Harley Merlin 19: Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere Read online

  Well, he’d certainly had the right person bump into him, if he was into all creatures ancient and terrifying. I’d seen one just over an hour ago. I could still feel the cold touch of his wispy tendrils against my neck if I allowed myself to think about him for too long. The truth was, I wanted to know more about Leviathan—what made him tick and what his history was—for a reason similar to why Nathan researched that kind of creature: to gain insight. Plus, as the old Irish proverb went, better the devil you know. Being in Ireland and all, now seemed like the perfect chance to put that into practice.

  “Ancient? You mean, like Echidna and Leviathan?” I laid the big names out on the table, and uttering Leviathan’s gave me a momentary shudder. Chaos, I hated him, and I hated that his words were the ones that brought me comfort.

  Nathan smiled. “Precisely. True monoliths of Purge beast history. That’s actually why I messaged your mother initially, as she’s one of the only living people with any first-hand knowledge of the fabled Mother of Monsters.” I could practically feel his excitement bubbling up to the surface. “Say, she didn’t tell you anything about Echidna, did she?”

  I shrugged. “Probably nothing you haven’t already heard.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t want to get into the naming curse thing with the clock running down to the wire on our getting to the assembly. Still, it served to know that there was someone in this Institute with an interest in Echidna who might be able to shed some light on her in return for some anecdotal tidbits. I could call in that exchange later, perhaps.

  “I hate to interrupt this monster fan club meeting, but we really need to get going unless we want to be unfashionably late,” Genie interjected, tapping an imaginary watch. “Which way?”

  Nathan gestured to a cluster of black-suits striding along up ahead. “Follow them. I need to drop these papers off before I go to the assembly, but I’ll see you again soon.” He looked at Genie, but his words were directed at me. “I really would like to bend your ear about Echidna, if you can find time over the next week or so? You might have some information that you don’t think is important but could radically help my research.”

  “Sure,” Genie replied for me. “She’d love to, and you can compare monster sketches until the cows come home. But, right now, you need to do your thing and we need to do ours. So, thanks for the directions, and sorry for knocking you on your ass.” She grabbed my hand and hauled me away, and the two of us sprinted down the corridor to catch up to the dwindling group turning left at the top of the hallway. I glanced back to find Nathan watching us go. He jolted a second later and gathered his folders to his chest, as though remembering what he was meant to be doing. I saw him muttering to himself as he cut down a different corridor in the opposite direction.

  Poor guy… I doubted he’d forget Genie in a hurry. Then again, I’d never seen Genie so astonished by a guy before, unless you counted Marius. But that was mostly for show on Genie’s part—Marius wasn’t truly Genie’s type. In fact, I had no idea what Genie’s type was, in the real world. She did always have eclectic celebrity crushes. And maybe Nathan fit that eclectic bill, too.

  We pursued the black-suits down another hallway as they breezed through a set of double doors at the far end, and we, less than gracefully, stumbled in after them. The moment we entered, we were dragged into a current of people, all jostling for space in what looked like an annex room. Another set of towering double doors loomed up ahead, but they weren’t open yet—which meant we weren’t late, after all.

  “Why are there so many people? I thought orientation was just for new hunters,” I whispered to Genie, grasping her hand tightly to keep from getting separated. I knew the Institute was home to more than just students—new and seasoned alike. Like a coven, the fully-fledged hunters also lived and worked here, using this facility as their base of operations. But that didn’t explain why they were all here to witness this assembly. Did they just want to get a peek at the newbies, or was this some kind of tradition we didn’t know about?

  “I have no idea,” Genie replied, swiping an orientation leaflet from a nearby cadet. Her eyes devoured it rapidly. “Ah, that makes sense.”

  I became aware of strangers’ eyes fixing on us, and a prickly heat rose up the back of my neck. “What?”

  “It’s a general assembly.” She pushed the leaflet under my nose. “This is where we meet everybody, trainers and scholars included. And it looks like everyone who lives here gets an invite. They’re probably just here out of curiosity, I guess. Anyway, after the assembly, we get shown around the building, probably so we know where to go when classes start tomorrow. I’m guessing the scholars are the equivalent of preceptors.”

