by Jessica Gunn
This Hunter didn’t seem to care so much, though. And maybe I wouldn’t either if I didn’t have a massive secret rendering my mask a life-saving necessity.
I bit my lip as Dan Reed continued giving our fight a decent intro. Anxiety rode up my arms and swirled in my chest, pumping a fresh wave of adrenaline into my system. I couldn’t lose this fight. Not on my home turf.
Applause and cheering roared from the crowd as Dan Reed turned to us. “Keep it clean. I know this isn’t normal, but it’s what the sponsors want. No headshots that’ll knock off your masks.”
The other Hunter rolled his eyes. “You’re that worried?”
Dan Reed regarded him with a hard stare, then gave me the same one. But when his eyes met mine, it wasn’t purely a plea for following the rules. It was… worry?
I lifted my chin. “I won’t need a headshot to take this guy down.”
Blood Hunter barked a laugh. “We’ll see about that, sweetheart.”
I lifted a brow. “You might end up eating that pet name.”
He just shrugged, walking backward to the starting mark on his side of the ring.
My blood boiled. This was another reason fighting a Hunter was a shitty idea. Hunters in Midnight were arrogant assholes. At least the demons had a reason to be so sure of themselves; even without magik, they had innate strength and skill. Defeating a demon in nothing but hand-to-hand combat, especially as a non-magik-user, was a badge of honor.
Fighting this Hunter would be satisfying for a whole other reason.
“Ready?” Dan Reed asked as the crowd’s cheering turned into tense stares. Bet takers weaved between the groups of people, accepting money and taking names. And from the sounds of it, a whole hell of a lot of money was being exchanged.
Glad to be of service, I thought sarcastically as I fell into a ready stance. My legs still wobbled a bit, but I dug my heels down into the dirt. No way was I losing.
When neither I nor Mr. Blood Hunter protested, Dan Reed lifted his hand high in the air, waited a moment, then brought it down between us. “Fight!”
As soon as he backed out of the way, Blood Hunter leapt for me. I rolled into it, dodging him and sweeping a leg under his feet. He slammed into the ground.
I stood above him, ready to swing the moment he popped up. “Blood Hunter? Where’d you get that lame idea from?”
The Hunter growled and kicked up into a standing position. “Better than Masked Hunter. Have some creativity, sweetheart.”
I swallowed back my retort and my desire to thwack this cocky asshole across the mouth. Don’t take the bait. “Why don’t you put some action behind your words?”
He shrugged again, as if all of this was just another night for him, and launched a series of attacks to my face and chest. I blocked most of them, weaving around his more aggressive, overt swings, but took a solid punch to the shoulder. The same one the previous demon had nearly destroyed.
My teeth crashed together, but I held in my cry of pain as a white-hot searing tear split up my shoulder through to my neck and back. Not good.
We parted for a moment, dancing around each other. My chest heaved, each new breath bringing a fresh wave of much-needed calm.
“You watched the first fight,” I said. I used the momentary pause to scan him quickly. He wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue or hurt, even though I had landed some attacks of my own. Maybe he was just a really good actor.
“I like knowing my opponents,” he said as he stepped slowly in a circle, watching me carefully.
“Then you know you’re in for a beating.” I pushed off the ground and went to tackle him but changed my footing at the last moment for a roll.
I came up behind him and knocked him in the back of his knees, pushing him to the ground. He recovered fast, reaching behind me to pull me with him. We tumbled, him twisting us until he was on top of my middle, pinning me to the dusty floor. I felt the mask around my face loosen with all the tumbling. Shit.
“You need to learn some new tricks, sweet—”
I kicked up, catching just enough of his head with my knee that he rocked forward with the impact, releasing the lower half of my abdomen. It gave me enough movement to throw him off me and punch him in the sides. He groaned as he rolled away. But when I went to attack again, he caught my ankle and lifted me up, dropping me onto my back.
Holy hell. His grip was solid, almost too tight and strong for a plain human.
My head followed my back into the ground with a thud so loud even I heard it echo across the ring. The sides of my mask cracked, the string holding it to my face falling off entirely. Before I knew what had happened, I was seeing stars as the mask slid from my face, blackness swarming in around my vision.
Get up, I told myself as various members of the audience gasped. Probably at my lack of a mask. Get that thing back on.
I scrambled for the black piece of mask, but Dan Reed’s voice was already there, loud and redirecting attention.
“And there you have it, folks!” he shouted into his microphone. “The Masked Hunted has been unmasked and defeated. Crimson’s Blood Hunter is victorious!”
Boos echoed along with cheers. Clearly, this Blood Hunter was popular across the board. I’d never paid much attention to anyone outside of Midnight’s brackets. I’d have to correct that in the future. If I was still allowed to fight after this…
I glared at Blood Hunter as I put my mask back on. “Happy now? Are you this much of an asshole back home?” Reaching down, I touched my ankle, brushing the leather anklet to make sure it was still there. At least I didn’t lose you.
His expression was hard as stone, his jaw locked into place beneath clenched teeth. His arms were taut at his sides. But a hint of something shone in his eyes. It was blocked out before I could identify it as Dan Reed swooped in front of me to grab Blood Hunter’s arm and lift it high into the air.
