by Jessica Gunn
I gulped. Ben hurt. Will missing. “How bad is it?”
“Thirty injured, one dead.” Avery’s expression darkened. “I’m only hoping the latter number doesn’t increase. I’m not exactly sure what their goal was that led them to not only attack here, but also kidnap several other Hunters before my eyes. Magik-users, too. Hit ’em all with requirem and disappeared before we could do anything.”
My heart stopped. “What the hell would they need magik-users for, aside from the obvious?” Magik-users made great demons with predictable magik outcomes because they already had powers. But Autumn Fire, the few days in August when demons typically created more of their kind, was still months away.
Avery shook his head. “I have no fucking idea, but most of them were rookies. I swear to God I’m going to kill these bastards.”
“Take a number,” I said, glancing back at Ben. Veynix had come up here to fight me because he’d known Will was in the Infirmary because of his poison. He’d been toying with me. Distracting me from helping downstairs.
Kidnapping Will, an innocent, magikless bystander, was just icing on the damn cake for Veynix. Just another way to torment me.
“I’m going with Ava,” Avery announced to the rest of his team. “Keep looking for the injured.” He placed a hand on Ben’s good arm and looked to me. “Ready?”
I did the same, then nodded.
Avery brought us with a teleportante to the hall, a large half-amphitheater in the basement of Fire Circle Headquarters.
“This is just bullshit,” Avery said as he hauled Ben over his shoulder into a fireman carry. Ben groaned in pain. “Sorry, man. I’m not referring to you. The bullshit is this attack on Headquarters, and those captured Hunters.”
“Easy, Avery,” he said.
“Avery, every move you make intensifies the pain for him,” I said. “Veynix’s venom is intense at first, then it dulls to the constant pain Will is in.” And that pain stays with you for weeks to months afterward.
Avery regarded me with a suspicious look before glancing at Ben. “Sorry. I’ll try to be gentler.”
Avery continued walking down the steps leading to the stage at the bottom where Bria and the other doctors and medical staff had set up a triage area.
Bria ran over as soon as she saw Ben over Avery’s shoulders. “Careful! Put him down over here.”
“Gently,” Ben reminded him.
Avery made a face but followed Bria to an open area. He carefully placed Ben on a mat.
Bria knelt down and hovered her hands over the wound on Ben’s arm. After a moment, she said, “You were poisoned.”
“I’m aware.” Ben groaned. His forehead was covered in sweat, his face red. The fever was setting in. He’d be unconscious soon.
The grimace on Bria’s face said she’d surmised the same. “I’ll do the best I can. It’d really be better if Hydron got here soon to help with an antidote.”
Ben just nodded—or, tried to nod.
“Bullshit,” Avery said again as he surveyed the room. “Hunter Circle Headquarters are supposed to be no-go zones. Just like we don’t go fucking with their Landshaft or their Old Ones or completely fumigating their fucking demon bars.” His pressed his lips together, his lip ring bobbing.
“Apparently, the rules don’t matter anymore,” I said. “Just last year, Hunter’s Guild was attacked.”
Avery was also forgetting that the main reason we hadn’t tried to get into Landshaft was because we’d have all suffered—and possibly died from—aura sickness. The weight of that many demonic auras in such a small space would destroy the inherently good human soul.
“Fire Circle Headquarters too, not long after,” Avery said. “By the same damn demon.”
“Wasn’t Lady Azar here right before her death, too?” I asked.
Avery nodded. “Whatever this war’s supposed to be between Darkness and the Hunter Circles, it’s coming.”
“It has been for thousands of years.”
“Then it’s here,” Avery said. “And the end is right around the damn corner.”
I was starting to think he was right.
Sighing, I turned back to Ben. His blue eyes were shut. Ben was right: Chasing after Veynix now would only get me killed too. That bastard was clearly banking on me following him into some trap.
But I couldn’t leave Will with him. I just couldn’t. Will was the only person who had ever been there for me besides Brian. He was my constant. And if going after him sooner rather than later meant going against orders, then against orders it’d be.
Veynix was not going to take another person away from me.
“You have my number, right, Bria?” I asked her.
She glanced up at me. “No, but someone at Headquarters probably does.”
“Can you give me a call when Ben wakes up?”
Bria nodded. “Sure thing. He’ll probably want to check in with you anyway.”
“I’m going to go help look for more injured,” I lied. “I’ll be around.”
She just nodded and went back to trying to heal Ben however best she could.
Ben could talk to me when he was awake… after I saved Will and defeated Veynix.
However I was going to go about doing that.
It’d been six months since the attack that had killed my team. Six months during which I should have been tracking down Veynix to kill him, not hiding away at the Fire Circle’s orders.
It was my fault this was happening today—doubly so that it had happened at all.
It was time to set things right. No matter the cost.
I climbed back up the stairs to the first level, then started crossing the ground floor toward the second set of basement stairs. One quick stop to the training rooms downstairs to stock up on new weapons and I’d be out of here. My chest and stomach still hurt from the hits I’d taken in the fight with Veynix, but they were nothing compared to the unimaginable pain Will might be in now.
What’s he doing to you, Will?
