Mistfall
Page 25
I too, was going nowhere. I could guarantee Mags’s safety, unlike the others that she had put her trust in. As I sat there, I wondered if I should kill her in her sleep, out of mercy. Mags was gone for a reason. Maybe she didn’t want to come back. After a lengthy discussion with myself, I put the idea on the back burner for the time being.
Once the Dreamweavers got here we could get inside her head. I’d let her choose her own fate then, if she could. If she couldn’t, well then, I would give her peace.
26. Luca
I didn’t sleep at all that night. Pictures of what Hailz told me had happened to Mags ran through my head on a loop. My only distraction was the evil looks Hailz kept shooting my way. I know she was thinking of the many different ways she could kill me.
Frankly, I would deserve it. The humans have a saying, ‘Ignorance is bliss.’ They have it wrong. Ignorance is the destroyer of worlds. It tears family and communities apart. It drives men to war. But most of all, my ignorance has destroyed, its victim an innocent.
I will be subject to the punishment of one of the nine kings of Hades one day. I deserve nothing less and will take it willingly. Right now, I’d sell my soul to Iblis to save Mags.
“You fucking idiot!!!” Hailz shouted at me, loud enough to wake the dead. For some new reason, she was angry at me.
“Do you mean it?” she demanded.
I was confused. I hadn’t said a word to her for hours. “Mean what?” I asked.
“Are you willing to give your soul freely to try and help Mags?”
My eyebrows hit the ceiling from the shock. “How did you know I was thinking that?”
Hailz looked bored with the question, but answered it anyway. “Why the hell do you think I spend so much time topside? You think I like it here? Aside from my not so random murder and mayhem, I’m a Soul Stealer.”
I was rather surprised. Hailz didn’t exactly strike me as a paperwork person.
Her attention was attuned to the windows and doors as if she were awaiting someone (probably my father) to burst through the doors). Hailz was ready to strike at a moment’s notice.
“I can hear it every time someone offers to sell their soul,” she continued. “My job is numbers. I will do whatever horrible thing I can to pillage those souls. I’m good at my job too. I’ve been the record holder for the last seventy-four years.”
“I thought you were Iblis’s right hand man,” I replied.
She laughed at me like I was stupid. “I can do two things at once fuck face. So back to the matter at hand, is it worth your soul to save Mags?”
There was no question. “Yes.”
For the first time tonight, Hailz looked happy. “Cool. This will count for triple since I’m on a holiday.”
With a flash of brimstone, Hailz had the paperwork lying in front of me on the bed. “Now, since your signature will get me a bonus, I will do you a favor and give you a heads up,” she informed me. “I can’t promise Mags will survive, but the forfeiture of your soul will definitely tilt things in her favor.”
It didn’t matter if it didn’t work and I lost my soul for nothing. I promised Mags my life, that included my soul.
“Great. I’ll receive my punishment in Hades sooner.” I checked my pockets for a pen. “So where do I sign?”
Hailz put her hand up in front of her. “Hold on a minute, I’m not done,” she chided me. “You promised enslavement to her,” she pointed to Mags. “If Mags survives, I’m going to wait to collect. I’ll see you suffer your due before Iblis even touches you.
Those are my terms. Now, if you’ll give me your hand, I’ll just make a little nip and you can sign the paperwork in blood.”
With a smile on her face and a knife being twirled in her hand, Hailz looked only too happy to assist.
“I pulled out my own knife. “Thanks, but I’ll handle my own blood work,” I told her.
“Party pooper,” she grumbled as her knife disappeared in a puff of smoke.
I didn’t hesitate. I pricked my finger with the end of my knife. The moment the drop of blood made contact with the document, the smell of sulphur permeated the air. That was right before my forearm began to burn. I yelped in pain, wincing through the feeling of flames licking my skin. Once the burning feeling subsided, I looked down at my arm to see the cause of it. There was a smiley face with two x’d out eyes branded on my forearm. I raised an eyebrow in question at Hailz.
“It’s my own special mark.” She then smiled and I realized what the face of evil truly looked like. “It keeps the other Soul Stealers away,” she explained.
I narrowed my eyes at her. Knowing her, the pain and subsequent branding was probably just to spite me.
I kept vigil for signs of Mags’s return while Hailz was perched on her chair, lying in wait to welcome any intruders that dared. Neither of us got what we wanted.
Sometime past daybreak the Fae princess Fiona returned to the room followed by two of what had to be the most hideous looking creatures I’ve ever seen. They seemed as if they were made from the stuff of nightmares. Fiona introduced them as the Dreamweavers. I likened them to a drunken Carnival nightmare. Hailz later explained that their look was due to their extremely long longevity.
Fiona addressed them first. “I explained to you last night the particulars of the situation. Do you think you can help her?”
One of them spoke. I’m not sure which one it was as they both looked like identical.
“We’ve been with Magdalene since the horror began. She is of interest to us. We gave her what help we could. She still exists, but her voice is faint, even to us.”
“Is there anything we can do?” I begged of the creature.
“She needs her magic,” the whatever it’s called recommended. “With that she may return, but you must hurry. She is weak and her light is fading.”
