by Jamie Davis
Quinn nodded. “I guess healing yourself is good, too.”
“Did Clark teach your thing to you?” Avery asked.
“Oh, no, I learned by accident,” Quinn replied. “Miranda and Clark were trying to teach me how magical energy worked and how to sense the ley lines. I reached out with my mind and bent one in my direction by accident. They were super-pissed at me.”
“What did it feel like to have that sort of power coursing through you?” Avery had sat down on the sofa and leaned forward, intent on what Quinn was saying.
“Not comfortable, that’s for sure. At the same time, though, part of it feels like when you…” Quinn’s voice trailed off, and she rubbed her hand past the front of her hip.
Avery blushed a whole new shade of red at that reference, and Quinn laughed. She was getting a different view of her competition.
“Anyway, I’ve had to channel that kind of power three times, and each time, I’ve barely survived. I figure there are better ways to almost kill myself, no matter what a rush it is. I mean, no one wants to get struck by lightning four times.”
The two of them chuckled together as they gathered their things to take down to the training room. Quinn was sorry to see the conversation end. Soon they’d be adversaries again, and this new closeness would go away. Quinn couldn’t help but think that in a different time and place, she and Avery could be friends, or maybe even more.
Quinn took the folded map from the bar and placed it in the top drawer of her dresser, then packed her workout bag. Once they’d each selected a spare outfit and grabbed a towel for the training room, she and Avery headed downstairs in search of Clark and Gemma. It was time to see what their elders had planned for the two of them.
Chapter Sixteen
Clark, Naomi, and Gemma waited for the two Huntresses in the training room. They stood at the center of the mats and were talking in hushed tones when Quinn and Avery arrived.
Naomi smiled at the two of them. “You seem chummy. Striking up a friendship with the enemy, Quinn?”
Avery shook her head. “Quinn is not my enemy, Naomi. She will become my most trusted lieutenant when the time comes for me to assume my place as the Huntress of legend.”
Quinn shot Avery a sharp look. Just like that, their friendly chatter upstairs got flushed away.
“Speak for yourself, Avery. I’m nobody’s lieutenant, trusted or otherwise.”
Gemma laughed. “Good, Quinn. Maybe you can channel that anger into something resembling a decent defense in today’s match.”
Quinn growled deep in her throat and opened her mouth to reply.
Clark stepped forward and interrupted her. “Why don’t I explain the rules for today’s contest to the ladies?”
“Good idea,” Naomi said. “It wouldn’t do for them to off each other right here when they’ve got other things to do.”
Quinn didn’t like where this was going. “What do you have up your sleeve, Clark?”
“Gemma and I think you two have done enough in the confines of the Hunter complex. It’s time to apply what you’ve learned in a contest that pits your individual strengths against each other in the outside world.”
Avery bounced on the balls of her feet. “What are we doing? Is there a real hunt this time?”
Gemma smiled, although Quinn noticed the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Avery, dear, that sort of hunt is rare these days, but this will approximate it pretty well. Clark will take you and I will take Quinn out into the city. We will drop you off. After that, your task will be to track the other without their knowing it. Clark and I will trail you both in our vehicles and on foot when necessary. Once you’re in a position where you could attack in a way that wouldn’t alert the public around you to your presence, announce yourself, and the exercise is over.”
Clark nodded. “Because Gemma and I will both be present when the winner announces their attack, we will judge if it would be successful.”
“This is a winner-take-all event,” Gemma said. “After this, there will only be one Huntress to fulfill the prophecy. We will know the other to be an untrained poser.”
Quinn scowled but held her tongue. Responding wasn’t going to solve anything. It was time for her to step up and show Avery how different things were in the real world.
“I’m ready,” Quinn announced. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Very well,” Gemma said. “You come with me. Clark will collect Avery, and we will begin.”
Gemma left the training room. Quinn started to follow.
Naomi stopped with a hand on her shoulder. “Be careful, Quinn. Don’t assume you’ve got any sort of advantage here. This is too important.”
Quinn started to snap at her mother that she was fine, but she stopped. Instead, she gave Naomi a slight smile and nodded. She had to run to catch up to Gemma, who had not slowed her fast stride down the long hallway to O’Malley’s.
When Quinn caught up with the other woman, Gemma said, “Do keep up, Quinn. It would be nice to give yourself a sporting chance before you lose.”
Grinding her teeth together, she bit back a reply and followed the other woman to the alley where the supernatural bar’s hidden entrance lay. Gemma pulled a car remote from her pocket and pointed it at a silver luxury sedan parked nearby.
“Get in. We have a little way to go.”
“How far?” Quinn asked. “I don’t want to be walking all day just to get back to the city.”
“If I just drop you downtown, Avery will locate you in a few minutes,” Gemma said. “No, for this to be a true test of everything I’ve taught her, I have to make it hard enough to mean something to Clark when she wins.”
“If she wins.”
“My dear, some might appreciate your persistence as some sort of moxie. I’m not one of them. This is preordained. Someone predicted the outcome of today long before either of us was born.”
