The following morning, after a restless night’s sleep, we gathered again in the Luis Paoletti Room, using Alton’s secret hallways to reach it undetected. Finch had spent the night in the storage cupboard of the infirmary, with Krieger keeping guard in case anyone came in unexpectedly. I remembered falling asleep in Wade’s arms after trying to watch a movie to take our minds off things, but he’d been gone by the time I woke up. I’d been a little disappointed, wondering if I’d done something wrong, but he’d come to get me at seven on the dot, a smile on his face. I sat beside him now as we grouped around the main table.
Although Shinsuke hadn’t been part of our group for very long, I still felt his absence. He’d died helping us, and the knowledge that he’d never get to see his father again stuck like a fishbone in my throat. We’d held a sort of vigil for him before heading to bed the previous night, lighting a candle in the infirmary chapel for him. It wouldn’t bring him back, but it served as an honorable reminder of what he might have been.
Alton had joined us, his face a picture of anxiety as I relayed everything that had gone on in Erebus’s otherworld, and in the last week during our time at the cult. I told him everything, even the stuff he’d already heard, just to make sure we were all on the same page. There was a whole lot of doom and gloom to get through, and none of us had even had breakfast yet.
“So, in a nutshell, Katherine completed the third ritual,” I said. “We need to make sure she can’t steal Echidna from the Bestiary. We have to let the National Council know what’s going on, too.”
We were in over our heads, at this point, and I wasn’t too proud to admit that. We would’ve informed the National Council ourselves, but Garrett was AWOL and not answering his phone, and Alton had been otherwise engaged with Levi when we got back last night, his phone also going straight to voicemail.
“We thought we’d stopped Katherine when Harley released Hester’s spirit, which would’ve meant Echidna was safe, but now… well, that didn’t exactly go as planned,” Wade added.
“But we did manage to gather some intel from the cult, and we freed… never mind.” Finch sat back in his chair. The news of Shinsuke was still pretty raw for all of us. I hadn’t been there in his last moments, but I knew Finch must have seen more than he was letting on. And if even he wasn’t willing to go into details, I reasoned I didn’t want to know what had actually happened to him.
Alton frowned. “You mentioned summoning Erebus… Since when have you been able to use summoning spells?”
“That’s what you’re focusing on?” Finch snorted. “Bigger fish, Alton. Bigger fish.”
“It happened around the same time I learned I could read from unfinished Grimoires,” I replied, as if it were no biggie.
Finch nearly fell off his chair. “You can do what now?”
“You heard me, Finch.”
“Katherine would need a bib if she heard that; she’d be drooling all over herself.” Finch chuckled, but I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. Katherine had stolen any humor I had left.
“But how could you summon Erebus without a Grimoire, finished or unfinished?” Alton eyed me warily, like I was a curious animal in a zoo.
“It’s from my parents’ Grimoire. Somehow, I can read their spells, even without being near the book,” I explained. Finch’s eyes were practically bugging out of his head.
“You continue to surprise me, Harley.” Alton smiled kindly. “Between that, this Purge beast control you have, and the rest of your abilities, it’s no wonder that Katherine has decided she wants to use you. Not that she’s going to have the opportunity, of course.”
“We could really use your help on this,” I said. “The National Council will listen to you, if you let them know what’s happened. And, if they have any ideas, we’d like to know about them.”
“We’ll definitely have to notify the authorities, as you suggest,” he replied. “The National Council, the local council, and the security services. And we’ll have to let Tobe know that Katherine is coming for Echidna. We don’t have to mention your involvement at all; we can just say that news of the third ritual’s completion came from an internal source. As Shinsuke is no longer with us, we may be able to use him in that capacity. I don’t want to make him the scapegoat, but if I can get the National Council to see that he was on our side, it might give him the honor he deserves, even after his passing.”
I nodded. “I don’t like the idea of it any more than you do, but that might be our best option. Say you intercepted a call that he was making to his father, and he revealed everything to you.”