The gate to the ready rooms opened and the clean-up crew walked through. Thank god I could at least walk out of here on my own two feet, even if the rest of my dignity had been sacrificed. I retreated quickly from the ring on shaking legs, too afraid to look at the crowd to see who, if any, recognized me.
Please let that number be zero. New York City fell under the jurisdiction of the Fire Circle, even though they were headquartered in Boston. That meant because of what’d happened six months ago, and because any number of these attendees might also be in the Fire Circle, there was a good chance they’d recognize me.
And if they did, there was no telling which demons might also put two-and-two together.
It’d been a risk I’d been willing to take. Until tonight’s match.
I hurried past a pair of demonic security guards and more clean-up crews and into the ready room that housed my locker. It took my shaking fingers three tries to get my combination right, to take off my mask, and shove everything I’d left in there into a bag and sling it over my shoulder. I slammed the door shut and spun, aiming for a quick getaway. Fire Circle members likely wouldn’t try to bring me in for illegal underground fighting because then they’d have to admit to being there themselves, but the demons in attendance…
“Ava,” someone called from the back door.
I startled, clenching the strap of my bag.
Riker stepped into the locker room, his hands in his pockets. “Leaving without getting paid?”
“You know why I’m leaving.”
He clicked his tongue. “So you were unmasked, so what? We can create a new name. A new brand.”
My jaw locked. “Maybe,” I said through gnashed teeth.
Riker was in his mid-thirties and had short, messy blond hair and a scar running across one eyelid. He shoved a hand into one of the pockets of his trench coat and produced a wad of bills. A much smaller amount than should have been there.
I shot him a glare. “Are you serious? I won that first fight. A championship fight no less.”
“But you lost against Blood Hunter, so your earnings were quartered. Not in
your favor, either. The sponsors are not happy.”
I glared harder. “That fight was unsanctioned. It should have never happened. You have no idea what you’ve done.”
He regarded me with a smirk. “What? You’ll be put in Hunter Circles jail? It’ll be fine. Take your pay.” He held out the wad of cash and shook it.
I grabbed it and stuffed it into my bag. “Thanks for nothing, Riker.”
I went to pass him, but he grabbed my arm. “Hey, all’s fair in war.”
My eyes narrowed on his beady ones. “This isn’t war; it’s a fight club. Most of the rules get followed, you asshat. Now let me go.”
“You’ll be back tomorrow night, right?” Riker asked as I walked away.
I threw a middle finger over my shoulder to my handler. “I have to be. You know that.”
I didn’t have a choice.
The Hunter Circles, and by extension its Fire Circle branch, didn’t pay Hunters much more than enough to live by to begin with. Turns out they paid even less to those on their twisted witness protection program. That was the only reason I’d turned to Midnight in the first place: to make money.
Because of what Will, my non-Hunter best friend, and I had survived, we had to be hidden from Darkness. Only the Fire Circle provided just enough to get by on. I didn’t trust their protection program one bit, not with the enemies in Darkness that I’d made. I needed these fight winnings to get us better protection. More weapons, a better safe house. A ticket out of the country and money to live on when we arrived at a new destination.
Because when you crossed Talon, the bounty hunters of Landshaft, Darkness’s biggest demonic city in North America, you didn’t get out alive.
And I intended to live.
The loss in the ring tonight wasn’t about the money, though. No. I’d just lost my anonymity. I’d given away my location to every Landshaft bounty hunter in the Northeast.
I needed to get Will and get us out of New York—before Talon killed us both.
Chapter 3
Moving Will and me into the middle of New York City only made sense when you thought about the number of people swarming around the place, not when considering rent prices. And I was pretty sure the Fire Circle had a limit on how much money they could put into hiding two of their own from demons, official protection program or not.
I cringed as the door to our apartment creaked open. I had to get this thing fixed, though I liked having the warning of someone coming through the door—except when that someone was me, alerting Will to my arrival. I locked the door behind me. The apartment wasn’t huge. Four “rooms,” with one a bathroom, but the small space had been our home for almost six months now.
Will, who hadn’t been and never would be a Fire Circle demon Hunter, had been put into this protection program with me. My old team had gotten too close to Landshaft, and in the process, we’d made some pretty dangerous enemies. Will had gotten caught up in it all by accident. And in trying to protect me, he’d landed himself his own bounty on his head.
“Ava?” Will called from his bedroom.
My cringe deepening, I threw my bag through my open bedroom door and onto my bed. “Yeah. Sorry. Everything’s fine; go back to sleep.”
An echoing of footsteps on tile echoed and Will appeared on the other side of the kitchen, staring at me. “I’d ask you how your night went, but…” My best friend looked me over before opening the freezer. “What the hell kind of work are you into?”
“Physical,” I answered. I pushed past him and collected a frozen bag of vegetables, pressing it against the welt growing on my jaw.
Will leveled me with a blue-eyed, serious look. “You couldn’t lie to me when we were kids. Why do you try it now?”
“Because I’m hoping you’ll just let it be?”
