Mistfall (8 page)

Hailz’s tail whipped around and hit me square
in the chest like a semi-truck, knocking me over the tree trunk and
onto the ground. I landed on my back with an “oomph.” I stayed on
the ground while I waited on the asthmatic like wheezing to
reside.

Her large, reptilian head was looming over
me. Her voice was even. “You need to start caring. Like I said,
you’ve been sheltered.”

I could hear her tail rattling. She would not
hesitate to strike at me again to get my attention. I pulled myself
up to rest on my elbows, still a bit winded. “Okay, I’m listening.
But first, I have to ask. Why do you have a python body with a
rattle on your tail?”

She grinned. “Fashion accessory.” Her tail no
longer pointed in my direction, but swayed back and forth. “Have I
ever lied to you?” she asked.

Hailz and I may fight with the intent to kill
each other, but lying was not part of our relationship. “No,” I
replied.

“Remember that. There may come a time in your
future when that information will matter.”

I stood up and dusted off my pants. Hailz
knew more than she was letting on and I was determined to get the
information out of her. She had slithered over to a sunny spot
under the forest’s canopy, coiled around herself, warming up.

“Who shouldn’t I trust?” I asked.

“Everyone,” she replied lazily.

“Wow Hailz, that was really helpful.” I
picked my bag up off the ground. My time was being wasted my a
mischievous Ifrit. Visions of chopping her head off were dancing
around in my mind. Whatever she knew, it just wasn’t worth putting
up with her antics.

I turned my head around as I walked away. “I
have better places to be rather than with you and your vagaries. By
the way, give Iblis my usual reply and that he can go to he-, well
he can just stay put.” I mentally smacked myself in the head for
such a poor retort.

“WAIT!” she cried out when I had traveled
thirty yards from her. You wouldn’t think a twenty foot python
could cover the distance between us quickly. Her body moved like
lightening until she was on my toes. I jumped back in surprise.

“The Master did send a message for you.”

“I already told you, I’m not interested.” I
was so tired of Iblis’s same old song and dance that I actually
stomped my foot down like a petulant child.

“He can be a broken record,” Hailz
half-heartedly sympathized. “That, however, is not the message I’ve
been entrusted with.”

Foot in mouth? Check. Humble pie?
Check.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“What was that? I didn’t quite make out what
you said Mags.”

I unsheathed the sword that had been strapped
to my back and pointed it at her. “Can you hear me now or would you
rather become my new purse?”

Hailz was bristling, her rattle loud. She
raised her body, poised for an attack. I stood ready, waiting for
her to pounce. “I’m going to chop you from the tail up and feed the
pieces to you,” I threatened, pointing my sword at points on her
body.”

Hailz’s body slackened, like a balloon
deflating, and laughed. “Oh, you are definitely a girl after my own
heart. Perhaps we’ll get another chance to try and kill each other,
but not today. Put your weapon down and let’s finish what I came
here to do.”

I impaled my sword on the ground, secretly
happy she didn’t want to fight. In her current form and speed, she
could have given me a run for my money. My fight really wasn’t with
her and I needed to conserve my strength for my journey and whoever
stood in my way.

“That’s better. Now we can talk like friends,
don’t you think?” Hailz taunted me.

I crossed my arms and started tapping my foot
against the ground. “Get on with it already,” I demanded.

She smirked at me. “There is more to your
being hunted by The Powers than the fact you’re an Iblian
jinn.”

“Like what?”

“The Master himself doesn’t know that answer.
His spies have been unable to penetrate The Powers’ secrets. He
suspects a power struggle within their ranks.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Perhaps if the ringleader, King Abel, was to
kill the last Iblian jinn, then it would be the lynchpin in his
victory,” Hailz offered. “It’s all conjecture though.”

“I thought they were supposed to work
together for a common goal or some crap like that,” I said. Hailz
laughed at me as if I was stupid. “That’s what they’d like you to
think. Didn’t Willa teach you about any of this?”