  “Yeah, Nathan mentioned those.” I cast her some serious side-eye. “Speaking of which, he seemed more interested in you than his monsters. And I can’t remember the last time I saw you blush like that. Do I sense a little crush?”

  She crinkled her nose, like she smelled something sour. “Not a chance. He’s got no sense of humor, and I can’t deal with that. He has the looks, sure, but what’s the point if he’s lacking the je ne sais quoi that actually makes me blush? I was just warm from running.”

  “If you say so.” I grinned at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “I do say so. I even threw in some French so you know I’m serious. A guy has to have a… spark of something, you know? He can’t just be nice to look at, or you might as well get a hologram of a movie star.”

  The double doors opened with a ground-shaking boom, and the crowd began to move like water draining down a plug, pouring into the room beyond. As Genie pulled me forward, she flashed me a mischievous smirk. “I liked his tweed, though.”

  Men had always fallen over themselves at the merest sight of Genie, to the point where she could have had her pick, but her heart had some major walls around it—a by-product of her upbringing, where the words “arranged marriage” had been bandied about frequently over the years. She hated the subject, so we didn’t talk about it often, though it always saddened me when we did. It was a tradition I’d never be able to wrap my head around. Anyway, I sensed the prospect of romance was the furthest thing from her mind. We were there to work and study and learn, even if men were literally tripping over their own feet in her presence.

  Careful not to get wrenched apart in the rush of people, we squeezed through the crammed doorway into the assembly hall. Genie tugged my hand, leading me to a cloistered walkway off to the side, where there were fewer people. Everyone else seemed eager to get a front-row seat, fighting over chairs to get as close to the stage as possible.

  “Forget that.” Genie hopped up onto a stone ledge between the cloisters, and I jumped up beside her. “I’m not about to get claustrophobia for the sake of an assembly.”

  I laughed nervously. “No, me neither.”

  “I’d say we got the best seats in the house.” Genie leaned out, her arm wrapped around the cloister pillar. Keeping up my I’m-totally-fine façade, I peered out with her.

  “Wow…” The scale of the hall took my breath away, though that might have been the memory of not being able to get any air. Regardless, it made the SDC’s assembly hall look like a pipsqueak of a gathering spot. A cavernous dome arched overhead, forged of stained glass that depicted great monster battles of bygone days: vast giants waged war against tiny mortals; jeweled thunderbirds struck at their human captors; silvered selkies swam in seal form through cobalt water, while in the next frame they stood in their beautiful human forms on pebbled beaches—shedding their sealskins while oblivious to the hunters lurking behind glass trees, waiting to strike. The colors of the conflicts spilled down onto the congregation in rainbow shards, as though there’d been a happy ending to the tales.

  It wasn’t happy for the Purge beasts, though. I drew my eyes away, realizing that I’d fixated on the stained-glass monsters instead of their human counterparts. A part of me had wanted to cry out to the selkies and warn them off the beaches. But that story had already be
en told, and the real selkies were likely in the Bestiary somewhere, or in a coven Aquarium, being used as back-up generators.

  Genie plucked me out of my thoughts by pointing out the towering septet of white marble dragons. There was one at the head of the room, standing sentinel over the stage, and three down each side of the hall. I didn’t know if they were loadbearing or just decorative, but they packed a heck of a punch. They glowered down at me with golden eyes, which sparkled in the rainbow light cast by the overhead dome.

  “Do you think they’ve got dragons in all these places?” Genie asked, giggling. “How did we end up with bronze ones at the SDC? I wonder if it’s a hierarchy thing—a sign that a coven or an institute is compensating.”

  I clung tighter to the cloister pillar. “I don’t know, I kind of like our bronze ones. They’re homey, and this is all very… regal.”

  “Maybe that’s why I feel like I should be whispering.” Genie beamed, drinking in the atmosphere.