“We’ll see.” Quinn reached under her coat and checked on her Bowie. She never went anywhere without it, even to the training room. Had they stayed, she would have swapped it out there. Now she was glad for her paranoid habit.
Gemma drove through the city, occasionally checking her phone’s map app. She wasn’t using route directions, so Quinn didn’t know where she was going.
To her surprise, Gemma headed south to a location just outside of the beltway—the city’s international airport. The woman pulled the sedan to a stop along a fence beside one of the runways.
“Get out.”
“Here?” Quinn asked. “There’s nothing around here. How am I supposed to get back to the city?”
“That’s not my problem. I don’t care if you sit down on the side of the road and wait for Avery to find you.”
Quinn reached for the handle and opened the door. She hopped out, barely shutting the door before Gemma hit the gas and pulled away, merging into the busy airport traffic.
She looked around, making sure there wasn’t any immediate danger. It would be just her luck that Clark and Gemma decided to go to the same place. That would end this game fast.
Once she was sure it was safe, Quinn took stock of what she had. That included the pocket of vending machine change she’d happened to scoop off her dresser that morning. She also had a city transit pass, which she realized was about to come in really handy.
Mind made up, Quinn pulled up her HUD and activated her map while she clicked on the triangular tracking icon. She remembered the newly acquired scout icon, so she clicked that as well.
The map didn’t show Avery at first, and Quinn tried different things to find her. She needed some sort of connection to the other girl, and she remembered the healing spell from the night before. She laid her left hand across her right shoulder and thought about the connection Avery’s spell might have created. Quinn wasn’t sure it would work, but it was all she had.
As soon as she closed her eyes and concentrated, an icon of a katana sword appeared on the map display. Clark had taken Avery d
owntown and dropped her near the baseball and football stadiums. Right now, Avery was walking somewhere near the outfield in Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
That solved one problem. She pulled out her MTA pass and started walking toward the airport train station. It would take her right to the stadium complex downtown.
As she walked, Quinn whispered, “Mist.” She waited for the hazy circle to appear around what she saw. She didn’t know if it also obscured her from someone magically tracking her, but it was worth a try.
She got lucky and caught the next train just as it was leaving the station. The attendant at the turnstiles stared wide-eyed when she swiped her pass and walked through. She realized all he saw was the screen go green and the turnstile spin on its own.
Quinn smiled and steered in the guy’s direction. She walked up behind him and said, “Ghost rider. Beware.”
She moved away as the man spun, searching for the source of the voice. Quinn had to stifle her giggle as she ran between the last train car’s closing doors and settled into a nearly empty seating area.
A quick check of the HUD' map showed Avery moving toward the harbor area near the stadiums. She wasn’t coming in Quinn’s direction, which puzzled her. Had her hiding skill worked or was Avery luring her into a trap?
Quinn knew she’d have to be ready for that eventuality. Avery had mad skills, and she was sure the other girl hadn’t shown all she was capable of.
She used the twelve-minute jaunt between the airport and downtown to try to think of all the ways Avery could trip her up when Quinn finally tracked her down. There was much Quinn didn’t know about the other girl, even after all their chats in the apartment.
Quinn knew she couldn’t keep her hiding ability active forever. It would eventually run down, depleting the magical energy it ran on. It used to draw from her amulet, but when the pendant was destroyed, she’d somehow started to draw on something else, either within herself or from nearby magic. She had crafted her new amulet, but she rarely activated its protective magic since she now had mojo of her own.
As she rode, Quinn thought about that inner energy and brought up her stamina bar to see if she was drawing on that. When it showed a full hundred percent, another idea popped into her head. Could she use this hidden inner reserve to somehow supplement her stamina?
Focusing on the green bar in the HUD, Quinn concentrated on increasing its capacity. As she did, the haze around her vision indicating the shadow-hiding skill flickered, then went away. There was no one in the car with her, so nobody noticed her sudden appearance out of thin air.
Realizing she was onto something, Quinn drilled down. She narrowed her attention to the end of the stamina bar that would extend should she find a way to charge it. It took three tries before she figured out how she’d drawn power from her hiding skill.
Feeling the spare energy surging within her mind’s grasp, Quinn stared at the hovering stamina bar. A gap appeared as the area it occupied expanded, and the green bar slowly grew to fill the added space. When it stopped expanding, Quinn let her focus slip away. The new, more powerful stamina bar remained filled.
Quinn had been so wrapped up in this new discovery, she barely noticed they had almost arrived at the stadium station.
As the train pulled into the platform, Quinn checked the area outside for any signs of a trap. Not seeing anything, she waited until the last instant, then jumped up, engaged her hiding skill again, and slipped through the closing doors. The others leaving the train had already started down to the street, so Quinn headed for the stairs, too. As she walked, she tried to predict the ways Avery might try to trick her.
That was important because she needed to come up with a counter-plan to foil whatever Avery had in mind, even if she didn’t know what that was.
