Chapter 202

Helen’s POV

The poor man just stared at me with blank eyes. His hair was matted, and his cheeks sunken. He’d clearly been here a long time.

“Do you have any idea where the Huntsman kept the key?” I asked.

The man continued to stare at me.

“You can answer me without being afraid,” I said, soothing the prisoner. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?” the poor man on the floor croaked.

“Yes. The Huntsman is dead. I saw it with my own eyes. He was killed by his own magic.”

That was the best way I could describe the rite which had taken down the Huntsman to somebody whose consciousness was being strained simply by keeping himself awake. If he wanted more details after I’d gotten him help, we could worry about that then.

He made another harsh noise trying to speak and gave up, simply pointing me to the back wall.

I turned and, to my great relief, found a key hanging on a hook behind the door. I rushed over, grabbing that, praying the whole time that it was really the key that would unlock this poor man’s cell door.

Another fresh wave of relief washed over me when I put the key into the lock on the cell, and it turned with a click. I swung the door open and grabbed the man under his arms, helping him to his feet. He could barely hold his own weight, so I draped his arm over my shoulder.

“Let’s get you out and get you some water,” I said.

The man nodded, leaning on me, his feet dragging oddly as I guided him out of the room. I took him back to the entrance room with the pool tables and sat him down.

“Julianne!” I yelled.

Her head popped out of the office. “Oh, my God! You found somebody!” she shrieked.

She rushed over to us.

“He desperately needs water,” I told her.

She took the man from my arms and helped him to sit in a chair at one of the game tables.

“And I found all of the rooms that they were using his cells,” I continued. “I’m going to go back and continue looking for other people and hopefully the pixies. Will you look after this poor man while I finish searching?”

She nodded. “Already on it.” She rushed for the water fountain, grabbing a vase off a table that would serve as a makeshift cup.

I darted back down the hallway, not wanting to waste any more time. If there were others in as bad a shape as this man, then they deserve to get out as fast as possible.

I kept the key with me, just in case it opened any of the other locks. I knew that was a long shot, but when I arrived in the room after the one that I had rescued that man from, I found a cage with two women in it. And to everyone’s great fortune, the same key opened their cell door.

I released them, and took them out to the entry room, putting them in Julianne’s care. Then I went back to continue my morbid search.

The women almost made me sicker than the bodies in the first room had. It was obvious from the way they were being kept and the marks on their bodies that they had been used to entertain whatever men were serving the Huntsman.

All three of the individuals that I had rescued were werewolves. The Huntsman may not have outwardly started his vendetta against the werewolves as he had with the fae or the lycan, but it was clear from the way he was treating his prisoners, who were next on his list for extinction. I was so glad that we had finally taken this monster out.

The room with the two women had been the last on the side of the hallway I’d gone down first. This time I started on the room across from the one that had the bodies in it. I crossed my fingers, praying that since it was one of the first rooms in the hallway that it didn’t contain some of the oldest victims because I had seen in that first room what state the oldest victims had been left in.

But when I threw open the door to that room, a different sight met my eyes. Like the hallway, this room was also lit by a faint glow, but it wasn’t from the emergency lights. This time the glow came from a tiny bird cage covered in a mesh that was sitting on a desk.

Inside were a handful of pixies. They all lay on the floor, but based on their glow, I could tell they were still alive. I rushed over to the birdcage.

“I’m here. I’ve come for you,” I told them.

Their tinkly little voices cried out for help.

“I’ll get you out,” I promised. “Hold on.”

Even though it cut my hands, I yanked at the metal mesh that was over the top of the bird cage, bending it until there were spaces just large enough for the pixies to squeeze out.

“I can’t get it the rest of the way,” I told them. “I know you’re weak, and I’ll do everything I can to get you stronger once you get out. But you have to find the strength to squeeze through these little holes that I’ve made.”

The pixies helped each other up, and I counted fifteen of them. With Freya, there would be just sixteen pixies left on the planet. But at least they had each other, and they weren’t like Justin and Russo being the very last of their kind.

One by one, the pixies squeezed out while I used all of my remaining strength to pull the metal mesh away from the birdcage. It had been soldered on in places. But thankfully, they hadn’t completely melted the mesh to the bars of the birdcage because this one didn’t have any key. I couldn’t see a way that you could open it without actually melting away some of the metal. And I had no idea where to find the tools to do that.

When they were out, I scooped up all fifteen of them in my hands, carrying them gently as if they were made of glass.

“Freya,” I screamed down the hallway when I got out of the room.

She came bolting down in a streak of gold light, her little, tiny voice screaming her relief. She hit my forehead so hard I was sure there was going to be a little mark there later. But I knew it was a wild pixie hug.

“I’m so sorry.” Tears dripped down my face as I apologized. “This was all the pixies I could find. They are all that’s left of your kind.”

She cried. I’m sure both from joy and sorrow.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You rescued some, and that’s all that matters. I’ve seen what you’ve been through. We all know the kind of torture that the Huntsman is capable of dishing out. I know that you’ve suffered and that if you could have done anything more, you would have.”

She continued reassuring me. “We were facing pure evil straight from hell, a demon. And yet you and your mate found a way to destroy him. And we can all be free now. Even though there aren’t very many of us to enjoy it, at least the freedom will taste sweet enough.”

“I wish you were big enough to hug,” I said.

“I wish I was big enough to hug you better than this,” she agreed.

I set the pixies in my hand gently on a table, and Freya immediately started tending to them, giving them tiny little drops of water to drink and buzzing around the room, looking for crumbs to feed them.