Chapter Fourteen: A New Addition

They all froze in panic when Randy's voice echoed down the hallway, taunting Kane to come out so he could prove his masculine prowess to Stacy and Kristal. Moreso Stacy.

The four angels, four teens and Kane all froze. "Stacy's with him. We may have lost him," Candice replied, staring out the door. She softly closed the door and turned to them. "The girls are here for King Hunter's body."

"What will they do with it?" Lita asked.

"King Hunter must be reunited with Queen Stephanie. If they find Queen Stephanie and bring her to Hunter, or if they take King Hunter to Stephanie, then all will be lost." The girls were in a panic. "That's why we put Kane here," Candice continued. "As brother of the Undertaker, we know that he is a force to be reckoned with."

"Kristal is with them, too," Torrie said, closing the door again.

"Don't look!" Mickie chastised. "You'll give us away." They shut out the lights in the room.

"We have to take King Hunter with us," replied Mickie. "It's our only chance of keeping him away from them."

"But if Vince finds out we have him..." Torrie began.

"He won't," Mickie promised. "We just disguise him. Hide him where we hid Lita."

"That might work," Candice began. There was a banging on the door.

"You in there, Kane?" Randy's voice rang out.

"Go!" Kane urged the fairies. They nodded and with a puff pink smoke, all of them were gone from the room.

Randy turned to Stacy and Kristal, an arrogant smirk on his face. "See? Kane isn't here. He would have been out here by now." Layla rolled her eyes; for the last two hours it had been about nothing more than impressing Stacy, who obviously wasn't reciprocating the feeling.

"Why don't you open the door, Randy?" Layla replied, eyebrow cocked. "I mean, you really think he's just going to come out and let you kick his ass?"

Randy shot a murderous glare at Layla. "She has a point, boy," Kristal replied. "I don't think he'd want to tangle with the likes of you." Randy smiled, and Layla rolled her eyes. That's not what she was saying. And she was pretty sure that Kristal and Stacy knew it.

They two deviants were looking at each other with a smile of conspiracy as Randy opened the door and stormed into the empty room.

"That was close," Kane replied.

"If those deviants got close to Kane, they'd take him out," Candice explained to Lita. The others had taken King Hunter's body out to the abandoned house where Lita had woken up in. "Their power is more refined, more developed than his."

"When did you start practicing magic?" Maria asked.

"After my brother's entombment," Kane answered. "I vowed to myself that I would dedicate my life to his freedom, no matter what it took."

"So that's why you were guarding King Hunter," Cena replied.

"He and Queen Stephanie are the keys to my brother's freedom, and if anything happens to them, all is lost."

"But where do we find Stephanie?" Batista mused. "I mean, forgive me for saying this, but it feels like we're chasing our tails."

"I have to agree with Batista. If you can't give us any clues as to her whereabouts, what makes you think that we'll do any better?" Lita asked. Candice turned to her.

"There is one clue," Candice confessed. "We just...we didn't really trust Lilian's choice of Orton, so we opted to keep quiet until we could get you four."

"What about Layla?" Cena asked.

"Total gossip," Lita answered.

"Ah."

"What's the clue?" Lita asked Candice.

"It was something like, 'beyond the weeping willows, past the rugged sea, the queen will be waiting, to restore everything we see.'"

"Who the hell told you that?" Cena scoffed.

"Steve. One of the abductors. Before their disappearance."

"Does anybody know where they went?" Maria inquired.

"I don't know," Candice claimed, "but if I were them, while Vince has all this power here, then I would seriously consider they stay where the are. They're not stupid men. They obviously understood the importance of Queen Stephanie being in the possession of Vince."

"What about this Vince guy? Will we know him when we see him?" Maria asked.

"You won't see him," Candice replied. "He's such a coward, he wouldn't dare get his hands dirty by taking part in this. For the last five years, he's used his hand-picked guards and deviants to take care of his handiwork. So don't worry about it. You won't see him."

Candice turned to them. "Good luck, you guys. After you take Stephanie back to the gathering spot, we will try to see what we can do about Randy and Layla. Layla might be lost, but Orton I'm sure we can save."

"What do you mean?"

"We've been trailing Orton and Layla. She's annoying the hell out of him," Candice answered, which prompted them all to laugh. Then Candice's face turned serious.

"I want you four to be careful. Things will get harsh. Beware the guards, beware the deviants. I leave you now with the phrase good luck." With that, Candice was gone.

The quartet turned to Kane. "Did you, uh, want to come along with us?" Lita asked. "We could really use a magician on board."

"I'd be honored to follow you on your journey," Kane replied. The four were ecstatic, and Lita and Batista led the way down the road towards the woods.

Vince had a tension headache. This wasn't good. When Vince gets a headache, bad things happen...

"Boy Wonder!" Vince barked for his right-hand man. The one they called Shane-O-Mac fluttered his feet into the room as though he were either dancing or having a seizure.

"Yeah?"

"Make sure they find Stephanie. After that, get the deviants together and kill them. But bring me back the redhead. I have special plans for her."

The one they call Shane-O-Mac nodded. "Sure thing." With that, he was gone.