Jinxx glanced up in slight alarm at the pounding on his study door. A pounding coming from the INSIDE of his study.
"Whomever it is tell them unless someone is dead it can wait until morning," Sammi groused into her pillow.
Jinxx placed a soft kiss to his beloved's temple and slid from the bed, lightly tucking a bluebird feather into the page of his book. "Custom is to send a warning before arriving in someone's study," Jinxx called through the crack in the door. He pressed his ear to the ancient wood and listened.
"Help...me..." came a gutteral rasp.
Jinxx thinned himself to air and walked through the still locked door.
A man - he at least looked to be a man - was curled in a tight ball on the floor of the old study. Clouds of black energy bounced and swirled around him. And there was blood. There was blood everywhere. Blood, Jinxx realized, that couldn't possibly all belong to the man.
Then he saw it. Wrapped loosely around the man's shoulders was the silvery bit of fabric that explained how this man got here. It was the enchanted, use-only-in-emergency cloak he'd given Sandra before she went on her last mission. It had enough magic to transport one person back into his study, no matter where from.
He'd meant for it to be a last-ditch escape in the event Sandra was captured. The half blood, it seemed, had other ideas.
"I'm going to kill Sandra," Jinxx swore under his breath.
"N-n-n-no!"
It was the first real noise the man had made. His voice was surprisingly deep. But then, Jinxx thought, he never understood how the impossibly thin had such impossibly deep voices.
"D-d-don't! It-it-it's my-y-y-y fa-a-aul-lt-t."
Jinxx tilted his head to one side. "What's your fault," he asked in a soft yet stern voice.
Wide, deep brown eyes stared back in shock. "Th-the-e e-es-sca-a-ape!"
Jinxx smiled softly. "No, no. That wasn't your fault."
"D-do-on't hu-urt h-er-er."
"Nah, kid. I don't make a habit of hurting people. Sandra was just doing her job."
"N-no! It-it was a-all me-e-e!"
The Mystic let out a sigh. "Sammi? Love? Could you give me a hand?" He kept his eyes trained carefully on the visitor. "I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Jinxx. I'm a Mystic. Sandra sent you here, to me. So I can help you."
"M-myst-tic?"
"You're in Majik territory. You're safe."
The man stared back in silence, the shaking beginning to ebb. "Wh-where's Sandra?"
The name was the first word he'd managed to say without a stutter.
A sadness flickered through the Mystic's golden eyes. "I'm afraid I don't know. The cloak around your shoulders was her escape plan. If she used it on you, well. I've seen that little half blood right her way out of shit that flattened the rest of us. I'm sure she'll find her way out."
Fear flickered in chocolate brown eyes. "B-but she-"
"Is one of the toughest people I know. And I have known her for over a decade."
The man nodded a bit. His eyes closed, as if to summon his strength, then he pushed himself to sitting with one hand, the other pressing still swirling black magic against his rib cage.
"What's your name, kid?"
"I uh. I don't know. You can call me CC. That's what the others called me..."
Jinxx nodded in understanding. "Alright, CC. Will you let me see what's going on there?" He pointed towards the man's ribs.
With a shaking hand, CC carefully withdrew his magic. The silvery hilt of a dagger protruded from his side.
Jinxx reached a steady hand forward. He paused over the hilt, looking into the man's eyes for permission. After a soft nod, he continued, one hand grazing blood slick skin, the other holding the dagger steady. "You're gonna wanna lay back down."
Dark eyebrows furrowed together in question.
"The knife hasn't hit any major organs or blood vessles. I can heat the metal as I pull it out, and it will cauterize the wound. Should keep you from bleeding out until we can get you to our healers."
CC nodded and took Jinxx's offered hand, clinging to it for support as he leaned back down against the wood floor.
"I'm not going to lie. This will hurt."
CC nodded.
"Alright. One. Two. Three!"
A scream echoed off wood and stone walls as Jinxx wrapped a flaming hand around the hilt of the dagger. The metal slowly began to glow, an awful sizzling sound, and the smell of burning blood issued from the wound. Jinxx slowly pulled the blade out, carefully watching for any sign of blood flow. CC just screamed in pain, then he promptly blacked out.