"Emily, wake up." Is how I wake up the next morning. Seeing the harsh sunlight streaming into the tent from the zipped open door, trough which Zane was calling my name. My head was pounding but not nearly as bad as I deserved as the memories from last night was flooding over me like a tidal wave.
I put my head in my hands and groaned at the thought off all the crazy stuff I had done the night before.
Zane laughed. "How are you feeling this morning?" he asked handing me a cup of coffee. Aaaaw coffee. The magic of the human world.
"Better than I deserve." I said.
"I don't know, you were pretty good." He replied, clearly referring to the blowjob I had insisted on giving him last night. I groaned again and he laughed. He was not going to let me forget this anytime soon.
I got up and got dressed, helped him pack up and before I knew it, we were back to walking. Me on my very shaky legs. We stopped often as a few times as I thought I might throw up but all in all we made good progress. Before long he stopped and looked up a small mountain we had come to. Confused I looked at it to. It went straight up and would be uncomfortable to climb but not impossible.
He looked at the GPS and back at the mountain.
"What's wrong?" I asked him.
"The GPS says she is just a head of us. Only a few feet." I looked back at the mountain. This was obviously another part of protection for Maggi and the reason she was never found accidentally or by the Maroy. At least we knew she was in there and that means all we had to do was find a way in.
I walked around the rock face looking for anything that could be clue.
"Did your mother do any other kind of magic bar elemental? Or was there something she liked or was interested in?" I asked him, knowing it could help as he knew her best.
He thought for a while before saying, "Yes she was sometimes really obsessed with the moon and stars." He said hopefully. That did help.
"Cosmic magic, not hard to masker although there are some who prefer it. We are all connected to the cosmos, the planet, and other people. That is why those magics are something that all witches can tap into and is most often a small piece of magic to overlook. Especially if you know that you are going up against a witch as powerful as your mother. Simple but still brilliant. "I said walking up and down the stone wall, running my hands up and down hoping to feel a small bit of magic coming from wherever we needed to get in. Finally I found it. It was barely a spark and mostly dormant. Any witch would have easily missed it if they had known what to look for. I swept the moss and dirt away from where I felt the spark and saw a district symbol carved into the stone.
"Mmmm" I said.
"What? What is it?" Zane said right by my ear making me jump. I had not heard him coming up behind me.
"It's a two-point lock. You need two things of magical descent to open this lock. It could be anything, from a spell to sacrifice, a specific word or even sometimes just the heat from your hand but with this symbol it means it needs two things at the same time."
"How does that help us. You just said it could be anything."
"What was your mothers favorite as you mentioned her interest in the cosmos. When was her favorite time of day or year or month?"
"I don't know. She liked the moon and would stare at it a lot."
Okay so a moon phase. One coinciding with the witch's moon as she knew that is when the locating spell would have to be done. Factoring in that she wouldn't have known all the problems that would be faced. So id wager a guess and say a normal full moon which by all calculations should be tonight.
"Okay I think the first lock would be a full moon. Once its rays reach the symbol it will be time to use the other thing and then an opening should present itself."
"Right, makes sense but how do we know what the second thing would be?" I went and sat down on a fallen log close by and thought.
"It would have to be something that you have but cannot lose. Also something that no one can take from you and is unique to you. "I said, it hitting me like I was an absolute idiot for not seeing it sooner.
"Its blood. Fresh from the cut blood. Your blood." He looked at me with understanding.
"So how do we do this?" he asked.
"We wait for the moon to come out and shines onto the symbol. When it does you put some of your blood on the symbol to and hopefully that will open something leading to your sister." He nodded and took a seat next to me and so we waited for the moon.
"I'm sorry about last night." I said.
"Please don't apologies, it was amazing, and I don't regret a thing." He said making me smile.
"Just so you know, I wouldn't have been angry if you had taken advantage last night." I said feeling shy even as I said it but feeling like it was something that did need to be said.
He looked at me shocked. And then without warning snatched out his hand and grabbed my head pulling it towards himself and placing his lips squarely on mine. The kiss was not as hungry in the same sense as the last one we shared was bit hungry in a different way. Hungry in a way that didn't just say he wanted into my body but also into my mind, into my heart, into my very soul.
Saying it was earth shattering or mind-blowing would have been an understatement.
I don't know how long we just sat there making out like teenagers but when he finally pulled away, I opened my eyes to find it mostly dark already. I looked up quickly thinking we might have missed the moon already, but it was just poking up behind the trees.
