Venom in the Skin

by Jessica Gunn

“You got here pretty fast,” I said. “Ben said you were in Alzan last time I talked to him before today’s mess.”

  Krystin nodded. “I was, but he sent word through Nate that there was an attack and Hunters were kidnapped. I came back as soon as I heard. Now I’m down here picking out weapons in case Dacher’s fear of them returning becomes a thing.”

  “Don’t you have magik?”

  Krystin winced. “Not too much of that going on anymore, unfortunately. But that’s okay.” She held up the dagger in front of her face and looked at it lovingly. “Blades have always been my preferred weapon anyway. How are you doing with all of this?”

  Well, that was quite the subject change. “Veynix is back. He or the other Talon soldiers have been poisoning people all across the city. I’m starting to wonder if we stopped their plan to turn Ember witches into demons after all. And, oh yeah, Will was kidnapped. So not well. I’m not handling it well.”

  Krystin frowned. “We’ll get Will back. That’s part of the reason they called for me. Shawn can’t really leave Alzan, and Nate’s a bit far out and had to return quickly, but Rachel and I should be able to take them. We just need to wait for Dacher’s command.”

  My eyes stung with tears waiting to fall. “Will and the others don’t have a ton of time.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t.” I turned away, just short of crying. But as I did so, an awful, brilliant, stupid idea came to mind. One that might just have worked. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

  Krystin’s gaze met mine. “Sure.”

  I bent to one knee and pulled up one leg of my pants. Around my ankle was a leather bracelet meant to be worn around a wrist. I’d kept it here, hidden and safe, so I wouldn’t ever lose it in a fight. I undid the clasp and took it off, holding it up for Krystin.

  “Can you use your witch magik to locate Will?” I asked. “I won’t go, not without you guys. I just want to know where he is because it won’t work if he’s dead, right?”

  Krystin’s eyes darkened. “No. It won’t. Do you really want me to find out if he’s dead, Ava?”

  I nodded. “Yes. I’m worried sick. I know it’s only been thirty minutes or so since the attack, but he’s everything to me, Krystin.”

  She snatched up the bracelet from my hand and held it in front of her face. “I’d need to do it at home. I don’t have my spell stuff here.”

  “Can we go now?” I asked. “Really fast. Just to be sure.”

  She regarded me with a look that told me she in no way believed that I would wait for Dacher’s command. But nothing in that expression hinted that she’d tell Dacher that. “Fine.” She held out a hand to me. “Let’s go.”

  I took her hand and she used teleportante to bring us to her team’s house. I’d never seen it from the outside, but we landed in their large living room, decorated with a couch and big chairs surrounded by large abstract art pieces and brightly colored rugs.

  “This way,” Krystin said, heading into the kitchen.

  I followed her and waited while she gathered some supplies. To distract myself from trying to hide my intentions from Krystin, I glanced out the bay window that opened up to the woods behind their house.

  Jeez. They’d really been upgraded from the generally-lackluster team housing closer to Fire Circle Headquarters.

  “Okay, let’s try this.”

  I turned back to Krystin. “Thank you for doing this. I’ve never been more scared for him in my life.”

  She nodded. “No problem. But you…” She stopped, giving me a hard stare. “You can’t go without us, Ava.”

  Technically, she could just tell me if he was alive or not, and not where he was. God—I didn’t want to break her trust or Ben’s even more than I already probably had by going behind his back to ask Krystin this. But she didn’t know the full score of the situation, and I could not leave Will. And that didn’t even include the fate of the Hunters Veynix and the other Talon soldiers had taken.

  “I won’t.”

  My voice barely held out. It was shaky, but even enough that Krystin carried on with the locator spell.

  Krystin closed her eyes and dropped the bracelet into a smoking bowl of ingredients. She held it and her fingers inside and closed her eyes, concentrating.

  I tapped my foot on the floor while I waited for her answer. My heart sank with every passing moment that came without an affirmation of Will’s continued existence.

