Huntress Clan Saga Complete Series Boxed Set: Books 1-6

by Jamie Davis

  Around nine, Taylor leaned back in her seat, stretched her arms out to the sides and smiled at Quinn.

  “Who’s the best Fae web hacker around?” Taylor brought her hands back in with her thumbs pointed at her chest. “That’s right. It’s this gal.”

  “Did you find anything?” Quinn asked, getting up and moving over to stand behind Taylor. She stared at the monitors, but there was nothing on the screen except runes and ancient things that sort of looked like hieroglyphics.

  Quinn pointed at the things that looked like Egyptian drawings. “Those look like they’re from a mummy movie.”

  “You’re not far off,” Taylor said. “I tracked this back to references that are very old. Those are scans of Egyptian accounts dating back to about the time to which Aurora referred. From what I can discern from them and the Fae historian’s commentary about what was written, something else was brought to this world by the hybrid demon. It was used to create a magical artifact of power.”

  “That’s what Filippa is looking for?” Quinn asked.

  “Maybe,” Miranda said. The ghost pointed to the middle screen, which was filled with runes arraigned in paragraphs. “That’s why this part is important, too. They are several references to a powerful tool used to create a well in the New World.”

  “A well? Like, a hole in the ground?”

  “Maybe,” Taylor said. “The translation might not have it correct. I’m not sure it makes sense in English, but it’s the best I could come up with. Either way, this well exists.” She pointed to an old, yellow map of the North American coastline from Greenland down to the Caribbean. “This map was included with one of the references. It shows the locations of several magical terminals or loci here along the coast. Each of them is a major focal point of power, either a ley line or another source.”

  Taylor moved her fingers across her touchpad, and the map zoomed in. Quinn saw pentagram stars inside circles marked up and down the coastline. Taylor stopped so the map centered on the mid-Atlantic area. She tapped the monitor over one of the stars and smiled at Quinn.

  “Is that nearby?” the Huntress asked.

  “From this map, which dates back to the late 1600s, it is somewhere beneath the original city. I can’t tell exactly where, but it must be near the water since there hadn’t been too much exploration inland at that point.”

  Quinn nodded. Things were starting to click into place. “That’s why Avery was there intimidating Inez, the werebadger leader.”

  Taylor cocked her head to the side in an unspoken question.

  “You said it yourself. The power center or well or whatever it is lies beneath the city. It’s underground. That’s why they need the badger shifters. They’re natural miners, and they’re not very social. No one would necessarily notice when some of them went missing.”

  “If that’s true, then you and Clark were onto something when you decided to go over there and talk to Inez. Then Avery showed up and got her to clam up.”

  Quinn nodded. “I’d be willing to bet Gemma and Avery have been in the city for a while, maybe weeks longer than we’ve been aware of their presence. I’m sure they are tied to the werebadger disappearances. If we track them down, I think we’ll find this well or whatever it is.”

  Quinn pointed to the table with the VR rig. “Send me back to the restaurant so I can talk to the matriarch again. She needs to tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can convince her.”

  “What if she won’t?” Miranda asked.

  Quinn answered with a grim smile. “Failure isn’t an option at this point. If Filippa’s looking for something, that makes it vitally important to us, too.”

  She climbed onto the table and laid down, then settled the headset and goggles in place. “Do it.”

  Taylor hesitated, then nodded and ran through a quick-start process. The VR system and gear started humming. Quinn closed her eyes as she fell backward into blackness once again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Quinn came out of the darkness in a crouch on one knee, shaking off the intense sensation of the VR transition. She was glad they had finally gotten their hands on the most up-to-date VirSync gear. The nausea and headaches were almost completely absent with the new rig.

  Tapping her ear, Quinn said, “I’m here. The parking lot is mostly empty.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Taylor said over the comm. “It’s almost 10. The restaurant is probably closing soon if it hasn’t already.”

  “I’d better get over there and see what I can find out then. I’ll touch base when I’m ready to return.”

