Page 20 of Whispered Warnings: Part One

I raise my eyebrow again, “I must do nothing, actually. Besides, I don’t have time to complete a task, I have dessert calling my name.”

“Flinotive hears no one calling for Miss,” he replies, looking confused. His confusion clears, “No matter, you must complete the task.”

The danger warning that I have suddenly goes from a mild buzzing to a blaring siren, and the world around me shifts and changes as magic builds around me. When the world finally stops spinning, I find myself in the forest still, but nothing is the same, and I have a feeling that somehow, I am not in the forest at the guy's house anymore.

Chapter Seven

Neith

The trees are bigger, a lot bigger, these are rivaling redwoods in their size, and as I crane my head backward to look up, I realize that some of them are even bigger. There were definitely no redwoods in the forest surrounding the guy's house, and although these trees are similar in height, that is where their similarities end, there are ones that have a similar shape to oaks, birches, and elm trees, but all with that insane height.

That’s not the only difference, it is night still here, which I am grateful for because it means that I have shadows to hide in, although it does mean that other creatures have shadows to hide in too. As I was saying, it’s night here, or dark, I know nothing about this place that I have ended up in, it could be nighttime here all the time. Through a break in the trees above me, though, I can see two moons, one red and one blue.

They are really pretty, and although I want to study them closer, I know that I can’t right now. I have more importantthings to focus on, like finding out where the fuck I am and why I am here.

Lowering my gaze, I find Flinotive watching me curiously and wringing his hands nervously. He should be fucking nervous.

“Take me back,” I demand, my voice a growl. I wish I had a weapon of some kind. Any will do.

Flinotive shakes his head, “I can’t. I am sorry. You must complete the task.”

I take a threatening step toward him, but he just disappears, reappearing a few feet away.

“Take me home,” I demand again, my fists clenching as my panic starts to rise.

“I am sorry. I can’t, even if I wanted to, you are here now, you must complete the task if you wish to get back home.” He explains.

Unfortunately, I hear nothing but truth in his words, and my shoulders slump. For fuck sake, why is it always me that gets myself into these situations?

“There is no other way out?” I ask, just to clarify, he shakes his head. Resigning myself to the situation that I find myself in, I ask, “What’s the task?”

The imp grins his unsettling smile once again, “It’s quite simple deary, there is a door that leads back to the forest, it will only be open for the next three hours, find your way back.”

He disappears in a flash of glittering magic, and this time, he doesn’t reappear anywhere else.

“Son of a bitch,” I growl, and then yell at the trees in case the imp is still nearby, “that’s it?”

A rustling in the trees next to me makes me realize that I need to keep my voice down. I am in unfamiliar territory with absolutely no information. I don’t know what could kill me here, hell, everything could fucking kill me here. I can’t stay where I am, the imp said that I had three hours, which concerns mebecause it is such a long time, and they are unlikely to make it easy for me since this is supposed to be some kind of test. To me, that means that it isn’t just going to be a simple case of getting to the gate, not that I thought it would be anyway, since I am simply not that lucky. No, this so-called test is going to throw other things at me, too, and knowing my luck, they are going to be deadly.

A test for what I have no fucking idea, but right now, I couldn’t give a fuck. It’s a test that I need to pass, if I don’t then I am going to end up in this realm permanently. The guys will never know what happened to me and most likely assume that I ran off or something as equally ridiculous. I will probably get eaten in this realm, I may have a supernatural side, but it doesn’t really give me many advantages apart from the dying and coming back to life, that is a pretty big fucking advantage, but who the fuck knows if that works here, and I am once again faced with the fact that I have died recently and I can’t die again so soon, I have a feeling that if I do, it will be permanent.

I undo the giant jacket that I am wearing as I walk in what I am hoping is in the right direction. It is considerably warmer here than it was in the forest near the guys, so I have definitely moved location. Not that I was really questioning that, the completely foreign flora and fauna that surrounds me proves that easily enough.

Shit.

I could smack myself; I may not have many advantages in my supernatural armory, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeves, one of which is that I can find things. It’s how I found the guy's house, my gift kicked online, and it showed me a freaking map to the place. The problem is, it is very temperamental. I have asked it to work for me many times over the years, and it has just refused, not even an inkling of an idea of where the thing that I am searching for is. It did work to find the guys though,and that was a life-or-death situation, I could argue that this is very definitely a life-or-death situation too, so maybe it will work again.

As I take breath, of the sweet-smelling air, keeping my senses alert and on my surroundings, it occurs to me that this is probably what everyone else considers magic. It’s just that mine rarely works and if it does work it rarely works as it should. It does make me wonder why I just assumed I wasn’t a supernatural because of some tests and didn’t take into account the things that I can do that humans can’t and that would be considered magic.

“Come on,” I mutter aloud. I just need help to find the doorway back to the forest and the guys.

A mental map glows to life in my mind, and for a moment, a split second, I think that I can see hundreds of doors all spread out over a vast area, and area bigger than I can truly comprehend, but it disappears, and I am left wondering if I imagined it. The map changes, and I see the path that will lead me to the door that I need to escape.

Fuck, it is so far away from where I am, and I now know why the imp gave me three hours; even with that amount of time, I think I am going to push it to get there.

I kick the pace up into a run, the map is still in my mind, ready to call on should I need it, but when it comes to things like this, my memory is pretty fucking awesome, and I shouldn’t have to look at it again.

Whoever’s jacket I am wearing, billows behind me as I run, and as much as I wish that I could take it off, I can’t risk leaving it here and some sort of nasty locking onto the scent and somehow finding the guys back at the house. That would not be good. I keep running, keeping my breath even, and tapping into the side of me that I use when I go on a job.

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