  Finally, Krystin opened her eyes again. “Got him. He’s still alive.” She dug into her pocket and retrieved her phone. “He’s in New York City. Probably with Veynix, mind you. Maybe with the other Hunters? Here.” She pulled up a map of the city and narrowed in on a street. “This building right here.”

  My brow furrowed. “That’s oddly specific.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes this locator magik works wonders; sometimes it tells me what I’m looking for is simply on Planet Earth.” She shook out the bracelet and handed the damp leather back to me. “You got lucky. That’s some connection you have to Will through this thing.”

  “We made matching ones at a camp when we were kids,” I said, this time placing it on my wrist. “Sort of like a combined Girl and Boy Scout summer thing. He has one too. He’s probably still wearing it despite being in the Infirmary for the past day or so.”

  “Great,” she said and dunked the bowl into the sink. After running some cold water in it, Krystin turned and held her hand out to me one more time. “Now let’s get back to Headquarters before we’re missed.”

  “Yeah.” I took her hand. Right before we used teleportante, I looked to her and said, “Thanks, Krystin. I really appreciate you finding him. I just needed to know.”

  It’s enough to help me see this through.

  Chapter 18

  Three hours after talking to Krystin, I finally made it out of Fire Circle Headquarters. Krystin had kept a close eye on me the entire time. I was starting to get the impression that she’d seen through me. But when I offered to run out to get coffee and other items for Avery and the others, who would no doubt be staying at Headquarters all night for clean-up and recovery, Krystin had let me go.

  I’d heard plenty about Krystin to know we weren’t so different. So if she had figured out my plan, she was letting me go because she knew that short of locking me up, no one was going to keep me from getting to Will.

  I used teleportante to bring myself back to Will’s and my New York apartment. The building Krystin had pinpointed on the map wasn’t far away. I realized with a shudder that this probably meant Veynix had known where I had been for some time now.

  Why wait until now to finish his revenge?

  I grabbed a jacket from my closet to hide the dagger at my back and the other various smaller weapons on my person. I’d look like a weirdo walking around the city in ninety-degree late-May weather, but at least no one would see the blades. Then I pulled on my specially-made pair of steel-toed boots and left the apartment for what was either the last or the second-to-last time.

  If I came back here at all—if I survived this encounter with Veynix—I’d only come back to pack up my things. Because if I survived, I’d probably be headed to Ether Circle Prison for not following orders.

  The sun shone brightly between the high buildings. I tried to enjoy it as I walked, steeling myself for this fight more with every block I crossed. The leather bracelet rubbed against my wrist, so I pulled it off and dangled it over a nearby trashcan.

  The reason the locator magik had worked so well was because the connection to this bracelet was indeed strong. Strong because the owner was a very powerful demon.

  It wasn’t Will’s bracelet, but Veynix’s. I’d awoken after the attack on my team to find it next to me on the ground, the same violet color of Talon’s uniform armor and imprinted with their dancing twin cobras seal. Maybe subconsciously I had known I’d one day need it. That was the only explanation I had for why I’d kept it all this time, especially when even the sound of Veynix’s voi
ce in my head had been enough to give me nightmares for months.

  Ten minutes later I rounded the final turn to the apartment building. It looked so… normal. Red brick, older windows. Four stories tall. So unassuming.

  Had Krystin’s locator magik actually worked?

  Doesn’t help narrow down which apartment it is.

  I climbed the stairs to the front door and waited around until a woman happened to come by. She let me in once I lied about being new and not having my keys. As soon as she’d made her way toward her apartment, I stared at the mailboxes to pretend I had something to do.

  If I was Veynix and I was hiding out, which apartment would I try to rent? You couldn’t see our apartment building from here, so it probably wasn’t an upper-level apartment.

  Basement then. Demons did love their dark and musty lairs.

  I crossed the lobby to the set of stairs leading downward and descended them on uneasy feet. The stairs turned halfway, and as soon as I rounded the corner for the next set, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  A man stood there, leaning against the wall with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. He looked up as I came down the steps, his brown eyes bold and irritated.

