Hollow

Chapter Twenty Nine - The Devil's Hour

Midnight.

The Devil's hour.

In the world of magic midnight was said to be the time when the Devil would open the gates of hell and allow his kind to run wild. Every horrible and evil creation would come out. Demons and witches, evil spirits and all manner of dark would have their way of the world. Planting seeds of evil and immorality, spreading their wickedness and malevolence until the Devil would call them back and they would remain there until their time came again.

I knew there was evil in the world, it was rampant. However I didn't believe there was a time limit to it, nor did I believe there were any gates to hold it back.

The night was meant to be a time for rest and recuperation, it was meant to give a mortal time to strengthen their souls and build up their spirits and to enter the dream world that belonged only to them.

This night would not give us any of those things.

"Wait, stop, do you feel that?" Gray asks suddenly as his arm stretches out in front of me.

I open my sensors sending them out and letting them seek out for the nearest disturbance, like spiders webs they weave in and out of alley ways and through walls and buildings. I give Eli a wide birth and as I search I feel it, just barely but they are moving, fast, and they are not strangers.

Three Hollows. Three Stealers.

"I've felt them before...Stealers." I inform Gray.

He cusses and glances over his shoulder at the boy.

"Usually a few Stealers wouldn't be a problem." He says with a tight jaw and fisted hands.

"Well we don't have time to do anything else." I reply touching the handle of the knife and keeping my sensors on the three, feeling around me as they close in and I knew exactly who was leading.

"Isolde, I wondered when we would meet again." I say aloud as she nears, I hear her land almost silently from a nearby roof top. She stands up in one cat like movement and strides towards us.

"Well, well, well." She says smoothly as two more stealers arrive behind us.

"Bringing back-up are we?" I ask not needing to glance over my shoulder to see the twin Hollows, the two boys who had ran away at seeing Evangeline that night. Perhaps they had been following her as well, it wasn't important now.

"I believe you know my two friends, Kale and Kai." she says stopping several feet away. Her hair is wild around her as she tucks loose strands behind her ears. I already know she can only see Eli but I will not let him leave my side.

"They told me of your gift but I did not believe them until I saw it with my own eyes, or should I say felt it in my own flesh." Her voice is terse and eyes skittish.

"You have a gift yourself Isolde." Gray speaks aloud.

"Grayland, of course you would be here following Allura, like always. What an exquisite night that was, when last we met." I can hear the mocking smile in her voice.

"It certainly was one to remember." He smiles with civility though it is clear by his tone he does not remember that night with the same fondness.

Gray was not accustomed to failing, when he was asked to find someone he would, or he would keep trying until he did. Isolde however could not be found, or pinned down. 'It is if she is more spirit then flesh.' he had once said, one minute she would be there, the next she would be gone and would take another week to track down.

This time would be different.

"I am surprised actually," Isolde remarks "that you have managed to keep him safe for so long, his soul screams for miles." She smiles wickedly the white of her teeth glimmering from the near streetlight. Her eyes set on the boy. "Kale and Kai are only new born and they could sense him from Alaska." She says quickly glancing behind me, the boys keeping their distance from me.