Once she was on the street, Quinn pulled up the HUD map overlay and searched for the other Huntress again. She’d been heading east toward the Inner Harbor’s tourist area. The two pavilions there would be crowded at this time of day with shoppers and people heading to an early lunch in one of the restaurants. It would be easy for Avery to hide in the jumble of people. Quinn searched the HUD as she walked in that direction but couldn’t find any sign of the other Huntress. It was like she’d disappeared. Maybe she’d realized Quinn was tracking her.
Quinn had almost reached the first of the two shopping pavilions by the water when a flicker in the HUD drew her attention. It was the arrow scout icon, and it flashed between yellow and red. She stopped and tried to activate it by mentally clicking on it.
Nothing happened.
She stood by the road, puzzled by the unknown notification when a chill ran down her spine and her amulet grew ice-cold against her chest, warning her like it used to.
Quinn spun around, expecting to find Avery standing there. The scent of wet fur told her she was wrong.
Bringing her hand down in a chopping motion, she acted on pure instinct. Her sudden reaction caught the assailant by surprise, and she blocked the knife coming at her back.
Shock registered on the man’s face, and Quinn took advantage of it to grab his wrist and twist his arm up and out while squeezing as hard as she could. She drew upon her stamina automatically to increase her strength.
Bones ground together beneath her iron grip, and the knife fell from the spasming fingers as she broke the shifter’s wrist.
She jammed her other hand against the taller man’s throat, driving him into a nearby light pole and tightening her grip until the guy’s breaths came in painful wheezes.
“Who sent you? How did you find me?”
“N-no one,” he croaked. “I just saw you walking and tried to pick your pocket.”
Quinn squeezed the man’s broken wrist harder. She drew a deep breath, trying to tag what kind of shifter he was by the distinctive scent. Quinn’s eyes widened when she placed the smell.
Werepanther. He smelled just like the bikers from the other night.
“You’re lying,” she said as he groaned. “You were there the other night when you and your fellow goons snatched Inez. There’s no way you showed up here by accident.” Quinn pressed harder with the hand on the guy’s throat.
A crowd had started to gather, and several people were on their phones. A few were recording the encounter. She realized her shadow hiding ability had canceled out when she turned to meet her attacker. It wasn’t good to get this kind of attention.
Quinn knew who’d sent him, or suspected she did, anyway. She didn’t have the time to do what she needed to do. The police would be here soon, and she didn’t want to answer awkward questions about a dead body on the street or why she was walking around with a huge Bowie knife.
“Tell the one who sent you that I’m on to them. There will be a time of reckoning. Tell them the Huntress is coming.”
She released both hands and took two steps back. The werepanther stared wide-eyed at the crowd that had gathered around them. He clutched the injured arm to his chest and pushed through the ring of bystanders, then ran across all four lanes of Pratt street. Cars screeched to a halt and horns blared, but he made it safely to the other side and disappeared between two buildings.
Quinn watched him go and then realized she had better disappear, too. She started to move into the crowd around her, shoving her way to the open space beyond them. Once she was free of contact, she could activate her hiding icon.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder.
Quinn spun around, reaching for her Bowie.
Her hand dropped to her side when she saw who it was.
Clark stood there disappointment plain in his expression. Just behind him stood Avery, a broad grin on her face. Gemma stood nearby too, oozing satisfaction.
Clark shook his head and turned to Gemma. “Looks like you win.”
“No!” Quinn shouted. “That’s not fair. I was just attacked by a shifter. Didn’t you see him?”
“No, Quinn,” Clark said. “I didn’t. I was tailing Avery. She just raised her hand and pointed a
t this crowd of people. I didn’t see you until you shouldered your way through them into the clear.”
Quinn pointed at the lamppost. The crowd had mostly cleared, bystanders heading about their business. “The attack happened there. He tried to knife me. Come on. I’ll show you the knife. It has to still be on the sidewalk over there.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Clark said. “Avery spotted you first, and she could’ve made the kill and gotten away without anyone seeing her. That gives her the win—the final win.”
Gemma sauntered up to stand beside Clark. “That was even easier than I expected. Caught right out in the open like a common pedestrian.”
Quinn’s whole body trembled. Clenching her teeth, she said. “That was all part of your plan, wasn’t it? Send one of your pet werepanthers to attack me and then wait for me to be distracted so Avery could get close enough to win.”
Gemma placed raised her hand to her chest. “Quinn, dear, I don’t know what you mean. I had nothing to do with this encounter you’re talking about. Where is this cat shifter you speak of?”
“He ran off. I didn’t want to kill him in front of a crowd of bystanders. Now I’m thinking I should have. Then I’d have the video to prove—”
“Prove what, exactly? Prove that you know how to kill? We know you can do that. The question is whether you have the skills needed to lead this little clan of yours.”
Gemma turned to Clark. “I think this settles things once and for all. Avery is the Huntress. Your girl is the pretender. Why don’t you two go back to O’Malley’s and figure out how quickly you can move your stuff out. The Hunter chambers are mine now.”
Clark’s eyes darkened, but he said nothing. He gave a nodding jerk of his head and walked away. “Come on, Quinn. We need to get back.”
Quinn shot one last glance at Gemma and Avery, then jogged after Clark. “Why are you giving in? They cheated. Gemma sent that guy after me on purpose.”