Mist, Murder & Magic

by Dionnara Dawson

  It seemed to be just as hard for Harrow to speak as for her. They should continue searching, but in the back of Hella’s mind, behind the fog, she knew they wouldn’t be able to, and she wanted to let him talk.

  ‘Then,’ Harrow continued, ‘one night, some drunk human decided to mess with me. He grabbed a bottle and broke it, then smashed it into my hand. A huge shard of it’—he motioned with his hand, now looking at her—‘right through my hand!’ He laughed derisively. ‘Ah, good times.’ He looked up and around at the Unending Field of Blood in Valhalla. ‘Simpler times.’ He sighed.

  Hella’s eyes fell closed. ‘Harrow—’ she breathed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Hella. We would never have found it anyway.’

  As if on cue, Tommy’s quiet voice came down, concerned. Guys, you only have a few hours left until the trial. I hope you’re both okay. You feel really warm. Hurry up.

  For a moment, they said nothing to each other. Hella was surprised they could sit on something in astral-form, but didn’t care. ‘Should I take us back?’

  ‘You won’t let me go, will you?’ Harrow asked. ‘You’d let me face a trial for my sins?’

  Before Hella could answer, her purple flames leapt forward, and danced over Harrow. His eyes grew wide. ‘Woah,’ he said, trying to shake them off. ‘It doesn’t burn, but what the hell?’

  Hella opened her mouth, to say again, that she didn’t know—that seemed to be all she ever said these days—when the fire roared and actually caught the blood-dampened grass they were sitting on. Within seconds, Hella’s purple fire raged around them, breaking the planes of existence. Her magic had torn through her astral form, and had set fire to Valhalla.

  There were hundreds of thousands of soldiers doing battle on the field, but one by one, they all stopped and stared at the purple flames devouring the grass and blood. The flames were beyond Hella’s control.

  ‘What the hell do we do?’ Harrow yelled over the roar. It was hard to discern soulless-Harrow’s emotions, but now, she could tell he was worried. For good reason.

  Hella could barely focus. She should snap them back to the cell, but her vision blurred. ‘I don’t—’ She couldn’t say the words, not anymore. She didn’t know anything.

  But Harrow seemed to. ‘Motherfucker,’ he said, realising something. ‘Hella! I think I know where, I mean, what my soul is. We have to go back to the hall. Come on.’ He managed to get to his feet, shakily.

  Guys, something is wrong, come back! Tommy’s voice yelled.

  Hella felt Piper’s hand run over her hair, in a very motherly way that made Hella think of Grace. Hellora, you’re burning up. Both of you are. So are Tommy and I. Come back, now.

  Hella looked up at Harrow. ‘You know where it is?’

  Harrow nodded. ‘But should we go back?’ He looked around the field, burning high in purple flames. ‘These people are all dead, right?’

  Hella nodded. ‘Maybe if we move, the fire will follow us. Lead the way, I can hardly see.’ She stumbled but managed to get her feet under her. ‘We are not leaving here without your soul.’ She looked into his slit-blue eyes. ‘Because Tommy would never let you escape the trial.’ Hella thought of the way Tommy had smacked Harrow over the head, the reproach in his eyes.

  Harrow helped her stand. ‘Would you?’ It was a heavy question for only two words, and she knew what she felt, but she couldn’t answer. Smoke filled her nose and she coughed a plume of it out.

  ‘We have to move,’ she said, coughing. Tears streaked her face as the smoke danced through her eyes. She could hear Harrow coughing too. Somewhere to their right, a tall figure appeared, her blonde hair shining like a crown on her head. Without knowing how, Hella knew that this was the queen whose crown she had seen in the hall. The queen yelled for her soldiers to be calm—though Hella could see one of them was on fire and screaming—and started putting out the fire in their wake.

