by Jessica Gunn
“Not as helpful as we were hoping,” Shawn finished for me. “But at least that gives us something we can work with.”
I glanced over at him. “Not really. What does it mean by two stones broken by the Powers?”
“It’s enough,” Shawn said. “We can think on this for now.”
Jaffrin set the paper back on his desk. “It’s all we have. We always assumed it’d be easy to fill in the blanks.”
“Why never show us this before?” I asked. “I’ve been a Hunter since I was thirteen. Shawn graduated months ago.”
Jaffrin’s jaw set hard. “You were too young back then, and without Shawn, it was unlikely to have made a difference. And ever since Shawn joined the team, it’s been on the busy side here with Kinder’s attacks and Hydron’s operations. Not to mention you being imprisoned for three months.”
I bit my tongue rather than allow myself to speak. I’d already said my piece to him.
“Thank you for showing it to us today,” Shawn said, much better at politics and being a nicer person than I ever hoped to be. “We’ll work with what we’ve learned.”
My phone started ringing. Shawn’s too. I glanced at him as I tugged mine out of my jacket pocket and held it up. Ben.
“I should take this,” I said, looking up at Jaffrin. “It’s Ben.”
“I’ve got Nate,” said Shawn. “Something must have happened.”
Jaffrin nodded and I swiped to answer Ben’s call. “I’m with Shawn, we’re at—”
“Where are you?” Ben hissed into the phone. “Get over here. Right now.”
“Fire Circle Headquarters, as I was trying to say when—”
“Shawn’s with you?”
“Yes. Ben, what the hell is going on?” I looked up and met Jaffrin’s questioning gaze. Shawn was texting, probably telling Nate he was with me. “Why are you freaking out?”
“There’s been another attack.”
“Okay?” There were demon attacks every night. That was the reason we so often had to patrol every day instead of something more reasonable.
“Giyano’s style,” Ben amended. “The twins aren’t with us, though. They’re at the house, waiting for you and Shawn to finish training.”
My stomach dropped, but only for a second before I forced a calm expression onto my face. “Ah, right. That makes sense then.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
I held up a finger and spun from Jaffrin and Shawn. “No, we can make it for dinner with them no problem. We can go patrolling afterward.”
“Everything okay?” Shawn asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Ben’s voice quieted. “Is Jaffrin in the room with you?”
“Sure thing.”
“Shit. Well… Meet us outside the Prudential Center when you can. Nate will be there to walk you over.”
Prudential Center? “That’s…”
“Close to the cianza, I know. Especially after it grew. We’ll be quick.”
“It’s fine, that’s a great restaurant. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up the call and turned back to Shawn and Jaffrin. “Sorry. I thought something was wrong, but it turns out Ben’s bad at picking out dinner places.”
Shawn looked at me like I was the stupidest person on Earth, but Jaffrin seemed to buy my excuse. He turned his attention from me to the prophecy before him, putting the papers back into an envelope and shoving it back into his desk. He locked it away tight. A bright orange glow emanated from the drawer. There was no way Shawn and I would ever get into that thing to read the translation for ourselves.
“You should return home,” Jaffrin said. “I can’t imagine it looks good to the Ether Head Circle representatives that you spend so much time here consulting me.”
My eyes narrowed. “As opposed to Hunters not seeking guidance from their Circle Leader?”
Jaffrin nodded slowly. “It’s just best. You’re dismissed.”
I walked out the door without further argument. I hated being in that room with Jaffrin anyway. But as soon as Shawn and I had made it down the hall, I grabbed his hand and used teleportante to bring us to the Prudential Center’s bathrooms.
Nate met Shawn and I outside of the Prudential Center, his expression unreadable.
“Come on,” he said, not making eye contact with either of us. “We need to be quick before the twins realize how long you’ve been gone.”
