneered at me. “Whoever gave me that anonymous tip should get a bottle of champagne, because that was the cherry on top. That was the moment of absolute certainty. Indeed, it gave me precisely what I needed to see you put away, for the rest of your life, where you can’t harm anyone, ever again. You’ve finally proven yourself to be the real criminal that you’ve always been. I should’ve known you’d turn out exactly like your father.”

Anger and confusion bubbled up inside me as I fought to speak. “You don’t understand, Levi. You’ve got it all wrong. Yes, I broke Finch out of Purgatory, but it was only so that we could—”

Levi slammed his fists down on the nearby table. “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth! You have said quite enough. Anything else you want to say, you can say at your trial, before they haul you away to prison.” He shot a glance at O’Halloran, who still looked uneasy. “O’Halloran, have your men arrest everyone and take them to the cells. There will be an investigation as soon as the proper authorities arrive, and it will end with these disgusting Shiptons in Purgatory. I would stake my life on it. You have no cards left to play, no tricks left to pull, and nowhere left to run. Nowhere.”

I glanced at the secret door we’d come through, knowing there was one place we could run to. But could we get there before the security personnel apprehended us? Even if they didn’t, they’d chase us through the coven until they caught us. Levi had us cornered, and we were going to have to fight with everything we had to get out of this.





Forty-Six





Harley





Wade stepped in front of me, his arm across my chest. “You aren’t taking her, or us, anywhere. Not until you hear us out. You might change your mind if you knew what we’d been through and why we did what we did.”

“We deserve the right to speak. I assure you, you will want to hear what we have to say,” Tatyana added. My heart swelled at the sight of my friends forming a line in front of me, even if I knew it was useless. Even Isadora had joined the line, though I noticed Krieger and Alton kept back. Their fate was less certain, but if Levi was involved, it didn’t look too good for them, either.

“This is bull, Director Levi.” Dylan put his Herculean might between the Rag Team and Levi.

“What harm is there in listening to what we have to say?” Astrid chimed in, already tapping away discreetly on her Smartie. I didn’t know what she was doing, but I doubted any of the skills in her extensive armory could get us out of this fix.

“You don’t need to do this, Father,” Raffe spoke, his tone menacing. Santana was still leaning on him, utterly heartbroken, and I didn’t know who was in charge anymore—Raffe or the djinn. It had been touch and go between them in Tartarus, and I got the feeling that Raffe had come back with the djinn nudging his way to one hand on the steering wheel.

Levi scowled. “The less I hear from you, the better. I might have expected such deeds from this unruly mob, but I thought you would have been sensible enough to stay out of it. I can see that your actions here are my failings as a father. I ought to have kept my eye on you at all times. With that thing inside you, I should have put you under lock and key years ago.”

Raffe snarled. “You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you?”

“Director Levi, we should talk about this privately.” Alton stepped in before the djinn got any ideas. “Why don’t we go to your office and discuss all of this in a less tense atmosphere? It will make sense to you, once you’ve heard the truth of the matter. Come now, we should be civil about this. There’s no need for Atomic Cuffs and armed guards.”

O’Halloran glanced at Levi. “Sir?”

“Arrest them now.” His voice was eerily calm.

With a reluctant nod, O’Halloran and the security personnel advanced on the Rag Team. There was nothing I could do to stop them, not without getting us into even more trouble. I doubted “fighting a horde of security magicals and taking out the director of the SDC” would look good on my résumé. Still, that didn’t lessen my desire to do something… anything, to get us out of this.

The Chaos in my veins pulsated with anticipation, begging to be used. I can’t feed you right now, Darkness. I was pretty sure my mother hadn’t meant for me to go all Rambo with my Dark side, despite her warning to feed it whenever it was hungry.