"Do you have a very sharp knife?" I asked him and he nodded, getting it from his backpack. We stood close to the symbol on the wall and waited knife in hand. Once the moon reached the symbol a faint glow could be seen lighting up the symbol.
"Now!" I said. Being one for one I really hoped this was the other thing to unlock the lock. He slit a cut into his hand and immediately a think ribbon of crimson flowed from his hand, and he placed it onto the symbol. The faint blue glow at once turned red and a soft rumbling was heard coming from the mountain itself. As if it was waking up from a long nap.
CRACK! Echoing all around us. A thin crack was running down the side of the mountain. Down the middle of the symbol all the way to the floor. Slowly it was getting bigger and wider. Eventually being wide enough for us to fit trough. Me a lot easier than Zane. He looked at each other and he had the widest smile I had yet to see on his face.
He walked trough the crack in the wall.
We were inside a kind of cavern. No flashlights needed as the walls gave off an illuminating blue glow. Similar to the one on the symbol but stronger. We looked around and saw a small tunnel leading deeper into the mountain. I walked first hoping I could sense any magical booby traps before we stepped into any but there was nothing as we walked slowly down the tunnel which later opened up into another big cave. By the looks of it as tall as the mountain itself. There above us. To high for even Zane to reach, as tall as he was, was the body of a little girl. Floating in midair. Zane looked at me.
"How do we get her down?" he asked me. I studied her from below for a while and said.
"Call to her. She is the only one who can bring herself out of this spell which she will if you give her reason to." I told him.
He took a deep breath and said out load,
"Maggi? Maggi, its Zane, I need you wake up now." He said but nothing happened. I frowned. Had I missed something?
"The last time she saw you, you were still a child. You are a grown man now. How does she know its really you? You need to let her know its you so that there is no doubt in her mind." I told him
"Hey Terror! Get down from there already. Your boring me!" he shouted at her but in an undeniably playful way. In a way that said he was a brother that loved his baby sister very much but knew he had to seemed annoyed with her even though he wasn't, because that is what brothers are like.
Slowly her little body floated back to the ground and once she reached it Zane scooped her into his arms, holding her tight and kissing the top of her hair.
"Zane?" came a small squeaky voice from her.
"Is that really you? You are so old!" she said, and we both laughed. Zane's eyes overflowing with the happy tears of holding his sister in his arms again.
"Its me Terror. I'm sorry I took so long to find you. This was quite a bit harder than mom had lead on." He said to her, still not letting her go.
"It's okay, I knew you would come eventually." She said in her sweet little voice then looked up at me only now realizing I was there and smiled. Zane followed her gaze and smiled at me to.
"This is Emily, she is the witch that helped me find you."
"You must be quite powerful to figure out the crazy lady's spell." She said to me, and I must have looked confused as they both laughed at me
"Its what we use to call our mom when she was busy with her magic. She could look a little crazy at times." I laughed then to.
We spent the rest of our night in the cavern, filling her in on everything she had missed over the years, the real important stuff anyway. We decided to start moving back to the car as soon as day broke and that we would stay inside there for the night. It was much warmer in there than what it had been in the tent and although I missed Zane's warmth wrapped around me, it was as nice to see him so happy. His eyes lighting up every time he looked at her. After what must have been hours, we decided to get some sleep and soon the happiness of a dreamless sleep took me.
A noise woke me from my dead sleep. I looked over and saw that Zane was still fast asleep and Maggi was tucked into his arm. I decided it must have been the wind making noises and it blew into the crack in the mountain but that I would probably not be able to go back to sleep unless I checked to make sure, I got up and walked down the long tunnel. I got to the end and saw the crack and the small amount of moonlight from outside.
It was all quiet. I smiled at my own stupidity but before I could turn around a hand grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth, pinning my arms down my side.
"You are a sweet little thing, aren't you?" the man behind me said into my ear and his breath smelled like booze and raw meat.
Werewolves, I thought. This was not good. Zane could probably take care of them no problem but how was I going to wake him at the other side of the tunnel if I could not scream.
"Don't even think about it! We'll kill you before your friend, whatever he is, even has a chance to realize you are gone." I quieted at his words, not wanting to give them a reason to kill me and go back there and kill Zane and Maggi in their sleep.
"You must be a mighty powerful witch to have opened this." Another man came walking in from outside.
"Haven't seen this open since I was a little boy. But if you are here for that book that was hidden inside you are too late. A lady witch and a Draco man came years ago and took it."
The grimoire. A lot of witch families hid their grimoires to keep it out of the hands of the Maroy. So they didn't know that something else had been hidden inside here since then. Or rather someone else.