  Kian shook his head, shedding a half-smile. “I knew you’d do it.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you find this place?”

  He pushed off the wall and moved closer to the bottom step so he could drop the volume of his voice. “I was waiting for you. Took you long enough.”

  “You told me not to do this,” I hissed.

  Kian held my stare. “Yeah, and then I realized you were going to do it anyway. And that if that was the case, I probably shouldn’t let you do it alone. Even if you did call me a coward.”

  I swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t have said that. I was angry.”

  “This is still the stupidest idea I’ve ever encountered.”

  “And yet you’re here?” I asked.

  He threw up his hands. “Guess so. There’s something about you that makes me not want to let you do dumb things alone.”

  “I’m not some damsel in distress, Kian.”

  “No, but you are the target of a powerful demon and you’re supposed to be my partner, even if it’s a temporary thing. So here I am. Maybe we can take him down together.”

  “So you can take whatever punishment I’ll get for not listening to orders, too?” I shook my head. “No. Go, Kian. I’m sorry you got involved in this.”

  His expression changed, suddenly warping into uneasiness. Sadness. He ran a hand over his mouth and looked away. “Honestly, I was supposed to finish this before you got here.”

  “What?” I asked, climbing down the rest of the steps. “Why?”

  “Because I thought I could take Veynix on alone, assuming he was alone, too. I figured if he had the missing Hunters here and they were still alive, I could free them and they could help me. I just… haven’t worked up the nerve to go in there yet.” Kian turned his brown gaze back on me. “And because I also didn’t want you to have to face this asshole again after everything that’s happened. I went to a friend of mine, someone who’s got his hands in a lot of information about Darkness. He pointed me here.”

  But the way his eyes pinched tight said there was more to the story than that.

  “A friend?” I asked.

  Kian shoved his hands back into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Talon killed him right after he told me this location. I almost didn’t make it out alive.”

  My eyes widened. “Kian—”

  He lifted a hand. “Don’t worry. They didn’t know what we were talking about, and I went to Headquarters and Hunter’s Guild a few times to lose my teleportante trail. No one knows I’m here. But Talon is after me. They have been for months now. So that’s the other reason I’m here. If we can dispose of Veynix and rescue those Hunters, maybe it’ll convince the rest of Talon to back off for a while.”

  I frowned, a fresh wave of guilt sliding over me. Because of me, Kian had gone to his friend for help. A friend who had died because of it. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  “Save any apologies or anything else until after we’re done here,” Kian said, his expression growing serious and dark again. “Nothing can cloud us while we do this.”

  Kian reached behind him and drew his Fire Circle knife from a sheath on his back. I did the same with the dagger I’d taken from Headquarters.

  “Then let’s do this,” I said.

  He nodded, then headed down the hall. Before he got too far, I tapped his shoulder. Kian paused, looking back at me.

  “Thank you,” I said. I hadn’t realized until we’d started down the hallway that I was relieved he was here, despite what it’d cost him.

  He nodded once, his lips pressed in a tight line, then continued down the hallway.

  I hurried behind him, ready to attack the second Veynix or any other demon appeared. Kian led me down a maze of corridors with doors to various apartments. There were seven or so apartments on this level, with Veynix’s apparently at the far end.

  Finally, we stopped outside apartment 7B. Kian nodded to the door and reached for the handle. Twisted it. Nothing.

  Kian frowned for only a moment, considering something, before he reached into the front of his jacket and pulled out lock-picking tools. Within moments, he had the door unlocked.

  He counted down to one finger from three and kicked the door open. We rushed inside, weapons at the ready. I expected the worst. I figured Veynix would have heard us coming and stood right in front of the door, hand up and ready to deliver a telekinetic blow.

  But Veynix wasn’t there. He wasn’t even waiting on the other side of the door like I’d expected him to be. The studio apartment only had one other door that led to a bathroom, but from where we stood, we could see the entire empty apartment.

