by Jessica Gunn
As soon as I felt us pass through the magik wall, I held a hand out to Shawn. “Ready?”
He went to grab my hand and it was knocked away by another.
“No!” a cloaked figure shrieked as she—judging by the voice—placed herself between Shawn and me. “Stop this!”
I lifted my hands. “Whoa. Slow down.” Where the hell had they come from?
Shawn reached for their shoulder. “Hey—”
The cloaked woman threw her hand back, launching Shawn half a dozen feet into the air. He flew into the closest tree and slid down the bark, groaning. She turned back to me and took off their hood. An older woman stood before me with wild eyes and wiry, gray hair.
“She returns!” she screeched, staring me directly in the eyes. A fire seemed to burn within hers, though her irises weren’t the burgundy of a demon. Instead, they were snow-blind. “Beware of her, for she brings with her the tides of war!”
Then the woman turned, whipping her cloak with her like some sort of cliché cartoon witch and, in a flash of yellow, she was gone.
I stepped back, scrutinizing the spot where she’d stood. “What the ever-living hell—?”
“Ben,” Shawn grunted as he picked himself off of the forest floor. He brushed leaves and dirt off his pants.
I shook my head. “No. Krystin doesn’t bring the tides of war. She’s supposed to stop it. It’s not her.”
“Ben.”
I snapped my line of sight to him. “No.” Krystin wasn’t coming back. She’d never come back. And if she did, I’d take her down on the spot. If that’s who this crazy woman had been talking about, there was no to cause worry. “Krystin wouldn’t dare.”
“Ben, look!” Shawn shouted, pointing behind me with a shaking finger.
I turned, my chest heaving as my heart raced so loudly, I thought it’d moved behind my ears. “What?”
But as I turned, I took in the sight of six figures cloaked in darkness. Around their chests hung golden medallions that glowed in the dark, a dancing wave of flame on each and every gilded piece.
Shadow Crest.
I swallowed hard, my fists curling. My mind warred with my heart. One asked permission to jump in and kill them all to save Riley. The other begged for escape. Shawn and I couldn’t take six Shadow Crest soldiers and walk away with our lives, I knew that. But with Riley’s life on the line, I was pretty sure I could do anything.
Shifting sounded behind me, growing closer as I stood there, watching the demons, waiting for one of them to make the first move. The footsteps grew louder until a hand clamped down on my shoulder.
Shawn’s voice drifted near my ears. “Don’t, Ben. We need to go.”
Every single muscle in my body tensed. Lightning crackled around my palms, reaching up each arm. “They’ll know where they’re keeping Riley.”
Shawn’s fingers tightened on my shoulder. “It’s not worth it. If you die, Riley will never be found.”
The lightning around me grew as the first Shadow Crest soldier stepped forward. “I bring a message from Lady Azar to you, Ben Hallen.”
“Nope,” Shawn said as his other hand wrapped around my arm. “Teleportante.”
“No!” I screamed. It was cut off as Shawn brought us to the lobby of Fire Circle Headquarters. I spun on him, ripping free of his grip. “You son of a bitch!”
Shawn backed up, hands raised. “Better you pissed at me than dead. We wouldn’t have won that fight.”
“Screw you!” I shouted but immediately regretted it. So I turned and stormed down the main hallway. Then back up it again. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
Shawn released a breath and then shook his head. “Don’t apologize. I said I get it. But this isn’t the time to be fighting stupid battles, Ben.”
“Whatever. Let’s go home.” Except they said they’d had a message from Lady Azar for me. A part of me wanted to know so bad, I could knock Shawn out and be back at Hunter’s Guild within seconds. But I held that side of me at bay by the very little sanity I had left.
Shawn didn’t move an inch. “You good?”
No. But he knew that as well as I did. I’d never be good as long as Riley was in Lady Azar’s arms. “I said let’s go.”
Chapter 2
KRYSTIN
A scream tore through the night, raising all the hairs on my arm. My feet slapped against the pavement harder as I pushed on toward the cry for help—unwillingly.