He led us around the corner and a few blocks down. The oppressive feel of the cianza’s magik fell on top of me like a heavy blanket, warming my blood but in all the wrong ways. My hands burned, already glowing with my fire-elemental magik. I shoved them into my jacket, praying it wouldn’t set on fire.
“Is it the same as the others?” I asked.
Nate shook his head but didn’t say a word until we came upon Ben and Rachel another block over.
Rachel was just about to throw a cedo match onto the torn up, bloody body when we walked around the corner into the alleyway. She froze, looking up at us. “Finally.”
“This has got to stop,” I said, glancing down at the body. Bile rose in my throat. “Another victim?”
Ben spun on me. “You think?”
“Hey, watch it,” Shawn said, a hand up in my defense. “We just got here.”
“We know,” said Rachel.
I looked to Ben, eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
“Do you swear you were at Headquarters?” Nate asked.
“Seriously?” After rescuing me from prison, after all the talks we’d had since then, they still didn’t believe me? “Yes. I was talking to Jaffrin with Shawn. He can vouch for me if you’re that worried about it.”
Shawn nodded. “We were asking him for a full translation of the prophecy, something we haven’t heard before.”
“And still didn’t. Not really.” What Jaffrin had given us was vague and I could tell from the way he refused to even let us look at the paper that he’d left something out. Like more information on those “stones” mentioned in the very first line. I’d bet my life that those were responsible for unlocking our magik, much like how a crystal can—and already had—bound both my magik and Shawn’s at some point in our lives.
Ben stared the two of us down, parts of him warring. I wished I still had telepathy. That I could get into his head and see what the hell was going on. “This is getting out of hand. If he’s here killing so openly like this, we have to tell Jaffrin. He needs to put all of Boston on alert.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from speaking. Something was off, that was what my twisting gut told me. But the logical part of my brain said Ben’s initial reaction the other night was correct: every demon needed to feed off life energy. Giyano was no different.
Then why go to the trouble of cutting people up like this?
That’s when I saw it. My stomach roiled and I backed up a step. A tiny birthmark at the corner of the victim’s right eye.
“Ben,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“What?” he snapped.
I pointed to the victim’s body. “He is—was—a Cassano witch. Giyano’s hunting witches.”
Ben turned and examined the body once more, his fingers on the remains of the body’s throat to look for a pulse. “Shit.”
“We can’t keep this one a secret,” Rachel said. “We shouldn’t have hidden the first victim.”
Ben nodded slowly but didn’t speak.
“You can’t,” I said. “They’re going to think it was me.”
“I don’t know—”
“Ben, please.”
His eyes hardened. “Aren’t the Cassano witches technically family to you?” he asked. “Or was it just Drew?”
The bite of loss stung deep at the sound of Drew’s name. He’d died in Kinder’s attack on Hunter’s Guild three months ago.
“We could always walk away,” Shawn suggested, his words pouring out slowly. “Let another team find them.”
“No,” Nate said, rounding on all of us.
“Have you all lost your minds? We need to take him back to Fire Circle Headquarters and let Jaffrin call the shots. We can’t keep hiding Giyano’s victims from him.”
Ben dipped his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Nate’s right. Let’s bring him back to Fire Circle Headquarters. We don’t need to tell them it was Giyano. Let them make their own decisions.”
“Ben,” Rachel said, eyes wide. “Are you serious? You want to protect him?”
“No,” he snapped as he spun on his cousin. “But I don’t want to risk Krystin, either. Right now, both Jaffrin and the Ether Head Circle think she and Giyano are working together. We already broke into prison for her.”
“And look where that got us,” Rachel said. Her gaze immediately fell, then rose to mine. “Krystin, I—”
“It’s fine,” I said, though it wasn’t at all. “Like you said, let’s take him back. What you do after that, Ben, is up to you.” I walked past my team and touched a hand to the one part of the victim’s arm that wasn’t covered in blood. Then I held my other hand out to my team. “Let’s go.”
A tsk, tsk sounded and then someone said, “Not so fast.”
