by Jessica Gunn
My father had died in winter. And that was, really, all I knew about him.
I shoved my hands into my pockets and ducked my mouth and nose below the collar of my zipped-up jacket. Freaking winter. The cold seeped into everything, even my tired bones.
Footsteps sounded in a steady rhythm against the paved path behind me. I gulped, not stopping my walk. I wasn’t afraid of the normal passerby. Even if they had some sort of weapon, the odds they’d catch me off guard enough that I couldn’t react were low. But the confident rhythm of their steps told me I’d gotten what I’d wanted: Giyano.
Didn’t think you’d actually come.
“You really need a new pastime,” I called over my shoulder, not bothering to look. “This is getting old.”
“Then don’t come looking for me,” Giyano replied, the gravelly tone of his voice sifting into the space between us. Now that I knew more about him, I picked up on the lilting way he spoke certain words, the last threads of his English heritage rising to the surface.
I stopped and spun on my heel to face Giyano.
He stopped walking and slid both of his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. His young face, highlighted with high cheekbones and a strong jaw below burgundy eyes and a head of jet-black hair, masked his age well. Giyano was an Old One, though young for their kind. He was turned in the Old World, at the tail end of it before the Colonists had come over from England to America. That meant he was powerful to some degree, but I wondered how deep that fire-elemental power actually went.
He looked at me, unwavering. Like he was expecting a response.
“I wasn’t looking for you in particular, so don’t get all excited,” I said, placing my hands on my hips. That much closer to my knife sheath, if need be. I wasn’t sure how many shots I’d get in before he tried to requirem me. Still, I took comfort in the knowledge that my telekinesis would act faster than any fire he threw my way.
“Then why are we here, Krystin?” He nodded at my hand. “I see you still wear my mark.”
“Not by choice.”
He shrugged. “And yet it remains.”
“Why do you think the Powers want to use my Alzan destiny for evil?” It was the biggest question of them all, since even Giyano kidnapping Riley ultimately came back to Alzan. What was so dangerous about that place, other than the cianza?
Giyano chuckled and stepped toward me. My skin crawled. “The Powers… Darkness… they both have one thing in common,” Giyano purred. “The one thing all sentient life craves.”
“Power.”
The longer I stood next to him, the more his aura overwhelmed both the area and me. Warm and strong, dark. Demonic. And familiar.
“So that’s what you’re after too, right?” I asked. Made sense. He’d had some falling out with Lady Azar after the Salem Witch Trials but had worked for her once again. That implied she still had something on him, even though he’d turned against her a week ago.
Giyano shook his head. “Not in so many words. My time for power ended long ago, and my magik is strong enough on its own. No. There are far worse things to worry about. Say, how is Ben’s son doing? Riley, was it?”
My jaw clenched, fists falling on my hips. “He’s just fine, thank you. He’s safe and—”
“If you don’t keep him hidden well enough, not even the Canadian border will be good enough to keep Shadow Crest out.”
“Stay away from him,” I spat. “He was never yours to take in the first place, you bastard. What’d we ever do to you, anyway? Why’d you zero in on us?”
“Merely happenstance, I assure you,” he said as he leaned back on his heels, the most carefree demon-man in all of Boston. “Lady Azar found out about a boy with the Power being born. It was only a matter of time before we tracked him down. And his elemental father.”
“Just be happy Ben wasn’t trained then. He’d have taken you out.”
Giyano shrugged again, a perfect picture of nonchalance. “We may never know. As for you, my dear…”
I charged forward three steps, coming within three feet of him. “I’m not anyone’s dear.” I held up my hand between us, ready to attack. Why I didn’t just do it, why I didn’t take advantage of the momentary surprise on his face and utilize those precious seconds to end his life, I’ll never know.
But in my moment of non-action, Giyano thrust his palm against my outstretched hand. I expected a requirem, but instead a pulse of demonic energy slammed into me, knocking me back. Giyano closed his fist around mine, holding me steady as he pumped wave after wave of magik into me, a red glow forming around our connected fingers. Fire. He was pulsing fire into me, the magik of change, and it…
Didn’t burn like it used to.
