Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)

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 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 f*cking 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 a*sholes 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 f*cking 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 f*ck 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 wouldn’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.




The End





About the Author


Olivia Martinez is a veteran and the mother to one very lovely little girl named Grace. A native of the Chicago suburbs, she spends her time dreaming of warmer places to winter over. In her spare time, Olivia runs a blog where she interviews other authors.