“I really do need to have a last-minute briefing with you, but I’m glad we’ve got a bit more time,” Wade whispered as we walked along, the two of us behind Finch and Isadora. We’d arrived in Salem a few minutes ago and were making our way down Bridge Street to reach Azarius. There was a coffee shop and a parking lot to our right, with a kiosk at the opposite side of the empty lot. That was our way into the interdimensional pocket, where we’d find Azarius. Not wanting to be caught out in the open without my new face, we ducked into a side street while we went over the final details of the mission.
“Me, too.” I’d managed to convince Astrid not to activate the speech devices until Wade gave the all-clear so we wouldn’t have to have an awkward, Russian-tinged goodbye. My farewells to the rest of the Rag Team had been hard enough, but this was going to be a killer. A week or so without hearing his voice… I didn’t want to imagine it, but it would soon be my reality.
“So, just a last check to make sure everyone knows what’s going on.” Wade addressed the other two, the four of us gathered together in a tight huddle. “As agreed, as soon as you have Hester’s spirit, you’ll get out of there and signal us with either the tech Krieger has put into your pendants, or the emergency device on the dock. Isadora will be able to trace your location through either and come to get you.”
Everyone had agreed that the job was too dangerous for Jacob, since he was both a Portal Opener and a Sensate. Katherine would’ve drooled at the prospect of such a tasty morsel for her collection. Even though he’d have portaled Astrid and Dylan to Key West by now, he was under strict instructions to portal back to the SDC until Astrid and Dylan called for him again. Dylan was staying on the mainland, while Astrid ventured with the tourists to Dry Tortugas to drop off the emergency device.
“Got it.” I squeezed his hand.
“As for getting around the island itself, I’ve got these memorized.” Finch whipped a scroll of blueprints out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Wade.
“How did you get these?” Wade sounded shocked.
“I had an old hiding spot in Krieger’s office, when it used to be Adley’s. I snatched them before we left.” It didn’t really surprise me that Finch had hidden stuff like this in the coven, though I wished we could’ve found them before breaking him out. There might have been a way to do this without him, if we had. Although, I supposed, in a strange way, I was starting to warm to him.
“Obviously, we can’t take them in with us, but they might be of some use to you,” Finch explained. “These black lines are the outlines of Fort Jefferson itself, and the white lines are the interdimensional pocket.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Wade replied. “How did you get these?”
Finch smiled. “Dry Tortugas used to be a busy shipping lane. My great-grandfather, Drake Shipton, bought the island with Fort Jefferson on it after the military abandoned it. He left it to Katherine in his personal will, but it was never disclosed in any official documents. Nobody even knows it’s owned by him, as far as I know.” He paused. “Although, the bubble does change location sometimes, when there’s a threat. I’ve seen it move to the Indian Ocean after a suspected breach, to one of my great-grandfather’s other islands. He liked property on formerly busy shipping lanes, what can I say?”
“So our great-grandfather was Jack Sparrow? Is that what you’re saying?” I smiled nervously.
He smiled back. “Only much, much cleverer.”
“Well, I’ll take these and see what Astrid can make of them when she gets back,” Wade said. The clock was ticking toward our goodbye, and I wanted it to stop altogether. I knew I was stronger than ever, but I didn’t want to have to do this alone. The Cult of Eris hadn’t given me much choice.
“Be careful out there,” Isadora said, moving forward to hug me.
“I will.” I hugged her back tightly, not knowing how long it might be until I saw her again.
“We’ll be there as soon as you need us. I’ll be waiting for your signal,” she added, as she released me. She cast an uncertain look at Finch, as if she wasn’t sure if she should bid him farewell, too. He was her nephew, after all.
“We should be going, then.” Finch covered the awkward pause, as he shifted into the guise of Pieter Mazinov, complete with his mane of curly golden hair and his cobalt-blue eyes. He already had the necessary swagger, and the speech device would soon kick in. I just hoped I could pull it off the same way. Being a different person was totally new territory, and I’d have to call on every ounce of tomboy in me to make it work as Volla.
“Can we have a minute?” I kept my gaze on Wade, ignoring the eyeroll from Finch.
“Sure, it’s not like we’ve got a schedule to keep to,” Finch replied.
I turned to Wade and looped my arms around his neck, feeling his hands smooth around my waist as he pulled me flush to his body. I really hoped this wasn’t going to be the last time I got to hold him like this. Otherwise, I’d have made the most of last night, instead of falling asleep watching a dumb movie. Now that the moment had come, I didn’t want to leave him.
What if I don’t see you again? The prospect was too terrible to even contemplate, yet here it was, weighing on my mind. I had to fight to shove it down, knowing it would only make things harder. I had a mission to complete. I clung to him even tighter, never wanting to let go. Tears were already brimming in my eyes, my eyelids fluttering wildly to try and keep them at bay.
“It’s going to be okay, Harley,” he murmured.
“I know,” I lied. “It’s just going to be weird without you.”