  Harrow led them out of the field and onto the alley strip where the blacksmith’s shop still sat, but the blacksmith himself looked horror-struck as he stared out at the field, engulfed with strange purple fire. A part of Hella felt bad for destroying another world, but all she could really hope for was that those soldiers out there would be okay, and it was all worth it. To save Harrow.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Harrow

  The smoke and flames consuming Valhalla made it really fucking hard to see anything. Harrow growled low in his throat. Hella was passing in and out of consciousness, so he was practically dragging her. Luckily, what he was aiming for was the biggest building in this wacky world.

  The same thought had occurred to him several times since Hella’s flames had begun to rage out of control. What if he left her here? Would that be easier? He pulled Hella through heavy double doors, glad that he didn’t have to try to pry them open. It wasn’t a thought he was proud of, but it kept running through his mind. She was slowing him down, to be sure. It would really be much easier if she could not be passed out and could walk herself. The only thing that saved her was that Harrow was pretty sure he needed the witch to astral them home.

  Tendrils of smoke reached into the building’s crevices. Harrow didn’t think he wanted to stay here, in this world. Particularly if it was about to burn down around them. He dropped Hella on the ground and ran to one of the display cabinets. He felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. No one had told him what to look for, and when you picture what your soul might look like, you tend to picture some ghostly-white looking thing, or maybe a light or something, but not this. He peered into the glass case, staring at the seemingly random assortment of objects. They meant something to someone, he thought. From behind him, Hella choked on the smoke in her lungs. She got to her feet and came over to him, gulping in the smoke-free (or, at least, smoke-light) air. Of course, it wasn’t the air here that they were really choking on. Thinking about all that made his head hurt.

  ‘What are we doing in here?’ Hella asked, blinking smoke out of her eyes.

  Harrow pointed at the shard of glass he’d seen here earlier. ‘You know that story I was just telling you about, when I was thirteen and the human stabbed me with a broken bottle?’ She nodded. Harrow pointed into the cabinet. ‘That’s the shard Amara pulled out of my hand. It has my blood on it.’

  Hella’s eyes grew wide as green saucers. ‘Oh, my god. Get it!’ She squealed. Hella had her hands on Harrow’s arm, and he couldn’t say he minded. She was happy, excited.

  ‘There’s always a price for magic,’ he said, spewing her witchy words back at her. ‘So, what’s the price for getting my soul back?’ He was reluctant to grab it. Who knows exactly what would happen? What if it was just a piece of glass after all? Would he have to stab himself with it again? His wrist still throbbed from where he’d slashed it earlier.

  Hella paused. Apparently she hadn’t thought of that. ‘Maybe there won’t be one?’

  ‘There’s always a price, little witch.’ Harrow tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear. ‘I’ve done some shitty things, which, right now I don’t care about. If I had a soul, though…’ he trailed off, and she nodded, understanding.

  ‘Well, yes you have,’ she said. Harrow wondered if she knew she’d put a hand on her throat, where he’d choked her. ‘But you didn’t have a soul at the time. It wasn’t your fault.’ Purple flames still danced over their bodies. They were burning through the magic they needed. He wondered if his ice-magic would protect his body. Remembering the last time he had tried to use it when Hella had astralled, then caught fire, he suspected not. Her fire was much more powerful than his ice.

  He leaned closer to her. ‘Do you blame me for trying to kill you?’ He was genuinely curious. It was the same kind of curious a little warlock during the change might be at what would happen to a baby bird, not quite ready to fly, if you dropped it out of a tree. Would it fly or fall? Curiosity and caring were two different things.

  Hella opened her mouth, paused, then closed
it. ‘No,’ she said, though it was weak. She was lying. Of course she blamed him.

  He suspected he would blame himself if he got his soul back, too. Malachai’s words ran through his mind, What if he doesn’t want it back? The angel had a point. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea after all. He glanced at the glass in the display. ‘I don’t think I want it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Hella said. ‘Harrow, we’re here. You found it. Take it!’ Purple flames danced in her eyes. It was beautiful, he thought. She was beautiful.

  ‘Would you want to kiss me, here, now without it?’

