Thief's Honour

Epilogue

Damien kicked his bedroom wall, and continued pacing. No one could find the thief anywhere. Chances were, she had changed her name and appearance and disappeared with it for good. His dad was going to be furious, especially since Damien had told him that he almost had the jewel, and knew exactly where it was.

He was so grounded.

He had gone down to the pits where mortal souls suffered in burning agony earlier, and tortured Madeleine's former Enigma boss for a while. Even that lost its fun, though, and he'd left the mortal to continue his suffering.

When the inevitable happened and the Devil summoned Damien to his throne room, Damien felt his hands actually shaking. How was he ever going to explain his failure?

Ming was also in the throne room, and gave him a tight smile as he entered.

"Have you gotten the jewel, Damien?" Their Dad demanded, getting straight to the point.

Damien cringed. "Not... exactly..." he replied.

"WHAT?!" His Dad yelled, springing to his feet. "You said you almost had it, that you knew where it was, and were about to steal it!"

"Y-yes..." Damien replied, stuttering. "We infiltrated Enigma's secret base, and the mortal thief I'd hired killed the one who'd had the jewel in their possession, but she took it for herself and somehow disappeared!"

"Are you telling me," his Dad asked slowly, "that you were bested by a pathetic little small-time mortal thief who had no assistance or special abilities?"

"She managed to use the jewel, somehow! It's supposed to be impossible, but no mortal can teleport like that!" Damien ranted, "It's not my fault-"

"Silence," The Devil ordered, smacking him across the face hard enough to send him sprawling on the floor. "You have failed. I am disappointed in both of you."

"What did I do?" Ming asked, sounding nervous but offended.

"You failed to get the jewel before your brother. You would not have let it slip from your grasp into the hands of a mortal," their Dad snorted.

Damien stood up.

"And now, the jewel is most likely in the hands of the angels. No doubt your pathetic mortal went soft last minute, and returned it. Both of you, leave. Now."

Damien and Ming both turned and left the room. Damien was fighting the urge to flee to his room and lock the door for eternity.

"Why didn't you kill her?" Ming asked when they were away from the throne room.

Damien sighed. "I tried. She managed to teleport away, even though mortals shouldn't be able to use the damn thing, special abilities or not." He kicked a wall. "And now I can't find her, for some stupid reason. It's like the universe chose today to get back at me for all the good luck I've been having." He waved his hands dramatically. "Here! Have the best thief in the trade to steal you your jewel! But plot twist, she hates you, blames you for some unimportant wizard kid's death and will betray you at the worst second and convince your Dad that you're a complete incompetent failure!"

Ming sighed. "That's the way it always is with mortals. No matter what happens, in the end, they will always think that we're the bad guys, and go running back to Heaven."

"I need to go get a drink." Damien teleported away, making plans to get so fucking drunk that he forgot his own name.


Erica Marten was suntanning on a beach in Peru, her newly dyed deep brown hair pulled back in an attractive messy bun, when her phone buzzed.

She frowned. It wasn't her main phone, it was an old one from an old mission that had gone wrong. Because of her choices, dangerous people wanted her dead and suffering. She'd had to cut all ties with her former life and flee the country. Cautious travel from minor, unimportant country to minor, unimportant country had brought her here. She didn't know why she still had the phone. Few had this number, and all of them were from a past better forgotten. She finally picked it up, to see she had one missed call. She pressed a button, to hear the voicemail.

"Hey. It's me," A familiar voice rang out, causing her heart to slip a beat. "I know you're probably someone else by now, and you probably don't even have this number anymore, but I wanted to say that I respect what you did. I think you did the right thing. If you get this... please call me back. I want to join you, whoever and wherever you are now. I don't want to become a distant memory of times better forgotten. I love you."

Erica smiled, and dialled the number. He picked up on the first ring.

"I'm going to tell you right now, Aric, if this is a trap, you will regret it."

Yay! This book is finally finished! Thank you for reading this, and following Madeleine's story to the end. If there's any confusion with the epilogue, Erica Marten is Madeleine, but she changed her name when she went into hiding to escape Damien. Have a great day!