  “Good luck,” Taylor said.

  Quinn disconnected and stood up, scanning the area for any sign of trouble. Starting toward the restaurant, Quinn muttered “mist” and disappeared into the shadows. The hazy, slightly-out-of-focus ring around her visual field told her the Huntress skill was engaged.

  She reached the rear entrance to the kitchen, where a screen door allowed the banging of pots and pans inside to drift outside. The noise told her people were in there, but she couldn’t see how many from this angle.

  Quinn pulled the door open just enough to let her slip inside and let it close behind her. She winced at the slight squeak of the hinges as it slowly shut. Quinn moved to the side and stood against the wall beside a tall shelf of canned goods. She got out of the way just in time.

  A small man with the hairiest arms she’d ever seen came around the corner and stared at the screen door. “Hey, did you hear the door open, Charlie?”

  A voice from the end of the kitchen responded, “I can’t hear a damned thing over this dishwasher. Who is it?”

  “That’s just it. There’s no one there.” The man walked over to the door and looked out at the parking lot. He stood there, sniffing and watching. Quinn caught a hint of moist earth and damp fur. He was one of the werebadgers. He kept sniffing the air coming in from the parking lot. After a minute or so, he hmphed and headed back around the corner.

  Quinn realized she’d been holding her breath the whole time he’d been standing there. She let it out in a long, slow sigh.

  “Did you find anything, Chet?” Charlie asked.

  “No, but I smelled something. I couldn’t nail down what or who it was, but I swear someone was there.”

  “You’ve been up too long. Didn’t you work the breakfast rush, too?”

  “Yeah, somebody has to. I don’t see you getting up at four-thirty to come in and open the kitchen.”

  “That’s because I have a life.”

  “Wait and see what happens when you get old like me. You can’t sleep right, can’t pee right, can’t do anything right anymore. All you have to look forward to is work, work, work.”

  “God help me when I get old enough to have all that happen to me. I’d be better off working in the tunnels like the others. At least then, I’d end up making some money while I’m wasting away.”

  “Don’t say that, Charlie. I know a lot of you youngsters got caught up working for that crazy lady, but working in a hole like that is hard, dangerous work. A lot of our kin never came home from their jobs. This one is worse than most, from what I hear. That witch is trying to hide it from everyone in the city while pushing everyone to dig faster. That means she is cutting corners on safety, too, most likely.”

  “At least it’s better than coming here to wash dishes every night. She did promise she’d pay those of us she took for the work.”

  “Dishwashing gets you home safe and sound. Don’t you have a cute little girlfriend now?”

  Quinn slid from behind the shelf of canned goods and peeked around the corner. The kitchen ran down a long ten-foot-wide rectangle for about twenty feet. The grill and oven ran along the wall nearest to the parking lot. Behind that in the middle was a long steel table with shelves to hold the dishes ready for the servers to pick up.

  Against the wall farthest from Quinn and the entrance was a triple sink next to a commercial dishwasher station. A man stood with his back to her, spraying plates a
nd stacking them in a plastic rack to slide into the washers when it was ready. That must be Charlie.

  Chet stood at the stovetop, stacking saucepans and other cooking utensils and carrying them over to Charlie. Once that was finished, he started wiping down the long steel table and all the shelves.

  A woman’s voice came from the restaurant proper and in through a swinging door walked Inez. “Charlie, Chet, you two almost finished back here? I wanna get home.”

  Charlie looked over his shoulder, “We’re almost finished. Chet heard a ghost and had to go check to make sure they stayed out in the parking lot.”

  Inez shot a glance in Quinn’s direction, staring past her at the door before looking back at the two kitchen workers. “What exactly did you hear?”

  “I thought the door opened, but there was no one there when I went to check. I thought I smelled something—lavender, of all things. But it was faint and I couldn’t see anyone, so I figured it was nothing.”

  Quinn raised her hand to her hair, twisting a stray lock at her temple around her index finger. Her shampoo was lavender-scented. Her shadow-hiding ability made her nearly invisible but didn’t cover her smell from anyone sensitive enough to detect it.