  Tommy’s voice rang urgently. Guys, you’re burning. Come back. His voice sounded strained, as if he were gulping down lung-fulls of smoke too. Harrow knew he would be.

  Hella’s red brows drew together, and he didn’t need faerie telepathy to see what she was thinking: his hands around her neck, her blood and organs freezing inside of her. She lowered her gaze from his. ‘No,’ she breathed.

  ‘But if I had it?’ Harrow pressed. It was hard to tell how she really felt about him, either current soulless him, or the old Harrow. They felt entirely different. Harrow remembered her arms snaking around his body that day in the park, her lips on his, then in the armchair in the store. Morals, he did not have, but he wanted to be with her. Close to her.

  Her fiery gaze met his again. For the thousandth time since they set foot in this world, she said, ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head, and this time smoke and fire drifted off her. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Not for me, for you. For the people you’ve killed, and the people you won’t kill if you have it.’ Hella paused, then took a blue-glass vial from her belt.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Piper gave it to me, for you. To help you.’ Hella looked up at him as Harrow tried to take a step back. He didn’t want her potions or spells.

  Hella held onto his shoulder and smashed the glass vial into his chest. He gasped—and not just from the sting of broken glass in his skin—something floated up into his nose and eyes, a blueish mist. ‘What the—’

  ‘It will help you. Now, get your soul, and let’s get out of here.’

  Through the smoke and mist, Harrow could barely see Hella anymore: she was awash in purple fire. ‘What’s it supposed to do?’

  ‘It will balance your moral compass,’ Hella said, looking at him expectantly.

  All Harrow could think about was that he wanted to kiss her, but first—he reached through the display and grabbed the shard of glass that had once pierced his hand. The glass glowed angel-white and blinded him. Everything went white and grew hotter all at once. Harrow cried out and reached for Hella.

  Then everything moved between time and space.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Tessa

  It was past her bedtime, but Tessa Mea stayed up in bed to read a really great book. Her lamp burned into the early hours of the morning, and she was ever-afraid that Hunter or Lola would pop their head in to check on her and catch her.

  But it didn’t stop her. Hours passed by, and she couldn’t have guessed how many pages she had read if her life depended on it, they just flitted between her fingers. She had to read what happened next. Hours ago, before midnight, she had reasoned, one more chapter, just one more. But that nonsense was long gone. She was almost finished the book—how could she stop now?

  Tessa was fortunate enough to have her own room in Faerie House. If she had siblings closer to her age, she would have to share with them, but Hunter and Lola had a room together, so that suited Tessa just fine. It wasn’t a large space, but she comfortably fit her single bed with the purple bedcovers and her nightstand. Opposite her bed was a small white dressing table, then to her left was the closet that held her clothes. To the right of her bed was a larger space that held two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with books and a fold-out couch that she usually fell asleep reading on.

  When Hunter had first found her at the Cambion Den and brought her home, Tessa would often wake in the middle of the night to find her protective big sister asleep on the couch, watching over her. She’d refused to give Tessa any space or privacy for days until Lola told her she was being annoyingly clingy and got her to move in with her in the very next room. Tessa was grateful for her sister’s protective feelings, but almost more grateful to Lola for making her stop hovering. It had been getting to be smothering.

  Now, she could read through the night without worrying about waking her sister. She only had a few pages left. She glanced out her window to see the sun had come up. She was tired, but excited by the world she’d slipped into for the night. The little faerie finished the book with a grin and set it back on her shelf, eager to immediately begin the next one. But no, she had to stop now. For one thing, she was starving.

  The little faerie padded downstairs, stretching in her pyjamas. Lola was sitting at the kitchen table for their wing of the chambers (there were several kitchens and bathrooms—you didn’t want hundreds of faeries using them at the same time every day). Her hair was spiked through with a crystal-encrusted chopstick, and she was wearing a shiny white and black-laced singlet and shorts pyjama set under her matching gown that split up her legs. She had a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other.

