One
Harley
Chaos had gone. Our veins were empty of it. There wasn’t any pain, just a dull ache that had nothing to do with the actual, physical tear of having our abilities wrenched away. It was the dull ache of losing something that had always been part of us. I kept glancing at the others, waiting to feel their emotions, only to be hit with a wall of nothing.
It’d been less than an hour since our magic had been taken away, and we were all still reeling. Sure, we had a sliver of hope in the form of the Chaos-filled supernatural beings that existed on this earth, but that hadn’t given us back our powers.
“How are those charms holding up?” I turned to Santana, who was doing an anxious round of the Catemacos’ retreat in Mexico.
Santana shrugged. “No idea. Those keris O’Halloran took are glowing, so I’m going to guess that’s a good thing? I just freaked out and assumed all the Chaos had gone, but that might not be true. If the weapons are still going, maybe the charms are as well.”
Finch nodded. “Shiny-ass Chaos weapons should be a dead giveaway that there’s some juice left in this cabin.”
“Keris?” I frowned.
“Magical daggers, Indonesian origin. Pinched from the SDC museum, and probably never going to be returned.” Santana flashed me a halfhearted smile. “Anyway, they’re lighting up like nobody’s business whenever I put them near these carved charms, so I’d say there’s a chance we’re still hidden out here.”
The cabin was pretty much jam-packed, with Wade, Finch, Santana, Levi, Krieger, Raffe, Dylan, Tatyana, Astrid, Garrett, Alton, O’Halloran, and Jacob standing around, each one coming to terms with their lack of Chaos while trying to keep looking toward the options we had left.
Well, Jacob and Alton were lying down, one just about conscious, the other one totally out of it and being attended to by a helpless, magicless Krieger. Meanwhile, Isadora had been laid out on the sofa by Wade and Finch with a blanket covering her, her body so still I could hardly bring myself to look at her. Everyone was devastated, wearing the same lost expression. There was nothing anyone could do to resurrect Isadora this time. The only thing Krieger could do without his Organa magic was try to keep Alton comfortable.
We knew Katherine was responsible for our missing Chaos. Nobody else could’ve pulled that off. But at least we knew she wasn’t coming after us, as long as those keris daggers kept glowing and the charms surrounding the cabin held. We all needed a moment to breathe, to wrap our heads around what had happened.
“Looks like my ancestors did one heck of a security job on this place,” Santana said, glancing at me. “But I’m guessing we’re not planning to hide out here and wait until this whole thing blows over? I mean, we’d probably end up crawling out to find that the end of the world had already happened.”
Raffe smirked. “Fire and brimstone. Demons and pitchforks. And Katherine standing at the head of it all.”
I shot him a curious look. Kadar and Raffe had started to slide so effortlessly between one another that it was harder to tell who was speaking. There wasn’t always the faint tinge of red to give the djinn away if he was only popping up for a split second, and that recent utterance hadn’t sounded like a Raffe thing to say.
Not that it mattered. In the days to come, we were going to need Kadar more than ever. He and Zalaam, Levi’s djinn, still had their Chaos intact, separate from the magic that had been snatched away from Raffe and Levi. This made them two of our most valuable assets.
“I wish we could wait this out, but this isn’t a wait-and-see kind of scenario anymore,” I replied. “We need to get after Katherine with every supernatural, Chaos-filled creature and item we can muster: Kadar, Zalaam, Garrett’s Avenging Angel sword, and those keris daggers included.”
Jacob tried to drag himself to his feet, only to stumble and crash back down. He looked awful. His eyes were hollow and rimmed with red, his face pale. I rushed to him and helped him into a sitting position, leaning him up against the back of the sofa. He was breathing hard, his hands balled into fists.
“I should’ve woken up sooner,” he said tightly. “I was trying so hard to fight the spell she put on me. I tried every single hour of every single day since she knocked me out. When that didn’t work, I kept trying to get a message through to Louella, but it was like Katherine had put my head in a thick glass bubble. Louella could only hear scraps. And now… And now she’s gone, because I wasn’t strong enough to fight back. If I’d just gotten the right message to her, she might still be alive.” Tears spilled down Jacob’s cheeks, his chest wracked with choked sobs.
I struggled to hold back my own tears.
“There’s nothing you could’ve done, Jacob,” I managed. “Katherine was already one step ahead of us all, but she’s not going to stay ahead of us. I promise you that. We’re going to get her, for Louella, for Isadora, and for everyone else she’s hurt.” I put my arm around his shoulders and held him tight. “Isadora told me to tell you goodbye before she passed on again. She cared about you so much. We all do. They wouldn’t want to see you sad; they’d want to see you getting your strength back, so you could join us in our final battle against Katherine.”
He covered his face with his hands. “I almost got a message through to Louella about Imogene and Katherine before all of that happened in the infirmary. I fed the truth to her, but she was asleep and she didn’t hear me. She was so tired, and I wasn’t strong enough to get that message through again until… well, you know what happened. I should’ve known Katherine would’ve had backup ready.”
“You did everything you could, just like the rest of us,” I insisted. “We should’ve been focusing on the aftermath of her becoming a Child of Chaos from the very beginning, but we were so blinded by confidence that we thought we could cut her off before that point. This isn’t your fault. Katherine is solely responsible.”
“I’ll kill her,” Jacob spat. “I’ll portal to wherever she is, and I’ll throw her into another portal that goes nowhere so I can watch it crush her to death. It’s what Louella and Isadora would’ve wanted. I’m not going to let them down.”
I hugged him closer. He was just a brokenhearted teenager who’d lost his mentor and his friend and couldn’t get them back. Louella had given up her life right after hitting Katherine where it hurt, getting in one last dig to make Katherine doubt herself. So, I could understand Jacob’s anger and grief. We all felt it. But there was one thing he was forgetting…
I rubbed his back, as though he were a kid. “Nobody is portaling anywhere for a while, Jacob. But we will get her.”
He frowned, and then realization dawned. “Oh, right. No Chaos. I forgot.”
“I think that’s going to happen a lot in the days to come.” I was testament to that, constantly trying to feel out my friends’ emotions only to remember my Empathy had gone, along with the rest of my abilities.
“This is hopeless!” Krieger threw down the first-aid kit he’d found in the cabin and ran a hand through his hair. He was shaking. “How am I supposed to do anything without my Chaos? I’ve never in my life been without it!”