The Hunted: Hunter Circles Series Book One

by Jessica Gunn

  “Whatever,” Ben huffed, brushing past Rachel and me on his way to the road. “Let’s get out of here.” He disappeared around the corner before anyone moved.

  I glanced at Rachel and Nate, then back to the street. “Is he always like this?”

  Rachel rolled her eyes and went after her cousin. Nate chuckled. “Usually. Especially when people undermine him.”

  “I didn’t do that.”

  He held up his thumb and forefinger. “Just a little bit—by singlehandedly taking down a demon we couldn’t.”

  Actually, if Ben hadn’t jumped in at the end, the situation would have gone south. Even still. “You were out of your league.” No sense in hiding the truth. “Did you see how fast he burnt up? Not saying you wouldn’t have eventually taken him down alone, but—”

  Nate interrupted me with a wave of his hand. “I know, I know. And so does Ben. It’ll be fine; give him time to cool off. He’ll get over it.”

  “Hope so. We’re a team now.” Hopefully, Ben wouldn’t go straight to Jaffrin and have me removed.

  I needed this freedom more than any of them knew.

  Chapter 2

  BEN

  What the hell. Like—okay. I knew we were getting a fourth to fill out the team, that we might even be getting two more to make it the five-man “official” number. But her?

  I worked a kink out of my neck as I walked, trying to work out my frustration. My therapist would call it “misdirected.” Yeah, misdirected because it should be Jaffrin I’m pissed at, not this Krystin woman. She had magik, more experience than my team combined, and possibly more ability to lead this team than me. Except Jaffrin would never reassign me, not now. Krystin had been assigned to my team and I was this team’s leader. I’d stay that way long enough to get Riley back.

  My “armor”—as my therapist called it—cracked, shattered just by thinking his name.

  No, not just by thinking his name, rather by the bombardment of guilt and shame and crippling fear for my son’s life that accompanied that name the way a roaring roll of thunder escorted blinding lightning.

  The muscles in my legs, arms, and hands clenched tight, gripping and tugging until restlessness and the need for absolute control seized me. I needed to move, to exert this rage-filled energy before I lost it completely. My feet picked up against the road, faster and faster until I’d broken into a dead sprint in the direction of the team’s house.

  I skidded to a stop on our front porch, a number of blocks over from the alley. My heart pounded in my chest, my lungs and chest expanding as much as possible to take in oxygen as if I hadn’t breathed the entire run here. I bent over, resting my arms against the railing, and prayed the neighbors didn’t ask any questions about me running late at night again. They shouldn’t care—most didn’t—but in a section of South Boston with townhomes and apartment buildings standing with a foot between them—if you were lucky—everybody knew everyone’s business.

  They didn’t, however, know about the Fire Circle’s mission to protect Boston from falling to Darkness completely, at which point it’d be leveled for easier access to the cianza, a geological magik point supposedly at the city’s center.

  I didn’t know much about cianzas, only enough to know I didn’t want to be anywhere near them. I’d never gone to the center of the city. Boston was big enough to avoid doing so, and not even the demons hunted human energy on top of Cianza Boston. Even they knew that the slightest imbalance of good and evil would set that thing off. And if that happened… kaboom. Bye-bye, Boston.

  Rumor said it had almost happened once, years ago. When both the Hunter Circles and Darkness were made aware of the danger, everyone evacuated their agents out of the area. Since then, only humans had ever resided near the city’s center. Darkness’s Empire might be evil, but they weren’t stupid. If a cianza that big blew, it’d probably destroy most of the New England region in a wave of pure, original magik. The type of magik that burned both good and evil without bias.

  I scrubbed my sweaty palms against my eyes. Cianzas were tomorrow’s problem—or next month’s, if at all possible. Tonight, I had to figure out what to say when Rachel and Nate came back with Krystin. What Krystin had witnessed hadn’t been what she’d thought. He’d been just one demon, sure, but very clearly a powerful one.