“If you need me, use your pendant to call for backup. We’ll be there before you know it.” He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “And just know that, whatever happens, I… I love you, Harley.”
My heart stopped, my mouth struggling to form the words. I wanted to say them, I really did, but they didn’t come easily to me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d told anyone I loved them. Wade was waiting, looking flustered, but I was having a hard time finding the words, even though I felt it. I really, really felt it.
“I shouldn’t have—” Wade started to speak, but I cut him off.
“No, no, I… I feel the same way,” I blurted out. “I love you, Wade.”
His face broke out into a giddy grin, and I knew my expression mirrored his. “Come back to me, okay?” he murmured.
“I will. I promise.”
Slowly, he leaned in toward me, his lips grazing mine in a soft, tender kiss that made my knees tremble. I pulled him closer, pressing my lips harder against his, my mouth moving with passionate intensity. It was desperate and sad and remarkable, and I didn’t want it to end. Once it did, I’d have to step into the unknown.
“Geez, anyone would think you were going off to war,” Finch muttered, breaking our moment. “The plan is to get in and get out… alive. I’ve got no intention of dying at the hands of those cult fanatics. Harley isn’t going to, either.”
“Hey, weren’t you one of those fanatics until they tried to have you killed?” Wade shot back.
Finch shot him a deadly look. “Touché, pal. Touché.”
With Wade and Isadora gone, I clasped my hands around the Ephemera. Energy radiated from inside the ball, which would soon explode inside me. What could possibly go wrong?
I winced as the entire ball shot out the tiny spikes, each one burrowing into my flesh as I gripped it tighter. The Shapeshifter energy pulsed through me in a sudden jolt, my body going into an automatic response. Looking down, I watched as my hands and arms and clothes shifted into those of Volla Mazinov, my mind holding onto the picture of her so I got it right.
Finch whistled. “Nice job, Merlin.” His voice had already been altered to sound like Pieter, after Wade had radioed in to Astrid to get the devices going.
“Do I look like her?” My own voice sounded weird and echoey, and definitely not my own. I ran a hand through my hair and felt how short and strange it was.
He nodded. “Spitting image. That Chaos inside you must be incredible if you can do such a good shift the first time. Usually, they’re a complete disaster. Limbs in all the wrong places. That kind of stuff.”
I gaped at him. “You didn’t think about telling me that before we came here?”
“What would be the point? You’d freak out and lose your nerve. You did good, Sis. Adrenaline works for you.” “We got lucky,” I muttered.
“Hey, luck is nothing to sniff at. If it works.”
I looked toward the street. “Should we get on with this?”
“Thought you’d never ask.” He grinned as he led the rest of the way to Azarius. He was enjoying this. Either that, or he was teasing me to cover his own fear. I didn’t know which I preferred.
We stepped through the kiosk and headed down a set of dingy steps, emerging into another world entirely. Cobblestone streets stretched out before us. It was medieval, almost, with Tudor-style façades to the buildings that made me feel like I’d entered a time warp. Overhead, an endless night swirled through the bubble’s roof, lighting everything up with a silvery glow from the constant moon. Hooded figures wandered the streets, some already drunk, others brawling on the cobbles. There were shops of all kinds and a bevy of bars and pubs along the main route.
“There.” Finch pointed up ahead to a wooden sign, which was swinging even though there was no breeze.
Azarius. We approached it with the attitudes of the Mazinovs, adding a little swagger.
Stepping into the gloom of the dive bar, we headed straight toward the bar itself. It smelled of stale booze and sweat, combined with the acrid tinge of smoke. There weren’t too many people inside, but the whole place had a creepy 1700s vibe to it, complete with nooses dangling from the walls, ancient torture devices, and old witch trial announcements taking pride of place in rusty frames. There were paintings, too, of witches being burned at the stake. A stark reminder of a very dark time in magical history. From what Finch had told me, this was where a lot of criminal magicals were known to come and go about their evil business, so it was no surprise that Naima had chosen this spot to do her recruiting.
“Is she here?” I whispered as we sat up on rickety bar stools.
Finch smiled. “Do you see a tigress lurking anywhere?” “No, I guess not.”
“Looks like we’ll have to wait.” He flagged down the bartender and ordered a drink. “Do you want anything? A Witch’s Brew, perhaps?” He scanned the list of drinks.
“There isn’t one called that.”
He smirked. “There is. Or a Hangman’s Delight, maybe?”
I eyed the dirty counters and moldering fridges. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” A strange green-tinged drink arrived in front of him a few moments later, in a filthy glass that turned my stomach. He didn’t seem to care, taking a deep sip and leaning back in satisfaction. “It’s been so long, my old friend.”
“I keep forgetting,” I said. “I guess you can’t get these where you’ve come from.”
“They don’t exactly have a bar in Purgatory, no.”
We sat in awkward silence for a while as he contentedly sipped his drink and subtly tried to bob along to the heavy metal music blaring out of the speakers. “Does Mrs. Anker know what happened to you?” I figured it was a decent question to break the tension.
