“Whoa there, Harley,” I said, shaking her by the shoulders. “Hey! Harley! Snap out of it!”
A black mist pooled off the page, dripping down in wispy tendrils and swirling around us. My Orishas shuddered in the air beside me, freaking out at this sudden appearance of powerful magic. Stop her… Erebus must not be summoned… Stop her or we shall be forced to, they whispered, their voices echoing in my head.
I lunged for the Grimoire and tried to wrestle it out of her hands. Harley’s head whipped around to face me, a pulse of intense Telekinesis surging from her hands. I barely had time to think as she hurled me down the length of the second-floor platform, my back hitting the balcony with a jolt of agonizing pain.
Gathering the Orishas to me, I scrambled to my feet and sprinted back to where Harley stood. A circle of icy wind whipped up around her, creating a dark tornado of near-impenetrable black fog, with her at its center.
What the—what’s it doing to her? This shouldn’t be happening!
I’d never seen anyone respond that way to a Grimoire before. A few people passed out if the magic inside was particularly strong, but this was something else. And it was getting way out of hand. In a few moments, Harley would lose control completely. My Orishas could sense it.
Forced into survival mode, I thought back to what my mother had taught me about my Santeria heritage and the magic that came with it.
This is going to come at a high price, but there’s no other way.
I called to my Orishas and felt the steady pulse of their strength within me. Using the raw core of their energy, I raised my hands and gathered a swirling vortex of blue-and-black light between my palms. As I pushed the orb of intense energy forward, the midnight-blue tendrils snaked through the air, wrapping around the cover of the Merlins’ Grimoire.
Unable to pull the book free, the slithering fronds sank beneath Harley’s flesh. I could feel each one venturing inside her veins, tugging at the sinew of her muscles to try and break the link between her and the book. I gripped tighter to the essence of my power as the inky tendrils reached her brain. With another push of energy from me, the dark magic pulsed inside her, freezing every spark of electricity that jumped between synapses.
As if an electromagnetic wave had gone off, Harley slumped to the floor with a thud. The Grimoire tumbled down beside her, and the tornado of black fog disappeared with a snap of ice-cold wind. I let go of the black tendrils as soon as she collapsed, the raw, Orisha-fueled magic zapping straight back into my body. It hit me in a bitter rush of frosty sparks, each one biting into my skin. Still, I wasn’t worried about me. I’d never used this spell before, and I had no idea whether I’d held it for too long. Please… please say I haven’t killed her.
Harley’s eyes popped open, her lungs gasping for air as though she’d been on the brink of drowning. She struggled to sit up, looking around at the Grimoire and the open display case. Her face had drained of color, the feverish red of her cheeks dissipating.
“What happened?” she asked, turning to me.
“The Grimoire happened.” I walked back over to where she sat. I put the book back in the display case, fixing the lock into place. We’ve had quite enough of you for one evening. I felt relieved to see it back behind glass—and a little bit sick, although I knew that had nothing to do with the Grimoire.
Someone is coming, my Orishas whispered.
“Just what we need,” I muttered.
Harley frowned. “What?”
“Someone’s coming. Can you stand?”
She nodded, getting to her feet. “I think so.”
“Good, then let’s get the hell out of here before they throw us in Purgatory.”
With her leaning on me for support, we hurried out of the Special Collections reading room. Salinger was just coming from the Global Library ahead, still chattering on about something or other. I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, but it didn’t matter. Our imitations walked obediently after him. With a flick of my wrist, and a word to the Orishas, the facsimiles vanished into thin air, the spirits rushing back to join me as we darted down the hallway. As he turned and saw the empty space behind him, he glanced about in confusion. An embarrassed look drifted across his features. Been talking so long you’ve lost your captive audience? Sorry, Salinger. You’re going to wake up with a lot of regret tomorrow.
We rushed toward the mirrors, my stomach churning with every step we took. Cold sweat drenched my body, and nausea gripped my insides. Well, this isn’t good… but I knew the price would be high. At least it was worth it.
What troubled me more than the sickening feeling in my stomach, however, was the fact that Harley had been able to read the spell aloud and make it work. The Grimoire was unfinished. She shouldn’t have been able to do that. And yet, the evidence was overwhelming—I’d seen it happen. Something had allowed her to bridge the gap. Her bloodline, maybe? Crazy-strong Shipton and Merlin power lurking inside her? Whatever it was, she had almost completed the spell of her own accord… and that was a terrifying thought.