  As much as I tried to justify it, all I saw were the same flaws she did. Incompetent Hunters. Each of us had magik, but only Nate had had his for any length of time. Rachel and I had been cursed with magik on the same night three years ago. And then everything changed when Riley…

  I collapsed on the living room couch, depositing my knife on the cushion beside me and cradling my head between my hands. One day, I’d find Riley. I’d bring my son home and finally this nightmare would stop. He was only a baby when he’d been kidnapped by what I now knew were demons of Darkness. He’d be almost two now. Two whole years of his life lost to this insane world. Who knew what he’d experienced and seen in that time. I wasn’t the same person, so how much had changed for him? And why did they take him in the first place?

  The front door slammed open. Rachel stood in the entryway, kicking off her boots. “Oh, good. You’re alive.”

  I didn’t bother rising to her bait. My cousin had been witness to my temper enough times over the years. Me obtaining powers and using them to fight demons had only made it more volatile, harder to control. My therapist would call those “excuses.” I preferred “a fact of life.” I had rage inside me and I’d found an outlet for it. What more did anyone expect of me?

  To keep your shit together, for starters.

  Nate and Krystin followed behind Rachel, joining us in the living room with grim faces. I didn’t even want to know what they’d talked about after I took off. Shame or something nearing embarrassment washed over me, flashing hot at my neck, but I swallowed the feeling down. No one had time for embarrassment in the Hunter Circles. Not with the threat of Darkness hanging over our heads.

  Krystin plunked down the two steps from the front door’s platform into the living room. “Do you often run off like an angry toddler?”

  I glanced up at her. Was she serious? “Excuse me?”

  She lifted her hands in defense. “Just saying. I want to know ahead of time if I have to watch my back in a fight because you’re not there.”

  Fire scorched my veins, hot and sparking. “I did not run from that fight. I never do. Back the hell off.”

  Krystin’s jaw worked almost as hard as my fists clenched. A fire burned in her stunning blue eyes. No one, not even Rachel, spoke for a long moment, no one daring to break the tension that’d grown as thick as the weeds in front of Sandra’s and my house before she’d finally kicked me out. That had happened right after I’d failed to protect Riley from his kidnappers.

  I hadn’t known at the time that they were demons until Jaffrin showed up a few days later, sought me out, and explained it all. He offered me a job with the Fire Circle so I could go after Riley and learn to control my powers. I’d told Sandra the truth of it all after meeting Jaffrin, but she’d rejected it and me, and had kicked me out not too long after. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since.

  All of this, including Rachel volunteering to join the Fire Circle with me, happened almost two-and-a-half years ago, during and shortly after my last year of college.

  Krystin dropped her hands and backed up a step. “Sorry. Look, this wasn’t my idea either.”

  “Then why are you here?” I asked.

  “Because the rules state a Hunter Circles team is made up of five people. I’m twenty-four. I’m past the age of being assigned and you need more people on this team.” She shrugged. “Don’t know why they didn’t assign a fifth while they were at it. Guess Jaffrin figures four with powers picks up the slack.”

  Slowly, the raging fire inside me settled. Cooled off. I closed my eyes and held my breath for a ten-count. I can do this. She’s not in charge. You didn’t fail. She’s just better at this Hunter thing than all three of
us combined. And she’s intimidating. Which is kind of a turn-on.

  “That’s probably the case,” Nate said. “Why did Jaffrin wait to assign you until now?”

  “How about we let her come in and catch her breath first, huh?” Rachel turned and gestured widely at our small house.

  It wasn’t much, but a townhome squeezed between others was more than most teams were allowed in the Fire Circle. At least inside Boston. City rent prices weren’t cheap. But the Fire Circle teams living out in some of the other New England states were able to afford whole houses for the same price. Lucky them.

  The front door led into a living room, which became an open kitchen and dining area. Upstairs, what had originally been a three-bedroom apartment had been turned into five much smaller bedrooms, two of which sat unoccupied. We’d created a training area in the basement. I couldn’t wait to see what Krystin thought about that.