“I don’t know, to be honest. She sort of ended her duties with me when I turned sixteen.”
“Did you get along with her?”
Finch shrugged. “I guess. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. My suspicion is, Katherine never wanted me getting too close to her, so she’d been told to punish me randomly, probably to stop me from getting too attached. The outbursts were always unexpected. She was nice enough, for the most part. Heavy drinker. Had a bunch of stories about some guy she used to love. Never married, even though she was a ‘Mrs.’ I think she wished she’d married that dude, so she conjured up a fantasy. She was odd, but never really cruel. She punished me, the way she’d likely been asked to, but she never went too hard on me.”
“How did you end up with her?”
“Random selection. Mrs. Anker didn’t know Katherine all too well. She was more scared of her than anything, for obvious reasons.”
“Would she be worried, if she knew where you’d ended up?”
He chuckled bitterly. “Worried? I doubt it. She probably doesn’t remember me leaving.”
“Still, that can’t have been an easy childhood, ferried between Mrs. Anker and Katherine.”
“Ease up, Dr. Phil. Both our childhoods sucked. End of story. But at least you weren’t indoctrinated from an early age.”
I smiled. “No, I guess not.” I paused, steeling myself. “There’s something I’ve been wondering about.”
“And I bet you’re going to ask me.”
“What was the point of you releasing those gargoyles? What did you want to achieve?”
He looked at me in surprise. “It was a power play, to show what Katherine could do—how easily she could bring down a coven and reveal the magical world to the human world. It was supposed to be a hefty warning, and the start of her world domination. She wanted the humans to discover a small fragment of our world so that the magicals would have to take drastic action to cover the mess. Action that needed Katherine, I guess. She wanted to rise from blood and destruction and chaos and be a savior.”
“Sounds like her,” I murmured.
“You know, her influence over those monsters has always creeped me out. She used to talk to Purge beasts all the time in her Bestiary and get me to watch. The gargoyles were always her favorite. The rest didn’t really listen to her so much.”
“I wonder why.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they sense something in her that they like.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the sound of the door opening. A figure walked in, but he wasn’t anyone special— a gruff-looking dude in need of a drink. He came to the bar and ordered, taking his drink and striding over to a secluded spot in the shadows. Through the foggy haze of bluish smoke, I noticed another figure I hadn’t seen before. They were sitting in the farthest corner, tucked away behind the leather arm of a booth. They wore a hood low over their face and were drinking alone. I watched a waitress approach to ask if they wanted another drink, but the terror drifting off her was overwhelming. The waitress was scared of the hooded figure, whoever they were.
I opened out my Empathy and sent it toward the hooded figure in the hopes of gauging their emotions. The feelings that came back were vague and diluted, but they were definitely there—insecurity and humiliation, but also a whiff of affection and a strong current of determination. I hadn’t expected those kinds of emotions from someone who had the waitress running scared. There was something else, too—a distinct sense of toxicity. It was a familiar sensation, and one that I’d experienced before, in the Bestiary. The figure felt like a weird version of a Purge monster. It reminded me of Tobe, in terms of intensity.
Naima.
“She’s over there,” I whispered. “At least, I think it’s her.”
Finch smirked and set down his drink. “Well, there’s only one way to find out. Just be ready to back me up if this goes south. We might need to make a run for it.”
“What?” I tried to protest, but he’d already gotten up from his stool. To my surprise, he wasn’t headed for the hooded figure. Instead, he made a beeline for two men sitting at a nearby table, minding their own business.
“Hey, we don’t want your kind in here!” Finch barked, and he launched two blasts of Fire at the two men, forcing them to jump from their chairs to the floor. I gaped at Finch. I had no idea why he’d targeted those guys.
“Are you out of your mind?” one of the men wheezed up at Finch, who held a burning ball in his hands. “Security magicals have no place here.” Finch launched another attack. One burst of Fire hit the bar floor, scorching a hole in it.
“We don’t want trouble. We’re just here to drink,” the second guy shouted.
“Find somewhere else!” Finch sent out another fireball, while I sent out a vibration through the floor that shot up in a tree. It knocked aside the table as it exploded through the hole I’d already made. If Finch is trying to get all eyes on us, it’s working.
“Stop before you do something you’ll regret!” the first guy warned.
Finch grinned through Pieter’s face. “When the end of the world comes, those who follow the system will be the first to fall. When Katherine rises, you will suffer. She will soon reign supreme, and I’d rather be on the winning side than end up dead in the dirt with you losers.”
I cast a subtle glance at the corner and found that Naima was watching us, though she remained in her seat. Her amber eyes flashed with curiosity.
“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” the first guy hissed as he ducked out of the way of the Water tornado. He held his phone to his ear, evidently calling for backup from any security magicals in the area.
Finch turned to me. “Run,” he whispered.
Turning tail, we sprinted for the door, down the cobbled street, and up the stairs through the kiosk, with Finch sending a couple of magical smoke bombs over his shoulder for good measure.
Yeah, if that didn’t get her attention, nothing will.