Chapter 10
(Hope)
She was not going to let that damn hag disappear without a fight. Gwyllion was the first monster they'd encountered that might actually have some useful information. There was no way she was about to watch her only chance at answers vanish into the mist.
She lunged for Gwyllion, but the old woman was sprier than she looked. She tried fruitlessly to grab hold of the faerie's dark cloak with her teeth, but it was no use—she was only being led further and further into the mist.
She distantly heard Clarke shouting something at her, but he would just have to wait.
Gwyllion moved back another step with that strange lilting gait of hers, but this time a swath of mist blew across the path obscuring her completely.
Damnit!
She readied her muscles to make another leap, but a wave of dizziness suddenly overtook her. She swayed, watching the trees around her bend and move strangely. She closed her eyes, willing the strange sensation to abate.
When she opened them, she felt better, so much better.
But her relief didn't last long, she was no longer in the woods; she was on the streets of New Orleans.
What the hell?
She looked around her in a panic, this wasn't right. She shouldn't be here. She should be…
Wait, where should she be exactly?
She tried to remember where she had just been, it had been somewhere important, but not here.
It was the French Quarter; there was no mistaking that. It was midday and the sun was shining hot and bright above her. The air was thick with the smell of magnolia blossoms and cajun spices.
A chorus of ruckus laughter made her turn—she saw a group of tourists making their way towards her, swaying slightly, drinks in hand. She could hear a street musician playing the saxophone somewhere nearby, a familiar tune carried on the air.
It was all so familiar, so perfectly New Orleans .
She was standing in front of an old wooden door, the sign read "Fortunes Read Here."
Was this where she had been going?
She opened the door, causing a shop bell to chime cheerfully overhead.
The shop was small and smelled strongly of herbs and old books. She could definitely feel an authentic hum of magical energy in the air. She figured a witch probably owned the store, earning a little money from tourists by reading fortunes.
"Hello?" she called, peering towards the back of the store where a curtain hung behind the counter.
"Hope!" a friendly voice answered her from behind the counter, followed by a familiar face.
"Aunt Freya?" she asked in disbelief.
"Who else would it be, silly?" Freya asked giving her a grin.
"I—I don't know," Hope stammered. Nothing about this felt right, but she didn't know why. Something was wrong, but if Freya was here, it couldn't be that bad, right?
"What are you doing here?" Hope asked, reaching out to hug her aunt.
It was so good to hug someone familiar.
"What do you mean?" she asked, returning the hug with equal enthusiasm. "I own this shop, you know that."
"Oh, yeah, I guess you do…" she said. That sounded right, didn't it?
Maybe?
"I'm so glad you took me up on my offer to read your fortune while you're here," she said, a twinkle in her eye.
"My fortune?" she asked in confusion. "Why would I need you to—?"
"Oh, come on ," her aunt said, rolling her eyes. "Let's have some fun!"
"I—Sure, that's fine," she said, trying not to hurt Freya's feelings. If she wanted to read her fortune that badly she wasn't going to say no.
"Perfect!" Freya chirped, rushing towards the back of the store, sending up clouds of dust as she went.
"You know, you should really dust in here, this place is going to scare off customers!"
"Oh, quite the contrary," Freya said with a smile as she led Hope to a small table in the back of the store. "Customers love the atmosphere!"
"Uh, sure," she said, sitting opposite her aunt at the table.
Freya took out a silken pouch and pulled out a set of tarot cards, clearly worn with use.
"Tarot?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"Tarot," confirmed her aunt eagerly as she shuffled the cards in her hand. She spread the cards on the table facedown.
"Let's do a simple past, present, and future reading."
Hope closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened them slowly and let her hand hover over the cards, listening to her intuition. She felt a warmth; she stopped and slid the card towards her.
"Good, another," Freya said eagerly.
She was really getting into this…
Hope repeated the process, selecting a second card from the spread and laid it face down next to the first.
"Last card…" Freya said, rubbing her hands together theatrically.
"Jeeze, Aunt Freya, you know we've done this a million times…"
"Last card…" she repeated.
Despite the strangeness of her aunt's behavior, she held her hand over the cards feeling for the right one.
"Ouch!" she yelped, one of the cards had given her an electric shock.
"That one," Freya said with a gleam in her eyes. Hope pulled it carefully from the pile and set it into position.
What the hell was going on?
"Are you ready for the reveal?" Freya asked.
"Yeah, sure," she said, biting her bottom lip nervously. She was never normally nervous with Freya, maybe she was just imagining things…but she did feel strange.
Before she could give the feeling more thought, Freya flipped the first card over; it was "The Fool." The image showed a traveler, cheerfully and blindly walking towards the edge of a cliff, their dog following close behind.