  Everything had a clean, luxurious air, down to the rows and rows of plush white and gold chairs that everyone shuffled to. And beneath all of that were white marble floors streaked with veins of pink and gold. The stage rose up in a balustrade of that same veined marble before giving way to a semi-circle of polished white stone that was neither marble nor the Institute’s favorite concrete. There, figures began to emerge from the wings, but I only recognized one: Victoria.

  Two of the women were sharply dressed in identical tailored suits of ruby red. Very fitting, considering they looked identical, too. I assumed they were the famed Basani twins. Beside them stood a younger woman who bore a startling resemblance to the twins. She was a bit older than Genie and me, dressed more casually in dark gray pants and a crisp white blouse.

  “That’s Charlotte, right?” I nodded toward the younger woman.

  Genie gave an approving nod. “Bingo!”

  A few marble statues caught my eye as my gaze drifted away from the stage and back across the hall. I’d missed them the first time. They were embedded everywhere, gracing the front of the stage, the recesses in the walls, and all the cloisters opposite. Smaller than the dragons, they were no less striking. I spied a chimera, a griffin, a unicorn, a quartet of kelpies pulling a chariot, a pair of loup-garous, and a cluster of feathered snakes, amongst more obscure monsters that I’d seen in my dreams. Wherever I looked, I found more, as if I were playing an elaborate game of hide and seek with these statues, and I was “it.”

  Gradually, the hubbub of the crowd died, and Victoria Jules took center stage. Her voice boomed around the hall, making me think there was some magical amplification on display there. I couldn’t see a mic, but it sounded like she had twenty.

  “Welcome, everyone, to a new season at the Basani Institute,” she began, drawing everyone into her formidable gravitational pull. “As we draw away from the hardships of winter, we must look to the buds of oncoming spring—the nascent sprouts who will bask in the Institute’s knowledge and bloom into fearsome hunters under the tutelage of our expert educators. Please, put your hands together for the new arrivals, for it may be the encouragement they need to endure the trials to come.”

  She paused for applause, and the crowd gave it to her. Reverence hung thick in the air.

  “For our new students, I would advise patience and modesty as you learn what it is to be a hunter. There will not be a single day that passes that you will think of as easy. If you do, you are not doing it correctly. As those who have graduated will tell you, the real world of hunting is far more challenging than anything you will face here. We will prepare you, but your education will never stop.” Victoria surveyed the hall with her intense black eyes and swept a hand through her oh-so-cool hair. “You will hurt, and you will curse the day you came here, but you will build bonds that last a lifetime. And you will understand that your limits are merely guidelines.

  “To our existing classes, I would advise continued patience and modesty for you, also. You walk in the shadows of giants: the great hunters who have gone before you. There are still mountains to climb, and you would do well to remember that.”

  A rumble of laughter made its way around the hall, with those in black suits giving each other knowing nudges. They were the graduates—the ones who’d made it. It wouldn’t be an easy ride to get there, and I didn’t want it to be. I would work my ass off to get one of those black suits and prove that I could make something of myself, curse or no curse.

  “To the graduates, I also advise patience and modesty, for you are not kings amongst peasants. Your purpose is to keep the magical and the human worlds safe from the dangers of monsters. You will never have laurels or glory, nor should you expect them. That is not why we do this. If you still think you will gain glory out of this, I have to assume you’ve got wax in your ears or you think I’m joking.”

  A richer chuckle rippled around the hall. There was a reason she’d ended up as the head huntswoman, and this speech went some way toward proving why. The crowd hung on her every word, even though they weren’t all rainbows and butterflies. She told it how it was, and I appreciated her for that.

  Victoria raised her hands and settled the hall again. “You might have noticed that I mentioned patience and modesty a few times there. That wasn’t an accident.” She cast a fleeting look at me. “No one is born with all the knowledge, or all the skills, or all the talent. This is a perilous profession with a low survival rate. There are no assurances. One mistake can cost even the finest hunter dearly, but that is part and parcel of the life you have all chosen. It is the tough grunt work that keeps the world safe, with our only reward being the continued security of the global covens, fueled by the energy that the beasts we capture give to the Bestiary. We are hunters and captors, not killers.”