Fiona then showed the men, at least I think they were men, out. I felt helpless, like a child unable to survive by itself. Every moment we wasted was making the situation grimmer.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Hailz shouted, finally leaving her seat. She was upset, something clearly had her rattled.
“We’re going to have to go to Elemental Deep,” Hailz sighed, defeated. “It’ll take forever for all of us to get there. Sure there’s a portal to the top, but we’d have to carry her all the way down into the mines. I really don’t think Mags has that kind of time.”
Distracted by Mags’s survival chances, it took me a minute before I realized it. “We don’t have to go,” I told the room.
“So….what? We should just put her out of her misery without even trying?” Hailz questioned me and threw her hands in the air.
I jumped up from my spot by Mags’s side, energized by my revelation. “No Hailz. Take your head off murder for a second. What I meant is that we don’t have to go because someone already went and got the keys.”
I quickly explained Jack, John, and Melissa’s trip down there. “All we have to do is find them,” I suggested.
Hailz stood up and started shouting. “Fi! Fiona!”
Fiona rushed in, assuming the worst. She was relieved when she saw the up and down movement of Mags’s chest.
Hailz asked Fiona to have the palace guarded by the entire village Fae while she was gone. “No one, not even your mother is allowed in her until I return,” she demanded with all the ferocity of a mama bear. “Do you understand?”
“All you have to do is ask,” Fiona chided her gently. “I’ll protect her with my own life. No hurry.”
Hailz’s bond with Mags was still in effect. That allowed her to pop in and out across the world. Fiona shooed her on her way and Hailz disappeared in a flurry of purple and gold.
“Fiona waved her hand in front of her face and turned to me. “I understand this bond agreement, but why does it have to be so messy?”
27. Hailz
I hoped that I wouldn’t be gone for more than a few hours. The blood Luca used to sign his soul over would help me to find his bro
ther. It also helped that I had a pretty good idea where to find them too.
Dwarves rarely come out of the mines. Their whole civilization exists underground. Their tunnels are all interconnected, similar to how the Fae portals connect all their villages. Since the two elves and the Witch didn’t escape by Fae portal, the tunnels were their only other option to escape safely.
Now I can’t tell you where (Otherwise you’ll all go hunting for Dwarves because they’re cute or some crap like that), but I know where the closest tunnel to the Wildwood is. John had a hidden home there that his father didn’t know about. It makes sense that they’d go there to wait on Luca and Mags to join them.
My timing was good. I only waited ten minutes before they arrived.
Melissa saw me first. “Hailz? What are you doing here?” she asked. “Where’s Mags.”
Of course they didn’t know what’s going on, so they think they have time to sit down and chat like a bunch of hens. “I need to make this short,” I told them. “Do you have the keys?”
John held the three golden keys up. “Yeah, but they won’t function for a few hours,” he explained, much to my irritation. “The Dwarves said something about the magic needing time to settle.”
Superb, we were left holding a couple of finicky magical keys. What’s next?
“Listen, I need the three of you to move your asses, post haste, to the queen’s village.” I instructed. “Got it?”
That got their attention. I saw the realization sweep across the Witch’s face like a gale force wind.
“Hailz, what happened to Mags? Please tell us,” she begged.
Jack’s face paled at Melissa’s train of thought.
I snapped at them for holding us up. “We can sit here and I can tell you and hope Mags makes it. OR, you ass monkeys can do what I tell you and we can have story time later.”
The impending death of a loved one really tends to motivate people. They took off in one of the Witch’s spells and I returned to mine and Fiona’s castle.
“Let’s go!” I demanded, popping back in, much to everyone’s shock.
Fiona and Luca stared at me like a deer in headlights. “Don’t just stand there. Grab the girl and let’s fucking move!” I ordered.
Elfhole Luca grabbed Mags, flanked by his two buddies and walked out of the room. Fiona detained me for a minute and NO, I will not tell you what transpired. I quickly caught up to them. The villagers surrounded us as we walked through town. As we stood before the portal, one of the Fae stopped me.
Rory handed me my compass and the god’s sword. “Tell her I’m sorry,” he asked of me.
“You can tell her yourself, if she survives,” I spat at him before stepping through the portal.
The queen’s personal guards met us on the other side of the portal, which resided on the castle grounds. We were escorted to the queen’s personal bedchamber. Luca tucked Mags in bed while we awaited the other three to arrive.
“Hailz, a moment,” my new mother-in-law asked of me.
We walked to an empty corner of her bedroom, out of hearing range. Fiona had updated Aurora and she was aware of what had happened.
She spoke, her voice low. “If the girl is still there, you can’t release her magic here. Mags is not quite what she seems. The power her pain will release may destroy the village.”
What? I looked at Aurora, curiously. “Not what she seems?”
“Yes, but you can’t speak a word of it, not even to Mags,” she instructed me. “The gods would strike us down if you did.”
The curiosity was going to kill me, but I could wait another day to find out. Mags might not.
“Where do you suggest we go?” I asked Aurora.
