Harley Merlin 12 Read online

  Kadar sprang up. “We do, though we never say no to devouring more.”

  Can you not? I beseeched him, taking the reins again.

  It’s not my fault if you don’t like the truth, he replied with a chuckle.

  “Unfortunately, since you’re not a djinn, this confrontation doesn’t affect your predicament,” I went on.

  Finch stopped laughing.

  “It doesn’t affect the Levi curse, either,” Santana interjected. “Again, genuinely not bitter about it, but I’m getting sick of hearing about it being lifted. I want to move forward, knowing this is how things will be—me, Raffe, and Kadar, together. That’s why I sniped at you, Finch, which was wrong of me. It’s been an insanely long day, and people had already riled me up by telling lies before I heard your call to Raffe. Other people, who aren’t you. Still no excuse, but… well, I’m sorry.”

  Finch shrugged, his humor gone. “Apology accepted. Melody’s the one who should get an earful of your wrath.”

  “I’m all out,” Santana replied.

  “So, the djinn launched a protest and earned their freedom, giving Erebus a bunch of grief alongside, which he may not even know about yet? Good on them. I hope it ends well. I’m cheering them on, for sure. Did you find out anything about the human servants?” Finch turned back to me, still swinging his legs.

  I gripped the towel rail, my heart racing.

  Tell him, Kadar demanded. He’s got a right to know.

  Give me a minute! I took a shaky breath. “No human servant of Erebus has ever survived a long-term deal.”

  I waited for the shocked gasp or despairing cry, but Finch sat there saying nothing. Taking that as a cue to continue, I did.

  “That is, except one. The Storyteller told us that a Necromancer in Erebus’s service had saved a djinn, and in return, that djinn granted the Necromancer the ability to resurrect himself using a charmed amulet imbued with djinn magic. Considering the only way to escape an Erebus deal is death, this Necromancer died and resurrected himself, tricking his way out of servitude by cheating death… and Erebus, I guess.”

  Finch started to laugh manically again, though his tone was bitter as he rocked precariously on the toilet lid. “It’s Davin, isn’t it? Go on, land that beautiful punchline.”

  I nodded reluctantly. “Yes, it’s Davin.”

  “That slimy boglin! That dirty, evil son of a jezebel!” Finch’s laughter cut out. Pure, savage rage replaced it. “Is there nothing he can’t squirm and cheat and lie his way out of? Death must be kicking itself, seeing that worthless dingbat return time and time again. Man, I’d take a scythe to his friggin’ neck in a heartbeat, if I thought it’d do any good! I’d use his head as a damned basketball, shooting hoops for the rest of my days.”

  Santana and I exchanged a worried look while Miss Foster fled through the wall in alarm. “It means there’s hope for you, Finch,” Santana said slowly, though he clearly didn’t believe a word of her encouragement.

  “Don’t you say that word to me, Santana. Hope, to me, is only a dangling carrot that I’m never going to bite off the damn rod. You hate lies so much, then don’t be a hypocrite.” His tone turned steely. “You said it yourself: I’m not a djinn. I don’t get a free pass.”

  “If you could get that amulet, maybe you could do what Davin did?” Santana proceeded regardless.

  “What am I, a freaking task-monkey?” Finch’s eyes bulged. “If it’s not one mission to try and spare my life, it’s another. And, guess what, there are no guarantees about what you’ve just said. It’s just another aimless wander into the unknown, probably for no payoff.”

  “Finch…” I touched his arm gently.

  He flinched. “Davin is a Necromancer, and he’s way craftier than I’ll ever be. He and I aren’t in the same boat. Say I go after this amulet—what if it doesn’t work? I refuse to get my hopes up again.”

  “You can’t give up now.” Santana joined me on the floor and placed a hand on Finch’s leg. “That’s not who you are. There are so many people in this world who love you, and we’ll do anything to keep you alive. Even if we have to get that amulet for you. Even if we have to get a thousand amulets. You’re not giving up, Finch. Over my dead body.”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “Nope, over mine. She was right. I’m going to die… All of this is only to fend off the inevitable for a while.”

  “She? Who’s she?” Santana cocked her head.

