"Let's get Maddy." I said and led everyone into her nightmare.
Only the ticking of an hidden clock broke the silence. Before the darkness seemed vast and endless, broken only by a single patch of light. In that patch was a table and two chair. Before the table, in the two chairs were Madelyn and Jenny Thorton, Julian's first love.
On the table before them was a simple game of checkers being played casually by both girls, but the air around Madelyn was tense. It was as if this game wasn't really what it appeared to be.
"What has he done for you?" Jenny asked with contempt I never heard from her before. "Be your hero? He was mine before he was yours."
"That is not Jenny." Julian whispered, "She would never treat anyone like that."
"So who is that messing with Maddy's mind?" Damon asked as I watched the false Jenny flip back her awesomely pretty golden blond hair and a cruel smile light up her green eyes.
I looked at the dress she was wearing and my blood ran cold. The dress began with a black scoop neckline that revealed a well-endowed chest. Straight down the middle of the dress ending at a point at a thin waist was a lacy panel that exposed a short red slip that followed the path of the dress. The dress and slip fit skintight until splitting down the sides exposing long legs and a very familiar tattoo.
"That's the Queen of Hearts!" I hissed as realization hit. "Julian, why didn't you tell us that was her real nickname? That she specializes in messing with mortal hearts!?"
He shrugged, "I was sort of, tied up."
Shh, Angel told us, Madelyn's making a move.
"Jenny was first but I am the last." Maddy said to the Queen as she placed her piece on the table. "And you can drop the disguise, your majesty."
The Queen laughed as she dropped the illusion of Jenny, "You are quite the clever little girl, Olslin. But not clever enough." The queen moved one of her pieces and over took Madelyn's.
"In Games with your counter parts, I was clever enough to nonstop defeat them." Madelyn replied as she moved another piece and took the Queen's.
"You fell into a halfling's trap to obtain your best friend." The Queen replied and at Madelyn's startled expression she laughed. "You didn't know? Ha! Remember Madelyn, games within games. Expect the unexpected and" the Queen moved a piece and took two of Madelyn's pieces. "You can't win against one of us!"
"Jenny Thorton did!" I shouted and began marching up to the Queen before anybody—myself included—could stop me.
"She fought, and fought and kept fighting until she won." I told her in the light.
The Queen barely glanced at me, "But what did she really win? She didn't get her grandfather back, she didn't save those two foolish boys, plus she lost her little hero. All forgotten in the void."
Her lavender eyes spotted Julian in the shadows, "You did like it in the void, didn't you my pretty one. More than your time with me, perhaps."
Madelyn looked out into the shadows, her eyes reflected the hurt and betrayal she felt inside. I hated to see my friend like this.
"Maddy, look at me." I told her. When she did I continued, "I was there. He was dangling in a cage inside her throne room."
"Not all the time." The queen purred as Julian appeared out of the shadows with Damon and Angel close behind. "Julian spent a short but pleasurable period in my company."
"Sounds like you had more fun than I did, Julie." Damon muttered loud enough for anyone to hear.
"Shut up, Salvatore." Julian turned to Madelyn, "Believe me when I say there was nothing between her and me."
The Queen chuckled demurely, "You can trust him on that. There was nothing between us."
Madelyn turned her tortured gaze upon Julian and I could see his heart breaking alongside her own.
I began wracking my brain for someway to let Madelyn see past the Queen of Heart's deception. To let her objectively see the manipulation… Suddenly it struck me!
"Madelyn, remember the time I called you and you could hear banging in the background?" I asked.
Startled out of her misery, she turned toward me and nodded.
"Remember the stuff you heard?"
Slowly Madelyn smiled and giggled. "Keegan yelling about blasting something `to Hel and back'. Sounded a bit drastic."
"I thought it was cute." I replied giggling noticing moment the Queen's eyes begin to gleam maliciously. Hooked her!
