Hunter Circles Series Complete Boxset: An Urban Fantasy Adventure

by Jessica Gunn

“Shawn,” I warned. I’d go toe-to-toe with Jaffrin any day, but that kind of outburst right now would not help our case, or Sandra’s, at all.

  Jaffrin’s eyes narrowed dangerously on Shawn. “Where is your other half right now?”

  Shawn swallowed hard. At least his non-answer was easy since I was pretty sure none of us knew where Krystin had gone.

  Jaffrin looked to me. “Ben?”

  “We don’t know.”

  His nostrils flared. “How do you not know? You agreed to keep an eye on her.”

  I shrugged. “Oops.”

  Jaffrin’s chest rose in a long, heavy breath during which a thousand emotions—anger, desperation, disappointment, exasperation—crossed his face. Then he seemed to turn to stone, unreadable. “Go,” he told the Hydron agents. “Leave us for a moment.”

  Agent Dennis collected Max and the others and they retreated up the stairs.

  When we were all alone, Jaffrin said, “The only reason I did not call for Krystin’s arrest last night because you said you had her under control, Ben. So I ask you again, where is she?”

  “I cursed her out for being untrustworthy,” Rachel said. “She walked out. But it’s you we can’t trust. You sent Ben on a suicide mission.”

  Jaffrin’s brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”

  “Rachel,” I said, reaching for her. Her words danced along the line of treason.

  She brushed me away. “No. It’s true. You sent him to that house without backup. And do you know what happened? Riley was there with Giyano and dozens of other Shadow Crest demons. Ben could have died, Jaffrin. So no, even if I knew where Krystin was, I wouldn’t tell you because you clearly don’t care about the Hunters still on your watch. I’m terrified of what you’d do to one you hate.”

  Jaffrin slammed his fist on the podium. “The Hunter Circles are about to be revealed to the entire world because one person, who shouldn’t even know they exist, is opening her mouth.” His glare cut to me. “Ben, you are to go to Sandra and convince her to stop. Bring her back here if you need to; I no longer care. My duty is to the Circle first, my Hunters second.” His glare moved to Shawn next. “Find Krystin and bring her back. As your team so kindly pointed out, you have nine days to figure out the prophecy. Good luck.” He roughly grabbed his tablet from the podium and then turned back to us, anger flaring on his face. “You’re dismissed. Go. I don’t want to see any of you again until you’ve completed those tasks.”

  My teeth ground together as my jaw slid left and then right, my muscles aching from holding everything I wanted to say in that moment. Anger boiled over into rage as I glared at Jaffrin, staring him down for all he was worth. “Yes, sir.”

  I should tell Dacher, both about his threat to Sandra and everything else. But I was done being the tattletale. Instead, I threw the file folder to the ground and turned to march back up the stairs. My team followed on quick feet.

  When we got to the top of the stairs and marched back out into the lobby, I turned to Shawn. “You find Krystin and bring her back to the house. We’re using your plan.”

  “Plan?” he asked, anger still written on his features.

  “We’re leaving the Fire Circle and figuring this shit out on our own. Find her and ignore everything else Jaffrin has ever said or will say from here on out. We don’t answer to him anymore.”

  And if he hurt Sandra in any way, I’d kill him.

  Chapter 15

  KRYSTIN

  As soon as the teleportante landed in the woods of northern New England, I hurried inside Hunter’s Guild. I didn’t even need my Fire Circle knife to identify myself with. Apparently everyone knew who I was now, especially those who frequented Hunter’s Guild.

  The team might yet find me here, I’d surrendered to that fact. Same with Giyano or any demon bounty hunter who was still being sent after me. But I didn’t intend to stay inside for long. I just needed time—and the space—to use this dharksa. And then I’d be home free.

  After slipping into an empty room on the second floor, dodging anyone who might question why I hadn’t paid for it before going inside, I shut and locked the door behind me. The bed wrapped me in peaceful safety as I fell onto my back on top of the comforter.

  The room wasn’t larger or smaller than a normal hotel room in the normal world. In fact, the only difference between this and a chain hotel were the walls and ceiling made from wood rebuilt by magik after Kinder had torn the place down.

