by Jessica Gunn
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?”
“Not sure,” Nate said. “Jaffrin’s summoned us.”
Rachel lay a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “How did it go with Sandra?”
Ben’s face fell through guilt and sadness straight through to solidified determination. “She’s keeping Riley for now. They’re going to head up to her Aunt Betty’s in Toronto for a while before moving elsewhere in Canada. She’s not going to tell me the location until they’re settled—if at all.”
Rachel frowned and hugged her cousin. “I’m so sorry, Ben.”
He squeezed her tight. “I’m not. He’s safer that way. I’ll let Jaffrin know and he’ll alert the Canadian branches. They’ll be watched while we figure this out.”
“At least he’ll be safe,” I said. I didn’t know much about the Hunter Circles branches outside the United States, but that didn’t mean they were any less efficient. The Circles had started in Mesopotamia anyway, spreading into Europe and eventually over to North America. “The rest we can work on.”
Ben nodded, eyes hard. “Exactly. Now, what did Jaffrin want?”
“He didn’t say. But I figured we’d better wait until you were back to go find out,” I said.
“Probably a good idea. Come on; let’s go.”
The four of us joined hands and used teleportante to get us to the lobby of Fire Circle Headquarters instantaneously. Lissandra, Headquarters’ secretary, jumped.
“Sorry,” I offered with a smile.
She smoothed down the arms of her blouse. “Jaffrin will be happy you’ve arrived, however nerve-wrackingly you’ve done it.” Ben smirked as Lissandra called Jaffrin’s office. “Yes, they’re here. Okay. I’ll send them right up.” She hung up and set the phone down again. “He’ll see you straight away.”
“Excellent,” I said.
We climbed the stairs to the second story and made quick work of the hallway leading to Jaffrin’s office. The door was open, so we strode on in and stood around his desk.
“Ah, good,” he said, standing as we entered the room. His mauve shirt made him look a lot less menacing than usual. “You’re here.”
“We are,” Ben said. “What’s with summons? I was here nine hours ago.”
Jaffrin nodded quickly. “Yes. I’m sorry to call you back so soon.” His gaze fell to me. “There’s been a development in your situation, Krystin.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “A development? Which situation in particular are you referring to?”
“The prophecy.” Jaffrin reached for his phone and called someone in another room. “They’re here. Please send him in.”
Him?
“Jaffrin—”
“We’ve found him, Krystin,” Jaffrin said, eyes wide and ecstatic over the news.
“Him who?” Nate asked. “Is this about the Son and Daughter of Alzan thing?”
I nodded. “You found the Son?” My mind whirled. Where had they found him? Was he raised in another Circle, waiting for the day someone figured out who he was? With any luck, he’d be as up to par as I was with all of this stuff and we wouldn’t have to waste time on the basics. The faster we fulfilled the prophecy, the quicker we saved Alzan, the less time either of us would have to spend in the Hunter Circles under Jaffrin’s watch.
Jaffrin’s focus shifted to the hallway and he smiled. “Come. Meet your new team.”
“Wait a second—” Ben said.
Great. He’d added me without telling Ben three weeks ago and now he’d added another person? “This isn’t exactly the best time for this, Jaffrin.”
But even as we all turned to greet the newcomer, a tall, built man my age with long, dark hair, my heart did this sort of flip-flop motion. And when his brilliant brown and golden eyes met mine, a lightning flash of recognition zipped across my subconscious. Like we knew each other somehow, even though I’d never met this man before in my life. It wasn’t attraction, not love, not magik. It was soul-deep, but that’s all it was. A recognition.
The man strode in on unsure feet, his dark jacket falling off one shoulder, a plaid shirt beneath it, and a chain hanging around his neck. Dog tags. There wasn’t a lick of magik to him, though. Not like when I first met magik-users, or when I’d met my team and felt the power rippling off each of them.
Hold on. If the two of us were supposed to save Alzan from Darkness and Lady Azar, he had to have magik. That’s how the prophecy went. One Son and one Daughter with the power to save Alzan from Darkness.