"Aw how sweet, the halfling ensnared another." She purred. From the darkness, a set of glowing ice blue eyes watched on amused.
I pretended to be real dense and frowned.
"How many girls do you think he's tricked? How many has he captured pretending to be their friends?"
Madelyn frowned, first looking at me and then at the amused glowing eyes.
I shrugged, "Not as many as the rest of your crew. Keegan's merely twenty."
"Did you know when Keegan was five he mastered almost all of Niflheim?" The Queen of Hearts inquired. "When he was ten, he learned how to pierce through the barriers of the Nine Worlds? That he could go and do anything he wanted—anywhere."
The Queen smiled sinisterly, "That when he was fifteen, he was the one who suggested his elders to unmake Julian."
Julian looked back at the pair of glowing eyes. So impersonal. So innocent. The eyes of a very manipulative man who killed an immortal.
"I should be thanking you then Keegan." Madelyn spoke up from behind me. Julian and I spun around to see a new Madelyn. Stronger than the brave girl who faced the evil coven of witches who killed her mother. More beautiful and shining than the light inside me.
This was the ultimate form of the woman Madelyn Olslin was destined to be.
"You delivered to me the guardian that I secretly sought in dreams." She told him and scattered the checkers and board into the shadows as she rose to her feet.
"I no longer wish to play this pointless game with you anymore, Queen of Broken Hearts." Madelyn quietly told the stunned Queen. "I have what I want."
Then with a effortless wave she cried, "BEGONE!"
Everything shattered around us. The table, the chair, the darkness—even the sound of the clock ticking seemed to shatter. We found ourselves again in Purgatory, standing in the same places we were before we left now joined by Madelyn.
"Bar keep, I'll have a root beer please." She ordered stiffly polite. "Piper would like one as well. Julian will take a water, Damon a cup of blood, Angel one as well. Anna would like a coke and Rob wants a shot of whiskey but doesn't need one. Bring him some hot chocolate please."
Everyone sat in a booth as our order was prepared then brought to us.
"I notice that you didn't order a drink for me." Keegan said quietly to Madelyn. "I guess I deserve it for popping off your boyfriend."
Madelyn looked up at him, "Like I told the Queen, I should thank you. If Julian wasn't unmade, I couldn't have summoned him. We wouldn't have the relationship that we have."
"All things have a purpose." Keegan said softly.
"Exactly." Anna replied.
All things have a purpose, something inside me echoed.
Even Keegan's manipulations, I asked myself. I glanced down at his ring upon my finger. Even this?
"So what are we going to do now?" Rob asked snapping me back from my thoughts.
"I don't know about you," I said sheepishly, "But I'm kinda hungry."
Almost instantly, Fenris sprang from the bar bringing us a huge tray of chips, peanuts, chili cheese fries that Madelyn adored, some freshly cut vegetables, and regular lightly salted fries.
"Thank you." Anna told him sweetly as he sat back on top of the bar. He gave her a wolfish grin in reply as Madelyn attacked the cheese fries.
"Again, what's the plan? Are we just going to face up to this Raziel and pray we live or what?" Rob inquired as I began munching on a carrot and sipping my float.
"Not much else we can do after get through the last test." Julian said quietly.
"Creatures of Niflheim, especially top ranked creatures like Raziel and the Shadow Men, are hard to defeat." Keegan added.
"But we can do it." Anna added uncertainly, "Can't we?"
Of course we can! Angel said fiercely. We faced dark claustrophobic holes, wicked bad hair, malign crystals, nearly being un-created and that tart of a queen! We can get past that cross-dresser, no problem!
With a cheer, everyone raised their glass in a toast.
"To the end." Damon said.
"To the end!" echoed everyone… except Keegan.
As everyone began eating and drinking their fill, I heard him murmur something softly.
"And all for her love." Keegan said sadly as he fingered a chain around his neck.
Now what do you suppose that chain is holding? A medallion, perhaps? Hehe. Now click the button in the corner and leave a review : )