Chapter 11
BEN
I spun fast, my Fire Circle knife in my hand and ready to strike Giyano. But it wasn’t him I found.
Another man, face masked in shadows, stood in the middle of the alleyway. He had a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He must’ve been a demon, even though I couldn’t confirm that without enough light to see his eyes.
“Did you do this?” Krystin shouted. She still hoped it wasn’t Giyano. I didn’t understand why. A person’s nature never changed.
The demon only laughed and charged, arching his sword arm backward for a swing. Krystin met him in the middle, pulling out her Fire Circle knife. The scraping sounds of metal on metal echoed down the alleyway.
I willed lightning to my hand in the shape of a sword and jumped into the fray, but the demon easily maneuvered around both Krystin and me as if we weren’t there. This guy was good.
He swung low, but Krystin ducked out of the way, coming up with a hand filled with fire. She threw it out at the demon, who knocked the fireball away with his dagger, which now glowed a soft yellow color.
“What the hell?” I snarled.
Water in the shape of a snake whipped out and coiled around the demon before freezing and pulling him to the ground. He roared, straining against the icy restraints.
“Who are you?” Nate demanded. He now sat by the victim with Shawn, watching the fight. In this tight of a space with normal people close by, having us all fight was a sure recipe for disaster.
The demon only laughed as he flexed against the ice manacles, the veins on his arms and neck near bursting. But after another moment, shards of ice flew across the alleyway as he ripped his way through them. Krystin and I lunged at the same time, though her fire hands had grown double in size. Could she control them?
The demon made quick work of both Krystin’s and my blades, though we were able to dodge any direct attacks.
“Quiet out there!” someone shouted from above.
I froze and looked up at the office building to our right. A light was on and someone peered down at the darkness we were thankfully wrapped in.
“Stop whatever you’re doing or I’m calling the cops”
Shit. “We can’t—”
Pain sliced up my left arm, a sharp searing ache that crawled its way to my shoulder. I looked down, but in the sweeping darkness, it was hard to tell how deep the wound was.
“Ben!” Rachel shouted. She now stood under the only light in the alleyway right beside Nate, Shawn, and the demon’s victim.
I still couldn’t get a good read on the demon, but he didn’t move like Giyano. Giyano favored swords and blades, but he’d often relied on his magik to intimidate us, too. So far this demon hadn’t shown any signs of magik.
Except they all had magik. Every last one of them.
“Oh, my god!” a second voice shouted from the same window. “Call the cops! Someone’s bleeding down there. And there’s a fire!”
“Fuck,” Krystin cursed. The flames in her hands grew. She shook them as if it’d blow out the flames, but they burst to a greater size.
A heavy thud smacked against something, but it wasn’t until the demon was totally out of my vision, a glowing shape of ether pressing him against the brick wall, that I realized Nate had done it.
“Now, let’s go,” Nate said. “Move while I have him held.”
Our trail would definitely lead to Fire Circle Headquarters but most demons didn’t waltz into Hunter Circles Headquarter buildings unless they intended to declare a small war, independent of the bigger one. Much like Kinder had almost done three months ago.
I ran to Krystin, but when she turned to fall back to Nate and Shawn, the flame wheels around each of her palms swelled in size once more.
“I can’t turn it off,” she said, her voice panicked. “It’s getting worse. And hot. So hot.”
The demon roared, pushing against Nate’s ether block that held him against the brick wall. Sirens sounded in the distance.
“Let’s go,” Shawn said. He had one hand on the victim and one held out, much like Krystin had when the demon’s attack had started. “It’s okay, Krystin. You won’t hurt me, I promise.”
She walked slowly over to him and tentatively pressed a fiery hand to his shoulder. He grimaced, grunting, but held everyone else together. I made my way over to him as the demon tried to get away from Nate’s ether block. Only at the last second did he break free, right as I touched hands with Nate.
“No!” he bellowed, charging us.
“Go, go, go,” Krystin said. “Hurry.”
