Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)

6. Snake In the Grass





I knew the moment I had made it into the valley that I was being followed and I knew by whom. My shadow wasn’t being all that discreet about it. Leaves had been falling and twigs snapping ahead of me, not of their own volition. I walked until I was near her, under the cover of the forest, before I addressed her.

I stopped and listened. She was slithering around up in the tree to my right. I looked up. “Not trying too hard, are you Hailz?” I called out.

A twenty foot python dropped out of the tree, landing ten feet from me with a thud. “Wasssn’t necessary.” She shook her head. “Sorry, trying out a new form. This tongue takes a little getting used to. As I was saying, it wasn’t necessary.”

Hailz was an Ifrit, the lowest kind of jinn, though not one to be underestimated. Last time I saw her she was a mountain lion. She also happened to be Iblis’s messenger. We had an odd sort of relationship. Neither of us particularly cared for the other, but we weren’t necessarily enemies either.


“How on earth did you get the hamadryad to let you climb up her tree as big as you are?” I questioned.

“She didn’t, but I was getting hungry waiting on you to quit arguing with your boyfriend. My meal came with a seat that had a clear view of you,” Hailz stated without remorse.

Disgust was etched all over my face. “That’s horrible! Hamadryads are peaceful, hardly a challenge.”

She shrugged as best as a snake could. “Fast food.”

I just shook my head in disgust.

“So,” I said changing the subject, “what does the boss man want? Let me guess, is it the old ‘join me or die’ bit again? As much as I love our little heart to hearts, I really don’t have time for it today Hailz.”

“She laughed, but in snake form it sounded more like “sss ss sss ss sss.” It was a bit creepy. “Let’s continue on your journey Mags, as we talk. It’s not safe for you to stay out in the open for too long today.”

Her logic was sound, if not obvious, so I walked while she slithered. Thank Hades we were in the forest on this side of the Mistfall. Had we been on the human side, a girl with a sword strapped to her back with a huge, out of place python would have caused quite the scene. Here though, there were far scarier things than us prowling around.

“The Master’s offer to join him or perish still stands. Between us girls though, those he has sent after you, he did out of punishment for them. He knew you could defeat what he’s sent after you so far.”

My eyes widened. “So he’s not trying to destroy me?”

Hailz remained quiet a moment, pondering her next words. “Repeat any of this and I will rip your arm off and use it to beat you death. I don’t intend to suffer the Master’s wrath and you will do well to remember it.”

I rolled my eyes. “And here I thought we were becoming BFF’s. I guess the sleepover and braiding each other’s hair is out?”

Hailz gave me the stink eye. A snake giving you a dirty look is rather hilarious since her eyelid works sideways. My side felt like it would rip in two from holding back the laughter. I decided to move on rather than rile her up some more. “Alright, whatever you say stays between us.”

Hailz hadn’t become Iblis’s messenger for her charm. Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Don’t kill the messenger?’ In her case, the messenger kills you. She’s also rather creative about how she dispatches someone.

Believe it or not, Hailz isn’t a psychopath. According to her, she gets bored with her job and “Dead is dead, who cares how they get that way.”

“As I told you Mags, the Master does not truly wish you harm. He merely gets annoyed with your constant refusal and disrespect.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “You’d think he’d be used to the rejection by now.”

Hailz hiss-snorted at me in derision. “You’ve lived a rather sheltered life. You don’t know where you came from and you’ve barely dented the surface of who you are. Who are you to be looking down your nose at the Master?”

There was a fallen tree in our path, its girth making it impossible to move. Feeling a lecture coming on, I sat down on it. I figured that I’d rather be comfortable. Also the sooner Hailz was done, the faster I would get rid of her.

I pointed at Hailz. “I don’t care to know where I came from. It couldn’t have been that great seeing I was adopted. Secondly, I had my parents and Willa. I could give a dragon’s hide about where I began life.” My voice had steadily increased in volume and now I was shouting. “As to who I am, I’m the one who’s going to smack you in the face with your own tail if you don’t get to the point!”

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.