Harley Merlin 12 by Bella Forrest (story books to read TXT) 📗

he starts Tweeting.” I heaved a sigh and tucked the box under my arm.

Melody put her hand on my shoulder. “Do you want someone to come with you?”

I opened my mouth to start the usual diatribe, but she jumped in before I could.

“And before you chatter about the danger, I don’t mean one of us actually going and meeting Erebus with you. I just mean one of us coming along for moral support and hanging back while you make the exchange.”

I relaxed. “Thanks for the offer, but it’s easier if I do this alone. If I’m not back in half an hour, you can assume I’m either dead or shivering on a clifftop somewhere, on a new mission.”

“Don’t say that!” She looked horrified.

“Bad taste. Sorry.” I offered an apologetic grin. “But I should get going.”

To my surprise, Melody pulled me into a hug. “I know you hate physical contact, but deal with it for a minute. I’m a hugger.”

“Luke is staring,” I whispered. Even if I hadn’t been able to see his puppy-dog eyes over her shoulder, I’d have sensed his envy a mile off. He might as well have whined like Huntress.

She pulled away sharply and made a show of dusting my arms like a worried mom sending her kid off to college. “You be safe, Finch.”

“I will,” I replied with a smile.

Nash stood up and extended his hand. “We’re going to make this worth it, right? We’re going to give that lowlife hell, one of these days?”

“You bet your finest plaid shirt we are.” I shook his hand. It felt like a weird goodbye, considering I’d hopefully see them all again within the hour. But Nash probably still had nerves about this, so I didn’t mind giving the guy some reassurance.

He smirked. “Nothing wrong with plaid, pal.”

I took my bloody goods and headed for the exit. The three of them followed me to the door, looking like a dysfunctional family as they waved me off.

Once I was free of the Winchester House and its spiritual defenses, I opened the tin box and removed the three extra vials, slipping them into my pocket to stow for backup. If my mother had taught me anything, it was to always have a backup for your backup, and even another backup after that, if possible.

With the vials safely hidden, I used my charmed chalk to draw a doorway to the rat-infested alley outside the industrial park where I’d met Erebus before. This time, since I knew exactly where I was going, I didn’t have to rely on pricey cabbies charging me an arm and a leg to circle the block a few times. The edges of the doorway crackled as I whispered the Aperi Si Ostium spell, then opened onto the grim expanse of massive warehouses and foul-smelling dumpsters. The scent hit me the moment I walked through—that heady aroma of rotting food and chemical waste.

“Erebus?” I called into the gloom. This place was way worse after sunset. The wailing police sirens in the distance did nothing to help my anxiety.

“Over here.” Erebus emerged from behind a dumpster, looking—dare I say—a bit disheveled. His sleek shirt had come untucked from his pants, a few buttons undone. His pants showed a few smudges and dark, unsettling stains along the legs.

I approached hesitantly. “Everything peachy, Erebus? I thought you’d dance a jig after hearing I had your blood.”

“As if you don’t already know.” His dark eyes glinted, but it wasn’t an angry glint. More of a miffed glitter.

“Know what?” I wanted to see how much he’d found out about the crumbling cookie of his domain.

“You fraternize with djinn. Don’t play coy, as I lack the energy for our usual witty repartee. You already know what I am contending with,” he replied, his tone cold.

“Hey, the only djinn I know just turned up before I texted you, and he’s apparently wiped out. I didn’t have much time to chat with him. I have no idea what’s going on.”

I kept up the ruse, just in case he thought I was somehow responsible. I might’ve been friggin’ euphoric that he’d lost his otherworld to the djinn he’d enslaved, but that didn’t mean I wanted to pay for what they’d done. For once, it literally had nothing to do with me.

Erebus paused uncertainly. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That those ungrateful beasts severed themselves from me and stole my otherworld.” He stiffened, his hands shaking with quiet rage.

I feigned astonishment. “What?”

“I felt the detachment a short while ago and attempted to return to Tartarus to investigate, only to be rebuffed by my own realm,” he hissed, staring at the dumpster as if he wanted to flip it. “Unable to connect to the djinn network, I was left in the dark, and literally left out in the cold. Until a Chaos spirit visited me. That vile witch, the so-called Storyteller. One of my first, now my ultimate betrayer—giving herself to free those cursed wretches. She told me all before she returned to the Chaos stream. A last jab, in utter defiance of everything I did for them!”

I gulped. This quiet anger was worse than his usual booming fury. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

His lips twisted into a grimace. “You couldn’t have. Nobody but her could have. I showed too much to her; I trusted my creations too keenly. And now they have stabbed me in the back.”

Phew… I guessed I was off the hook. Although, it felt a little too easy. Maybe I’d gotten lucky this time.

“Can’t you make more?” I suggested.

“That is beside the point, Finch!” he snapped. “Of course I can, but that does not lessen the traitorous sting of what they have done. And creating more will mean creating a new Nexus, as the Storyteller destroyed what I had carefully crafted in the undertaking of this mass treachery. But perhaps the djinn were due for an improvement. Had this come at another time, I might have welcomed the challenge of conjuring new entities, far greater and