Finch Merlin and the Legend of the Luminary , livre ebook

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154 pages

English

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An invisible city rises from the depths, led by a new savior...Prepare to expect the unexpected.

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	01 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9798634360737
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0000€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 2020
Hot Pancakes Ltd
www.hotpcakes.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ONE
Finch
S o, the secret of the magical world was about to be not so secret, Davin had won himself a crown and a ticket topside, and all hell appeared to have broken loose in San Diego. But we had a slightly more urgent matter to deal with.
A wall of water was powering toward the shore, its frothing tips rapidly turning to liquid jaws, heading straight for us.
Everyone on the stone beach scrambled to push their Chaos into the magical barriers, their palms facing determinedly outward, to stop us from meeting a violent and watery grave. That would’ve been the second time today that Melody, Luke, Ryann, Nash, Huntress, and I had faced that sort of thing. And drowning was right at the bottom of my list of preferred ways to shuffle off the mortal coil.
I tried to stand and join the brigade, but my last scrap of energy had been spent trying to bring Ryann back from the brink of death. Rooting my hands against the slippery rock beneath me and leaning into every strained breath, I stared listlessly at the horizon. Air shimmered above the stormy water where Atlantis had popped out like a champagne cork, an eerie anomaly concealing a grim secret. Bitter wind rushed in from the oncoming wave and bit at my damp skin. Bitter dread followed, slithering into the pit of my stomach. The former, I could just about handle. The latter… not so much.
Harley braced for impact, standing over me like the protective sister she was. “We need to give it everything we’ve got!”
The Muppet Babies, old and new, lined up along the shoreline. Only Melody and Ryann stayed on the ground, as exhausted as I was, while Huntress snuffled between them in the role of support dog. O’Halloran wrangled his security team into position while the radio continued to blare bad news about the SDC. Even if O’Halloran had replied, they likely wouldn’t have been able to hear him over the roar of water.
Kneeling there, all I could focus on was that radio and the frightened voice on the other end: “O’Halloran? Director? Are you there?” Over and over. How could the SDC have just… plopped out into the open? There were protocols in place. It shouldn’t have been possible. And then there was the Bestiary to consider-the one that, y’know, kept every coven in the world running. If the SDC had fallen, did that mean the Bestiary had been exposed, too? I couldn’t stop imagining the SDC in the nonmagical world-spreading out like a big, steaming cow patty of stone and metal. As far as visuals went, it was a tough one to think about in detail.
“Ready!” O’Halloran barked. Diarmuid swung his shillelagh menacingly, as if he could keep the wave away singlehandedly.
The thundering wall inched closer. I stared at it, feeling weirdly detached from my body, like map-making ghost-Finch had come back in force. That wave represented our failures. Davin had fooled everyone, and now he’d managed to bring Atlantis to the surface so he could… Actually, I still didn’t quite understand what he wanted from raising Atlantis. But I knew it couldn’t be good.
“Fire!” O’Halloran gave the order, and the group jumped into action. Bristling torrents of Chaos surged outward in multicolored streams and formed a veritable tsunami of magic that raced out to meet the encroaching wave. A boom rumbled beneath my knees as the two forces collided, vibrating right up my spine.
The wall of water bent backward, the wave curving away from land and tumbling back into the ocean that had birthed it. I lifted a hand to block the blinding light of the magic, and I noticed Krieger put his hand over Ryann’s eyes to protect her retinas. An oxygen mask covered her mouth, and some color had returned to her cheeks.
We didn’t fail. We’re alive. Ryann’s alive. My tired brain gave me a kick in the ass. This was just another challenge, to fix what Davin had started. Determination gripped my chest. Lifting a shaky palm, I added Air and Telekinesis to the flow of magic. The wave continued to climb and fall back on itself, creating a strange waterfall in the middle of the ocean, getting smaller and smaller until the sea lay flat again. Well, mostly. The Antarctic winds turned the water choppy, but at least we didn’t have a raging stampede of it heading toward us anymore.
Everyone on shore slowly lowered their palms, a few residual sparks floating in the air. Silence carried across the dilapidated terrain, aside from the howl of wind and the clang of old metal from the rusty remains of the whaling port. And the constant, worrying call of the radio.