  “The cat’s mother,” Finch mumbled, withdrawing into himself.

  “Now, you listen here, you sad-sap, and you listen good. I’m about to hit you with some home truths.” Kadar burst out, pushing me down. “Are you seriously going to let Davin and Erebus get the better of you? Are you going to lie down and play dead and let those vultures pick at your bones? I’ve watched you this last year. I don’t say this often about humans, but you’ve got more fight in you than a Marid after they’ve downed the blood of a hundred enemies. So pick yourself up, you moron, and get on with your tasks. First, the blood—put Erebus off the scent of you wanting to escape your servitude. Second, get Davin, and that amulet, and free yourself. And keep that putrid glob of excrement from rising again. You need help? You’ve got it, pal.”

  Finch stared at Kadar. “But—”

  “Butts are delicious masses of muscle and fat that are so tender they sizzle when they cook. I don’t want to hear about yours, unless you’re offering up a slice to feed my appetite.” Kadar bristled with energy, giving me a secondhand buzz. “Earlier tonight, I was set against rebellion. Now, I’ve been forced to see the value of freedom over servitude, and I’ve seen that come to fruition. Yes, we got lucky, but we were prepared to fight—we went in thinking we’d have to battle it out for liberation. Be as the djinn. Fight him until there’s nothing left of you, if that’s what it takes. Will you wait for him to end you, or do something about it?”

  Nicely done. I had to give credit where it was due. Kadar had made a more rousing speech than Santana or I could have.

  “Now, how about we get on with this curse-lifting before I decide to despair of the entire human race and leave you djinn-less? Nash won’t wait around forever, and he’ll think you are doing something utterly abhorrent to this toilet.” Kadar’s smoke billowed into the bathroom. “Haven’t you always claimed to be the king of compartmentalization? Take your own advice, you sorry sack of flesh, while you’ve still got air in your lungs.”

  Finch opened and closed his mouth, speechless.

  I rose back to the surface. “You have my word that we’ll keep up the lie. Nash will get his life back, and after we get rid of Davin, hopefully he gets to live a good one. And so will you. The result of this lie justifies it. So, we’re ready when you are.”

  “What he said,” Santana added.

  Finch continued to sit for a moment. Without warning, he stood and crossed to the bathroom door. He turned, a flicker of the old, determined Finch on his face. “Then let’s go, before Nash thinks I’ve taken a Howitzer to the can.”

  All three of us headed for what turned out to be a very homey kitchen. A few ghosts drifted around, but they were almost like part of the furniture, always present. They didn’t scare me. I’d seen enough weird and wonderful things to know that ghosts were nothing to be afraid of. Not this kind, anyway. A poltergeist, sure, but this house had placated its spirits. They were like house guests, simply going about their business.

  “I thought you’d drowned in there.” A stranger in plaid looked up from a bottle of cider. Nash, I guessed. He sat at the kitchen table with Ryann, whom I certainly hadn’t expected to see. Luke and Melody sat on a couch across the room. I didn’t know them well, but I knew their faces and reputations.

  Ryann offered a curious frown. “When did you two get here?”

  “Finch came to get us,” Santana replied smoothly. “There are so many spells on this house, we’d never have gotten in without him. We were just wandering around aimlessly on the street outside, so we ended up calling Finch.”
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  “You’re the one with the djinn problem?” Nash eyed me.

  “Yup.” I nodded.

  Djinn problem? I’ll give him a djinn problem, Kadar muttered inside my head.

  Cool it, Kadar. This is part of the charade, remember? I warned.

  Fine, but if he says anything like that again, I’ll—

  You won’t, I cut him off. No devouring, no nibbling, no tearing, no flesh-consumption of any kind.

  He laughed. Spoilsport.

  Nash pushed his cider bottle away. “How do you want to do this, then?”

  “I guess you just sit there and let Kadar work on the curse,” I replied. Honestly, I had no idea how this worked, but Kadar seemed to. He felt agitated, eager to get on with it.

  You do know how to undo curses, don’t you? I said internally.

  It is one of my specialties. Well, I say that, but it is simply something the djinn innately know how to do. It is in our blood. I am looking forward to this.