“Ava?” someone called. “Hey, wait!”
I paused. Kian was walking down the hall. He jogged over to me when he saw I’d stopped.
“What?” I asked.
He glanced between me and the door at the end of the hall. “Where are you going?”
“Come on, Kian. I know we don’t know each other that well, but you’ve been around me long enough to know the answer to that question.”
I started walking again, but Kian grabbed my arm.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t be stupid about this. We need to wait for everyone else.”
“A half hour ago, you were all for the two of us going alone.”
Kian frowned. “That was before they attacked Headquarters and nearly massacred anyone who would have been our back-up. A dozen Hunters are missing now.”
“So is Will,” I said. “If we wait, they all might die. So I’m going to do this alone so no one else gets hurt—because of me or because the Fire Circle waited too long to act. Then no other demons will get the brilliant idea of attacking Fire Circle Headquarters again because of me and my team.”
Kian’s expression hardened. One of his hands held an ice pack to his head. The other was still wrapped around my arm. “Stop taking the blame for a group of a hundred demons.”
“It is my fault,” I said as I tore my arm out of his grasp. “It’s my fault all of this is happening.”
“Why?” he asked. Kian’s eyes were wild again, angry and confused. His clothes were a mess from the various fights, and he winced every time his gaze jumped from me to the lights above us.
“Because I lived. If I’d just died that night…” I shook my head. “I don’t know why I survived, Kian. But if I had died, they wouldn’t still be after me or Will. Or the Fire Circle. Or anyone else I’m tied to.”
Oh, god. If Talon had grown a pair and attacked Headquarters directly, did that mean they’d try to find Will’s family, too? Would they attack his parents and little brother? Or were they too busy
doing whatever it is they had planned for those Hunters they’d also captured?
I made for the basement door again. “I need to go.”
“And run?” a new voice questioned. Three other Hunters, each injured in their own way, now stood behind Kian, watching us argue. “Like you did when your team died?”
I recognized the one who’d spoken as Alison, a Hunter who had gone through training a year after me.
“You don’t know what happened,” I said to her.
She shrugged. “Neither do you, apparently.”
My eyes narrowed. “I didn’t ask you, and if you think I’m enjoying this at all, you’re crazy. I’d rather not be a part of this fuckery anymore.”
Alison pointed in the vague direction of Headquarters’ main entrance. “There’s the door, Ava. No one’s stopping you from running this time.”
If only it were that easy.
“Ava,” Kian said, drawing my attention back to his rigid form. “Don’t do this alone.”
“Then come with me,” I said to him. “You’re my partner, right?”
He shook his head. “Not when you’re doing dumb shit. Going after Veynix and who-knows-how-many other Talon soldiers while we’re both still hurt is stupid. Even if we survive, there’s no way you or I can transport that many injured Hunters, Ava.”
Another of the Hunters, this time a man named Zane, stepped forward. “You don’t want to go with her anyway, Kian. You know she made a deal with Veynix to survive the last attack.”
“She’ll sacrifice you to get her and her friend out safe,” Jules, the third Hunter, added. “Just like last time.”
“That’s not what happened,” I growled at them.
Now I remembered why I was so happy at first that Dacher had put Will and me in that protection program. Why they’d set us up with new identities in a new city. Being at Fire Circle Headquarters was the worst. Almost everyone here thought I was some sort of traitor.
“But there’s no one alive to confirm that, is there?” Zane asked.
“No, because Veynix killed my team, remember?” I asked. “But thanks for bringing that up again, asshole.”
Zane’s eyes narrowed, but Kian stepped in front of me, blocking my view—and my retort.
“I’m not following you into what’s clearly a trap,” Kian said, his gaze steady and fierce. He lifted his hand and placed it on my shoulder, pleading without words. His warm, strong touch sent a shiver down my spine. “Wait for orders and for back-up.”
I swallowed hard. “I can’t, Kian. Will is all I have left.”
Kian stared at me wordlessly. He cocked his head in some sort of appeal for understanding. Almost like he wanted me to count him as another thing I still had left.
“What happened to never leaving someone behind?” I asked Kian.
“You’d be the one doing the leaving if you go,” he said. “Don’t be dumb.”
“Don’t be a coward.”
The words were past my lips before I had the chance to reconsider them, to reel them in and take them back.
Anger flashed in Kian’s eyes and he let go of my arm, though it was more of a push away from me than anything else. “Fine. Go to your death and to Will’s.” He shook his head, his jaw muscles taut. “Maybe they’re right.”
“Better hope you did make that deal with Veynix. Seems like it’s the only way you’ll get out of his clutches again.” Kian turned on his heel and started walking away, past the three Hunters and back down the hallway into the lobby.
In the next breath, he was gone.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Last night, Kian had been my only ally. Now… I glanced around at the three Hunters who had stuck their noses into our business.
Now I didn’t have any allies at all.
Except one.
I lifted my chin and squashed down every single emotion fighting its way to the surface. This would end today, one way or another. And I’d end it as I had started it.
Alone.
Chapter 16
I made one stop before enacting my plan. Somewhere I hadn’t gone to in a few weeks. A teleportante brought me close, allowing me to teleport unseen into the small patch of woods nearby. Brian had grown up down the street from here in a small town in Rhode Island. I’d only come here once in the time we’d been together.