"Oh, 'The Fool!' Looks like someone doesn't look before they leap," Freya said with a chuckle. "It seems that you may be starting a new journey… Or, perhaps, you've leapt off a cliff recently?"
Leapt? Somehow that did seem familiar.
She did take a lot of risks…
"Next card is the present," Freya said, flipping it over; it was "The Devil." The card depicted a goat headed devil holding the chains of a naked man and woman. The pair seemed rather oblivious to their own peril despite the fire burning all around them.
Hope swallowed thickly, she always hated this card. It meant imprisonment, manipulation .
"Ah, 'The Devil.' You're being manipulated," Freya confirmed with a smile.
"No need to look so happy about it…" she said, eyeing her aunt a bit warily.
"Last card!" Freya exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "This one should be interesting…"
This was the card that had shocked her...it was also the future card. She knew tarot was an inexact form of magic; it was full of symbolism and subject to interpretation. But that knowledge did nothing to calm her nerves.
"Why don't you flip this one?" Freya asked, an excited grin still glued to her face.
She reached out hesitantly, half expecting the card to shock her again. However, it felt totally normal in her hand. Almost disappointingly so.
She took a deep breath and flipped it over—It was "The Lovers" card.
That was unexpected.
While the pair appeared content, standing under the watchful eye of a heavenly being, she couldn't help but notice an eerie resemblance to the couple in "The Devil" card.
"All majors, wonderful!" Freya said clapping once again. "You have quite the epic life…"
"Well, that's no secret," Hope said bitterly.
"Tell me, what do you think it means? 'The Lovers?' Do you have a special man in your life?" Freya asked.
"I—" she considered telling her about Landon, but for some reason it didn't feel right.
"Oh come on," Freya said reaching across the table, taking her hands in hers. "You know how much I love hearing about handsome men!" she said with a wink.
"What? Oh, yeah right," Hope said rolling her eyes.
Freya looked confused.
Wait, that was odd. Freya wasn't interested in men…
"Aunt Freya?" she asked tentatively.
"Oh, a joke, yes," her aunt laughed, a beat too late.
This wasn't her aunt.
She reached instinctively for her family pendant, but it wasn't there. She panicked, looking down to see that it was indeed missing.
Suddenly, memories came flooding back— Malivore. Monsters. Clarke.
"You aren't Freya!" she shouted, jumping up from the table.
The thing that looked like Freya smiled, but it was wicked and full of yellowed teeth.
"Gwyllion," she said in horror.
The illusion evaporated in an instant; she was suddenly alone with Gwyllion in a black void, her aunt, the cards, the shop just vanished.
Vanished in a cloud of mist.
"What did you do? How am I human again?" she asked, checking to see that she was still standing on two legs.
"Glamour," Gwlyllion said, waving her hand dismissively. "You see what you want to see."
"And what do you want?" Hope asked, narrowing her eyes at the old woman.
"Just your story. It gets so dreadfully boring here," she replied, her crooked teeth shining in the darkness.
"My story? " she asked incredulously. "Then what?"
"Then I let you go...see how things play out," she said tapping a long bony finger on her chin thoughtfully.
"Why let me go at all?" she asked. "I thought every monster in this hell hole was trying to kill me or turn me over to Malivore."
The hag shrugged. "Some of us just like our stories," she said. "Here. There. Wherever I go, there's stories to be told. I'm in no hurry."
While she doubted that was the whole truth, Gwyllion did seem oddly sincere.
"And what do I get out of this? Why shouldn't I kill you like I killed that river monster?" she asked angrily.
"I suppose I could give you a piece of information...perhaps about your future card?"
She considered asking about Maivore's location, but she was fairly certain Clarke and her had already worked that out for themselves. Maybe the hag knew something about how to defeat him...
"How do I destroy Malivore?" she asked.
"Oh, no that's boring," Gwyllion replied. "I could tell you something interesting, though—if you ask the right question."
"Anything besides how to kill Malivore is useless to me," she said, patience growing thin.
"I know something else you're curious about…" she said.
"You're wrong," Hope said definitely.
"Perhaps you want to know more about the company you keep?" the hag asked in her gravelly voice.
Clarke?
She supposed she had been wondering about Clarke's intentions...
"Do you know anything about my... companion?" she asked, careful not to speak Clarke's name directly.
"You want to know how you became involved with a Son of Malivore, but you've only yourself to blame," she answered with a wicked smile.
Involved? She didn't like the way Gwyllion said that word.
"What do you mean, involved ?" she asked. "If you're talking about Landon, that's not what I meant—I'm asking about whatever… connection I have with his brother."
"I know of whom you speak," Gwyllion replied testily. "I have given you your answer."