  Have you ever thought about unraveling our curse? I had to know.

  He snorted. Our curse was placed upon us by a very old and, presumably, very dead djinn. Other djinn in our ancestry have tried to break it and failed. Because it cannot be broken, in case that needed hammering into your head again.

  Would Nash’s blood really not help?

  Nash’s blood may as well be syrup to us. It is useless for our curse. Its value relies on its application as a substitute for a spell ingredient—nothing more, nothing less. Our curse is too ingrained for such simplistic things. There is no spell to undo ours; therefore, his blood cannot be used as an ingredient. Does your small mind comprehend? I sensed Kadar grinning.

  Yes, I comprehend. And if my mind is small, so is yours, I retorted. I only wanted to clarify.

  Well, now you have. And it’s time for me to work my expertise. He took over a second later, leaving me as the backseat driver as he approached Nash.

  “You ain’t going to gouge my eyes out with spoons, are you?” Nash laughed nervously.

  Kadar smirked. “That depends on how you behave.”

  An enormous husky stood from behind Nash’s chair and stalked between Kadar and its owner. Nash immediately ran a hand through the dog’s fur, his voice soft and reassuring.

  “It’s okay, Huntress. Stand down.”

  The husky did, with a snarky growl, though she stayed at Nash’s side.

  With the obstacle removed, Kadar stepped right up to his victim. Nash braced his palms against the kitchen table. Taking that as a sign of permission, Kadar lunged forward and clasped Nash’s skull between his hands. The husky went berserk, but Kadar paid no attention. In the end, Ryann sat on the floor beside the dog and attempted to hold it steady, in case it tried to attack Kadar mid-unraveling.

  Through Kadar’s ruby-glazed eyes, I had a front-row seat to the ensuing madness. Kadar hummed. His black smoke responded to the noise, flowing away from him and spiraling in a vortex above the kitchen table. It hovered there, awaiting further instruction.

  Deep inside, a rush of energy shivered through our shared veins, crashing along the circulatory network and into our arms, where it careened down to our palms. Red light pulsated against Nash’s temples, feeding into his skull and turning his eyes the same ruby shade as Kadar’s. I gasped, though nobody heard me, buried within my own body. Nash’s pupils swelled, and black tendrils snaked into the red until his eyeballs turned to darkness.

  The moment they went completely black, the hovering smoke surged into him, slithering through his mouth, his nose, his ears, and his eyes. I felt sick, watching what could only be described as possession. I wished I could’ve turned to see the others’ reactions, but I had to focus on what held Kadar’s attention. And he wasn’t about to look away from Nash for anything.

  A gurgling sound swished in the back of Nash’s open mouth. He slammed his fists on the table, a sheen of sweat glistening across his forehead. His body jerked and jolted as Kadar fed that red light into him. This had to be painful. It hurt us, so I could only imagine what it felt like for Nash. Small stabs of pain struck us in the gut, and our lungs struggled to keep up. Meanwhile, the black of Nash’s eyes continued its takeover, snaking out to his skin and spiderwebbing across his features.

  “Are you sure this is helping him?” I heard Melody’s concerned voice.

  “Kadar knows what he’s doing,” Santana replied. Though she didn’t sound entirely convinced.

  Nash convulsed violently as the black strands made their way down his neck to the rest of him, prompting Finch and Luke to action. Luke wrapped his arms around Nash’s body to stop him from convulsing right off the chair. In retrospect, we should have started with Nash lying down or in restraints to keep him safe. But we had to make do with what we had.

  The black strands turned from deadly darkness to a throbbing shade of scarlet. No sooner had the color shifted than the strands receded, gliding back through him in reverse. Eventually, the threads reached his eyes once more, and Nash’s whole body shuddered. The inky stain swirled, blending red and black, until red won.

  Nash blinked once, and a pulse of searing crimson light exploded outward, hitting everyone in the vicinity with a blast of unadulterated energy that sent them flying. Kadar clung to Nash’s head, his palms lodged against his temples, until the light faded.

  I looked over and saw that Nash’s eyes had returned to normal. He stared up at Kadar, exhausted. The only indication that anything had happened to him lay in the two minuscule specks of red, like freckles, which now sat in his vibrant blue irises.

