Half of What I Could Be

Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Taylor

Welp, I sucked at my job. I stood outside of the hospital and stared at a Maserati fly out of the driveway, with my Charge inside. Snow was falling on all sides of me, with some flakes hitting my skin. In any other circumstance, I probably would have run for shelter like a crazy person, because, well, I hate snow. Who would like tiny white flakes of cold that were the leading cause of car accidents in the Mid West?

This was the first time I had felt snow in over fifty years. I was so used to the burning and inferno heat of Hell, that each prick of the snow melting on my skin felt ten times colder than it actually was. It was kind of sad that I preferred the fire of the Underworld to small flakes of ice.

I prided myself with how good I was at my job. As a witch, I was an asset to Hell. Especially, considering I was a descendent of the Le Fay bloodline. The bloodline of Morgan Le Fey, Merlin's significant other. I was not one to brag, but over my years of indentured servitude to Hades himself, I had delivered over ten thousand souls to the pits of Hell. Have I broken a few hearts? Yeah. I was talking about the literal heart. It was such a fragile organ.

This was supposed to be my last job. Mae was supposed to be my last job. She was the last Charge I needed to deliver to Satan before I could rejoin the world of the living. Or now known as "The world of social media driven teenagers and Marvel Movies".

I've been in Hell longer than I could remember. I was forced into servitude in 1735, so if my math was correct, it had been over 275 years. It would have been nice if those 275 some years went fast, but they didn't. When I wasn't forced to hunt souls down, I was either bathing in the inferno flames or forced to wash Cerberus, Hades' three headed dog. Cerberus was something else entirely, and he hated baths...

I would be lying if I said watching Mae drive away did not put a hindrance on my plan. Now, I had to track her, which was much more of a headache than I was anticipating. Luckily, I had always been one to be overly prepared. On the golden chain around my neck, there was a Jade stone that was carved into the Goddess of Ichnaea. Better known as: the Goddess of Tracking. The charm was linked to Mae. It only took the saliva from the half eaten apple that she discarded on the first day of school, and viola, a tracking spell.

All of the charms used in my practice revolved around Greek Figures. As a young girl I was skeptical, but when you've been to Hell and have met Hades himself, you really start to believe in your Greek Mythological roots. The Underworld was exactly how it was described: huge, separated by magical rivers, habited by disgusting creatures and souls from Middle Earth, and the main destination for never ending suffering for those who really deserve it. Tartarus, a part of the Underworld designated for the worst of the worst, was one of my favorite places to go if I needed to take my anger out on some homicidal maniacs. You would never believe who the Zodiac Killer actually was...

The tracking charm spell that I used was pretty easy to assemble. I just had to bind her DNA to the jade stone. It consisted of five minutes of chanting to Ichnaea, and boom... everything binded. The hard part was drawing from it.

It consisted of a lot of concentrating that usually brought on a headache. I would usually only see little images of where she was, but it was nothing as clear as a map. I would be lucky if I could deduce where she was.

I let out a sigh, and grasped the pendent. I let out a little chant that roughly translated to something about seeing through the eyes of one you seek. I knew the spell was working because I felt the incoming of a thudding headache, and then the loss of vision. The bout of blindness only lasted a few seconds. It was a subtle blurring of colors with hints or black that slowly took over my whole vision. It was like when you stood up too fast, and got dizzy, except more intense.

The loss of vision rapidly turned into a muddy puddle of lights that slowly settled into a scene. This spell allowed me to see through the eyes of the one I was tracking. It wasn't perfect. I couldn't see every detail, and the ones I could see weren't as defined as they normally would be. I could tell that she was in a car, which was something I already knew. She was turned toward the door, and grabbed a black blur. From the location and the way it protruded, I could guess that it was the handle.

"You know, if you had to run to the store, I could have just brought you. It probably isn't safe for you behind the wheel," said a voice behind her. It sounded deep, deeper than a normal male voice. It was as if he was talking to me underwater. As I said, these charms weren't perfect. Mae's body slowly turned back to him. A blurred figure came into the frame. From what I could tell, he had blonde hair. It didn't take a genius to figure out it was Jacin.

"Well, I'm not going to the store..." she trailed off. I could feel her heart thumping in her chest. Did Mae have a hard on for Jacin? No, she couldn't. She didn't seem like the type that would fall for the stereotypical jock douche of the school. Yet, I didn't seem like the type that would literally melt into a puddle of happiness whenever I saw a cat, but I did.

"Then where would you want to go? It's almost evening, everything will close soon," he continued as if he was her parent. From the gossip I acquired around school, his group of peers did not enjoy her presence, so why would he care?

Mae just looked down at the car seats, "Burlesque..." she whispered.

"Burlesque!" He yelled, and the whole scene faded.

I slowly came back to reality. My eyes slowly adjusted to the light. The first thing that popped in my vision were little snowflakes. I let out a grunt. I hiked my bag higher on my shoulder, and made my way to my car. At least I now knew where I had to go: Burlesque.

Hades had only a few rules for me: bring Mae to him with minimal harm caused, before the full moon (which was now in only a few weeks), and after she passed all his tests... like poisoning her with wolfsbane. If she was who he thought she was, she would survive the wolfsbane poisoning, and luckily she did. I honestly did not want to deliver Mae to Hades. She was a good person, not a rapist, serial killer, or guns dealer like I was used to. But she was my only way out, so no matter how great and caring she seemed to be, I would deliver her to the fires of Hell.

I thought it was going to be easy. There was no way that they could get ahead of me, and if luck was on my side, I could cut them off before they got there. All I had to do was hit the road as soon as possible. Sadly, luck was never on my side. Because right when I opened my car door, a hand emerged in my periphery and slammed the door shut. I turned to the person who had the audacity to slam my door shut. It was none other than Roan himself. Right when I was about to bite his head off, he said something that came out of left field.

"I know you're a witch."