“I should warn you,” Krieger said. “You will need an actual magical in order to make the Hermetic Battery work, if you manage to find one. You won’t be able to use Kadar or a Purge beast. Their energy is far too raw and, for lack of a better word, chaotic. It will tear the battery apart.”
“Comforting,” I muttered. “Any other fun challenges we should know about?”
“One more,” he replied. “While this item may solve your Grimoire-reading problem, Harley, you will need to be careful to conserve as much of the Chaos as possible. A spell of the magnitude you have mentioned will require a full charge, to say the least.”
“We don’t even know if we can get these batteries yet, so we’ll cross that bridge if and when we get to it,” Harley said.
“Tobe may also be in possession of some, if you can find him,” Krieger added thoughtfully. “I know Beast Masters in the past have used these items—it is the only circumstance in which they are permitted, given the need for boosts of energy in a Bestiary and repairs that need to be made quickly. He may have some on him, but that would mean entering the SDC, and we have already ruled that out.”
“So Kenzie’s our best bet then, unless we want to get ourselves captured at the SDC. She’s our only bet, let’s be honest.” Harley turned to me. “Do you think she’ll have any stolen charms or other items that could protect a few more humans?”
“Who’ve you got in mind?” I asked.
She shook her head. “First off, I’m going to text Ryann and the Smiths and tell them to get the hell out of San Diego. They need to hide somewhere, but they’ll need protection in order to do that. And if Kenzie has any extra means of protection, then we can use those on ourselves.”
“I’m sure Kenzie will have something up those neon sleeves of hers. They’re deceptively spacious.” I didn’t know if that was entirely true. There was a chance she’d have none of the things we needed. But I wanted to give Harley some hope.
“Then what are we waiting for?” She looked around at us all, and her message was clear. There was no time left on the clock that had been clanging over our heads since the get-go.
We needed to move. Now.
Three
Katherine
It wasn’t in my nature to be a killjoy, especially not when I was the one who was supposed to be basking in glory. I was surrounded by respect and loyalty and fear—which came with its own delicious frisson of glee—so I should’ve been riding a wave of total bliss.
But instead, I was getting dragged back by the flimsy flesh that was holding me together. My beautiful body, being battered by all this exquisite energy. I couldn’t have one without losing the other. Catch-22 didn’t even cover it, and I was about ready to catch-22 the living daylights out of Chaos for doing this to me. Sly devil.
The cracks were already starting to show, and it was only going to get worse. That sweeping cull of snatching abilities had done the trick—letting the magical world know I was serious, if they hadn’t caught on already—but it had taken a lot more out of me than I’d anticipated, and I was suffering the consequences of daring to go big. Why did the great always have to suffer? It hardly seemed fair.
Then again, Chaos had made sure that none of this was fair to me, even though I’d followed every instruction to the letter. Helping to write a book that was intended to destroy me wasn’t exactly good sportsmanship, now, was it?
I supposed Chaos sensed I wouldn’t be content to hover around in the ether somewhere, kicking cans and skipping stones until someone decided to call upon me. Pfft, who would? As if anyone would choose that when they could be so much more. I’d be lauding it over the lot of them right now, my fellow Children, if my irritating little loophole hadn’t scurried away before I could get her to read out the Grimoire spell I needed to take advantage of. It was the one spell that could be used for me instead of against me, courtesy of Odette’s brain of wonders, tortured out of her after great effort.
It had been designed to destroy me, naturally, but it was a spell that could be subverted to suit my needs, now that I was a Child of Chaos—a handy bit of fine print that had slipped under Chaos’s radar. I had so many choice expletives to use for that parasite Harley, but I’d always thought swear words showed a lack of intelligent vocabulary.
It’s slipping through my fingers.
I tried to shut my thoughts up, but that was the problem with brains. They chattered on as they pleased, pointing out the damned obvious. Nevertheless, pessimism wouldn’t do me any favors. If I’d given in to negative thinking, I’d never have made it this far.
The only problem was, I’d been wracking my brain ever since I’d completed the Challenge, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where I’d gone wrong. I’d planned everything down to the last detail, just as I always did. So how did it get to this—me falling apart like wet toilet paper with no body to pour my divine self into?
Harley’s inferior figure should’ve been mine by now.
That stark, unyielding fact throbbed like a hangover in my head. No, I know where I went wrong. I’d clearly underestimated Harley and the foolish devotion of her friends. I’d put too much weight on their fear of death. Who wanted to die? Nobody. And they must have known that coming here to the Garden of Hesperides to save Harley was tantamount to suicide. They hadn’t died, much to my annoyance, but the risk had been there, and they’d done it anyway.
This wasn’t exactly the grand finale I’d had in mind, but that didn’t mean the show was over. Far from it. This was nothing more than a technical glitch. Soon enough, I’d take my position in the spotlight—fully contained in Harley’s body.
I turned to Davin who stood beside me. “How do I look? Be honest or I’ll have your head.”
I’d done my best to wipe the oozing black substance away from the cracks that splintered across my face, but the cracks were like fissures in a dam that couldn’t be plugged. No matter how much I smeared it away, more replaced it. And let me tell you, having black goop trickling down your face is a killer for a woman’s confidence.
Davin smiled and brushed away a stray glob of oily black. I thought I saw him shudder, but he covered it well. “You look majestic, Eris. You are glowing, as any soon-to-be goddess ought to.” He paused. “And, I must say, the shine does a great deal to detract from the… let us call them imperfections. You have to be close to see them.”
“Then make sure you keep everyone at a decent distance. I don’t want anyone seeing my ‘imperfections,’ as you call them.”
I looked at myself once more in the mirror I’d erected. Call it vanity, but I had to see the mess Chaos was making of me; it was like an itch that needed scratching or a zit that needed popping. I knew I should have smashed the mirror to pieces and ignored the ongoing damage, but hey, that would’ve meant seven years’ bad luck. I wasn’t superstitious, but I couldn’t afford to risk more misfortune.
Besides, none of my cult suspected that this glorious physique was failing me yet. I’d made sure to keep them suitably busy so none of them would have time to notice.