Power. Power meant magik. But this man, this “Son,” was the plainest, most human person I’d ever met. He didn’t even have an aura.
“Jaffrin, I don’t understand,” I said just as he started to introduce himself.
“I’m Shawn,” he said. “Shawn Jacques.”
I spun to Jaffrin, questions swimming through my mind. If Shawn didn’t have magik, he couldn’t be the other half of this ridiculous prophecy. Was Jaffrin screwing with me because I’d led the team into Shadow Crest’s lair without permission?
Jaffrin smiled and clapped his hands together once. He didn’t seem to have a worry in the world, and that alone was enough to terrify me. “The Son and Daughter Named are reunited. Perhaps we’ll save Alzan and stop this war after all.”
I looked to my teammates, hands shaking, wondering if maybe this was nothing more than a bad dream. But they had no more words than I did. So I turned to Shawn and said, “Uh… hi.”
He smiled at me, this non-magikal human that was supposed to save Alzan with me. Somehow. It seemed impossible.
And to think we’d just gotten out of an impossible situation, even if temporarily, with Shadow Crest.
At least this time I’d have my team behind me, magik or not.
The Traitor
Book Two
Chapter 1
Ben
The demons in this area of town had been given one final warning: get out. Sure, the Fire Circle was led by an often-vague man, but he wasn’t inarticulate. Jaffrin had ordered the demons to move—end of story. Their den sat dangerously close to Cianza Boston, a geological magik point where forces of good and evil converged peacefully. Unless, of course, one side’s magik grew more powerful than the other and disrupted the balance. Now, it was up to us and the Fire Circle’s other teams of Hunters to keep the cianza from tilting.
“Let’s make this quick.” I pushed up my sleeves as my team and I crossed the street, then pulled out my knife from the sheath behind my back. “In and out; minimal chance for anyone to notice us.”
Rachel snorted. “More like you want to get back in time for the game.” My cousin glanced up at me with a smirk.
While it was true—football junkie, guilty as charged—that wasn’t my reason for hurrying us along tonight. Unlike the rest of my team, I had a second job assignment.
In the days since leaving my son, Riley, with his mother, Sandra, after retrieving him from Lady Azar’s clutches, I’d taken all the extra solo jobs Jaffrin had on his plate. It wasn’t normal and Jaffrin knew exactly what I was doing, and what I was trying to avoid—stagnation, even just a week of it—but he let me go anyway. Good thing, too, because after being home for longer than twelve hours without a patrol or solo Hunting job, I’d started getting on everyone’s nerves with my restlessness. One could only train for so long.
“Rachel’s right,” Krystin cut in, returning my thoughts to the task at hand. “I shouldn’t be this close to the cianza, guys. Neither should Shawn for that matter, magik or not. I’m surprised Jaffrin okayed this at all.”
“We weren’t supposed to be chasing these guys,” I said. “The demons were ordered to move out a week ago.” But one of our Hunters had caught them still in the area, hence our mission tonight.
When peaceful requests of removal went ignored, the Fire Circle had had no choice but to back it up with a show of power. And in this case, that meant Jaffrin had had to send us, one of the few teams that were made up of nearly all magik-users. And with my lightning, Kr
ystin’s telekinesis, Rachel’s affinity for water, and Nate’s ether-shaper abilities, we could handle a lot.
“Is this something that happens often?” Shawn asked.
He was the newest member of our team. And, admittedly, I hadn’t been around enough to get to know him. Nate and Krystin had taken charge of training him after his graduation into the Hunter Circles last month. Avery’s team had reportedly found him nearly dead on Boston’s streets after a demon attack. And sometime during his training period thereafter, Jaffrin had discovered Shawn’s true destiny.
Shawn was the “other half” of the saviors listed in Alzan’s mysterious prophecy, Krystin being the first. Supposedly, two would come forth from the Powers to save the ancient city of Alzan should Darkness attack again, as they had thousands of years ago. And until Lady Azar had tried turning Riley into a living power conductor, I hadn’t believed the prophecy might be true. But Lady Azar’s vile desire to use Riley had proved that not only was the city real and in danger, but that Krystin and Shawn had very little time left to fulfill that prophecy.
