“Long time, no see,” Santana muttered as she leveled her gaze at Finch. The entire Rag Team was now gathered in the infirmary, with my duplicate having turned back into an Orisha. The only one still missing was Garrett, and I could see that irked Finch a little. After all, they probably had a lot to talk about.
Finch smirked. “Yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it? You’d think Purgatory would just let us have days off, right?”
“Gotta say, I’m loving the frosted tips. You having a quarter-life crisis or something?” Santana was on a roll today.
“The hairstylist said it was back in fashion. Purgatory is a little behind, though.” Finch ran an anxious hand through his new dark auburn hair. I’d caught him looking at his reflection a couple of times, and the reddish tone didn’t seem to sit well with him. Too many Katherine memories, no doubt.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do, Harley?” Tatyana looked at me uncertainly. Nobody was comfortable having Finch here. The tension and concern were like a tidal wave, crashing straight into me. I’d relearned how to put up a mental barrier to keep most of it out, but little barbs prickled every now and again.
I sighed. “You’ve all got to trust me on this one. We’ve taken big risks before, but this one might just have the payoff we’ve been looking for. It’s the right thing to do, even though I know it feels weird.” I glanced at Finch, eager to stop a spat from breaking out. “So, what do you know? Spill.”
“At least I can count on you for a warm welcome, Sis. It’s gotten pretty frosty in here.” He looked around the room with a smug smile on his face. With him being a Shapeshifter, it annoyed me that I couldn’t sense his true emotions, but I got the feeling he didn’t really feel smug. He was just putting on his Finch façade for the curious, wary public. “The first person we need to gun for is Naima. From what you’ve told me, you’ve already met her a couple of times. And it sounds as though she likes you a hell of a lot, Wade. She doesn’t get her claws out for just anyone.”
Wade narrowed his eyes. “Just stick to the facts, Finch. We don’t have time to mess around.”
“This Krieger kid must’ve cut out all your funny bones.” Finch chuckled to himself, while Krieger shot him a disapproving look.
“You had best watch who you’re calling ‘kid,’ kinder.”
“Of course he’s a German!” Finch smirked at me but carried on before I could snap at him. “So, Naima was Purged by Katherine. She performed a really dark spell to break into the Reykjavik repositories, and Naima popped out after. Sweet, really. Anyway, she runs the cult’s Bestiary out of the ruined Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas, where Katherine has her base of operations.”
Santana frowned. “Dry Turtles? Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”
“Dry Tortugas is a cluster of islands off the coast of Key West, Florida. I had to talk her out of putting her base in North Brother Island, in New York. She was desperate to put it there, right in the faces of the New York Coven. She always talked about Typhoid Mary, and how she’d spent her last days there. It’d been her perfect site, but I told her it was too risky. People would look for her in New York. People would sense the interdimensional bubble. So, she moved to Florida.”
Dylan whistled. “No wonder she’s been flying under the radar. That isn’t even California’s jurisdiction.”
“You don’t say.” Finch’s words dripped sarcasm. It made me wonder whether Dylan reminded him of the kids who’d teased him when he was a kid. “She’s been running her operation across the country. California is a tiny part of it.”
Raffe waggled his hands. “Hold up a second, did you say Bestiary? Naima is running a Bestiary for Katherine?” “Yep.”
Everyone looked at each other in surprise. Evidently, they’d missed it the first time, given the idea of Katherine living in Florida.
“She needs a lot of power,” he added with a shrug. “Fort Jefferson is remote. You can only get there by boat or seaplane, and it doesn’t get a lot of visitors. Even if there are tourists, they can’t see the base. It’s tucked away, nice and safe. I used to know the routes in, but they’ve probably been changed since I’ve been in prison.”
“You think Naima is your way in?” Astrid pressed.
Finch nodded. “She’ll be our best shot. She’s the Recruiter, after all.” He paused. “Now, there’s Kenneth Willow to deal with, once we’re actually in the cult. He’ll be loitering around, for sure. He hangs on Katherine’s apron strings like a leech. Since he didn’t manage to get hold of Giverny Le Fay, like you told me, he’ll be doing his best groveling to get back in Katherine’s good books.”
“How did Kenneth get out of prison in the first place?” Tatyana asked. “I know they took him to a higher security prison in LA after he was in our cells for a while, so he could await his trial, but how did he escape?”
“He tricked the guards and killed them,” Astrid replied. “I read it in some of Smartie’s files, but they wanted to hush it up so people didn’t get freaked out. He’s been loose for a while.”
“Would’ve been nice to know,” Finch muttered.
“My question is, why did Kenneth want Giverny?” Astrid asked. “I have my guesses, but I’d like to be sure.” “She’s got some special ability that Katherine really wanted for the last ritual,” Finch said. “Her main goal has been to seek out rare magicals, at any cost, to get all her ducks in a row. You should see some of the abilities she has in her crew. It’s insane. And, from what you’ve said about these kid-snatchings, she hasn’t let up on getting the crème de la crème.”
I remembered how it’d felt to be briefly under Giverny’s control, when we’d gone to her for the Light blood. “Maybe she was after Giverny’s Hypno power?”
“I’m not sure of the specifics,” Finch replied. “There might’ve been something else she wanted.”
Astrid nodded thoughtfully. “Makes sense, considering the nature of the last ritual. Katherine needs twelve powers, and I’m guessing they can’t just be ordinary ones. Otherwise, it would be too easy.”