  “You can stay in one of the empty bedrooms upstairs,” Rachel continued. “We’ll have to get a real bed frame, but—”

  “A mattress on the floor is fine,” Krystin said. The fingers on her left hand wrung around the backpack strap she’d slung over one shoulder. “I’ve had worse.”

  I nodded her way. “Is that all you brought?”

  She looked over her shoulder and shrugged. “Not much point in having tons of material things when most Hunters in this business don’t make it to retirement. I’ve got enough clothes and spell supplies to last a while.”

  “‘Spell supplies’?” Nate asked.

  I wondered, too. Ether-shapers like Nate were the only magik branch that sometimes needed outside implements. Except for… “You’re a witch.”

  “I am,” she said as she placed her backpack on the floor. “Blackwood. Not exactly a Hunter-based line, but my family has had occasionally close, if often volatile, ties to the Fire Circle for generations.”

  I was still learning all the ins and outs of stuff like this, even after two-and-a-half years of training. There were five Circles in total named after each of the elements: fire, water, earth, air, and ether. The last one was in charge of them all, and no one, not even Jaffrin, dared to mess with the Ether Head Circle.

  Then there were witch lines who had the same type of “good” magik but who didn’t necessarily produce witches to join the Circles. The Cassano line definitely did. I’d been in initial training with a few of those hardcore bastards. But Blackwood? I didn’t know much about them.

  “We haven’t dealt with any Fire Circle witches yet,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t call them that to their faces,” said Krystin. “Not any you want to be friends with, anyway. Many would rather disavow their Fire Circle relations than admit we work with them.”

  “Why do you, then?” I asked her. “If the Blackwood and Ember witches hate the Circles so much, why bother training them to Hunter status at all?”

  Krystin sighed. “Let’s just say Jaffrin and my mother are big fans of a very stupid prophecy, and that my life’s been a rule-filled hell since I was eleven years old because of it. He’s kept a very short leash on me for most of my life.” Her voice dropped to a mumble when she added, “Or he’s tried to.”

  “Prophecy,” I said. The existence of demons had been easy for me to accept because only monsters stole children from their parents. Hunters fought demons, and falling into that hero status had been almost natural after years of carrying my college football team to victory. But now a prophecy, too?

  Krystin stepped farther into the living room. “Look, I know this wasn’t the best way to meet, and I’m sorry I kind of swept in and took over the situation. Jaffrin wouldn’t send me to true newbies. I shouldn’t have judged you guys so hard.” Her gaze lifted to the others. “Can we start over?”

  Rachel extended her hand before my mouth could ruin Krystin’s do-over attempt. “Sure. I’m Rachel. That’s Nate and this is my cousin Ben.”

  I waved a hand. “Hi.”

  “Krystin,” Krystin said. “Blackwood.” Her gaze met mine and her blue eyes searched for something. Understanding? She wouldn’t find it, not right now. She must have come to the same conclusion because she gave me a small smile and said, “Tomorrow. It’s late and I don’t know about you guys, but I had a long day that started by dealing with Jaffrin’s arrogant ass.”

  “Those are the best days,” Nate said dryly. “I can show you upstairs.”

  “I’ll do it.” I stood. I needed to clear the air with Krystin, anyway. She might have apologized on her end, but my own issues hadn’t made the situation any better. “The stairs are this way.”

  She bid the others goodnight and we climbed to the second floor of our townhome. At the end of the hallway were the empty rooms. I let her pick one then, showed her where the bathroom was.

  “Thanks,” she said as she shifted her backpack’s strap against her shoulder. “I honestly hadn’t expected such a warm welcome.”

  I frowned as that embarrassment from earlier seeped up my throat. I swallowed it down again and tried to maintain eye contact. “That wasn’t warm. I’m sorry. I’m not good at holding in my temper. It’s something I’m working on. I shouldn’t have run ahead like that.”

  She shrugged, dark brown hair falling across one shoulder. Her blue eyes caught the low light of the room and shone like sunlight on the tops of the waves in Cape Cod. “And I shouldn’t have been a bitch. You’re the leader. I’ll follow. My comments were uncalled for.”