Which first meant finding the magik Shawn was destined to have but evidently didn’t possess. Not even a single drop of his blood or spirit was magikal.
I nodded to Shawn as we approached the dark building, all cement on the first two floors with full glass windows rising to the roof above it. “Demons don’t like being told what to do at all, much less by Jaffrin.”
“Funny because neither do I,” Krystin said as she tugged out her three-piece sword and snapped it into place beneath the shadows cast by the skyscraper.
I shot her a look. “Ignore Krystin’s penchant for insubordination.”
Krystin barked a laugh. “Please, Sparky. Like you love Jaffrin any more than I do.”
Nate cleared his throat. He held up an open palm. Huh. His ether-shaping abilities must have been invisible. His magik had grown under Krystin’s tutelage over the past month. I knew it was Jaffrin’s directive she train us in the magikal arts since Nate was the only one who had received outside training, but I hadn’t realized how much she’d done until just now. Most ether-shapers, demons or not, couldn’t make the ether they wielded invisible, not totally.
“Think we should get a silent move on?” Nate asked.
“Seriously,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “At this rate, you’ll scare them away with your bickering.”
Bickering. It seemed that was the only way Krystin and I got along for any length of time, but it suited us well.
I took up position beside a side entrance to the building. The demon den would be somewhere inside, probably toward the center of the highest floor. Sure, they’d set up shop nearly on top of Cianza Boston, but they couldn’t have been stupid enough to stay where they might have a direct connection to it.
Shawn had nearly been killed by demons in a scenario similar to this not long ago—something about visiting Boston with college friends, getting lost, and being confronted by demons looking for a quick hit of human energy. I glanced over at him now, but he showed no signs of panic. Which was good. Because after Krystin’s intense addition to the team, I wasn’t sure I could deal with someone scared of demons.
I leaned against the brick wall. Cold stone bit through my layers of clothing. Damn winter. The cold seeped through everything. I cupped my right hand and called to my power, growing a ball of lightning so large, the sparks crackling around it reached up to my shoulders and face. The power didn’t hurt me, though. It was as if I’d become immune to lightning completely since the accident that had given me this power.
Touching my left hand to the door, I looked up at my team. “Ready to move?” They nodded, readying their Fire Circle blades and magik. “Then let’s get this over with. On three.”
I counted us down, and on my mark, I pressed my lightning hand to the exit door. The door snapped into a dozen pieces, wood and metal splintering with the smell of ozone, and shot into the building. I charged in after it, feet crushing splices of wood underneath them.
Shouts permeated the air as we rushed their first-floor nest. Idiots. I ran headlong into the first demon, grabbing him around the middle and tugging the big guy to the ground. He looked human, save for the burgundy color of his eyes and the magik lying within. The magik that’d twisted his soul dark and extended his lifetime.
Cinnamon scent wafted in the air around us, mixing with sweat and increasing moisture from Rachel’s attacks. She carried a special water canister backpack on her shoulders that contained water for her to draw from. And right now, that water had turned into ropes that strangled two female demons at once.
In my moment of distraction, the demon beneath my body had grabbed on to my shoulders and dug his fingers in roughly to try dislodging me. I grunted against his inhuman strength but held on long enough to call lightning to my fingertips and channel it into his skin. The demon’s eyes widened in pain as his body convulsed beneath mine.
A loud demon roar vibrated in my ears. I glanced over my shoulder. Another demon charged me—a woman this time—with a ring of cement rocks and dirt encircling her hand. Fantastic. An earth-elemental magik, essentially the direct opposite of mine.
I hopped off the demon below me, who was still convulsing, and summoned more lightning to my hand and into a sword shape this time. But as the woman and I rushed each other, something sent her flying abruptly from her path to me and into the nearest wall. A sickening sound of bones crunching beneath dead weight reached my ears and I cringed as I looked for the source of the attack. Friend or foe?