She felt her frustration reaching a breaking point—she didn't have time for riddles. She closed the gap between them, taking the old woman by the throat.
"You promised me information, not riddles ."
Gwyllion didn't seem particularly bothered by her outburst, in fact she seemed downright amused.
"Fine, don't let an old woman have her fun," she said with a smile. Hope released her grip.
"You cast a spell when you entered Malivore, did you not?" the old woman asked.
"A mimic spell…" she answered carefully.
"Oh, this is delightful," Gwyllion cackled. "And you had physical contact with him when you entered the portal?" she asked.
"Yes," she whispered, a sinking feeling growing in her chest.
"Tell me, were you feeling rather emotionally charged when you cast this spell? Perhaps looking deep into his eyes?"
"I warned you, stop with the riddles," she snarled. The old woman raised her hands in surrender.
"I've already giving you all the answers, little one," she said, still smiling.
"Then, elaborate," she bit out through clenched teeth.
Gwyllion sighed.
As if she had any reason to be frustrated.
"Think about it—you tied yourself physically, magically, and emotionally to this man, then you entered an unstable portal." Hope felt herself getting dizzy.
"Malivore was built on isolation, but its very nature is in flux! It's true, the company of another being soothes the pain of this place, but your bond goes deeper, yes?"
She nodded; the pieces were beginning to fall into place, but it wasn't necessarily a picture she was ready to see.
"It seems the Son of Malivore may have had a role in this too," she mused. "He knew this dimension breeds isolation and feared returning to his lonely prison."
Oh, God.
"He was born of Malivore and his wish not to be sent back into isolation combined with your magic formed something new, something unique… A bond in the dark," she said with a smile.
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Only you can figure that out," she said with a wink. Alarmingly, she began to grow fuzzy around the edges.
"No!" she screamed, reaching to catch the woman before she vanished—but it was too late. Gwyllion had disappeared, her cackling laughter trailing on the wind.
A moment later she felt herself slam back into her body—her wolf body.
She struggled to see through the thick fog that had completely obscured the woods around her but she could barely make out her own feet. She looked for Clarke, but he had vanished like everything else.
She strained her ears to listen for him, but, even with her wolf senses, there was nothing but silence.
She was about to let out a howl when she caught a glimpse of something through the fog—it was Clarke.
He was even paler than usual, drifting in and out the shadowy landscape like a phantom.
Something was very wrong.
"Clarke!" she shouted through the bond. She let out a sharp bark to catch his attention, but he ignored her, disappearing between one breath and the next.
She followed his scent, wary of falling into some kind of trap.
She almost considered staying put and waiting for the fog to lift, but then she saw him again. He was walking trance-like towards a huge pit, not unlike the one he had trapped the ogre in when they first arrived.
"Clarke!" she called desperately through their connection, but he didn't turn.
"Clarke!" she tried again, willing her thoughts to reach him, but he remained on course.
Oh, screw it.
She leapt forward, against her better judgement, crashing into Clarke and knocking him firmly to the ground. They had landed only a few feet from where the pit was lying in wait.
He looked up at her, blinking slowly with unfocused eyes.
"Hope?" he asked, looking up at her in confusion. She had him pinned beneath her, paws on either shoulder holding him in place.
"Can I trust you not to do something stupid again? " she asked through the connection.
"Stupid?" he asked, clearly still dazed from whatever spell he had been under.
"Yes, stupid. You nearly walked into a damn pit!" she thought with a snarl.
She wasn't sure why she was so upset. When they first arrived, she couldn't stand Agent Clarke—but somehow that didn't matter as much anymore.
It was then that she realized his cheek was bleeding, a ribbon of dark red trailing down his face. He must have scrapped it on the rocky ground when she tackled him.
The warmth that bloomed between them when they made contact began sneaking its way into her senses. Almost in a trance herself, she bent down to the wound and gave it a tentative lick.
She'd like to think it was her wolf instincts taking over, but honestly, it felt more like she was going crazy.
"Uhh, Hope?" Clarke asked, clearly as bewildered by her actions as she was.
What the hell was she thinking?!
Suddenly, she felt a surge of energy, not unlike when he had offered his blood to assist her with the water locator spell.
She was going to change back, she could feel it, and it was beyond her control.
"CLOSE YOUR EYES," she shouted through the bond, gripped by panic.
"Wha—?" he began.
"NOW," she commanded with a growl.
He did as he was told, closing his eyes beneath her.
Just in time.
A split second later, the change coursed through her— she felt the wolf falling away and the resurgence of the human girl underneath.
A heartbeat later, she was fully human again.
Very human, very naked, and lying directly on top of Agent Clarke.
"Ryan, please don't open your eyes," she whispered.