Now, as I walked down the street toward the cemetery, I wished I’d have come here more often. Despite where I was going and why, this place was beautiful. Flowers sprouted along the small walking path beside the street. Marigolds and roses, violet blooms and yellow. I missed this—nature. There wasn’t a whole lot in Boston unless you went to Boston Commons, and over the past six months I’d been lucky to see the outside of my New York City apartment or Midnight’s ring at all.
Clouds drifted by overhead, darkening with every step I took. Finally, I reached the gate to the back end of the cemetery. I flicked up the little lock and pushed the gate open.
And stood there.
Brian’s headstone was in view even from here, a rose gold headstone made of marble with his full name engraved: Brian Thomas Allen. Angel wings adorned the corners, along with his birth and death dates.
A heavy weight settled on my chest, compressing my ribs and lungs. Tears stung my eyes, building behind a wall I’d built and seen crumbled so many times. My fingers wrapped tighter around the stem of the one sunflower I had brought with me from a shop in Boston, big and yellow and bright.
I swallowed hard and then stepped past the threshold, locking the gate behind me.
Too soon, I’d arrived at Brian’s headstone and knelt down before it, placing the sunflower right at the base next to an older pot of flowers.
“I know these are my favorite and not yours,” I said, my words devolving into a hiccup. A few tears escaped, streaming down my cheeks. “But you were never much of a flowers guy.”
I shifted to sit on crossed legs, then leaned forward and placed my palm against his headstone. “I’m sorry.”
A wind kicked up then, caressing the grass around me, up my arms, and all around. Almost like Brian himself was answering me.
“I thought it was over,” I told him. “That I’d just be living with this, and that doing so would be fine. That with Will’s help, I could do it. But it’s all gone wrong, Brian.”
My tears fell harder now, dripping off my chin to the dirt beneath my legs.
“Maybe it’s better you’re gone,” I whispered. “That you all are, so you don’t have to deal with him again. Because he’s back.”
A few drops of rain fell from the heavy clouds overhead, dotting wet spots along my shorts. I glanced up as it began falling heavier, the sky growing almost as dark as it had that night. Of course it was raining like it had the night of the crash.
I cried harder, my hands balling into fists. At least the rain would cover my own waterworks now.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “He has Will. I know I can’t fight him alone, but I can’t let Will die too. This might be the end.”
I shook my head. “All of this could have ended that night. If I hadn’t run. Maybe I could have still saved you or Jeremy or killed Veynix. Then he couldn’t hurt other Hunters again now. He couldn’t torment all of Boston again.”
My shirt was soaked through now, my shorts too. I lifted my clenched hands and forced them to open, trying to ignore the red, angry lines below them. “I’m sorry I ran. God—I can’t do that to Will now. I can’t.”
I watched his headstone like it’d give me an answer. Like Brian would emerge from behind it, alive and well, and give me all the direction I needed.
But that wasn’t going to happen, and I knew it.
I pulled in a deep breath and looked up to the sky, just for a moment, letting the rain fall down over me. Then I righted myself and touched a hand to the headstone once more.
“This might be the end,” I said, as if Brian could hear every word. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I don’t want to, but
I have to face Veynix, Brian. For Will. For all the other Hunters he’s been poisoning with his venom. And if this is the end, if I can’t face him and win, then I’ll see you soon. I just wanted to make sure you’d forgive me for that. For running from the scene of the accident without calling for help.”
Another deep breath. “Because I’m not running anymore. From anything.”
I gave the headstone a small smile, then stood. Rain pelted me from every direction. My clothes had been soaked through. My hair fell in awkward lengths.
Before I turned to leave, I said, “I love you, Brian.”
And then I left, my fate accepted.
Chapter 17
My clothes and hair were still damp when I finally made it back to Fire Circle Headquarters. I hurried down the stairs and into the training room before I could talk myself out of doing this—or before anyone saw me. There were a thousand and one reasons for me to not go alone. But the only thought that stayed in my mind for longer than a second was the fear of Will dying. He was all I had left.
I couldn’t let him die because of me.
The training room at Headquarters was a fifty-yard-long room that somehow fit beneath Headquarters’ tiny building. The magiks that protected Headquarters that made the building look like a skyscraper in the financial district rather than a squat, few-stories-high building made from wood and stone had somehow also disguised spaces like this. Blue padded mats lined the floor all the way across, designating sparring areas for use by multiple teams or groups of people all at once.
Along each of the four walls were weapons closets. Each held a different type, from knives and daggers to various types of swords, staffs, and axes. Whatever a Hunter wanted to learn and train with, they could. Although I was pretty sure some of the stranger items, like battle axes, were left over from ancient times. Didn’t mean they weren’t fun to play with, though.
I headed straight for the swords cabinet and drew a short sword from the lot. Something I could wield that’d put more distance between me and Veynix—and his venom. I lifted the sword in front of me and tested it out with a quick slash through the air. It’d been a good couple of months since I’d last used a sword—they weren’t normally my weapon of choice—but today it felt good in my hands.