  The old woman sniffed the air twice, wrinkling her nose. She stared past Quinn at the screen door one more time for a few seconds, then shook her head. “Hurry up and finish up in here. I’ll be down in my office, finishing the register count. Let me know when you’re done.”

  The two men nodded and went back to work cleaning up the kitchen. Inez went through another open door nearby and down a flight of stairs into the basement. Quinn waited ten seconds and checked the two men to make sure they didn’t see her. Once it was clear, she darted to the basement steps and headed down.

  The bottom of the stairs opened up into more storage, with metal shelves in rows with various canned goods, boxes, and restaurant pans and utensils. A doorway opened to the left of the stairs.

  The door was ajar, and Inez’s voice filtered out as Quinn reached the bottom step. “If you’re dumb enough to come down here, girl, after you knew I could smell ya upstairs, it must be important.”

  Quinn peeked around the doorframe to find Inez seated in an old metal desk chair. She leaned back and stared at the doorway.

  “I know you’re there. Show yourself.”

  Sighing, Quinn ticked the icon in the HUD that cleared her hiding ability. The hazy outline around her vision disappeared and the woman’s eyes focused on the Huntress standing in the doorway.

  “There you are. Now, what are you doing sneaking around in my restaurant after hours?”

  Quinn searched for an answer and didn’t get one out fast enough.

  “Come on, girl. I don’t have all night. These books won’t balance themselves.”

  Quinn glanced at the pile of papers on the desk beside Inez and cleared her throat. “I’m Quinn, the Huntress from the clan here in Baltimore. You already know I work with Clark. I learned some things about the disappearances of your people and came to see if I could find out anything else.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. Ain’t nobody missing that I know of.”

  “That’s not what your men upstairs said while they were cleaning up.”

  “Well, they talk too much,” Inez said, annoyance in her tone. “I wouldn’t put much stock in anything they say.”

  “Look, I’m not here to cause trouble, but if you have something going on, maybe with a certain Fae princess, I’m sure I can offer you some help.”

  At the mention of the princess, Inez’s eyebrows lowered for an instant. Quinn swore it was a look of concern. It told Quinn she was on the right track.

  “Filippa has gotten in my way, too, Inez. I’m sure you’ve heard some of it through the local gossips.”

  Inez smiled. “I have at that. You’ve proved to be a bit of a thorn in that stuck-up woman’s side, from what I can tell. That doesn’t mean I need your help with anything right now. Tell Clark I can handle my Fae problems in-house.”

  Quinn thought back to the encounter she’d witnessed with Avery in the parking lot a few days before. “What about your run-in with the other Huntress? At least I’m on your side. She’s doing Filippa’s bidding, and I know she threatened you. I’m surprised you’re letting her get away with it. I thought badgers were tough.”

  Inez shifted halfway to badger form in an instant, jumping to her feet. The bared fangs and ripping snarl told Quinn she’d gone too far.

  Holding up her hands, Quinn said, “I meant no offense. I came to help you, that’s all.”

  “Didn’t ask for help. Don’t need help. The only reason I didn’t rip that other girl’s guts open is I can tell she’s mixed up in something beyond her understanding. That one’s an innocent, dangerous but not evil. Once I realized that I gave her a pass, kind of like I’m doing for you right now.”

  That described Avery for sure, though Quinn didn’t like being lumped into the same category. She nodded, saying, “I’ve met her. That’s an apt description of her. She’s very capable as a fighter, though. Don’t underestimate what she can do.”

  Inez shifted back to her human form but didn’t sit down. She stared up at Quinn. “And you’re here to do what? What can you do for me that I can’t do for myself?”

  “For one thing, I can find out what that poser Huntress is up to here in our town. She’s staying with my clan, so I can keep an eye on her. It would be nice if you and I could work together and sort out what she and Gemma are doing here.”