“Director O’Halloran? Come in!” the voice shouted desperately. “We need… back here! It’s… it’s very… bad!
The Science Center is dust. People… dead. We need you here! It’s urgent!”
“How can the SDC be visible?” I finally managed to form a sentence. My mind couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Judging by the mixture of blank and strained expressions on everyone else’s faces, they were in the same boat. There was no way the coven could’ve just revealed itself and destroyed the Fleet Science Center. No, there had to be trickery at work. And it reeked of Davin.
O’Halloran stared at the radio. “I don’t know, but I have to go back immediately. I need to find out what happened.” He looked toward Jacob. “Can you portal me back to San Diego?”
Jacob nodded, trying to keep a brave face. He raised his palms, and bronze magic streaked out and twisted into the air ahead of him. A moment later, he tore open a gap in space and time-a black void, ready for O’Halloran to step into. The edges of the portal fizzed and crackled, exposing Jacob’s nervousness, but O’Halloran wasted no time running into the darkness. The SDC needed its director, and he had no choice but to answer their call. A few of the security magicals followed, while others stayed behind with the radio to maintain contact, if and when O’Halloran got in touch to relay intel.
The portal snapped shut behind them, leaving an unsettling silence. Nobody quite knew what to say. The two “anas”-Tatyana and Santana-stared at the ocean, trying to pinpoint the shimmering invisibility of Atlantis. As for the others, they shuffled awkwardly, waiting for someone to take the lead now that O’Halloran had vacated the shore.
“Did Davin do this?” Harley peered down at me, her face tight and intense. “Did he reveal the SDC?”
I heaved a sigh. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe he’s trying to send us a message.”
“Well, I’d say he’s sent it-loud and clear,” Wade interjected. “My biggest concern is the Bestiary. Does he want something from it?”
Nash joined the cluster. “I don’t see why he would, since he’s got one of his own now.”
“Pardon?” Harley eyed Nash anxiously.
“Atlantis has its own Bestiary. That’s how it managed to stay underwater all this time,” I explained.
“But it was failing, remember?” Luke walked over, supporting Melody’s stumbling steps. The Librarian never liked to miss a powwow.
Melody nodded wearily. “It may be that the Atlantis Bestiary lacks the necessary power for whatever he has planned, so he has taken measures to gain more power from the surface Bestiary. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he has impressed me with how much he can get done, even behind bars.” She paused. “No… not impressed. Stunned.”
“What does he have planned?” Harley fidgeted with the thin chains of her Esprit, with its five gemstones. Very Thanos. If only she could click her fingers and make Davin disappear, she would’ve made my entire year. “Are we dealing with Eris part two?”
“I don’t know. He said that wasn’t his jam, but I don’t believe a single bit of the crap that pours out of his mouth,” I replied sourly. “He rambled on about wanting to be a hero, and who the hell knows what that entails.”
Our conversation stopped as a splash pierced the air. A soggy, drowned rat of a man burst out of the shallows and proceeded to drag himself-robes and all-to shore. Not the sort of mermaid anyone wanted to find on the beach.
“Ovid?!” I gasped as he flopped to the ground, heaving deep breaths. His silver hair lay flat against his forehead, and his lips were a concerning shade of blue.
“ That’s Ovid?” Harley narrowed her eyes at the bedraggled figure. She looked incredibly unimpressed.
“Not very regal, is he?” Santana remarked.
I gave a wry snort. “That’s because he isn’t. Not anymore. Davin has the throne now.”
Ryann shuddered, but not from the cold. “ King Davin…”
“Wouldn’t he be prince consort?” Melody shivered.
Nash eyed Ovid suspiciously. “This is a coup, not a marriage. At least, not yet. And I doubt Davin would settle for any title other than king. Plus, Kaya will agree with whatever he says he is, in her current condition.”
“Exactly.” I glanced at my sister. “Help me up.” She bent and hauled me to my feet, the two of us walking toward Ovid. He was in full pathetic mode now, coughing up water and sobbing like a toddler whose candy was stolen.
“What are you doing here?” I didn’t have time for small talk.
He retched, spewing water about an inch from my shoes. “They… expelled me. My own… daughter!”
“Even if she wasn’t under a love spell, can you blame her?” Nash asked, coming to my side. “You tried to stab her in the back, and you would’ve succeeded if you hadn’t landed yourself in a pit of equally traitorous vipers.”
I eyed the old man warily. He might have been a weeping mass of damp misery, but he was still Atlantean. And that kind of power couldn’t be allowed to wander around willy-nilly.
“What do we do with this punk?” Dylan edged closer, the rest of the old Muppet Babies a step behind him.
Melody raised a shaky hand. “We could always move into the old Antarctic Coven. It should have a secure place where we