  Everywhere I looked lately, it was like Kinder or Giyano had touched something around me. The mark on my hand. Hunter’s Guild as a whole. The Fire Circle. Cianza Boston. Even the dharksa in my hands could be traced to Shadow Crest and Lady Azar, and therefore Kinder and Giyano as well.

  Screw them. I’d prove them all wrong.

  I held up the dharksa, still inside its tiny plastic bag, in front of my face. The cinnamon-scented powder looked so innocuous from afar, like it didn’t let you see what you most desired at best, or on a bad trip, drive you mad with illusions and hallucinations until you accidentally hurt or killed yourself without knowing it.

  And yet there it was. The drug I used to deal in exchange for information about the on-goings of demonic activity in Boston. About the location of Landshaft, the demon city.

  “One last time,” I whispered to it. “Just you and me.” I slipped my finger into the top portion of the bag and slid the Ziploc open.

  The doorknob on the room’s door jiggled loudly.

  I zipped the baggie shut again and sat straight up. Even if someone managed to get inside, they couldn’t hurt me without also severely hurting themselves. That was what the protection magiks Hunter’s Guild was famous for provided for its clientele. A neutral area. But the non-violence magiks didn’t mean they couldn’t drag me out kicking and screaming.

  The door handle tipped sideways and I scooted off the edge of the bed. “Don’t you fucking dare!” I shouted at the door. “This room’s occupied!”

  The door handle froze. “Krystin? Are you in there?”

  Shawn.

  My mouth dried out in an instant, as if I’d stepped into a desert. “No.” Stupid.

  “It’s me. Let me in.”

  My free hand clenched into a fist at my side. “Absolutely not.”

  “I’m here alone, Krystin. I’m not going to turn you in or whatever you’re thinking. In fact, that’s exactly what I need to talk to you about.”

  “Fuck off.” I backed up a step. There was no way Shawn was actually here by himself. Not if they were intending to bring me in or convince me to come back. Especially since, of all people, Shawn and Rachel were the last I’d expect to beg me to return.

  “Ben sent me,” he said, his voice quieter this time. “Something’s happened with Sandra and Hydron. I need to explain and I have a message from Ben.”

  “Why’d he send you?” I asked, walking up to the door. “Ben should have come himself if he wanted to convince me of anything.” Although I did want to know what Sandra had to do with Hydron, or how they’d even get in contact since she was supposed to have been in Canada.

  “He didn’t. Jaffrin did,” Shawn said. It sounded like his head was right against the door now.

  “That makes me feel a thousand times better.”

  “I know. Believe me, I get it. Here.” He went silent for a moment before a piece of paper was slid underneath the door. “Read that. Then open the hell up so I can explain.”

  I bent down and grabbed the paper off the ground. It had my name on the front in Ben’s handwriting, which I’d only seen once before at Headquarters when he’d filled out paperwork for Riley and Sandra’s move.

  I flipped open the folded flap. Inside was a short note:

  You were right about him. It’s time we use your plan. Do what you need to, then meet up with us. Shawn knows where we’ve gone. –Sparky

  “You were right about him,” I echoed aloud. What the hell happened? The note seemed genuine enough, signed with my nickname for Ben. I put the paper in the sa
me hand as the dharksa baggie and wrapped my free hand around the door handle, pulling it open. “What’s going on?”

  Shawn stood there, an exhausted, weary expression on his face. Purple bags hung under his eyes. “Can I come in?”

  “Fine. Just remember this place is protected and you can’t hurt me.”

  A flash of guilt crossed his gaze. The light from above the door shone down, highlighting the scar above his eyebrow. The one I’d given him when I’d slammed him against the ceiling at Fire Circle Headquarters.

  “I’d never do that, Krystin,” he said. “I never wanted to. You didn’t exactly give us a choice.”

  I swallowed hard and blinked, looking away from him. “I wasn’t given one either.” I stepped out of the way.

  Shawn came into the inn room but didn’t go far. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure you’d let me speak.”

