Chapter 8

Holly stepped into the dark and musty room, which was dimly lit by a single crystal ball. The room appeared to be empty without a single body, besides her, to fill it. She guided herself to the wooden stool on the outside of the table, and she straightened her skirt as she gently sat down.

"Hello? I-I'm here for some answers," she spoke out loud to the apparently empty room.

"You've come to the right place then, dear."

A tall woman with long dark hair reaching all the way to the floor lurked from the corner. She swayed to the table and took a long swig of her liquor before she place it on the table and then took a seat in her red cushion chair. Her habit of drinking hard liquor had caused her breath to come up in a small belch,

"Excuse me, working here you have to be drunk to cope with all the filth."

She straightened out her posture and smoothed the red fabric over the table and introduced herself," Welcome to Madame Celia's…" Her sentence trailed off into a slur, but she hiccuped and continued with the introduction with mocking tone, " Mentor of the Fates."

She trailed her finger around the crystal ball on the table. Holly uncomfortably tried to introduced herself "I'm-"

" I know who you are, Mrs. Frost. And no, it's not because I'm psychic. Any fool who can use their eyes and ears knows who you are."

" I didn't know I was so popular," said Holly in an innocent tone.

" Well your husband sure as Hell is. He parades around wherever he goes showing his wedding pictures off to any unfortunate soul that he encounters."

Holly let a bashful smile creep on her lips. She was flattered at how proud Jack was to be married to her, even if it was a bit inappropriate.

Celia danced her fingers in the air around the orb as it lit up, and she attempted to begin her performance, " Ask-hick- ask Madame Celia the questions of your-hick- heart and you shall-hick- have the divine answer."

" I just want to know what I'm doing wrong with trying to get pregnant."

All of sudden the magical performance stopped and Madame Celia seemed to sober up a little bit as the room stayed in silence. Celia's brown eyes gave a confused stare at Holly, " Well what a stupid question to ask."

Holly was appalled by the statement and her face was left dumbfounded. Celia continued her scolding, " Your obviously not doing anything wrong getting pregnant considering the fact that you already are."

Jack held the little twerp by his shirt collar,

" Stop messing around and tell us who hired you!"

The little runt of a leprechaun accumulated a wad of saliva in his mouth and spit through his teeth at Jack. Jack let the twerp go and his wiped the spot from his face. The twerp used the opportunity to make his escape, but the giant rabbit stopped him in his tracks. The little twerp couldn't look his opponent in the eye. It was obvious that guardians didn't enjoy being spied on by sleazy, cowardly leprechaun pawns. Jack marched his way over to the little runt and pointed his stick furiously at him and interrogated, " I'm gonna ask again, who hired you?"

It was definitely out of character of Jack to be so aggressive, but every time he thought of some scum hurting and possibly killing children for some ungodly reason, he couldn't keep his temper under control. He was glad that the group had split up so that North wouldn't see him like this.

The little runt snickered at Jack," You're in no place to be treating me like this, guardian."

" Oh please, you don't have enough power to transform, mate. You're just one of this big guy's weaker pieces used to hide in the shadows and spy on us," Bunny said as if he was trying to negotiate with him' " Now be a good little runt and tell us who your boss is, and we'll let you go, alright?"

The leprechaun didn't listen to the suggestion he just kept on laughing and laughing until his spit had overflowed down his chin. He rolled around on the forest ground while his fit continued. Once the twerp calmed down he repeated his statement, " You're in no place to be treating my like this considering where your wife is right now, guardian."

He pointed a crooked finger at Jack and pushed the staff out of his face."

Jack's heart had dropped and his whole body was still with the fearful realization. Damn it! He was a fool! How could he have not put it together. He had allowed his wife on the territory of the enemy.