I glanced up at him, blinking rapidly to clear my vision as I watched the veins in my left arm turn a dark blue, then black. Giyano’s magik. My body sighed, relaxing as his magik poured into me, like drinking a glass of water after months in the desert. My body shuddered and I suppressed a moan. Demonic power felt free and powerful and untamed. So much of everything I’d been denied both growing up and now on a real team of Hunters.
But it was demonic. Evil. I wrenched my hand from his grasp, which had loosened as he, too, watched my veins change color.
“What did you do?” I clutched my hand to my chest. There wasn’t any pain, but his power pulsed beneath my skin. “I don’t have elemental magik. This shouldn’t be possible.”
Giyano’s eyebrows rose, his hand still outstretched, although no longer glowing red. “And yet…”
Did I have the Power? No. Definitely not. For one, I was a Blackwood witch, which pretty much determined the nature of my magik. And for another thing, the chances that either the Son or Daughter of Alzan would have the Power were so slim that it’d be ridiculous.
Although, Shawn didn’t have any magik at all…
“Stay the hell away from me,” I shouted at him. “Th-This isn’t normal. Or safe. Or—”
“Worry not,” he said, glancing up at me with intense, wild burgundy eyes. “I know what I’m doing.”
Well, that makes one of us.
“You’re insane,” I said, and so was I for letting him get this close to me. Again. “Who attacked Hunter’s Guild? That’s what I’m here to find out.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “The Guild? I’m not sure.”
“Liar.”
“If you don’t believe me, then why come here?”
Because he had to know. He might not be on Lady Azar’s roster anymore, but Giyano didn’t strike me as the type of person who stayed out of the loop, either. He knew. He had to.
I set my jaw. “Tell me.”
Giyano’s eyes narrowed. “You’re scared.”
“We all are, you idiot.” My breath came in heavy gasps, both from the magik he’d put into my system and from fear—for myself, for the Circles. For everyone.
Giyano stared at me for a long moment, then turned and began walking away. “I’ll find out.” After a few more paces, he teleported out of there.
I watched the empty darkness where he’d stood and tried to slow my breathing. He really hadn’t known anything. Which meant I’d come out here for nothing except to risk my life with this demon-man. Again.
I backpedaled down the road, then used teleportante to bring me to my bedroom, where I ran to my small window and drew the blinds shut. I sat down in the middle of my bed, cross-legged, and I looked down at my black-veined arm. It was only a matter of time before Giyano found me again, which meant I had even less time to figure out why he was doing this. But one fact remained: I’d held both elemental and ether magik within me simultaneously. Even in a small amount, it was impossible. Still, I’d somehow withstood it.
Was the Alzan prophecy to blame?
I ripped up the sleeve of my shirt and inspected my birthmark removal scar. The black veins had seeped up my arm but stopped short of my elbow.
“Shit.”
Chapter 7
Ben
My lim
bs, lethargic and heavy, barely carried me to the front door of the team’s house the next morning. I’d had requirem thrown my way at the very end of the fight—and had thrown it right back at the demon, leaving us both magik-less thanks to the word magik. It was about the only reason I’d gotten out of that solo mission alive.
I climbed the front steps of our townhome, one arm clutching my middle, and fumbled for the keys… that were no longer in my pocket. I smacked my head against the door. “Son of bitch.”
Rachel had been right. She usually was. But I rarely listened to her, and now I’d pay the price. Both via the small head injury bleeding down my right cheek, and via the lecture I was sure to get as soon as I went inside.
If only that demon hadn’t used requirem on me. That fight would have ended a lot sooner, the demons wouldn’t have beaten me bloody.
No luck.
With a deep breath, I swallowed whatever pride remained and, for the first time since moving in here over a year ago, rang the damn doorbell. Like a guest. Like someone locked out by their own stupidity.