She discreetly pointed to a large, expensively decorated wardrobe. “That’s my secret portal. It will take you and the others somewhere safe to release the girl’s magic. Just make sure the others are out of firing range. You should be safe though.”
Aurora left me and walked to Mags’s side, giving her a little of her own special magic to aid in Mags’s healing. I paced the room, impatiently waiting the return of the others. After what seemed like an eternity, they showed up.
“We still have an hour before the keys are ready,” the unfamiliar one informed me.
The queen excused herself, taking her men with her so we could use her portal discreetly.
John and Luca swapped stories. Melissa and the extra Elf almost lost their lunch at Luca’s tale. The brothers and the Witch shared the guilt between the three of them. I wanted to make them all pay. Well, except for the extra, but I figured I could chalk him up to collateral damage.
I was furious and opened my mouth to verbally beat them. The stranger Elf beat me to the punch.
“What the hell is wrong with you three,” he asked.
I already knew Luca’s explanation, but John and Melissa’s were a little more revealing.
As it turns out, Abel arranged John and Melissa’s marriage when they were children. There has never been anything between them, aside from friendship, but they kept up the charade around Abel. John’s mother, Gwynedd, had recruited them into Willa’s Mags Protection Plan.
Melissa would keep an eye out for Mags as far as the day to day was concerned. John was just for back-up as he was too close to the enemy. If all went well, John and Mags would never have met again after she moved into the town created for her. His and Melissa’s arranged marriage would have never been revealed to Mags.
But things, as they tend to do, never go according to plan. Once everything went topsy-turvy and they were together again, the dumbasses acknowledged their love for each other. Things being hectic, no one thought about coming clean to Mags.
When Abel turned up in Fiona’s village, he used that information against Mags. He also led her to believe John and Melissa were as manipulative as Luca. Unfortunately, Mags isn’t in her own head to hear these explanations.
If releasing her magic worked, she would still carry the pain of her friends’ betrayal, along with everything Abel subjected her to. I made sure they were aware of that, for my own entertainment.
Time was up and the keys were ready to go. I told the group that the queen was worried that Mags might lose it so we had to go elsewhere. We entered the portal and were spit out somewhere unfamiliar. We were on a white sandy beach somewhere tropical but not one I or anyone else recognized. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Aurora sent us here. They place was deserted.
John and Melissa quickly released their bonds, their magic immediately returning to them.
“Now what?” Luca asked, still holding the husk that used to be Mags.
I pointed towards a sand dune. “Now, you assholes go and take cover while I release her,” I ordered.
“Why you?” John demanded, ready to fight.
I poked the asshat in his chest, wishing there was a knife in my hand. I shouted at him, my voice increasing in volume the more I yelled. “She was brutalized. If she comes back with her magic, she may very well still be a mess. You fucking geniuses hurt her and she’s in pain because of it. Her anger will be unfocused. Do you want to be a target when she goes nuclear?”
John gave me a look that told me what he thought of me. “What makes you think that she won’t hurt you?” he retorted, thinking our adversarial relationship was on par with his betrayal.
“Because, I’ve never betrayed her,” I seethed, making sure the Witch knew I meant that for her too. “I’m also a jinn. I can withstand a hell of a lot more of what she can dish out than any of you can. Now, if you have no more questions, hand her over and get the fuck out of my way!”
John backed down and Luca gently laid her in my arms. With Mags and the key in hand, I gave them a few minutes to take cover. If it was up to me, I’d line them up in front of her. I looked down at Mags for any signs of life. When she opened her eyes, I knew she would live. When she weakly made a grab at my hand, it gave me hope.
I was able to stand her on her own two feet. I w
ouldn’t call it a good sign though. She was swaying like a doll in the breeze, still lost. I tried to explain to her what might happen, to prepare her, but she was still just staring through me like I wasn’t even there.
I put the key first against her cold, clammy skin so it could gain the magical resonance, DNA, or whatever it did. Once it glowed, I used it to unlock her cuffs and took a few steps away and crouched down low.
At first, nothing happened. I thought maybe we were too late, but then Mags twitched and the wind began to pick up.
“Come on Mags,” I encouraged her. “Come on back and I’ll help you kill ever last one of those sick bastards.”
Dark thunder heads began to roll in and it began raining. The beach was soaked in minutes as the rain got heavier. Suddenly, and without warning, Mags screamed as the sky exploded. Fire and electricity burst from her hands. I just narrowly missed getting hit. I stayed there with her as long as I could. It was only when the lightening started hitting the ground, creating a circle around her that I finally took cover.
Aurora was right about Mags. She was an Iblian jinn, but she wasn’t. I didn’t know of anyone who had the kind of power that was emanating from Mags. I still didn’t understand what it all meant though.
A palm tree tried to impale me as I made my way to the others and I got out of the way just in the nick of time. I could only hope things didn’t get worse. Otherwise, no amount of cover would protect us.
“If you guys couldn’t tell, Mags is back,” I shouted at the others over the wind when I finally reached them.
The storm never ended. It raged on throughout the night, never waning in its intensity. The only thing we could hear over the wind and thunder was Mags. We were haunted forever by her mournful wails once the screaming stopped.