Wade
Icouldn’t stop staring at her. I’d have liked nothing more than to run to her and hold her close, even though I sensed it might be like hugging a tornado. Still, I was relieved she was alive. And worried, at the same time. Harley had changed. She was different than the girl who’d gone into the box. It was clear in the way she stood without fear, as if she could take on the world single-handed and win. Not to mention the way she’d hurled that guy against the wall as if he weighed nothing. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed the difference, too, but they were all too focused on Levi. The little rat was trying to get his own way again.
“Security, seize her this instant or see yourselves without a job!” His voice wavered slightly and revealed his true fear. His staff was scared of Harley, and so was he. They didn’t want to face her any more than Levi did, job or no job.
Harley descended the steps of Echidna’s plinth. Man, she even moved differently. She had a swagger almost, but it wasn’t cocky. It was the stride of someone powerful. “I assure you, Levi, I’m completely fine,” she said. “I just don’t like being manhandled, that’s all. I’ll happily have another Reading done soon, but right now we have more pressing matters to discuss. And I suggest you dismiss your security team first, unless you want them to hear everything I have to say?”
“I don’t see what can be more pressing than your Reading, Harley,” Levi shot back.
“I’ll count to three before I start spilling my guts.” A twinkle of mischief lit up her eyes. “Send the security teams away, or they hear everything Echidna told me. And before you try and tell me that everyone should hear, just remember what happened with Nomura.”
Levi looked torn. He glanced at the black-clad security and back at Harley.
“One,” she said. It hung heavy in the air.
He pulled a sour face. “You—”
“Two.”
“Security, you are dismissed until I call for you.” He shot a bitter look at Harley. “And I will certainly be calling upon you sooner rather than later.” With a thunder of boots, the security personnel obediently left the hall. That left only Levi, Alton, O’Halloran, me, and the Rag Team in the hall. Even the preceptors had been sent away. They hadn’t argued.
Harley smiled strangely. “Now that there are fewer of us, why don’t you try this on for size, Levi? Number one, kill a god in the land of night. Sadly, that one’s been done. Number two, kill a Father of Magicals in the land of Gaia. Number three, consume the spirit of thine greatest enemy in the land of Erebus on All Hallows’ Eve. Don’t think I’ve ever said ‘thine’ in my entire life. Anyway, number four, cut the head off the Mother of Monsters in the Land of Light. Number five, the Challenger must acquire twelve powers and bathe in the blood of her blood, in the light of a full moon. The twelve powers will become the twelve keys required to open the door to the realm of the challenged Child of Chaos. Only upon the orderly completion of all five rituals will the Child become unable to reject the Challenger’s claim to their power.”
The remaining people in the room gaped at her. Myself included. She’d just rattled off the entire list of rituals as if they were groceries. Echidna must have revealed them to her inside the box. After all, she wasn’t bound by Chaos in the same way as the Children.
“But the rituals are prone to wider interpretation, so what you see on the tin might not be what’s in it, if you catch my drift,” she added. “Our focus has to be on the second ritual. Gaia told me that Katherine is about to perform it, but she hasn’t completed it, which means there’s still time to get in her way.”
“Kill a Father of Magicals in the land of Gaia?” I replied. We’d already heard that one from the Librarian.
Harley smiled at me. “Precisely.”
“And just who is this Father of Magicals?” Levi snorted.
“That’s what we have to figure out, and fast.” Harley came closer and ignored our shocked faces.
“We thought it might be a descendant of one of the Primus Anglicus,” Dylan chimed in.
Tatyana nodded. “Or the spirit of one of them? The first one, presumably.”
“Is there a Father of Monsters?” Raffe said.
“Wouldn’t it have said ‘Father of Monsters’ if that was the clue? It states the Mother of Monsters in one of the later rituals, so I don’t think that would make sense,” Santana replied. She put her arm around Raffe’s shoulders. The djinn had been a little unruly of late, and he was still visibly on edge.
Levi shook his head. “Well, this is stupid. Why would these rituals be so vague? Why not spell it out more clearly?”
“I imagine it’s meant to be difficult. Otherwise, everyone would be trying it.” Isadora cast him a dry smile.
O’Halloran lifted his hand abruptly. “What if it means a leader of magicals? Leaders can sometimes be seen as paternal figures, right? The founding fathers of our great nation, for example, and that sort of thing?”
