Sure, the gargoyles had trashed my place, but I could just rent another apartment and remain a Neutral. Alton had already said he’d support my decision, if that were the case. But I wasn’t fully into that, either. There were perks and drawbacks, no matter what I chose to do. I just had to weigh everything carefully first.
Santana, Wade, Raffe, Astrid, Tatyana, Dylan, and I waited patiently in front of Alton’s desk as he dug through his drawers for a file. Santana and Tatyana took the armchair seats, while the rest of us stood quietly with our arms crossed.
A few minutes passed, and Alton cursed under his breath, seemingly unable to find what he was looking for, until he gasped. He shot back up and waved the manila folder around as if it were his most prized possession, beaming at us.
“Found it!” he exclaimed, then took a seat behind his massive walnut desk. “Now, before I start, how is everyone doing?”
We looked at each other, before Wade took the lead on that answer. “Fine, for the most part. Merlin here is studying and training. She’s also doing a decent job in the Archives. The rest of us are monitoring reports from the human world, in case anything slipped through the cracks since the gargoyle incident. So far, it’s been quiet.”
Alton analyzed each of our expressions with a half-smile, then nodded slowly. “That’s good. It means that Astrid’s efforts came through.”
Astrid blushed, her lips twirling into a sweet little smile, flanked by the cutest pair of dimples. I’d already learned not to let this adorable side of her fool me—Astrid was as fierce as they came, especially for a human. “My AI is automated now,” she said. “Smartie detects anything related to the incident and automatically sends alerts to my computer. From there, I analyze every line and assign magicals to deal with any issue that might require our intervention.”
“It’s been a month, now.” Santana sighed. “It shouldn’t be a problem anymore.”
Alton shook his head. “It’s not. But it’s better to monitor and double-check than find ourselves with our pants down, don’t you think?”
He had a way with words. It was even funnier because of his Southern drawl. Despite his crisp suits and perfectly groomed appearance, Alton still had the spunk and humor of a bayou man, and it was one of my favorite things about him. He looked at me, his expression firm but his heart brimming with affection. Alton Waterhouse was extremely fond of me, for some reason. I figured this was as close as I would ever get to fatherly love in the coven, and I welcomed it.
“First, I know I promised you some information on your parents, Harley,” he said, “but it took me a while to get to it. Part of me wasn’t sure I should give you everything we have, since you might not like the whole truth. But I think you’re tough enough to read through it all and make up your own mind. I trust your judgment.”
“No problem about the delay, Alton. As you might’ve noticed, I haven’t exactly insisted,” I muttered.
“I understand why. I suppose you don’t feel like you’re ready for the whole truth, huh?”
I shrugged. “You could say that, yes.”
“Well, it’s time to get ready,” he replied, then pushed the manila folder across the desk. “This is for you. All the information that I was able to gather regarding your parents and Katherine Shipton. The latter will be of particular interest to your entire team.”
My brows furrowed and my stomach tied itself up in knots as I took the file and flipped through its pages. My heart swelled, then broke repeatedly, as I saw my mom and dad in different photos. In one of them, they were with Katherine Shipton—all three smiling like everything was right in the world. It struck me as odd, without reading the text documents enclosed in the folder.
The physical resemblance between Katherine and my mother, Hester, was striking. The same wild green eyes, the fiery red hair, the slim figures and sharp cheekbones…
“They were twins, Hester and Katherine Shipton,” Alton said, noticing the photograph that had captured my attention.
My blood ran cold. “Whoa. Twins? I mean, I knew they were sisters, but twins?”
“Not identical,” Alton replied. “But yes. Twins. You’ll find more info in there.”
“Do we have any news about Katherine?” Wade asked, and the question prompted me to reluctantly close the file. As much as I wanted to tear through it now, we still had a briefing, based on the second folder still present on Alton’s desk. I would study it later.
“Not exactly, but she’s part of the reason I wanted to speak with you this morning,” Alton replied. “There have been rumors, though we haven’t been able to verify any of them. Katherine Shipton is still in the wind, her location unknown. The one thing we are aware of is that she’s planning something big, and that it involves the magicals here in San Diego. That’s all we were able to understand from Finch’s vague statements, anyway,” he added, running a hand through his brown, wavy hair. “We’re worried she might be targeting those we haven’t pledged into the coven yet.”