I was supposed to be done with all of this. With helping people and killing demons.
Maybe this was just a mugger. But luck like that had never been on my side.
Sweat slicked my brow. Even at night, the August heat prevailed, muggy and leaving everything, even my skin, covered in a wet residue. I wiped the sweat on my forehead away with my arm and kept on running, my gym shorts hugging me tightly, peeling away and reattaching with every footfall. The streetlights above lit the residential road. That alone should have been enough to deter attackers.
A second scream ripped the welcoming visage of this New England suburbia to the ground. I rounded the end of the road and turned onto the dead end. There, where road met woods, stood a woman struggling with an attacker.
“Hey!” I shouted, sprinting down the street.
The attacker turned his face to me and grinned evilly as he tightened his grip on the woman’s throat.
I vaulted into the air, aiming to kick him away from the woman, but right before I landed, the demon’s face and form twisted, turning into someone much smaller with dark hair and darker irises. The demon looked to me with narrowed eyes burning with hatred.
“You’re a monster,” the demon said, but it sounded as if a hundred voices were talking at once. “Nothing more than a monster.”
The woman transformed into a mirror image of the demon. A twin. “You’re not a hero.”
I jumped as the woman’s skin began melting off of her face, revealing red muscle and pale white bone. Fire kissed her hair, the tiny flames dancing down along her back and arms as their cheeks disappeared, making a hole that revealed rows of teeth.
“You’re a monster,” said the voices again.
I backpedaled away, sweat dripping down my face. My eyes stung.
No, not sweat. Tears.
I turned, sprinting back down the dead-end road out into the main street. But the heat of the fires followed me, beating against my back. The air itself seemed to catch fire despite the humidity as if what made the air heavy was gasoline and not trapped water.
And the farther I ran, the faster I moved… the quicker the fires burned.
I bolted upright, clutching a thin sheet between my fingers. Wetness clung to my back and arms as if I’d dunked myself in a pool and then hopped directly into bed. I wiped my brow with the side of my hand. No, not water. Sweat. Lots of it.
Blinking through bleary vision, I took in the four off-white walls of my studio apartment, devoid of decoration and mementos. It was only a dream. A nightmare, sure. But a dream.
Iris’ and Alexander’s screams had torn through my subconscious’s playground on an almost nightly basis. Every night for the past six months. Their screams, their melting faces. “Monster,” they’d called me.
Maybe they were right.
I ran a hand through my hair with one hand and pressed the other to my chest. My heart raced beneath my fingertips, my lungs gasping for air.
“It wasn’t real.”
But it had been, at one point six months ago.
I hopped out of bed just to give myself something to do. Not a day went by without that nightmare, a constant reminder of what I’d done under Kinder’s control.
It wasn’t my fault. I’d had no way of knowing what Zanka’s power was, that Kinder might have wanted to murder him and steal his magik. And if Giyano had known about Zanka’s persuasion magik, he should have told me.
Instead, I’d become Kinder’s puppet and nearly destroyed everything and everyone I cared about.
I slipped my feet in
to my running shoes and grabbed my keys from a hook by the door to my apartment. I’d retreated to the northwestern corner of Connecticut six months ago, hopefully hidden behind magik binding mine from use and view, tucked between acres of woods so deep no one looking would find me. Blending in had become a skill, and although this was a small town, it was the type where everyone kept to themselves. Thankfully.
Rain puddles and dew-covered grass reflected the moonlight above. Hot, sticky August air clung to my skin like in my dream. Maybe mimicking the circumstances of the nightmare wasn’t the best way to deal with it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I never slept unless I was exhausted and because I didn’t do anything unless the locals needed help at their farms, I was never fatigued.
Not for long, though. I was almost out of rent money. I’d need to get a consistent job sometime soon.
Waiting wasn’t exhausting. Waiting was irritating. I had yet to come up with a way to prove my innocence to the Hunter Circles, so hidden and alone I remained.