I didn’t answer, Hailz already knew the
answer. Willa kept me sheltered. I guess she figured that if she
kept me away from this world, then it couldn’t hurt me. It was a
sweet gesture, but right now I would give up a kidney for a little
enlightenment.

“There’s something else.” Hailz grew quiet,
hesitant to continue. I could tell whatever she was about to say
was against her will. I shifted my weight to the other foot and
kept quiet, allowing her to speak in her own time.

Time was inching its way forward like a snail
before she finally continued. “The Master has offered you a gift of
protection.”

I opened my mouth to decline the offer.
Nothing good could possibly come from evil incarnate. Hailz stopped
me before I had a chance to say anything. “Don’t even bother
arguing. Neither of us have a choice in the matter. You’re
receiving his protection whether you like it or not.”

I sighed in frustration. “What’s the catch
Hailz and what does it have to do with you?”

“There is no catch. The Master just prefers
you alive and relatively unharmed.” She slithered to the base of a
tree, curling up on herself once more.

“You’re not going to tell me why that is are
you?” I asked.

“She laughed in her weird snake voice and
shook her head no.

I put one hand on my hip and waved the other
in the air. “So, where’s this mysterious gift of protection?”

“You’re looking at it,” she gestured to
herself with her tail.

“Let’s be honest,” I stated, “you and I
barely put up with each other in small doses. Who’s going to
protect us from each other?” It was a good point. Once in awhile my
meeting with Hailz would end up in a fight. There was no way we
could travel together without one of us killing each other.

“I would rather make flower necklaces and
sing ‘Kumbayah’ all day with the pixies rather than walk all over
the Otherworld with you,” Hailz spat. “Unfortunately for me, the
Master decided it would be prudent for me to bind myself to you. I
agreed, albeit reluctantly.”

Binding a jinn was perpetual slavery. Amongst
otherworldly creatures it was rarely used and only then for the
most serious of crimes. A jinn had to agree to be bound, which led
to some pretty nasty alternatives for criminals refusing the
binding. Torture, starvation, and threatening the lives of loved
ones were common persuasion techniques.

The jinn once walked openly among humans,
like most otherworldly beings. We would exchange help for their
goods or services. We often helped purely out of the goodness of
our hearts. Once in a great while a jinn would become like a member
of the family to some of the humans.

Out of love for their adopted human family, a
jinn would bind themselves to an object, usually a heirloom that
belonged to the family. This was a marriage of sorts, a lasting
commitment between the jinn and its family. The last member of the
family still living usually broke the bond before their death so
the jinn could once again be free. A jinn was always permitted to
request their freedom at any time. Out of love and mutual respect,
they were generally released by the humans.

At some point in history, the humans became
greedy and cruel. Instead of releasing the jinn, they would pass
ownership down the family line or steal the heirlooms from others.
Because they were still bound to the object, the new owner became
the new master.

A bound jinn must do what’s asked of it aside
from murder, creating love, and creating money. Human empires were
created and destroyed on the backs of these enslaved jinn.

A smart jinn will never bind themselves to a
container type of object. They can be trapped inside of it if they
do. The humans have a story of that happening to one of us.

Trapped in an old oil lamp, one of us was
buried with an extinct civilization for many millennia. The human
story has a happy ending. That jinn, the one Disney has made
millions off of, went and destroyed part of a country. I believe
it’s called the Empty Quarter.

Being bound and forgotten in a container is
the worst thing that could happen to a jinn. Today when they are
found, they are killed immediately out of mercy.

One day, I may have to kill Hailz and I’m
alright with that. I will not have her indentured to me though.
Hades only knows what may befall me and I won’t have her a slave to
some unknown person.

“NO.” I was adamant. “I won’t allow you to be
bound.”

“It’s not your choice,” she responded
nonchalantly as if she were commenting on the weather. “Now what do
you have as far as objects go?”

“I only have weapons and clothes,” I said,
shaking my duffle bag.

“That won’t do. Clothes are easily destroyed
and weapons can be lost or left behind.”

“Hailz, I really don’t feel good about
this.”