  We are not fuel… Leviathan’s voice crept into my skull, a memory of a past encounter, and his words raced to attack Victoria’s. My heart began to race, my throat filling with cotton wool as I tried to drag in a breath or two. All my life, that had been the status quo—beasts were fuel, and magicals needed that fuel. But to think of those creatures in their boxes, maybe feeling the same way that I’d felt in my dream… It swung my moral compass a little, letting in a trickle of doubt that I hoped wouldn’t shatter the dam and unleash hell inside my head.

  “Are you okay?” Genie put a hand on my shoulder, interrupting my small panic attack.

  I closed my eyes for a second to let the world calm around me. “It’s warm, that’s all.”

  I leaned against the pillar for support as Victoria carried on. “There is nothing glamorous about this profession. If you are looking for celebrity, you are in the wrong place.”

  I wouldn’t say that around your founders. I glanced at the Basani twins and saw a flicker of annoyance cross their identical faces. Once upon a time, my uncle Finch had told me tales about those two, and he hadn’t exactly been generous with the flattery. He’d met them in some strange monastery back in the day, and he’d said the twins had been charlatans with an impeccable PR team who’d made sure the duo was splashed on the front page of every magical magazine in circulation. After that encounter, however, Finch guessed the Basani twins had gotten a kick up the caboose and had actually put in the legwork for their legacy. In the aftermath, they’d traveled far and wide to catch beasts, dedicating years to it, until the truth finally matched the lies they’d formerly told—namely, that they were responsible for 15% of the beasts in the Bestiary. And now, this was their empire.

  “It is messy, it is bloody, and it is dangerous.” Victoria put her arms behind her back, standing proud. “But I have faith in your courage and determination, which you have already shown or I would not be speaking to you now.”

  Bloody. I still had my qualms about beast-kind, but I also understood the merits of monster hunting. Without it, monsters would swarm the world, free to hurt and kill innocents who couldn’t fight back. Without it, Leviathan’s vision of Hell on Earth would be reality. It might’ve looked unkind out of c
ontext, but it was necessary... right? I had to remember that, no matter how much Leviathan tried to nudge the needle on that compass of mine.

  “Now, it is my pleasure to introduce you to our honored guests, and the people who will become a large part of your lives.” Victoria gestured toward the Basani twins. “Please greet our founders, Shailene and Fay Basani: two of the best monster hunters who have ever lived. And Shailene’s daughter, Charlotte, who is well on her way to becoming a legend in her own right.”

  Rapturous applause erupted from the congregation as the ruby-suited twins gave a bow. Charlotte, on the other hand, only dipped her head. Either she hated crowds, or she wasn’t as well-versed in public adoration as her mom and aunt.

  “Continue your applause for Ingram MacLoughlin, head of Monster Research.” Victoria introduced a frankly massive man with a shock of bright copper hair and a beard that birds might easily confuse for a nest. He strode out and gave a bow as another figure stumbled along behind him.

  “And, apparently, Mr. Nathaniel O’Hara wishes to make himself known to you all. Please, be particularly generous in your applause for Ingram’s assistant, everyone.” Victoria smiled as Nathan turned beet red in the center of the stage. He fumbled awkwardly, not knowing what to do with himself, and everyone duly gave him a bout of explosive applause.

  This really isn’t his day. I clapped for him, feeling sorry for the man as he scarpered off the stage like a startled mouse. Casting a subtle glance at Genie, I saw her head turn to watch him hurry away. Not quite as disinterested as she’d claimed, but I wasn’t going to rib her for it.

  After Nathan’s fumble, the rest of the faculty paraded across the stage to the tune of Victoria’s introductions. “Tarif Hosseini, master of the hunt. A living legend, who will never allow you to forget it.” She smiled wider as she introduced him—a giant of a man, with a noble look about him, snappily dressed in a red silk suit with a high collar—though I could hear her speeding up to get through everyone.