Movement swirled in Echidna’s box, distracting us. Inside, the monster had turned back into smoke that billowed out and hit the glass in powdery waves. A second later, frost crept up the inside pane and encased her in a bubble of ice. The charms had been restored. Echidna was asleep again. Thank goodness for that. Tobe exited shortly afterward and locked the box. He dusted off his paws and slipped the keys into his wings.
“What are we talking about?” He looked at us expectantly.
“The second ritual,” I said. “We need to figure out what ‘Father of Magicals’ means.”
O’Halloran nodded. “I thought it might have something to do with a leader of some kind. A metaphorical father figure.”
Tobe tilted his head. “What about a coven director? They are often looked up to as paternal figures, especially by those who have no parents of their own. Take Alton for example; he is surely a father figure to the magicals of the San Diego Coven.”
Levi turned up his nose. “Alton is no longer the coven director here, so it cannot be him.”
“That was only a suggestion, Levi,” Alton said. “I don’t think it’s me, either, for what it’s worth. Directors are very localized, so it would be impossible to figure out which one might be considered a Father of Magicals. It could be someone with far greater reach.” Alton glanced down at Levi. Tobe’s remark had clearly irked him, given his new position here. It was still a pissing contest between the two of them.
Levi’s eyes widened suddenly. “I’ve got it!”
“What have you got?” Harley leveled her gaze at him.
“The president of the United Covens of America, Steven Price. He would most certainly be considered a Father of Magicals; he’s the leader of an entire nation.” He tapped the side of his chin. “Not to mention the fact that Katherine knows him very well indeed. The two of them came up together in the New York Coven and tended to move in the same elite circles. Naturally, he has renounced any affiliation with her, but they were close acquaintances, once upon a time.”
Isadora gasped. “That’s got Katherine written all over it. That would be one hell of a statement, wouldn’t it? ‘Here I am, Katherine Shipton, and I’ve just murdered the president of the UCA.’ It’s exactly what she’d do, if given the opportunity. She won’t be able to resist it!”
Harley nodded. “I was told that the next ritual would happen in a place with lots of people. If our assumptions are right, then that points to one place in particular.”
“The Washington Assembly,” I said. The pieces fit perfectly. Katherine wanted a grand stage to prove her power, and Washington was it. A ripple of shock bubbled around the gathered group. The implications were all too clear.
“We’ve got to move fast on this,” Harley urged. “The Assembly is only a day away, which means we’ve got a super brief window to stop Katherine. Levi, what do you say to letting us plan our form of attack? The fewer people who know what we know, the better. After that stunt with Nomura this morning, we’re just about the only people you can trust in this joint, whether you like it or not.”
All of us looked at Levi. I didn’t know which way the dice would fall on this one.
Levi grimaced. “I suppose I have very little choice.” He glanced at Harley. “However, you must remain under constant supervision, from either your team, your aunt, or… frankly, whoever is willing to take on the job. All I care about is that you are being watched around the clock. I’m simply not comfortable with you like this, having free run of the coven.”
“Well, I’m not comfortable with you as our coven director, but hey, we can’t all get what we want in life, right?” Harley snarked. A grin tugged at my lips.
“You may not like it, but I am still your director,” Levi retorted. “And I won’t forget your actions today. You disobeyed direct orders. Rest assured that I will be thinking of appropriate penalties for all of you and will execute them once we have completed our mission in Washington. Now, I suggest you all get some rest and stand by. We will reconvene in the morning.”
Garrett pushed through the group. “Actually, Director, I was wondering if I might have a quick word with you in your office? I wanted to discuss my latest task with the LA Coven.”
I cast him a withering look. The rest of the Rag Team joined me. From where we were standing, it looked like Garrett had just weaseled back out of our group and sided with the boss in order to gain favors. It’s a slippery climb to the top, pal. Then again, “slippery” should have been Garrett’s middle name. He’d always been good at getting out of trouble and in with the right people. Nothing had changed in all the years I’d known him.
Not that I really cared what Garrett was up to. With all the talk of Washington out of the way for tonight, my focus returned to Harley. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The others were walking toward the door, but I lingered a moment. I took her hand. She glanced at me in surprise. I didn’t want to bombard her with questions, but I needed to know what had changed. She looked the same. She felt the same. She sounded the same. But something was off.
She said she was okay, Wade. I repeated the words over and over in my head. I wanted to take solace in them, I really did. The only trouble was, I didn’t know whether to believe her.