  “Did you… do it?” Nash wheezed.

  Kadar smirked, though he’d lost some of his gusto. In his weakened state, this had taken a lot out of him. More than he wanted anyone to realize, though he couldn’t hide his pain from me. “I did, and I didn’t even need to gouge your eyes out with spoons.”

  “You could’ve warned us.” Finch picked himself up and dusted himself off.

  “What would’ve been the fun in that?” Kadar replied, delivering his usual sass to keep up appearances. However, I got something very different from my symbiotic partner.

  I need to rest, Raffe. It is done, but I have to sleep for some time… That used up more of my energy than I anticipated. I still need to learn my new limits.

  Take all the time you need, I replied, changing places with him. Within me, I sensed Kadar curl up and go to sleep, and my mind felt oddly quiet without him.

  As the rest of our group rose to their feet, Ryann crossed over to the couch and picked up a tin box. She brought it to the table and flipped the lid, revealing a syringe and glass vials.

  “I brought this from the storage cupboard with the bandages,” she explained. “I thought it might save us a trip later.”

  “I guess you want to stick me like a pincushion now? I suppose it’s best to get it out of the way in one go.” Nash glanced at me. “You must be itching to separate from that djinn. He’s a brutal bastard. My head’s going to ring for days.”

  I forced a smile, grateful Kadar was asleep. “It’s what we both want.”

  “So, who’s going to do the honors?” Nash let his gaze move across the group.

  “I will,” Finch volunteered, sitting next to Nash.

  Scraping the tin box along the table, he removed a rubbery tube that lay coiled in the bottom like a yellowish snake. With remarkable precision, he tied the tube above Nash’s elbow and pulled it tight. Next, he removed the syringe and slid it seamlessly into the bluish rise of Nash’s vein. Unsettlingly, it appeared Finch had done this before. I liked to think I knew everything about my friend, but perhaps he still had old secrets. Tricks and skills he’d learned in his time with the cult that he never used in his new life as one of the good guys.

  Deftly, Finch drew eight vials, stoppering each before moving on. That seemed like a lot, but I couldn’t question Finch without mentioning the E-word. Besides, Nash didn’t seem perturbed by the quantity. He simply sat with his face turned away, not watchin
g the blood spurt out of him and into the vials.

  “All done?” Nash asked as Finch stoppered the eighth vial.

  He laid them all in the tin box. “Yep, all done. I’d give you a sticker, but I’m fresh out.”

  “Not even a lollipop?”

  “Fresh out of them, too.” Finch smiled, but it came off strange. Like guilt was attempting to break through.

  “What’s the point in having blood taken if you don’t get sugar afterward?” Nash seemed jovial enough. “Anyway, now that you’ve got what you need, do you think you’ll do the spell today? I’d like to sit in on that, if you are. I’ve never seen a djinn separate from a host before.”

  A bevy of awkward glances drifted around the room.

  “I guess you probably have to take it to someone more powerful, right? An old djinn or someone with Voodoo skill? They know blood better than anyone, apart from us Sanguines.” Nash waxed thoughtful, oblivious to our discomfort.

  “Marie Laveau, actually,” Finch blurted out.

  Nash’s eyes widened. “No way! You’re yanking my chain! Well, now I’ve definitely got to come along. I’ve wanted to meet her for years. I tried, once, to see if she could help me, but I couldn’t get through her door. Guess she didn’t want to see me, huh?”

  Finch opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he said was drowned out by another voice that blasted through the entire house. It shook the walls, making everyone jump. And we knew that voice all too well.

  “Hello there, you little buggers! Did you miss me?”

  Thirty-Nine

  Finch

  Everyone covered their ears as Davin’s voice splintered our ear canals like well-aimed javelins of narcissistic assholery.

  “I bet you thought you didn’t have to worry about me, in this so-called sanctuary of placated spirits.” His voice thundered, shaking the cider bottles off the table and the chintzy porcelain plates from the kitchen shelves. “That little stunt only dazzled me for a moment. Now, I have come to dazzle you with my insight, for briefly stealing my eyesight.”