  Tessa grinned. ‘It’s good, right?’

  Lola blinked at Tessa’s emergence, apparently totally lost in the book. Her oatmeal sat in front of her, untouched. ‘Oh. Good morning, honey. Yeah, this is amazing.’ She tilted her blonde head. ‘You didn’t sleep, did you Tessie?’

  ‘I just finished the second book in the series,’ Tessa said around a yawn. She reached into the cabinet, grabbed the cereal and some milk and sat down at the table with Lola and poured them into a bowl.

  Lola wasn’t very good at disciplining Tessa—which Tessa was okay with—but concern creased her pale face. ‘You need sleep, little one.’ Her gaze trailed back to the book in her hands. ‘No matter how good these are.’

  Tessa smiled. Her concern was touching. She was like a second (more fun) sister. ‘Have you seen Hunter?’

  ‘She’s still asleep,’ Lola said. Her breakfast seemed destined to go uneaten.

  Tessa munched her cornflakes and mumbled a mm-hmm. It seemed like it would be a nice, peaceful day. Maybe she could start that next book after a hot shower.

  Something tingled at the back of Tessa’s mind. A discomfort of some kind, though she couldn’t put her finger on what it could be. She was probably just tired, she thought, dumping her empty cereal bowl in the dishwasher. She went up to Lola and kissed her cheek. ‘Eat your breakfast,’ Tessa said. Lola blinked at her, then at her own food and giggled.

  The shower was nice. Really hot. She towel-dried herself and got dressed. Unlike warlocks, faeries didn’t need to train to use their powers when they were children. Tessa knew how to use her power. Well, the one power she had so far. She almost forgot she had it sometimes, when she wasn’t around Hella. It seemed that the only person she was connected with was the promised witch; though that was pretty cool, there wasn’t a lot she could do with it. Her telepathy was still patchy, but Hunter encouraged her to keep trying.

  However, even little faeries are supposed to train in basic self-defence and survival skills. Once, one of her elders had compared her to being a girl-scout, but better. Not that Tessa knew what that meant. But, since all the angels had been banished to Heaven the council had been meeting daily to, well, you know, reorganise their lives accordingly. Also, unlike the warlocks, the faeries were not blind to the risks now associated with the demons.

  Tommy’s aunt, Tahlia Terra, had been calling every day to warn them about the threat the demons posed. The news articles and strange human deaths had not gone unnoticed. Their sentry guards had been put on alert, and doubled, just in case. Though demons had never taken any particular interest in hunting faeries, as far as she knew, they wanted to be safe rather than sorry. At first, while the council locked themselves in the meeting chambers for ho
urs on end every day, the House was filled with unrest. Now, it was like an extended vacation. All normal training and classes had been suspended (their teachers were even sitting in on council meetings) and Tessa had been having a wonderful time absorbed in her books.

  Hunter had been out recruiting new witches to form another coven, but it had proven difficult. After all that had been going on, any witches out there were laying low and didn’t feel like joining a new coven—especially after what happened to the previous Mill Valley coven. So, Hunter and Lola had mostly been staying home, which was nice, and not that Tessa could really practice witchcraft, but they had been teaching her about some spells, especially since it was the promised witch that she was connected to.

  It had been days since Tessa had seen Hella. It had been at Remy’s store—though Remy was gone, it was hard for Tessa to think of it by its name—and Harrow had been killing them. Tessa hadn’t heard anything from Hella since, but she had been told that Harrow was locked up in Warlock House, awaiting trial. Even though he had nearly killed Hella and her, Tessa really hoped they wouldn’t put him through the Imperium Ceremony. That was just too awful.

  Tessa spent the day with something bothering her at the back of her mind. They had been peaceful, lazy days, and Lola didn’t even get dressed. Everything should be calm, Tessa thought, but something continued to gnaw at her. She just couldn’t figure out what it was. When Hunter was up and dressed—past midday—she and Lola were cuddled up on a family-room couch watching a movie when Tessa came in.