  “I know what she wants, girl. The Fae have been after it for years ever since it disappeared about a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “What? What are they after?”

  Inez smiled. “The crystal well. It’s been rumored to be buried here somewhere under the city for years. Many have studied archives and dug to look for it, but no one has found it.”

  “What is it?”

  “No one knows, at least no one around here. Filippa might, but she’s not telling anyone. All she wants is to find it. She came to me, looking for miners to work for her on a secret project. When I told her we didn’t do that sort of work anymore, she didn’t accept my concern that working under a modern city like this would be too dangerous. As soon as I said no, my people started getting snatched off the streets late at night.”

  “So, Clark was right,” Quinn mused. “How many are missing?”

  “Eighteen at the last count. I’ve gotten assurances they’re alive and somewhere under the city. I just don’t know where. Until I can find out, there’s nothing I can do without risking their necks, which I will not do.”

  Quinn nodded. A glimmer of a plan started forming in her mind. “I think I can help you with that. I can find their location, so no one traces it back to you.”

  “How’re you gonna do that?”

  “Gemma, Avery’s mistress, thinks I’m a no-talent hack. It’ll be easy for me to hide what I’m doing while sneaking around and spying on them. I can track down where your people are and then let you know so you can do whatever you think is best.”

  Inez considered that, then, “I don’t like taking help, but if you’re gonna snoop anyway, I don’t see no harm in it. If you find my people, I’d be obliged to you. We might have been good at digging in the mines at one time, but in the modern world, we don’t have to be dirt scrabblers anymore. We want to work out in the sunshine like respectable folk.”

  “I understand that completely. I will keep your confidence. I won’t even tell Clark unless it’s absolutely necessary. We’ll take care of this mess.”

  Inez nodded. She waved a hand in the air as she turned back to her bookkeeping. “Good, now git, and make sure you hide again. I don’t want anyone knowing I met with you.”

  Quinn nodded and turned to leave. She whispered “mist” and faded from view as she climbed back up the stairs. She wasn’t sure how she was going to track Filippa’s hidden operation to find the crystal well. First thing, though, she had to find
a way to get Avery to trust her more. Then the other girl might lead her to wherever Filippa had hidden the miners.

  Arriving back at the parking lot, Quinn walked to the rear of the area before tapping her earpiece and calling Taylor.

  “T, I’m ready to come back now.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Not too much,” Quinn replied, hiding her conversation with Inez. “I think there’s something going on, but we’re going to have to come at it a different way.”

  Quinn was about to ask Taylor to hit the recall signal when a dozen motorcycles rode around from the front of the restaurant and pulled up by the rear kitchen entrance. The leader, riding a bike with a sidecar, pointed at the back entrance and shouted something.

  “Ready to come back, Quinn?” Taylor asked.

  “Hold up, T. Something’s going on.”

  “What’s up?”

  Quinn shook her head. “Trouble, I think. I’ll contact you again when I’m ready to come out of VR.” She tapped the earpiece to shut down the connection. She hadn’t shut off her hiding ability, so she was pretty sure the bikers hadn’t spotted her.

  At first, she thought maybe they were members of the werebadger clan, but as she crossed the parking lot, she realized all of them were too tall. She caught a whiff of wet fur. They were some sort of shifter, but she didn’t know what kind.

  A few of the bikers dismounted and entered the kitchen, and people started shouting. Then one of the bikers stumbled back into the parking lot, clutching his face, blood flowing from between his fingers. Whoever they were after was fighting back.

  More shouts and snarling came from inside and three more of the bikers went in, shifting form as they did. Their heads and features took on a feline shape, some with black fur, others with yellow-brown. Quinn guessed they were some sort of werepanther.

  The one who sat on the lead bike pointed at the door and screamed, “Get me that old woman. Kill the others. It’s time we sent them a message from the boss.”

  Realizing what was happening, Quinn didn’t stop to think. She leaped into action. Drawing her Bowie, Quinn charged, angling to one side to catch the nearest of the bikers from behind.