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

handle like he wanted to take it out for dinner. I saw the cogs whirring. Our hermit friend was weighing his options. Do nothing and be safe in his selfishness, or help us and risk putting a target on his back again. No judgment from me, though—he and I were in twin canoes, about to lose our respective paddles. I’d understand if he stood his ground and said no… I just hoped he wouldn’t.

And that is one hundred percent your selfishness talking. You’d throw this plaid sucker under a fleet of buses to gain your freedom, a whisper hissed inside my head. The gremlins were back, less than an hour after my last dose. And that had been a double dose, to top up the one before it.

I dug my fingernails into my palms. The twinge of pain lodged me in reality, and I needed to hold on to reality for a while longer. Just until Nash agreed. He was teetering on the edge of yes; I could see it on his face. I thought about finding that pocket of calm Melody had tucked away inside my noggin, but that would mean abandoning ship. If I did that, Nash would have questions, and that might make him think twice about putting his faith in us. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone encountered my dark side and turned tail.

“If it gets really bad, we can always find another djinn to restore the curse.” Yup, I was scraping a grimy barrel now. But only because I had no idea how long I’d be able to fight the gremlin tide. If faces started getting twisty and demonic again, Huntress might turn me into fleshy ribbons to protect her soul-partner.

“But it shouldn’t come to that.” Melody swept in. “I have an entire world’s worth of information in my head, from centuries of magicals and Chaos. Trust us. We’ll get you out of this predicament, if you get us out of ours. Our friend’s life depends on it. I know that may not mean anything to you, but it means a great deal to us.”

Nash sighed. “I’ve got to say, your timing is weird.”

“What do you mean?” I prompted.

He glanced at us as if debating whether to continue. “Well… I’ve been feeling worse lately. This curse is meant to keep me good for another decade or so, but… I feel messed up. It’s harder to get out of bed in the morning, and it ain’t because of the cold. It’s why I moved back here from another outpost—I couldn’t maintain an interdimensional bubble. It took too much out of me.”

Erebus’s separation from the djinn must be affecting him, too. I knew Erebus couldn’t interfere with djinn magic, but maybe the magic itself weakened when the power source wasn’t providing the juice. But I couldn’t say that without revealing that our need had something to do with Erebus.

“You’ve been sick?” Melody pressed.

Nash peeled back the Band-Aid on his arm, revealing cracked, dark threads of collapsed veins. “Yeah. I don’t bounce back so easy. Even walking in the woods leaves me breathless.”

Melody and I exchanged a glance, evidently on the same wavelength.

“And if you find a way out of this, then… ah man, I don’t know. It’s a lot to give up, and it’s a big gamble for me.” He covered up his wound again. “But this curse has definitely sped up, and I wouldn’t want to die with unfinished business.”

“Unfinished business?” Luke narrowed his eyes. “What kind?”

“Personal stuff.” Nash’s grip tightened around his unfinished blade. The grim expression on his face told me it was more than finishing his knife collection. No, I’d seen that look before… he was referring to a vendetta. One burning him up inside.

A noise outside made all our heads whip around. An oh-so-human scuffle of feet, crunching in the snow. The spike of terror that jolted through me tipped the fragile balance. The floodgates tore open, and my brain sailed away on the unleashed torrent.

I envisioned a horde of demonic magicals in the clearing, palms raised and ready to pound us into oblivion. A second later, Erebus’s distorted figure loomed over me. He stood on the top of Mount Sisyphus in his otherworld, gesturing to ten wooden posts he’d erected, complete with eleven dangling figures all strung up by their arms. Blood splattered across them, their bodies ragged with open wounds: Harley, Ryann, Wade, Melody, Luke, Saskia, Garrett, Tatyana, Kenzie, and Kenzie’s mom and sister. Purge beasts crouched in front of each person, awaiting orders to execute.

“You have disappointed me for the last time. I warned you, did I not? I warned you until I was blue in the face, and it made no difference. You understood the stakes, and yet you chose to fail me,” Erebus hissed in my ear, back in his floaty Child of Chaos form.

This isn’t real… it can’t be… Erebus is still in human form. But I no longer knew what was what—the lines had blurred beyond recognition. I felt the hot-and-cold prickle of Erebus’s breath on my neck. I heard the roar of the Purge beasts below. I smelled the metallic tang of fresh blood in the air, and the foul stench of the creatures waiting to kill the people I cared for.

I tumbled off my stool to the floor, then clung to it, using it to pull myself upright. Burying my face in my knees and wrapping my arms around my legs, I cowered as the panic and nightmares hit me in wave after wave. Closing my eyes wouldn’t have helped. The nightmares played out in front of me, phasing in and out of reality and the cabin surrounding me.

Just then, Huntress charged me, her white coat and husky face morphing into a gigantic hellhound with bared fangs that dripped blood. The scent of sulfur and fire washed over me. I screamed, lifting my hands in preparation to unleash a blockade of Telekinesis.

“Calm down!” Melody shouted, tugging Huntress away before skidding to