“Yeah, that would explain why she’s been hunting out all these magicals and killing off the ones who aren’t powerful enough for her.” I grimaced at the memory of those poor kids who’d been savagely murdered by Katherine and her minions. She likely needed the rarest of abilities, which were only gifted to a sparse number of magicals. I cast a nervous glance at Jacob and Louella, who seemed equally on edge. If that was the case, there was every chance they were still on Katherine’s radar.
I toyed with the pendant around my neck as I remembered the danger that Jacob had been in at the Smiths’, and how Katherine had used me as bait to get to him. Imogene’s gift sat alongside the St. Christopher necklace that the Smiths had given me, both pieces of jewelry giving me strength. My mom’s replica alongside the gift from the only kind parents I’d ever known—or could remember, at least. I realized they’d likely be back from Hawaii by now, and I should probably drop in on them at some point. Be a good adopted daughter.
“Bingo.” Finch smiled. “She’s gathering magicals to sacrifice so she can take their powers at the end of the game.”
“Kenneth isn’t all that powerful though, right?” I got my head back into gear. We had to focus on what we could control now, in the hopes that Katherine would never reach that endgame position.
“He can’t even get murder right,” Finch said.
Wade shook his head. “Not particularly, although he’s good with hexes. He’s needy, which is probably why Katherine keeps him around. She knows he’ll do absolutely anything she asks him to. Like killing her son.” He cast a glance at Finch. “Kenneth is a functioning psychopath, but that neediness toward Katherine will work in our favor. We just have to play him right.”
“And what about Shinsuke Nomura?” I hadn’t forgotten about him, though I’d tried to forget what his father had done to me, shutting me out of my body and locking me in astral projection. “Preceptor Nomura tried to broker a deal for his freedom, using me. Do you think he might be open to persuasion if we can get to him?”
Finch snorted. “A deal? Don’t make me laugh. Handing you over would have been about as useful to the mighty Hiro as a chocolate teapot. Katherine would never have returned Shinsuke alive to his father. She hates weakness of any kind. Parental weakness, particularly. Sins of the father, and all that. I suppose I should have realized.” His voice stuck again. “Shinsuke will know too much by now. No way she would’ve let him go.”
“He’ll be too useful to her, too, I imagine,” Wade chimed in. “Even though he’s a known Mediocre, he comes from a family renowned for breaking away from that label and putting in the hard work to be powerful. Plus, I bet she feels really smug about having the son of Hiro Nomura in her ranks.”
“Yeah, I don’t know too much about him. I was in prison before he joined her, I think. What’s his deal? Any juicy powers I should know about? I’m guessing not, since he’s a Mediocre by birth, but stranger things have happened.” Finch looked at me with a knowing expression.
“I think he has a peculiar Earth ability,” Krieger said, plucking a file from one of his shelves and flipping through it. “Yes, here. I made a note about it after an evening when Hiro had spoken about his son. His Earth ability seems to be blended with a Magneton ability, which is highly unusual.”
“See, stranger things,” Finch said triumphantly. “I knew there’d be another reason for Katherine keeping him around. I’d be interested to see how far he’s come under Katherine’s teachings.”
“Anyone else we should worry about?” I was eager to know everything we were up against.
“There’s one more,” Finch replied. “Her name’s Thessaly Crux. She’s the one we really need to be careful about. She’s a powerful Electro and mega loyal to Katherine. Naima might be her lieutenant, but Tess is like her second-in-command. She’s a total savage, suspicious of everyone—even me.”
I frowned. “We met an Electro when we went to see Marie Laveau. She was with Naima. Do you think this Thessaly girl might be the same one?”
“You went to see Marie Laveau?” Finch sounded stunned. “Why?”
I smirked. “To break my Suppressor. I went through a lot to do that. Marie Laveau was just the tip of the iceberg.”
Finch blew out and shrugged. “Well, I guess that Electro you met could’ve been Tess. She was the only Electro in the cult when I was there, so it’s pretty likely. Then again, she might have recruited more of them since I’ve been gone. It’s a rare ability, but Katherine’s been very busy hunting.” He paused. “Tess had a twin with the same power, Larissa, but she wasn’t as bright as Tess. She got killed in a mission to abduct more kids from LA. The kids were more powerful than Rissa had anticipated. Let’s just say it didn’t end well. Blood everywhere. Bits, too. You don’t want to know about the bits.”
I shuddered at the thought. “So, Naima is our way in, since she’s the Recruiter. But how do we get in? Are we just going to waltz up to Fort Jefferson in disguise, knock on the door, and hope for the best?”
Finch shot me a withering look. “Oh yeah, because that’d work. We need to be recruited by her. See, it’s in the name already. Recruiter. She’s intelligent, yeah, but she’s not as good with people as she is with Purge beasts. She’ll be the one most easily fooled. I wouldn’t know where to find her, though.”
“You could always speak to Garrett,” Dr. Krieger suggested, closing his file and replacing it. “He’s working with the LA Coven these days, isn’t he? They’re likely to have more knowledge of Naima’s whereabouts than we are.”
I nodded. “Yeah, we got some intel that the National Council knows about one of Naima’s playgrounds.”
“Yes!” Jacob suddenly stepped back and forged a rapid tear in the fabric of the universe, disappearing through his portal. He returned a few minutes later, while the rest of us stared at the empty space in shock. Only, this time, he wasn’t alone. Garrett stood beside him, looking very confused. His eyes drifted across the room and stopped short at Finch.
His mouth fell open. “What the—?”
This was going to be good.