Shivers ran down my spine. “What makes you say that?” I asked.
“In here, I have a list of potential new magicals,” Alton replied, then opened the second folder. He turned it around and pushed it forward so we could all see the names. “We were supposed to reach out to them, make sure they’re magicals, and bring them into the coven. Two of them went missing early this week, and we can’t find them anywhere. They’re not showing up in the human databases either. It’s like they simply vanished. Plus, there are rumors among the city’s Neutrals and the rogues passing through. There’s something brewing. Something dark.”
“That’s not good,” I said, hearing my voice tremble.
Gloom settled over the room, weighing heavily on my shoulders. We were all worried—none as badly as Alton, though. He felt responsible. He’d been with the coven for over three years, since Wade managed to get Halifax fired for his incompetence. Alton had been working to improve SDC since, and this clearly set him back. Additionally, he cared about magicals in general, putting his heart and soul into his work to make sure they were all protected. Personally, I disagreed with the plethora of coven regulations that suffocated this effort.
That was just one of the reasons I was inclined to join the San Diego Coven—so I could help change some of their antiquated rules.
“It isn’t good. Which is why I’ve decided to call the Rag Team back into action,” Alton said, looking at each of us with a twinkle in his emerald eyes. “The coven needs your help.”
We’d been called the Rag Team when we were first assigned to cleanup after the initial gargoyle attacks—wiping the memories of witnesses, removing any magical evidence from the scene, and altering or deleting CCTV and social media footage were the extent of our responsibilities at the time. We were the underdogs. Undervalued for the most part, we ended up leading the investigation into the Bestiary sabotage in the end.
But the name had stuck.
“Okay. What do you need us to do?” Wade asked, taking a deep breath.
“I’ve got one of O’Halloran’s investigative crews of security magicals looking into the disappearances, but I need you and your team to check out these other potential magicals,” Alton answered, nodding at the list. “Some of them are young, so caution and subtlety will be required. Some are closer to their teens, and thus can be more easily reasoned with. These are all individuals linked to strange phenomena, as described by human witnesses. Objects moving on their own. Fires starting out of nowhere. Water sprinklers going berserk, and so on.”
“How do you know these kids are responsible?” I asked, checking the names on the list and their home addresses. Most of them were in the suburban areas, which I deemed preferable to mid-city magical outbursts. The residential neighborhoods were easier to manipulate, since there were fewer people whose memories required wiping or altering. I hated that part of that job, but I understood why we had to hide the existence of magicals.
“We’ve been monitoring them from afar, through magicals infiltrated in their schools and neighborhoods, as well as through CCTV,” Alton explained. “We need you to confirm they are, indeed, magical, and talk to them about coming into the coven for protection and education.”
“I’m pretty sure their parents can protect and educate them, if they’re adequately informed,” I replied.
Wade shook his head. “It’s not feasible if the parents are foster humans. We have protocols for that. Under no circumstances can the humans be involved.”
“That’s… insane,” I blurted out. “So, what, you want the parents, foster or natural, to willingly surrender their kids to the coven?”
There was one thing that I wasn’t completely comfortable with. The way covens interacted with human foster parents. I knew that magicals could only be born from magical parents or at least half-human and half-magical couples. I also knew that some magicals were abandoned and slipped through the cracks of the human foster system—hence, me. But still, humans chose to take care of kids like me. To protect us from harm. To love and raise us. They deserved more than a spritz of amnesia magic.
“They won’t remember anything,” Dylan interjected, noticing my expression. His anguish burned through me. This was quite personal for him. “Once we get there, we convince the kids to come with us and we alter the parents’ memories, until the kids are grown enough to control themselves. Then, they’re reintroduced to their parents, if they want that.”
“This protocol applies to magicals in the foster system with human parents, though,” Alton added. “Magical parents usually don’t think twice about bringing their children into the coven. Humans aren’t emotionally or intellectually equipped to deal with such changes.”
“Intellectually equipped? As in what, they’re too dumb to get it?” I snapped. I shifted my focus to Dylan. “Is that what they did to your mom and dad? Wiped you out of their memories?”