She shook her head. “I’ve already got a burner, remember?”
“Oh… yeah.” Jacob, Harley, and I had received them as gifts when we’d visited my old pal Kenzie and her goldmine of stolen goods. Mine was back at the SDC, since I’d switched back to my usual phone from one of my secret stashes after returning. So stupid.
“My other phone is out of action, so no problem there,” she added. Once the smashing had subsided, everyone’s focus returned.
“If we’re gathering supernaturals, then we need to get to Tobe and the Bestiary,” Wade urged. “Krieger, you said Tobe was working on disconnecting the Bestiary from the SDC when Katherine hit the infirmary with that crumbling spell. Do you think he managed it?”
Krieger shook his head. “It would’ve been a temporary measure until the danger had passed. As soon as the crumbling spell stopped, Tobe would’ve reconnected the Bestiary. In hindsight, it would have been useful to keep it disconnected, but we didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“So there’s one thing we need that we don’t have: magic. And, what’s more, we can’t go back to the SDC to gather the beasts in the Bestiary. You can bet your ass Katherine will have her people surrounding the coven.” Harley stared out of the window at the creature from the Black Lagoon.
“Plus, we’re human now. I doubt the SDC would even let us in,” O’Halloran pointed out.
“He’s right.” Wade shook his head. “Shoot, he’s right.”
Levi nodded. “And, if Katherine has taken Chaos away from all magicals, then that has some truly terrible implications.”
“Like?” Raffe prompted.
It was Astrid who answered, the only one of us who wasn’t losing her mind over what had just happened. I never thought, in all my life, that I’d ever call a human lucky, but this whole debacle definitely gave her an edge. She knew how to live like this. It was all she’d ever known.
“The covens across the globe will likely have already begun reacting to the influx of non-magicals. And by that I mean the former magicals who were inside the covens when their abilities were taken,” she explained. “You have to think of covens as sentient organisms. They accept magicals based on their Chaos and having their names in the registry. If the magicals who were inside suddenly become powerless and human, the way it happened to all of you, then the covens will probably throw them out. It’s like an automatic alarm system that can’t be bypassed.”
She’d gone full Spock, to the point where it was almost eerie, like she was an emotionless news anchor telling the masses about a zombie apocalypse.
“But Suri managed to get in, and the coven didn’t kick her out,” Jacob wheezed from across the room. The poor dude was a weak, shaking bag of nerves and grief, but I was kind of glad to have him back in the land of the conscious. My dear mother seemed to have a penchant for crushing the spirits of sixteen-year-old boys.
“Suri was one human,” Krieger replied. “One human can get away with being inside the coven without being kicked out. The coven doesn’t see one person as a threat, but an entire throng of humans is a different story. It’ll view them as a disease and do what it can to fix the problem.”
“Wait, that means the covens will be left empty.” Levi frowned as understanding whacked me in the skull.
“Left empty so that Katherine can complete a hostile takeover with her magicals,” I finished. “She’ll stuff them with her people.”
O’Halloran sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s very possible. If I were in her position, the first thing I’d do is get the highest-ranking former magicals from each coven who had pledged themselves to me and give them just enough magic to enter. After that, I’d force them to open the covens to my cult members, basically repopulating them with my people. Or ‘stuffing them,’ as you put it, Finch.”
“Well, there’s a worrying insight into your mind,” I replied. “Tell me you’re not Katherine, masquerading as O’Halloran. I’m not sure I could take another Imogene revelation.”
That one had really come at me from left field. All this time, I’d been so sure I knew all of Katherine’s secrets, and then bam! I find out she was Imogene all along. To top off the initial horror, I’d had to deal with all the implications that came with this realization. I’d had some pretty saucy thoughts about Imogene. Ugh, so disturbing. So gross. ‘Oedipus complex’ didn’t even cover the nightmarish reality. Freud would’ve kicked me out of his office and given up on psychology altogether.
“I’m definitely not.” O’Halloran chuckled bitterly. “Having her fill my head full of drugs was bad enough.”
“And they’ve all worn off now, right?” Wade eyed him suspiciously.
O’Halloran nodded. “I’m pretty sure. I can talk about Katherine and Echidna without having a total breakdown, so I’m going to take that as a good sign.” He paused. “I think that the antidote she gave me was probably another mind-bending drug of some kind. Remember, I told you the water she kept giving me tasted weird, but I haven’t drunk anything or taken any ‘antidote’ in a while, so hopefully I should be fine. I doubt I could’ve fought against her folks if I was still under her influence.”
“If she’s making moves, we have to match her.” Harley turned away from the window to address everyone. I loved it when she went into badass leader mode. Attagirl! “We can’t stay here going stir-crazy. We need to gather whatever allies we have left, even without our magic. Someone, somewhere must know something. A way to get back at Katherine.”
“Kenzie might be a good stop to get the revenge ball rolling,” I suggested. “Especially as we’ve just stomped our phones to dust. She’ll help us out, given the circumstances. How could she say no now?”
“Do you think she might have anything else in her stash that we could use? Ephemeras, maybe? Something that can help us get some juice back, even if it’s just temporary?” She looked desperate. We all did.
Krieger shook his head. “Ephemeras won’t be of much use to you. You would only be able to use the ability within them, and that is if you could even find a magical willing to put a fragment of their ability into the device.” He paused. “Although…”
“Although?” the Rag Team chorused.
“There is a similar device, called a Hermetic Battery,” he explained. “They are contraband items, given their nature. They are not confined to a single ability and can be used to draw raw Chaos from a magical, which can then be used by anyone who has the Hermetic Battery in their possession. Magicals have been known to use them illegally to create personal interdimensional pockets, as the battery refines the Chaos that is poured inside it, strengthening it beyond ordinary levels. Call it a boost to their ordinary power. There is a limit to the objects, however, as with any battery. And I don’t know if this Kenzie would have such items in her possession.”
I smiled. “Believe me, if anyone does, it’s her. You name it, she’s got it.”
“Then that’s definitely where we should go,” Wade asserted.