I took off down the steep hill near my apartment building and ran through the old downtown area with small shops stacked almost on top of each other, past the coffee cafe I sometimes frequented, and down to the nearby lake. Moonlight danced off the surface of the water, so unaffected by the world around it. So free.
Something I’d never feel.
A yell sounded over my shoulder, slicing through the sounds of crickets and other night creatures down by the lake. I turned to look for a source, but something solid slammed into me mid-run. I twisted in the air and slammed into the ground, skidding along the mud.
My breath whooshed from my lungs as they seized and pain spliced up my side and back. Stars danced along the edges of my narrowing vision. I gasped, forcing air into my lungs again, craving oxygen and answers.
Groaning, I lifted my shoulders from the ground and searched for my attacker. Two individuals clothed beneath the shadows of trees stood fifteen feet away. One had a swirling white light flowing around their palms.
An ether-shaper.
“What the hell do you want?” I shouted at them. Six months. I’d gone six entire months without running into any Hunters or demons or even witches. Six months. Why now?
They didn’t answer; they just stood there unmoving, save for the white-lit ether sliding around the shaper’s arms.
I forced myself to stand, grunting as I placed weight onto my bad ankle. Dammit. Messed it up—again. “I said, what do you want?”
“Krystin Blackwood?” one, a man, asked.
“Who’s asking?” Shit. I needed to get out of here, to get back to my apartment, grab what little I owned, and escape. First the nightmares and now this. Who else was waiting in these woods? And were they old Hunter allies or demons?
The ground beneath me shook unnaturally, bouncing my body inches from the ground. I stumbled, lost my footing, and landed on one knee. I gasped as the dirt continued shaking, trying to get enough breath to say, “Teleport—”
Another block of white ether soared across the distance between me and my attackers, this time flying at my face. I ducked, but not in time to avoid the corner of it slamming underneath my jaw. My head snapped back with blinding pain, sending me tumbling along with it.
I rolled over and over, up into a standing position, and ignored the screaming pain coming from my ankle and hip. Who the hell were these guys?
Finally, they stepped from beneath the shadows and into the light of the crescent moon… which reflected off golden emblems hanging from their chests branded with flames.
Shadow Crest.
“Oh, fuck,” I exclaimed as the ether-shaper shot out again, sending a horizontal tower of ether my way.
I jumped sideways and grabbed on to a low-lying branch, using it to swing myself up and over the ether attack. When I swung back down, I used the momentum, launching myself at the two demons. A risky move. I didn’t have magik or a weapon, but demons usually carried some sort of blade. I just had to steal it.
I should run. Distract them and teleportante away. But I wanted to know why Shadow Crest was after me, aside from the obvious. I was one of the few things standing in the way of Lady Azar’s ultimate plan to get to and destroy the Powers’ city of Alzan. But I wasn’t involved with the team anymore, and without a connection to Shawn, we’d never complete our shared prophecy.
Why come after me here after so long? And how the hell did they even find me in the first place?
The other demon, an earth-elemental, swung his arm up, launching an archway of dirt and rock right at my side. I moved to dodge it too fast and instead of knocking me off course, it slammed me into his companion.
I grabbed on to the demon’s neck as we fell, slamming against the muddy ground. I got a leg around his middle and pulled, hanging on as he thrashed against the ground to try to dislodge me.
“What do you want?” I asked again as I yanked on his neck. If I could just put him under and make this an even fight…
But rather than answer, the demon slammed his head back into mine. Pain screamed across my nose and jaw. For a moment, all I saw was bright white light. Then it faded to the still black of the forest at night, my grip on the demon’s neck weakening, a coppery taste in my mouth. Blood.
Don’t, I told myself. No losing this fight. If I did, they’d either kill me right here on this cold earth or drag me to Lady Azar for her to do the deed. Neither were acceptable fates.
I squeezed my arms together and yanked the demon’s head to the side. A disgustingly satisfying snap echoed in the air around us as his body went limp.