  “What the hell?” I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. “Krystin was positive he was here.”

  Kian raised an eyebrow. “You had Krystin Blackwood help you find Veynix?”

  I nodded quick and walked farther into the apartment. “She’s the only witch I know.”

  “You should find better friends,” Kian said under his breath. “I don’t get it. He was here.”

  That much was obvious. From the kitchen to the living room, the entire apartment was strewn with vials and burners, jars of liquid, and tables with all sorts of chemistry-looking equipment. Poison-making equipment.

  This was Veynix’s base of operations all right. But it’d been deserted.

  “Look,” Kian said, pointing to one burner in particular. It had a jar of something on top of it and it was still smoking. “He must have just left.”

  “Why not leave an entourage behind?” I asked. “If he knew we’d eventually come for Will and the other Hunters, why not make it a real trap filled with soldiers?”

  Kian shook his head. “I don’t know. But I don’t like this.”

  “Too easy?” I asked as I picked up a clipboard with notes on it. Veynix’s scrawling script looked old. I wasn’t sure exactly when Veynix had been turned into a demon, but it must have been during a time when script was popular and an older form of English had been used.

  “Too… empty,” Kian said as he peered around the room with narrowed eyes. “He left all his equipment behind.”

  “We already know he’s a poison master for Talon,” I said. “He’s got nothing to hide.”

  Kian frowned. “I don’t know about that. They’re always making new poisons and drugs. Talon needs to in order to keep revenue flowing for whatever it is they’re doing these days in Landshaft.”

  He paused, stopping suddenly and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, shit.”

  I glanced up to see what he’d found, but Kian was already shoving me out of the way. A small explosion went off from a device stuck to the ceiling. A cloud of purple smoke puffed violently from the device.

  “Get down!” he said, stil
l standing himself. Breathing in the purple cloud.

  I dropped and rolled away. Talon had built so many poisons over the centuries. This trap could have had anything in it. And unfortunately, it didn’t look like an aerosol version of the one poison I knew wouldn’t hurt Kian or me. Elin only hurt magik-users; it made it so you couldn’t use magik, but if you managed to fight through it and access yours, it’d smack you back with it tenfold. Much like Hunter’s Guild’s protection magiks.

  “What is it?” I asked him as he stumbled away from the cloud. “How much did you just breathe in? We need to get you to Headquarters—screw being found out.”

  He held out a hand. “No. Don’t. It’s… I know this…” He doubled over, his features twisting in pain. “I hadn’t realized… it’d been turned into an aerosol. We got lucky.”

  “What?” The only purple poison I knew of that was made by the Trade was… “Oh, god, Kian! No, we need to go now. Demon’s Blood will turn you insane!”

  Panic sent my heart thumping hard in my chest. I’d never known anyone who’d taken Demon’s Blood before, but I’d heard about it. It gave you the strength and muscle to fight demons, but at the cost of your mental faculties. You turned into a superhero for about an hour, much like if you took dharksa, but then you went violently berserk the entire time. Demons, however, just used it for a good trip.

  “How the hell is this lucky?” I asked, even as I backed away from Kian. If he was going to lose his shit, it wouldn’t be on me. It wouldn’t be his fault, either, but I’d already lost a fight to Kian while he’d been sober and unenhanced.

  Kian lifted his gaze to me, twisted by pain and… remorse? “This isn’t the first time… I’m well acquainted with Demon’s Blood.”

  My thoughts whirred in my head. “How?” If he’d taken it before, then he knew how bad this was going to get. “Headquarters. Now, Kian. We can’t go after Veynix again while you’re on that crap.”

  Kian took in a shuddering breath, then stood, righting himself. “This version’s harder to control. But I think I’ll be fine—”

  He dropped to the ground without warning. Kian’s body began shaking uncontrollably. And when he reached out to steady himself on a nearby chair leg, it snapped in half beneath his fingertips.