  “Why not?” I said, throwing up a hand as I shut the door. “Everyone just wants to talk. Except for the ones who want to hit me.”

  Shawn’s eyes followed the bag of dharksa in my hand, narrowing as he watched me flail. “Were you planning on taking that?”

  I looked down at the bag. “This? No. I was going to use it.”

  His brow furrowed. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  Oh. I gave him a blank stare and held up the bag. “In a locator spell. To find Landshaft or Lady Azar or the closest to those two things I can get. I was going to end this now.” And by getting the purest kind of dharksa, the kind only certain dealers made, I was sure to get pretty damn close to the poisons master demons themselves. If Lady Azar wasn’t with them, they’d be able to take me to her with some encouragement.

  Shawn lifted a brow. “That was your plan?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Seemed like a better idea than bickering with you all until the end of time. I tried running away from this war. And since I apparently don’t have the luxury of staying out of it, I decided it was better to act rather than wait around until someone else did the acting for me.”

  “I’m not saying you were wrong, just questioning your methods,” he said, looking down at the dharksa bag again. “Seriously, Krystin?”

  I threw the bag across the room and then circled back to the bed, falling into it again. “What happened that’s got Ben admitting I’m right? Something apocalyptic, no doubt.”

  “Hydron showed up at Headquarters half an hour ago.”

  I glanced up at him. “As in the CIA portion of Hydron? Not Water Circle Hunters?”

  He nodded solemnly and everything started piecing itself together.

  “What’d Sandra do?” I asked.

  “At first I thought it was an extension of what happened nine months ago. The whole ‘gas leak’ cover-up fiasco. But apparently Sandra’s been posting on social media about Riley being missing and stuff about magik and demons. Only Ben saw the evidence of those postings after Jaffrin told us and, so far, he’s kept it to himself.”

  “Lovely.” I could only begin to imagine what Ben was feeling at this very moment if this, on top of me coming back and Riley being presented in front of him like an enemy by Giyano, if all of it had driven him to finally forsake Jaffrin. He’d always been a little irritated by him during my time on the team, but to completely disregard orders and abandon ship? “This is bad.”

  Shawn gestured to the edge of the bed. “Yeah. Can I sit?”

  “Only if you’re really not going to arrest me afterward.” I meant it as a joke, but that hurt look flashed across his face again.

  “I’m not. I told you that. My word is good, Krystin.”

  “Except the part where you didn’t follow through with our plan six months ago.”

  He gave me a sidelong glance. “It could have something to do with the whole you-killing-the twins-and-then-going-rogue thing.”

  I glared at him. “Touché.”

  He shook his head and pointed to Ben’s note still in my hands. “Ben sent me here so we could figure out this Alzan thing once and for all. His actual words were something to the effect of, ‘Don’t come back until you’ve unlocked your powers,’ but there might have been some more profanity involved. He was speaking so fast, it’s hard to remember it all.”

  I laughed. “That I believe.” Angry Ben was also ‘talk really fast, scary, red-faced’ Ben. “Did Ben also have an idea how we’re supposed to go about unlocking this Alzan power?” Until now, Shawn and I had obviously never been able to figure it out. Pressuring us to do it in nine days more than likely wouldn’t solve the issue.

  We should have had the past nine months. But the thing was, even with nine months of time, this fated sort of thing probably came with its own timeline. Seemed like most of that kind of stuff did.

  Shawn shook his head. “No. Ben has no idea how it might work. But…” He sighed and then lifted a palm toward me. A clean, scarred line ran down the middle of his hand. “I was able to use our power to counteract Kinder’s shield around Headquarters six months ago. Mostly because I think the shield was keeping you inside. I don’t know that it was actually my magik that took it down so much as my half of the magik calling out to yours.”

  “What?” I asked, brow furrowing. “What does that have to do with scarring your hand?”

  “I cut it open on my Fire Circle knife. I figured if Kinder’s magik is older than dirt, then maybe an equally ancient magik would counteract it. Our magik, Krystin. Tapped into via the same blood magik that your mother used to find you with Kinder.”