His expression softened. “I thought you were done fighting demons. Something about the Fire Circle higher-ups putting you on house arrest or something while we’re here.”
Problem was, depending on how long it took the Fire Circle to finish their investigation into what’d happened to my team six months ago, Will and I would never leave here. And without running jobs, even if they were freelancer jobs for the Fire Circle, I’d have no income except for what they provided us with. Which was basically nothing.
Will made coffee while I was lost in thought. Finally, he said, “You know I know what you’re really doing out there, right?”
The aroma of coffee sifted into my nostrils and gave my tired muscles enough energy to see me through until I could sleep.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“I know you fight and that you shouldn’t,” he said. “I just don’t understand why.”
I pointed to our mostly-empty fridge with my free hand. “Because they placed us in New York City, Will, with the stipend of someone living in the suburbs. The Fire Circle thinks we’ll be fine here.”
“Seemed less dangerous than Boston.”
“But it’s not enough. And it’s not safe. And… I might have screwed that up tonight.” I looked away from him. Sure, the main reason I’d gone into the ring had been to make enough money so that we could actually live. But I also fought to make enough money that we could arm ourselves and get far, far away from Talon and Landshaft’s reach. The Empire of Darkness and the Hunter Circles had branches on most continents. But putting an ocean between me and Talon seemed a far better plan then hiding out and waiting for the Fire Circle to decide to act.
I understood that they had more pressing things to worry about right now after all the security breaches at Headquarters last year, and our entire leading body including our Leader being impeached, but I wanted to think the Fire Circle would help take care of its own.
The once-frozen vegetables had started to thaw. I shook my head and put them back in the freezer.
“If I don’t fight, Will,” I said, “this money coming from the Fire Circle will eventually run dry.”
“Ben wouldn’t let that happen,” Will said.
I rolled my eyes. Will wasn’t a Hunter, so he didn’t really understand how it all worked. But Ben Hallen, our handler and part-time babysitter within the protection program, didn’t have as much sway as Will thought.
Six months ago, my team and I had gotten involved with Talon bounty hunters by accident, but like most accidents with demons of Darkness, things had escalated. Quickly.
We’d discovered a secret project they’d been working on, one that had the power to change the entire war between Good and Evil. And when they’d found out we knew, they’d targeted and tormented us. Threatened our families back home.
Then they’d killed my entire team. Had tried to kill me too, but I’d escaped. Now I was alone. With Will, sure, but still alone. And they were still after me for revenge or some other reason. I’d never really known why, just that everything I had left was still in danger. And that Will had almost been a target right after my team had died. He’d been cornered by demons seemingly at random—until he’d described the tell-tale red and violet armor of Talon bounty hunters. Talon had been trying to get to me by threatening my best friend.
Maybe that was the other reason I went to Midnight’s fighting ring every night. Maybe that was what kept me coming back even more often the longer Ben Hallen and Dacher, the Fire Circle’s Leader, kept Will and me hidden.
Talon wasn’t finished with me yet. Which meant Will was also still a target.
But I was tired of waiting for them to find us and finish the job.
Maybe I fought because this entire six-month stretch of time, I’d been simply waiting for them to find out I was still alive. And now that my mask had fallen off in front of hundreds of people, some of whom were Darkness’s elite, it was only a matter of time.
The idea was as scary as it was oddly calming.
One way or another, this game of hide-and-seek would end soon. I just didn’t want Will to be involved when it did.
“Still,” Will said, dragging me from my thoughts, “I ha
ve to wonder what Brian would think about this.”
I winced. My heart stopped at the sound of Brian’s name. My boyfriend’s face was the last thing I saw before everyone on my team died. I had loved him with everything I’d had, nearly from the very first night. Right up until that car crash had taken him and everything else I cared about away from me.
Frowning, my mind elsewhere, I said, “I don’t think you’ll have to worry anymore after tonight.” I tracked out of the kitchen and into the adjoined living room space. The couch welcomed me as I plopped my fatigued limbs into it. All I wanted right now was to take a nice warm shower and go to bed and pray that none of these injuries required medical attention.
Will followed and sat beside me. He was dressed in jeans and a tank top, a baseball cap already on his head, as if he’d been in the process of getting ready to go out when I’d gotten home. I checked the clock on the wall. It was barely 6 a.m.
“What happened?” he asked.
“My opponent knocked my mask off,” I said.
“I thought they weren’t allowed to do that.”
I shrugged. “It was an accident. But then again, Midnight’s not supposed to be putting Hunter against Hunter to begin with, so…”
Will’s eyes widened and took his cap off. “You fought another Hunter? Did they recognize you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to know.”
Will’s eyes darkened.
“I’m not telling Ben,” I said. “Or Dacher, or any of the other Leader candidates.”
“They should know you might have been compromised.”
“Why? What are they going to do about it? Move us?” I pulled my knees close to my chest. “It doesn’t matter. There are ways to track people. That’s why I don’t totally trust what the Fire Circle has set up for us in the first place. That’s why I did the fighting to get this money.”
“Then let’s go out on our own,” Will said. “If not out of the country, at least down the block for breakfast because we have nothing.”