"A witch like her, how much you think those Maroy fellas will pay for her?" the one holding me smiled against my skin making me shudder.
"I bet a pretty penny. And she smells really good. If they don't want her I'll take her." They were going to sell me to Maroy? At this I started kicking and struggling but they just laughed me off.
And then darkness clouded me.
The Back of my head was throbbing, and I didn't need to look to know that it was bleeding. Could smell the dried blood. Whatever I was laying on was cold and damp and smelled like earth. I didn't want to open my eyes. I knew it was going to bad and also, I didn't want to alert anyone that I was awake. Inside I took a mental tally to see if I had any other injuries. My head was hurt. Must have been why I blacked out. They had hit me over the head. I took note of the rest of my body. It hurt, probably from lying in this position for two long. But nothing seemed to be broken or in any other level of pain.
Did they hurt Zane or Maggi to? They clearly didn't know that Zane was Draco which is good because if they were unsure of what he was they might not have been willing to take the chance of waking him. Werewolves weren't very high on the power scales when it came to Hidden but they were barbaric as gran always told me and they lived in big packs. Finding comfort in numbers where they lacked in abilities. They only needed to turn into wolves once a month but the when, was dependent on them. The full moon just signaling another pass of a month and time to change. But once in their wolf form there were no different than any other wolf. No more powerful and easily beaten if you had enough magic or a strong enough ability. It was their numbers that made them powerful and the fact that most packs were savage people. Living off the grid from anyone and everything.
What they were also known for was being greedy. They would sell their grandmother given half the chance and because of that most illegal activity in the Hidden world was run by wolf packs. If you practiced dark magic, which called for dark ingredients, you went to a wolf.
For the right price they could steal you anything from, protected waters to newborn babies and everything in between. They didn't care and had no moral compass as long as they could make a quick buck.
On the other hand of this situation, maybe if they had known Zane was Draco, they probably wouldn't have touched me for fear of a retaliation. But was Zane safe and if so, would he be coming looking for me once he realized I was gone. All of my things were still there in the cave with them so surely, they didn't think that I had just left or ran away. Especially not at least without my jacket.
Deciding it was finally time to face the music I opened my eyes. All around me were bars. I was in some kind of cage, in what seemed to be a small village. There were small, badly built houses all around, a big bonfire in the middle and people walking all around. My cage was placed neatly out of the way but still visible. There were other cages next to mine. All were empty bar one with a young girl looking up at me very afraid.
"Are you okay?" I asked her. She was sitting with her back leaning on the far bars of her cage. She had long blond hair which was brown with dirt. She was dirty all over and looked like she hadn't had a decent meal in a long time. I could also see the faint tinge of green trough all the dirt on her skin. She was Fay. She nodded her head at me slowly, clearly terrified.
Poor girl. She cant be more than sixteen. No wonder the Fay wanted strong powerful men to protect them if this is what happens to them if they don't have one.
"What's your name?" I asked her trying to make her feel better or at least a little less alone.
"Abby." She said softly.
"Nice too meet you Abby, I'm Emily. Tell me Abby how long have you been here?" I asked her sounding less scared than I actually felt.
She shrugged her shoulders in answer.
"Okay, how did you get here?" I asked instead
"My boyfriend thought it would be fun to come hiking in here. I told him it was a bad idea. They grabbed me the second night we were here."
"And your boyfriend? Where is he?"
"Dead, they killed him and took me." she replied.
"I'm so sorry Abby. I promise I'm going to do everything I can to get us out of here. Okay?" she smiled weakly. I looked around. There were loads of people walking around and even kids running up and down but none of them were paying us any attention. Not even looking our way. Clearly this was a normal thing for them to keep woman in cages where their kids played. Barbaric!
"Have they told you what they plan on doing with you Abby?" I said turning back to her. She nodded slowly and tears filled her eyes.
"What is it? You can tell me." I said reassuringly.
"Dark witches have already paid for me. They are going to come when the time is right, they said. They want to take my skin off." She said, tears streaming down her face.
I studied some dark magics at my grans request. She said it is always good to know what u could be up against.
If they wanted the skin of a Fay girl, it meant they were doing an aging spell. A spell that allows them to age at a much slower rate. Everything about dark magic was selfish. How to look prettier, how to look younger, how to be more powerful. Most of their spells has a sense of sacrifice regarding one or more of their ingredients. In this case it was to kill and skin a Fay girl by the light of a Jagged moon. Meaning a moon that can sometimes appeared to have a jiggered edge because of it's position in relation to us and to the sun. Quickly counting on my fingers.