Even with the Suppressor in place, she was too powerful for her own good.
She was becoming a danger to herself, and everyone around her. I only hoped that Shipton blood didn’t run too deep.
Twenty-Two
Harley
Stepping back through the mirror, into the Assembly Hall of the SDC, my body felt electric. If someone had told me I’d just shot-gunned a six-pack of energy drink, I would’ve believed them. My nerves were wired, and I was pretty sure I could hear colors. There was definitely something buzzing in my ears. A rush of blood, zinging through my veins at a million miles an hour.
Santana, on the other hand, looked like she was recovering from a heavy night after a six-pack of something else. Her face had a green tint, and a waxy sheen coated her skin. As we came to a halt on the Hall podium, her breath heaved from her chest, her hand shaky around my waist. She’d been helping me along after what had happened in the Special Collections room, but now I felt like I was the one who should be helping her.
“Are you okay?” I asked, breaking away.
She nodded. “A bit tired, but that’s all. That took a lot out of me.”
“What happened back there?”
“You wouldn’t stop reading some spell in your parents’ Grimoire. It had something to do with Erebus,” she replied. “You went into this weird trance and wouldn’t snap out of it, so I had to break the link. It wasn’t easy. I feel like someone just drove into me with an eighteen-wheeler.”
I made a face, feeling guilty. “I’m sorry for dragging you along to try and find it. We should’ve just taken the copies and come back here.”
“Hey, I’m all for rule-breaking when it counts, mi compa,” she replied with a grin. “If we’re going to go running into the fire headfirst, we can’t go around feeling sorry for ourselves when we get burned. Although, if I’d known you were going to go all Exorcist on me, I might’ve tried to persuade you that looking for the Grimoire wasn’t such a good idea. You kind of… disappeared for a minute there. And you might have cracked a vertebra or two.” She rubbed her spine for dramatic effect, making me feel even guiltier.
“I threw you, didn’t I?”
“That’s putting it mildly.” She laughed, showing there were no hard feelings. I was grateful for that. I’d only just started to make friends here; I didn’t want to lose any due to my volatile reactions to Grimoires.
I shook my head. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve known something bad was going to happen.”
“What do you mean? You couldn’t have known you were going to go ape after touching it.”
I flashed her a sheepish look. “Well, actually, it’s happened before.”
She gaped at me. “Are you kidding?”
“Afraid not,” I said. “It was a while back, but I was looking through one of the Dark Grimoires with Garrett, and I completely clocked out. I started reading it out loud, and he had to stop me before I did something terrible. I don’t know if it has something to do with my affinity for Darkness, or if it’s something else, but the Grimoires seem to have this weird effect on me. Still, it was even more intense this time. Last time, Garrett could break me out of it, but my parents’ one gripped me and wouldn’t let go.”
“You should have told me that.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I wasn’t even thinking about it.”
She shrugged. “Well, no harm done. I imagine reading a Grimoire that was created by someone you’re related to is different than reading a normal one. It is always going to be more intense,” she replied casually. “Although, I’ve been wondering how you managed to read the spell and make it work. Your parents’ Grimoire was never finished, which means you shouldn’t have been able to. It’s been bugging me.”
I frowned. “You think it has something to do with me being their kid?”
“I think it has something to do with your bloodline—there’s something about it that let you read that spell without it being finished. That’s my theory, anyway. Maybe it’s like a safeguard, a way of continuing the Grimoire, even if the creator dies. Or creators, in this case. I’ll ask my mom about it at the Gathering. She’s an expert on these things. If anyone knows why you can do what you just did, it’ll be her.”
“That’d be great.” The more I could learn about that Grimoire, and my link to it, the better. My mind had been racing ever since we left the Special Collections room and my memories had started to drift back, piece by piece. Touching my parents’ Grimoire for the first time had been an otherworldly experience. Even now, I struggled to put it into words, or think about it clearly. It was like the full force of my powers had called out to the book and tried to push past the Dempsey Suppressor in order to reach the content within, recognizing something in it.
I didn’t dare mention it aloud, for fear of worrying Santana, but I was starting to wonder if using one of my parents’ Grimoire spells might be the key to breaking the Dempsey Suppressor. If I could perform one of them, maybe it would be powerful enough to push me to my absolute limits, shattering the Suppressor in the process. I wasn’t an idiot; I knew that performing a spell like that would be incredibly dangerous, but if it could set my powers free, then maybe it was worth the huge risk.