“Oh, I’m just ready to burst out and do
cartwheels.” I thought I could see the sarcasm dripping from her
fangs.

I rubbed my hand against my forehead; needles
were beginning to penetrate my skull. This was so wrong. I couldn’t
figure a way out of it either.
Maybe…just maybe I can wait until
she binds herself, call her to me, and then grant her
freedom.

Her tail jabbed itself in my direction. “I
can read you like a book. We’re stuck with each other until The
Powers lay off you. So just get over whatever moral crisis you’re
having and suck it up.”

I walked off a few feet away to collect my
thoughts and calm down. When I came back, Hailz was fiddling with a
small, golden device. She whispered something to it that I couldn’t
make out.

The moment she quit speaking, a flurry of
gold and purple shimmered around her. The cloud slowly became
bigger, the magic building itself up. It towered over us, swirling
and undulating. Waves of color washed over each other like shifting
sands, blurring Hailz until she was invisible. Once the magic hit
its zenith, it came pouring down, funneling into Hailz and the
object like bees attacking an intruder.

She was now bound to me. There wasn’t a power
great enough on Earth to remove it and now she was stuck in
servitude, because of me.

“I’m sorry Hailz.” I didn’t know what else to
say to her. What could you say?

“Don’t bother. Just figure out what you’re
doing so I can get my freedom back. As for this, just rub it and
call my name. I will appear.” She quit turning the object over in
her hands and tossed it to me. “You were going a little too far
east.”

I looked down at the object in my hands. It
was a compass. Golden and small, it had an inscription written in
an obscure ancient language. I faced back up to thank Hailz. I
figured it was the least I could do, but she was already gone and
in her place was a black scorch mark.

After Hailz left, I walked through the forest
for a few hours. It had been a quiet few hours too. The footsteps
of creatures were like whispers on the wind. Occasionally pixies
would dash between plants, weaving their magic into their very
cells. Between chatting with a few of the pixies and admiring the
scenery, straight out of Wonderland, I was able to clear my
head.

With a fresh perspective of recent events, I
came to a few conclusions. I had been set up for David’s death.
Gauging Owen’s reaction, I was pretty sure he had something to do
with it.

Werewolf law concerning fighting is pretty
simple: Don’t go into battle without being prepared to die.

If I had killed David, it would have been
justifiable. His badly managed attempt at sexual assault would have
made it doubly so. If a pack leader had found out, in this case
Owen, and David was still alive, Owen would have killed him for it.
Instead, Owen had been on his way to my home to kill me. That
wasn’t exactly kosher werewolf behavior.

At this point I was pretty sure David’s death
had been staged to force me out into the open. An Iblian jinn
accused of cold-blooded murder would cause enough outrage that The
Powers would reinforce their resources in finding me. Hailz’s
warning confirmed this.

How someone figured out my supernatural
status in Harmony is beyond me. I never slipped up and forgot to
drink the
brew
. Melissa was the only one, aside from Luca,
who knew and she had sworn a blood oath to keep the secret. The
spell of a blood oath would have boiled her blood inside of her if
she had broken it. After Luca found out, he had stayed with me,
unable to have had the time to tell anyone.

Unless…Was it possible one of the
participant’s in Willa’s crazy plan had turned traitor?
No,
Willa would have never been that careless.
I gave up, there was
no way of knowing who and it really didn’t matter now anyway.

The sun was hanging a bit west of midday.
Darkness would fall sooner in the forest from the tree cover. I
needed to find shelter in the next few hours or risk exposure to
any member of nocturnal beasties.

“Further up and further in,” I quoted C.S.
Lewis. On I went. Soon after, I came across a small cave. I peeked
inside to see if it was empty. A family of goblins and I spotted
each other at the same time.

They were more than gracious, offering me
room and board for the night. But the smell, ugh! Eau de Goblin was
an odor best described as two week old rotting flesh. I politely
declined and waited until I was back at the mouth of the cave until
I broke out into a full sprint. The sooner I could get away from
the smell of rotting garbage the better.