I tugged my phone out of my pocket and checked the time. 6:38 a.m. I’d been out for way too long, and the odds that anyone was awake were dismal at best. Not after the last thirty-six hours. Settling in for the long haul, I rested my forehead against the cool door. Stupid. That’s what I was.
Rustling sounded behind the door, then Rachel’s face appeared in the window. Scowling. She glared at me, holding my gaze with the fire of a hundred suns. I dropped my stare. She wouldn’t let me in and it wasn’t worth it to fight. I’d go to Headquarters, and rest there.
I turned to walk away, back toward the sidewalk and to the closest T stop, but Rachel unlocked the door before I’d gotten more than a few steps away.
“Thought you were done with solo missions,” she said, moving to let me inside.
I stepped down into the living room and plunked onto the couch. The moment I sat, my legs turned to jelly and my feet tingled instead of throbbing. It’d been a long walk, and my ribs screamed. Maybe the demon had broken them instead of just bruising them like I’d thought. “Me too.”
“You too?” she asked. “Are you serious, Ben? You do have control of your own body. You know that, right?” She rushed to the water cooler we kept in the living room and poured me a cup of cold water. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah. Pretty much.” The cushion behind my head was the softest reassurance of safety I’d ever experienced. I settled further into the couch. “I’m sorry.”
Rachel’s expression softened, but fire still burned in her eyes. “If you’re sorry, you’ll stop doing this to yourself. It’s only been a week. Riley’s safe, Ben. He’s with Sandra in Canada with a team of the Fire Circle’s best Hunters watching them—all backed up by a Canadian team.”
I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut against a massive headache causing my entire head to throb. That last demon had really done a number on me. “It doesn’t change the fact that after two years of searching for Riley, after finding him, I had to hand him off again.” Correction: I’d chosen to. And it’d been the right decision. But that didn’t make it sting any less.
“Working yourself to death trying to take out all the demons in Boston inside of a month isn’t going to bring Riley home any faster,” she said.
“I—”
She lifted a finger. “And before you say it, neither will training hard and then going after Lady Azar. If—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—Giyano hadn’t stepped in, we’d have all died in Shadow Crest’s lair.”
I cursed under my breath. Screw Giyano. For stealing Riley. For hurting Krystin. For setting us all up to join the Fire Circle—in one way or another. And now here we were, thanking him for saving us.
“Believe me, I feel exactly the same way,” Rachel said disgustedly. “In either case, you need to stop going out alone. Does Jaffrin know?”
“I signed the log. He knows.” My phone rang in my pocket. I sighed, closing my eyes. “What are the odds that’s not him calling?”
Rachel looked over at the clock above the TV. “At seven in the morning? Not likely.”
“Great.” I pulled my phone free from my pocket and swiped my thumb across the screen to pick up the call. “Hello?”
“Ben,” Jaffrin said. “I’ll be sending Avery’s team over with the details later today. I need your team to recon a possible demon nest up north.”
My eyebrows rose. “North? Where?”
“New Hampshire.”
“Near where Hunter’s Guild used to be?” That’d make no sense. No one had built anything within a huge radius of that building. While only the Guild itself was protected under the non-violence magiks, the entire wooded area was generally considered neutral ground.
Generally.
“No,” Jaffrin said. “Farther north.” Something about the way his voice faltered set me on edge. Did he know something we didn’t?
Probably. Jaffrin’s entire M.O. was knowing more about any given topic than anyone else in the room.
“Like I said, I’ll send Avery’s team with the details later, on their way to patrol downtown,” Jaffrin said. “Take the day off and rest.”
I nodded, though I wondered if that meant I wasn’t allowed to come down to Headquarters. But the healers… “Will do.”
“Oh, and Ben?” he asked.
My stomach dropped. This couldn’t be good. “Yeah?”
“Good job on those solo missions last night,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased.
“Thanks,” I said slowly. Jaffrin praising me and Rachel angry at me—both were sure signs of the coming apocalypse.
The line clicked off and I dropped the phone from my ear.
“That bad?” Rachel asked.