“That may work,” Alton replied. “However, there is the problem of Finch to deal with, as well as informing the authorities. You need to get him back to Purgatory as soon as you can to reduce the risk of his duplicate failing.”
Santana made a small, strained sound. “Yeah, about that—I’ve got no idea how much longer I can hold both at the same time. My concentration slipped a lot in Tartarus. I can still feel them, and they’re doing their own thing, but it’s only a matter of time before my Orishas can’t keep it up anymore.”
“I agree, it’s getting way too risky,” I said.
Finch cleared his throat. “No way. I’m not going back there.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”
“I’m not going back to that place. I’ve gotten a taste for freedom, and I’m not giving that up for a glass box and a cold shower.” He smirked. “Besides, I figure I’ve proved myself enough. I’m not jumping through a bazillion hoops to get out the ‘official’ way.” He made bunny ears around the word, and the tension spiked in the room. This hadn’t been part of the agreement. Now, everyone was staring at him.
“Finch, you have to go back,” I said. “We agreed.”
“Things change.” He shrugged. “You can keep my copy there. If you really want to, you could sneak the Orisha out and make it look like I broke out. That’d give me some legend status. They’d have to add me to the handful of people who’ve escaped that hellhole. Not that I care what you do about it. I’m just telling you I’m not going back.”
“Finch!”
“Finch,” he mimicked, with a smile. “Listen, Katherine is still on the loose. I refuse to be in a cell while she’s free and driving a bulldozer through everything.”
I stared at him. “If Santana’s Orisha fails, and you aren’t where you’re supposed to be, then we’re all royally screwed. You’ll put everything we’ve worked toward at risk. Come on, Finch, you know you have to do this.”
He shrugged. “It’s easy for you to just dictate what I should do—you haven’t been there. You haven’t lived in those glass cells. If you had, you’d be backing me right now.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to find out what it’s like sooner than you think, if you don’t do as you’re told!” I snapped.
“Not my problem. Unless they drag me back themselves, I’m not going.”
Santana slumped forward on the table, sweat glistening on her brow. She was breathing heavily, rasping in air. Raffe hurried to help her, shaking her by the shoulders until she blinked her eyes open again. She looked really pale, her expression dazed.
“Santana? Santana, what’s the matter?” Raffe urged.
“My… Orishas. I felt something.”
“What did you feel?” Wade jumped in.
“Someone… Someone killed the Orisha in Alaska,” she gasped, pain etched on her face. No sooner had she spoken than a blinding flash exploded in front of her. As the sudden blast faded, I saw an orb of bluish light hover above the table for a moment, before it frantically dove inside Santana.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.
Santana shook her head slowly. “I… I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
It became clear a moment later, when a second flash erupted in front of Santana and whizzed inside her. If the Orisha in Alaska was dead, then that meant only one thing—that second bluish orb was the Orisha from Purgatory, and Finch’s duplicate was gone.
This was all going horribly wrong. And after the gigantic failure of the last week, I’d had just about enough of things taking a turn for the worst.
The door to the Luis Paoletti room burst open, and Leonidas Levi stormed in, flanked by armed security magicals and a sheepish O’Halloran. All of their Esprits were lit up, itching for a fight, with Atomic Cuffs poised and ready.
I stared at them all, wide-eyed. There was no way they could have known where to find us. But they had. And we weren’t getting out of here without a serious fight.
“You are all a disgrace to the SDC! Look at you, you selfish, nasty, vile little wretches!” Levi bellowed, beyond furious. “I give you chance after chance, and you think you can pull the wool over my eyes? You appall me, every single one of you.” He turned to me. “But you! You think you can just do whatever you like, with no consequences. Well, that’s about to change. Not even I can overlook breaking a criminal out of Purgatory. Speaking of which, it looks like you’ve saved us the trouble of tracking this spiteful little creature down.” He sneered at Finch.
“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.