Mistfall (33 page)

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.

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?”

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 brother. 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.