Ah, Krystin.
She danced with a few demons, her sword blade slicing through the air and into their bodies. Deep red blood seeped from her current target as he stumbled, dazed. She kicked him in the chest and against a pillar before reaching into her pocket and retrieving a cedo match. Krystin struck it against her pants and threw it onto the demon. His body immediately burned with a mauve wave of power, incinerating into cinders within seconds.
It confirmed what I already thought: these guys were powerful. Which was about the only reason I could think of why they’d disregarded Jaffrin’s multiple attempts at peaceful displacement.
I nodded a thank you at Krystin for the assist, but her eyes went wide. I turned back just in time to watch the woman launch off the wall, create a pillar of cement to use as a booster, and fly my way.
“Are you kidding me?” I hissed. I swiped a wide arc through the air with my hand, calling lightning to trail behind it, then rushed forward. If I managed to knock away the cement pillar—even a millimeter—she might lose it entirely.
I sent the lightning on its way, the electricity causing the hairs on my neck and arms to rise as it snapped across the distance between us. The demon woman watched the path, but her only move to stop it was to push faster.
My lightning hit and disconnected her from the pillar, but she jumped off and dove at me, a dagger in her hand. I knocked her arm away and took the brunt of the fall, unable to dodge, and we rolled with the impact. Over and over until our twisted forms slammed into something solid. All breath whooshed from my lungs as the impact wracked my entire body. Stars danced in my blackening vision, my head spinning. My arms and neck stung, like I’d been pricked a thousand times by needles.
The demon landed on top of me, and she wasted no time reeling back her arm and throwing her fist into my face. Pain exploded across my cheekbone, but I gritted my teeth and caught her second swing, pushed her arm away, and twisted to break free of her hold.
She tightened her grip. “Don’t think so. You’re starting to get infamous, Ben Hallen. Your thirst for hunting us will get you killed.” She reached back into the air, and dirt and rocks inside the warehouse snaked around her arm like armor.
Not good. So not good.
I summoned lightning again, reaching outside of myself for it, but… none came. My vision swirled with purples and blues, sifting into yellow before settling on an orange sunset background. I narrowed my eyes, trying to focus on th
e demon’s twisting visage in front of me, waiting for the impact of a rock fist.
Slowly, a hearty laugh broke through the sunset. The demon reached down with her hand over my chest. “How ironic,” she said, sprinkling something right in front of my face.
The dust and pebbles turned into raindrops on the way down, a constant rain that spread from her hand to somewhere above my head. Wetness coated my legs and back, which turned into large waves.
Floating. I was floating, a buoy in a giant lake. Overhead, the orange and yellow sunset danced across the crying sky as the water rose above my ears. I waved my arms, trying to right myself to swim away, but a heavy weight kept me firmly in place, sinking my body millimeter by millimeter down into the raging sea. A cinnamon scent wafted across the tops of the waves like a bright beacon.
Wait. Cinnamon?
Dharksa. I hadn’t taken it, but…
I stilled my attempts to swim and forced a deep breath in past my lips and into my lungs. Held it. Then let go. The sunset dimmed, the waves diminished some, and my eyes narrowed in on the woman before me.
“You drugged me,” I managed to say.
She barked a laugh and climbed off my body. Her words sifted through the remaining sunset in the distance. “You drugged yourself, falling with open wounds onto a jar of dharksa. Enjoy your trip, Hunter. It will be your last. I will not allow you to hunt our kind with abandon.”
The clarity slipped and the waves churned beneath me again, but my mind remained clear enough to realize she wasn’t talking about the routine patrols I did with my team. No, she meant all the extracurricular hunting I’d been doing on the down-low.
The demon woman brought a dagger down over my face, poising to strike. That was when her neck wildly snapped in an unnatural position, the loud crack of it breaking through the toxic illusions around me. The woman’s body crumpled like a wilted flower, pushing me down into the water.
Someone appeared, walking on the surface of the waves. Nate. My teammate.