A small pillar of earth swung out of the darkness, knocking into my shoulder and pushing me away from the dead demon. I skidded in the mud. Raindrops fell through the trees and their leaves, sprinkling onto my bare arms, cool against my hot skin.
I looked up at the earth-elemental demon who now stood feet away from me, a twisting chunk of stone flying around above his palm. Mud and water slipped from my legs and elbows to the ground, leaving behind a splashing sound.
“You will pay for that,” he growled.
“I still don’t understand why. I haven’t killed any demons in months.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “For Alzan’s Daughter, there is no other fate but death.” He reeled back his palm, the churning stone with it, and tensed his arm. “Lady Azar will be happy to see your dead body on her dais.”
“I’m no threat to her anymore, asshole. You can pass that along to her if you want. I’m never going to Alzan.” I’d never be able to. I couldn’t walk into Boston to even wave at Shawn anymore, let alone team up with him to complete the prophecy.
The demon’s eyes narrowed. “There are but two weeks before the attack happens. She wants to make sure there are zero complications now that the conduit has been turned.”
My eyes widened. Two weeks? Conduit turned? I gasped. Riley.
The ground beneath me shook, humming with the force of the demon’s power. I slid in the mud, my footing gone. The ground was too slippery, too impossible to stand up again.
That’s when the demon howled like an animal and launched the stone in his hand at my face.
Chapter 3
KRYSTIN
My fingers curled into fists against the ground and I braced for impact. I had one chance to get out or this would hurt. A lot. My lips moved, tongue forming the word. “Teleporta—”
The stone attack slammed into me, crushing into my ribcage. The impact knocked all breath from my lungs. I gasped as I slid against the slippery ground once more. Mud filled my mouth and I spat it out, wiping at my lips with my arm.
I understood why Shadow Crest and Lady Azar wanted me dead. What I didn’t understand was why it’d taken them six months to come to this conclusion. If I hadn’t gone back to the Fire Circle yet, why would they think I would now?
The demon stalked toward me as I picked myself up again. I wheezed, watching him and trying to ignore the stabbing pain throbbing in my chest. At least one cracked rib, ma
ybe two. Or worse.
The rain poured down on top of us, soaking through my minimal clothing. Somehow, the quartz crystal around my neck had stayed in place throughout the fight. Steam rose from where the water droplets landed on my bare skin. A nice reminder that I could lock away the fire-elemental power inside of me, but I would never be rid of it.
“I won’t interfere,” I said, though I knew it didn’t matter. The demon would complete his mission one way or another, and I’d either be alive and holding a knife in his chest or I’d be dead at Lady Azar’s feet.
The demon didn’t say anything, just continued his slow walk toward me.
Okay. Enough of this.
My hands squeezed into fists at my sides and I raised them, falling into a ready stance. I could do this. I’d gone one-on-one with more demons than I could count. So what if I didn’t have magik or a weapon? No big deal.
I clenched my jaw, then launched for the demon even as my ribs screamed in protest. Water rolled off me as I wrapped my arms around his middle and tackled him to the ground. Or I tried to. His big, built form seemed to absorb the impact and instead of falling into the mud, I stood there, arms wrapped around his abdomen.
The demon laughed and reached around to grab the back of my shirt. “However entertaining you might be, this fight is over.”
Unlock your magik, my mind whispered to me. But I didn’t want to. Then anyone could locate me, including the team. No matter how this demon fight ended, I never wanted them to find me again. Period.
But Alzan. If it fell, so too would the rest of the world.
I swallowed hard as my options flew by my head like a point-of-view video. That’s when I felt it, the hilt of the knife still latched in a sheath at the demon’s side. I roared, ignored the pain tearing through my ribcage, and snatched his knife from its sheath. As soon as the cool metal was in my slippery hands, I wrapped my fingers around the knife’s hilt and pushed against the demon’s chest.
He complied, throwing me off of him like a ragdoll. I watched the trees as I soared and grabbed on to one of them to halt my trajectory. I swung up and over the branch, coming down hard on the demon’s back as bark bit into my palms.