  Maybe that was true. But it didn’t change the facts. “You’ve got more experience than all of us put together.”

  “How long have you all been Hunters?”

  I wasn’t sure about Nate, but it’d felt like forever for me. “Rachel and I obtained our magik three years ago by accident. Then after my…” I wasn’t sure what kept me from telling Krystin about Riley. It could have been the freak-out I’d had or the fact that I hated talking about losing him period. But something stalled the words from coming out of my mouth. “After this thing happened, I found the Hunter Circles and brought Rachel in, so we might learn to control our abilities.”

  Rachel had power over water, a powerful elemental-based magik. She’d discovered it the day we’d been out on the lake with her brother and my younger sister. Lightning had struck the boat, giving me my own elemental magik, and she’d almost drowned. Somehow, by some grace of magik, we’d survived. Our lives had never been the same since.

  “And Nate?” Krystin asked when I’d stayed quiet for too long.

  “He’s an ether-shaper. He’s been involved with the Circles for a few years now.”

  Krystin chewed the inside of her cheek, mulling something over.

  “Why, how long have you been a Hunter?” I asked.

  She shifted her weight to the opposite foot and readjusted her backpack. “A while. But I remember having my magik long before then. My mother bound it for a few years until I was old enough to understand what was happening. But it’s been over a decade.”

  Damn. No wonder she carried that whole mightier-than-thou vibe. “Sucks.”

  She nodded, throwing her gaze across the room. “Thanks again. Meeting like this wasn’t exactly the plan.”

  “It’s cool. We can figure things out in the morning.”

  She nodded and dropped her bag on the mattress. “Sounds good. Goodnight.”

  “Ben!” Nate called from down the hall, his heavy footfalls smacking against the wooden floor. Krystin and I watched him sprint down the short hall. “Downstairs. Now. You have to hear this.”

  Krystin’s brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s the police scanner,” Nate said again.

  We raced back downstairs, me on unsure feet. We’d turned in for the night, so our Fire Circle-issued police scanner shouldn’t still be on. But a sickening feeling of doubt curled in my stomach, one that grew with each step downstairs into the living room before settling.

  “This isn’t good,” Rachel said, pointing at the scanner. She glanced over her sh
oulder at me, her phone in her other hand. “It’s all over the local news, too, though with less information.”

  “What is?” I asked.

  Nate grabbed the police scanner from an ottoman serving as a coffee table and turned up the volume. “A demon attack. Boston police think it’s some rabid guy on PCP they found down the street from the scene, but…”

  As Nate’s words stopped, slightly garbled static filled the living room. “Homicide on Huntington… 49 en route to that location, ETA five minutes. Gnarly… Tongue’s gone.”

  “Doesn’t sound like they’ve got a suspect,” Rachel said, head tilted toward the scanner. “But given our run-in earlier tonight. And”—she held up her phone—“Thanks to the helpful, disgusting pictures people are posting from the area to social media, I can also tell you the area’s covered in blood. If Jaffrin or Fire Circle Command doesn’t know about this—”

  “They must by now,” Krystin said. “But that’s exactly what happened to our victim from earlier tonight.”

  Nate nodded. “Exactly. We should check it out, then check in with Jaffrin.”

  “Or give him a heads up,” I said. He’d want to know before we started meddling with normal humans’ investigation procedures that the same demon we thought we’d killed had attacked again. But was it the same demon? I glanced at Krystin. “Didn’t our guy say something about it not being his fault?”

  Krystin was silent for a moment, her brow creasing, before she said, “Yeah. He did.” She sighed. “I’ll go grab my stuff. Nate’s right. We need to get over there now and investigate as inconspicuously as possible. We can guard the human police if nothing else.”

  I hung my head, threatening to give in to both defeat and doubt. Of course two murders would happen on the night we got assigned our fourth team member.

  Why would the world be anything other than full of coincidences?

  Chapter 3

  KRYSTIN