  My eyes narrowed and I stood from the bed. “My mother is how you found me?”

  He nodded but didn’t also stand. Good. I liked it better when I had the advantage. “Your mother tracked you through your tattoo, using the ink infused with her blood to find you.”

  A phantom burn incinerated my ankle at the very thought of that tattoo. I’d known that night what my mother had done six months ago. But still, hearing it out of Shawn’s mouth…

  “Blood magik,” I said, looking to him. “You think our magik literally runs through our veins?”

  He shrugged and then pulled out his Hunter knife. “It’s just a guess. But since it worked on the shield around Headquarters…”

  “It might be worth a try.” I bit my lip, swallowing hard. This seemed like a giant leap. But using blood magik was about the only thing Shawn and I hadn’t tried yet to unlock or otherwise demystify our shared Alzanian magik.

  “What exactly are you proposing then?” I asked, glancing down at his knife.

  He reached it up and pressed the blade to his scarred palm. A drop of blood formed where the tip of the blade punctured his skin. “It sounds kind of crazy, but what if we mixed our blood together? Just little, not some extreme letting ritual or something. See what happens when our blood and magik are directly tied together.”

  I eyed the knife against his palm, wondering again how much of this might actually be a ruse to get close to me. To attempt bypassing the protection magiks, stick me with the knife, and incapacitate me long enough to lock me up in Ether Circle Prison.

  But the eagerness in Shawn’s eyes, the shining determination, the genuine strength, washed away those doubts almost instantaneously.

  And replaced them with the fear of what might happen if this worked.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I cut myself.”

  Shawn, to his credit, didn’t react at all to the silent accusation. “Okay.” He handed over the knife.

  I gripped the handle and touched the still-clean portion of the blade to the edge of my palm, hissing as it drew blood. I gave the knife back to him. “Now what?”

  Shawn held out his hand, blood slowly creeping from his wound. “Now we put our hands together and hope I’m right.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not carrying any disease, right? No blood-born—”

  “Krystin,” he said, leveling me with a look.

  “What? Can’t blame a girl for asking.”

  He lifted his palm higher. “Let’s go, before it clots.”

/>   Slowly, I dropped my hand against his, trying not to think too hard about our blood mixing and how unsanitary it was or any of that. Instead, I thought of the prophecy. Of Alzan, this supposedly ancient city the Powers used to inhabit but instead left behind. Of the magik Shawn and I shared, the pureness of it that I’d felt on more than one occasion.

  I thought of what Shawn and I would have to do to get to Alzan before Lady Azar did in order to save it and all planes of existence from her plan.

  My hand warmed where our palms touched. I opened my eyes, thinking at first that I’d burned him with my magik. But when I looked down, a white light glowed around our interlocked fingers, growing like a halo.

  “Sh-Shawn,” I stammered as a feeling of pure power, an electrifying sense of urgency and magik, climbed up my arm.

  He nodded. “I feel it too. Hold on. I think we’re finally getting somewhere.”

  But the longer we held hands, the stronger the sensation got until it was almost painful, a throbbing, overwhelming feeling of good, of power, of a blinding white light. Growing into a crescendo of fullness that grew and grew until it burst. And in a pinpoint of blinding light, the world went black.

  Chapter 16

  Ben

  I didn’t bother wasting time driving to Canada. Instead, I bribed Lissandra, the Fire Circle’s head admin, with coffee for three weeks to get the names of the Hunters on Sandra’s security detail since it didn’t matter anymore with Riley gone. She wasn’t a Hunter, so aside from the fact that Sandra was Riley’s mother, she didn’t pose Lady Azar any threat.

  Then, once I’d gotten their names, I kept calling until one, a younger Hunter named Salvatore, agreed to take me to their base of operations down the street from her house.

  Now, I walked down the sidewalk of her town, the weather significantly cooler than Boston in late August. My shoes beat against the pavement quickly as the front door of her house opened and she stepped out, hair blowing in the wind. She had a duffel bag thrown over her shoulder and a suitcase in the other hand. Sandra stumbled with it as she locked the door behind her.