“Team mission tonight. He said to take it easy until Avery and his team got here with the information.”
Rachel looked me over, her eyes rounded. “You better get out of here, then. Sleep and shower. Heal what you can.”
I nodded, my headache pounding. “Will do.” I pushed off of the couch and climbed the stairs to the second floor of the team’s house, leaving Rachel to make her breakfast.
Nate’s door was shut, his snoring loud enough to be heard despite it. I chuckled as I walked down the hall, wishing I could sleep that carefree these days. My room was near the end of the hall right next to Krystin’s. Scents of various incense filtered out from Krystin’s door.
Good. That meant she was awake. But she also might be in the middle of some Blackwood witch thing.
I knocked softly anyway.
“It’s open,” she called halfheartedly, like her mind was mostly elsewhere.
I turned the cool metal knob and pushed the door open a few inches. Krystin sat in the middle of her floor surrounded by papers and maps. She had a large notebook in her lap and a pen in her mouth as she moved a big tome from one side of her to the other. The papers on the floor appeared to be photographs of other books. She’d developed purple bags under her puffy eyes, which stood out against her light gray hoodie and dark leggings.
“Sleep much?” I asked.
She glanced up, as though acknowledging my presence for the first time. “Huh, me? Oh.” She looked around at the papery mess. “No. Not last night. Not since Shadow Crest’s lair.” Her eyebrows scrunched together. “What happened to your face?”
I sucked in a deep breath, which only served to jostle my ribs and make them ache. “Exactly what it looks like.”
“You went out by yourself again?”
I… hadn’t realized she knew. Okay, Rachel had probably told everyone. But none of the others necessarily kept tabs on me. Even Nate never did back when it’d just been me, him, and Rachel. “Yeah. It was rated as an easy mission.”
She looked at me, deadpan. “‘Easy’ for a five-man team does not mean it’ll be a walk in the park for a single magik user.”
I shrugged and eased myself against the door frame. “It’s over now. And all the demons are de
ad.”
“Seems like you’re not far behind.” Her eyes wrinkled. “Do you want me to call a healer from Headquarters?”
“Rachel already offered after lecturing my face off. Jaffrin’s got us slated for a recon mission tonight.”
Krystin’s eyes lit up. “Oh? Back to normal so soon?”
“I doubt it’s as normal as he’d have us believe.”
“You’re probably right.”
I filled her in on the few details Jaffrin had given me, moving to the edge of her bed when my body started to ache too much. “What are you working on? Looks like you’re preparing to break into something.”
Krystin pushed the book off her lap and swiveled to face me. “Just some demon research, mostly on Shadow Crest. I want to be prepared for when Lady Azar inevitably strikes back at us.”
I groaned. “I don’t want to think about that.” But how could I push it aside? Lady Azar’s eventual revenge and Riley’s safety were not mutually-exclusive items. “Find anything useful?”
She shook her head and stood. “No. I think I’m going to move on to a list of Old Ones instead. Try to figure out who’s responsible for Hunter’s Guild.”
“Good plan.”
Krystin looked down at me, her blue eyes a lot darker today. In fact, her skin looked grayer than it should. “You sure you don’t want to go to Headquarters now? I’m sure they’ve got at least one healer free.”
I stood, too, and made for the door to her room. “I’m good. Be ready for later.”
“Okay,” she said, and I left.
The longer I avoided Jaffrin about my demon fights last night, the better off I’d be. Maybe I could get out of going to Headquarters tonight at all.
Wishful thinking.
Long after Avery and his team had dropped by with the mission’s details, Jaffrin led us from Headquarters to a Fire Circle station somewhere in northern New Hampshire via teleportante. There, he left us to go on the mission by ourselves.
We headed out into the woods under the cover of nightfall toward what was supposed to be an abandoned building, but which had recently seen demonic activity. The night’s sounds stirred in the crisp, cold air. Owls and other small nocturnal animals scurried away from our path. I tucked my nose into the top of my jacket and pulled my hat down over my ears.