"Abby how long have I been asleep for?" she looked at me confused as that was my reply to what she had just told me.
"They brought you here last night. You slept the whole day." Okay so have only been out one day. Which means we had four days till the dark witches came. Four days for me to find a way out of here.
"Well look who is finally awake." A man was walking towards us. He had two bowls in his hands. I recognized his voice as the man who grabbed me. He set one bowl into Abby's cage, and she grabbed it without hesitation and scoffed down its contents. He then placed the other in my cage. I looked down at it feeling hungry. The contents seemed to be some kind of meat strew that was very watered down.
"Better eat up my lovely. Those Maroy folks are coming to have a look at you real soon and if they don't want you, you will need your strength for me." he smiled and some of his teeth were missing and the ones that weren't, were browning. Did these people not even brush their teeth?
I just glared at him not wanting to give him the satisfaction of showing even a trace of fear. He laughed as he walked away.
"You better eat that, they only give food once a day." Abby told me. At least they fed us which is more than I expected from there people. I picked up my Bowl and felt my tummy rumble. So I slowly ate what they had given me. I was right. It was some kind of stew. It wasn't awful but I've had much much better. Once my food was in, I set the bowl down. It was cold but the fire wasn't to far off and its warmth reached us easily. They obviously didn't want us freezing to death and risk not getting their pay day.
Things in their village was calming down. Parents chasing their kids to bed and going to bed themselves. Soon there were only a few drunk stragglers stumbling to their beds. Now was the time to act. While everything was quiet and there would be no eyes on us.
I crossed my legs and looked at the bars of our cages closely. They were made of a simple steel. Steel that would melt easily under witch's fire. I looked at Abby.
"Keep a look out and tell me if you see or hear anyone coming. Okay?" I told her. She nodded at me confusedly. I placed my hands on the lock of the cage and closed my eyes. Allowing the fire from the earth to one again flow trough me. Entering from underneath and flowing into my body. I directed it at my palms and the lock it was holding onto.
Soon I felt the metal become liquid in my hands. I opened my eyes and looked around. No one was there. It was still just us. I then pushed the door to my cage open slowly and got out. Then focused all my attention on Abby's cage.
When the fire was just about at my palms she whispered.
"There is someone coming." I opened my eyes and looked over my shoulder. She was right there was a man walking toward us, but I was still hidden from view by the other cages, and he was looking at the ground as he walked slowly towards us.
I worked faster. Making quick work of Abby's lock. I then slowly started moving her gate open and on the last it gave a loud squeak. And with that the man looked up and saw what was happening.
"Run!" I told Abby. Grabbing her hand and pulling her out the cage. We ran for the forest and into the trees. Trying to pay attention on where we were stepping. I had no idea where we were running to, but I just knew we had to get away. Once we were clear I could find a way of keeping us warm and then getting us out of these woods. I scan the area as we ran to find a place to hide. Finally I found a hollowed-out tree stump. I dragged her into it with me.
"If they find us you need to change into whatever you can and hide. Ill stall." She nodded silence and then we just sat there listening.
We heard nothing. We sat there listening for hours, but it seemed they were not following us for now. Eventually we both fell asleep.
The next morning we were woken up my footsteps and men talking. We stayed deadly silent and listened. I counted only two. They were looking for us and there was no way we would get away from them now. If we left our little hiding place, they would see us.
An idea forming in my head. "You need to change and then once the coast is clear you need to get out of here and go to the Draco house." At this her eyes widened, and she shook her head.
"Its okay, they wont hurt you. Tell them who you are and then tell them where to find me. Do you understand?" she nodded slowly. Her eyes filling with tears.
"Good luck." I told her and then slowly slid out of the tree where we were hiding and crawled till I was a safe distance from Abby then stood. I breathed slowly. I was going to take as many downs with me as I can. They wouldn't kill me as I had no worth to them dead, but I was going to make this as little worth it to them as possible.
"Hey Dog. Over here." I said drawing their attention then releasing as much of the flame inside me as I could focused on the man In front of me. He screamed as the flames hit him and then there was another one to my side. I focused the flames to him instead. The fire reached him, but I wasn't sure how much damage it had done, as before I could see I was knocked to the ground hard. My brain rattled inside my head and my vision swam in and out of focus. I heard footsteps heading towards me as I tried to shake the groggy feeling and then heard a deep breath and an immense pain in my head before it all went dark again.