“Teleportante.”
As Shawn said it, the demon’s face came into the light, revealing a narrow, pale face with a giant scar running down one side.
It wasn’t Giyano.
Fire Circle Headquarters was nearly empty when we landed directly in the Infirmary, although there was nothing to do for the victim we’d found. Shawn and Nate plunked the deceased Cassano witch on a gurney while Rachel ran to get Jaffrin or Dacher.
“Calm down,” Shawn said as he stood before Krystin, hands raised. Part of his shirt was gone, burned straight through the shoulder. In its place was angry, red skin that had started to peel and bubble. “It’s a flesh wound, Krystin.”
“But I did that to you!” she screamed. “I can’t control this—it’s got a mind of its own.”
“That’s elemental magik,” I said. I’d never seen her so scared, so unaware of what was happening to her. Krystin was our go-to for everything magik. But now she was staring down at her shaking hands with wide eyes like she’d never seen magik before in her life. “Like Shawn said, you need to calm down and it will.”
She whipped around, fixing me in place with a wild stare. “You calm the fuck down.”
Shawn reached out for her shoulders and she let him do it. “Breathe. Close your eyes and think of something peaceful.”
She closed her eyes, too. “Like beating Kinder’s ugly-ass face in?”
Shawn grimaced. “More peaceful than that.”
Krystin smirked, though the flames in her hands appeared to die down some.
“See? It’s working,” Shawn said.
“Don’t patronize me. This magik is new.”
I frowned. I hadn’t had this much issue with my lightning magik. A few instances here or there, but mostly when I was super angry. With Krystin, it almost seemed to be an utterly random occurrence. “You need to remember that with elemental magik, emotions drive everything.”
“I know,” she said. “This isn’t my first magik rodeo.”
“With this magik it is.”
Dr. Shan appeared, freezing when he saw the group of us. His gaze settled on Shawn’s raging red shoulder. “What happened?”
“Burn,” Shawn said, thumbing at his wound.
Krystin frowned. “I’m s
orry.”
He nodded. “It’s not your fault.”
“But it is, don’t you see that?” She shook her head and paced for the door. “I’m supposed to be the one who knows magik. Who can handle all of this. But I can’t. I just can’t anymore.”
She turned to walk out the door but paused when I called out, “Where are you going?”
“To the library for research,” she said, disappearing through the doorway. Her voice echoed from down the hall. “I want to find out who this asshole is.”
I almost wanted to tell her how bad it’d be if she lost control down there, burning every book the Fire Circle had with her. But I kept my mouth shut.
“Go,” Shawn said instead. “Find the guy and keep her from going crazy.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
Shawn fell back onto a gurney and winced. “Fine. It feels like a really bad sunburn.”
“It looks like hell,” I said.
He smirked. “Great. Thanks.” A beat. “Go see what you and Krystin can find while I wait for a healer.”
Krystin tore down the stairs ahead of me. I had to jog to keep up, already winded from the battle. But she didn’t slow down until we’d reached the entrance to the library in the basement of Fire Circle Headquarters.
“Hey, wait a second,” I shouted after her. “We have to call the twins and tell them you’re here.”
She froze, turning. “Absolutely not. They’ll flip and complain I left the house without informing them.” Her eyes went wide. “Ben! You’re bleeding!”
I looked down at my arm, which had stopped hurting a while ago. “Guess I am.” Oh, right. The demon had sliced me open with his blade. Now, in the light, I saw it wasn’t as deep as it’d felt. But then the tan film on top shimmered against the light above me. “Shit. Elin. Thank god that wasn’t a magik fight.”
“You’re damn lucky,” she said as she shrugged off the top layer of her shirt and offered it to me. “Apply pressure or go back up to the Infirmary. In fact, you probably should do that anyway.”
There wasn’t a cure for elin poison, which kept you from using your magik, unless you did push through, in which case it’d burn you from the inside out. The only way to deal with elin poison was time.