Serenity sat there and wondered what she would do. She had four Leoman love dolls that Marie had given souls to, for some reason, but it was getting late. Not knowing that Marie was not part of Jensen's Pack, she assumed that glass pup had been sent to bed by now along with the other pups. And since reality had altered so that Serenity's only interaction with the Pack in general, and "Beta" Julie specifically was to deal with supposedly missing parents. Nothing to do with the game. And with the police members of the Pride laid up from the battle with Kurse, that sort of interruption would be unwanted.
Her second option would be find Penny and let her "restore" the four love dolls, but that would also require finding out where Penny was at. While she might be out of the hospital by now, Serenity was sure that she would be at her home, which Serenity didn't know where it was. And even if she did, it still left the problem of three inanimate objects being apparently given souls for no apparent reason.
Her final option would be to wait until tomorrow. With Marie likely asleep for the night and taking the dolls to Penny would leave too many questions unanswered, calling it a "night" would allow the time to pass needed to go back to the first option. And there were victims of the game that had been turned into statues and other inanimate objects that hadn't made it into the gallery. Some of them for nearly three hundred years. These freshly created souls could wait one night.
++++++++++
"Would Mal'akh try to save Joella?" Cassandra asked as Marie began to return to the story, though it was still obvious that she was coping with this incident of "love dolls", which Cassandra and Lilly didn't really get. (And Maddex wasn't about to tell them.)
"Pardon?" Marie asked.
"Well, Marie went back to the mansion to visit her sister again and talked briefly with Joella," Cassandra replied, "she had to have recognized that Joella wasn't the m... meanie that the witches were."
"Yes, but Mal'akh and Joella's friendship wouldn't blossom until after the witches were dead," Marie told her, "her visits to the manor were to see her sister, not Joella."
"She did ask about the hunters though," Lilly commented, picking up on something her twin hadn't thought of, "wouldn't she try to get their help? Have them stop the witches and save Joella and all their victims?"
"Marie and her comrades had already made the decision to stop the witches," Marie told her.
"Mal'akh didn't know that," Lilly said.
Marie slowly nodded, "that wasn't the reason why she would seek Marie and her allies though. Being told that the "hunters" were out to kill Joella's friends, the Child Familiars, Mal'akh felt concerned that the hunters would kill her sister along with the witches."
++++++++
It was a day or so later and Mal'akh was out alone in the woods to the southeast of Glendale. It was one of the advantages of having made her first kill, being allowed to move through the Pride's territory without parental supervision, although she had to tell her father where she would be. And that lead her to an area to the southeast of Glendale where Joella had told her where the hunters were camped.
She was somewhat disappointed by what she found, which was nothing. There was nothing there, but there were some scents around the area that she managed to pick up. One was Joella's, two were of humans, one was of some reptile she couldn't recognize, and the other scent she could pick up smelled similar to an average female Leoman's scent, but yet as very different as well.
"Curious," Mal'akh sighed, "but their not here..."
She then looked up to a large broken hole in the tree branches where something large had evidently been thrown through them. She sighed again and shook off her nervousness for a moment.
"I'm a big girl," Mal'akh spoke quietly to herself, she then took a few more sniffs, "and their scents go south and west a little... toward the Praying town..."
++++++++
"You really should take it easy, Draco," Marie spoke as she found wounded dragon preaching to a small gathering of natives.
She waited for him to finish and for the crowd to disperse before she did approach.
"I got you your mission to save the world by covering it with a mission of mercy," Draco answered, "Just because the threat posed by the witches more serious then I'd believed doesn't mean that I'm going to stop being a missionary."
"And you're quite good at it," Marie nodded, "but your wings are still "broken". You need to heal. The final fight with the witches will be big, and you will need to be ready, and once that is over, you will be in charge of our mission here. Katherine and I will likely return to being nuns under your mission."
"What about your work with the inquisition?"
"We don't have the political and military support to run those sort of trials," Marie spoke, "I'll do what I can to support your mission, but it will have to be different from how things are done in Europe."
The two then slowly made their way back toward Running-Bear's broken down home.
"Have you managed to get anything out of Linus, yet?" Draco asked, changing the subject away from his damaged wings. They still gave him steady throbbing pain whenever he bended his back, and to a certain extent wanted to prove he could endure everything.
"No," Marie sighed, "He continually dodges the question... He's odd, and probably dangerous with that musket of his, but I don't think he'd betray us."
"Good to know," Draco sighed.
As they returned to where the front door to Running-Bear's home to find a young female Leoman following some scent trail right toward the door, and ironically toward them. It was an interesting sight, as Leomen, like all cats, primarily hunted by sight and hearing rather then by smell... but then, Leomen did have a stronger sense of smell then humans, so it wasn't impossible that they could track things by scent.
The cub came to a stop a few feet from Marie and Draco.
"You're them! The hunters!" Mal'akh spoke quickly, startling both Marie and Draco.
"Who are you, child?" Draco spoke calmly and politely, fearing his was another child familiar sent to kill them, "are you from around here."
"I'm from Glendale," Mal'akh answered, "are you the hunters going after the witches?"
Marie sighed. It didn't look like they could get away with any cover story.
"Yes," Marie sighed, "they are dangerous. You need to stay away from them."
"I know they're dangerous," Mal'akh spoke, "they drove my sister mad with this candy of theirs, along with many of the other children."
Draco gave a pained grunt as he knelled down to place a hand on Mal'akh's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, my child," Draco spoke to her, "Is there anything that we can do?"
"You could not kill my sister," Mal'akh pleaded, "Please. You can do what you want with the witches, but please don't kill my sister."
That sent a pang of guilt through Marie as she remembered the incident with Meranda and the Witch Pride member, Frank.
"If your sister is among the witches' victims, we have no desire to harm her," Marie said slowly, "though considering what the witches have done to those they've enslaved, they may place them in danger to protect their own power."
"But that... that... that would threaten my sister!" Mal'akh protested, "Please don't kill her!"
Marie nearly felt herself being brought to tears from Mal'akh's passioned desire to save her own flesh and blood.
"They are mad, young one," Marie told Mal'akh, "that is what makes them dangerous, not their magic, but their lack of mental sanity. It makes their entire thought process unpredictable..."
Marie then sighed.
"And to be honest, my plan is for the witches to face a trial by the rule of law," Marie finished, "and thus if they die, it will be justice and not some group of vengeful people committing murder. But they seem to be intent on a war to preserve their madness."
"So you won't save my sister?" Mal'akh was close to tears.
"We'll try, my child," Draco told her, "but Sister Marie Cruz is trying say that we can not garantee anything."
"Then I'll save her myself," Mal'akh vowed.
"No! They'd get you too!" Marie told her, "We'll try to save your sister. I swear it to you. What is her name?"
"Aimiliona," Mal'akh answered, "She looks like me, but is a little younger."