The Hunted: Hunter Circles Series Book One

by Jessica Gunn

  Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  “I got him,” I said. As I turned to retrieve the idiot from the floor the energy in the room shifted, knocking me off-balance. I teetered, reaching out for purchase and not finding any until my hand gripped an arm. An arm bigger than Nate’s and Ben’s.

  The room lit up with waves of fire, flashes of heat, and an intense scorching that decimated the air. I swung up my gaze to see who’d saved me from falling and found—

  Giyano.

  His dark eyes shone down on me, tiny flames reflected in his dark pupils. A Shadow Crest emblem hung low around his neck over a set of black clothing. He grinned once and then cool metal sliced against my side. Nate grunted, also under attack, but a block of ether flew up to hit Giyano head on. He fell sideways, dragging the blade with him as he went.

  I cried out as the wound opened and stung, a horrific magikal fire burning across my skin. Not like my magik backfiring or like having Giyano’s power inside my body, but actual stinging, burning, never-ending fire.

  I glanced down at the wound illuminated by firelight. A sickly brown film coated the slice the knife had left behind. “Oh, fuck.”

  I dropped to my knees as the exhaustion dragged me down and the realization hit that the fact that I couldn’t not use my power, couldn’t turn it off, was because the power of the Daughter of Alzan was absolute and all-consuming, and it meant this elin might kill me.

  I’d only ever heard of elin in passing. Demons liked to make poisons, loved to use them even more. But elin was its own special sort of hell.

  Nate fell next to me, a brown-filmed wound on his face. Rachel, too. They both reached out, Rachel firing ice missiles at some of the Shadow Crest demons. But she collapsed, crying as they hit.

  Elin didn’t allow you to use your magik. But if you fought through it, if you somehow were able to ignore its effects, it’d hit you back thrice-fold with your own power.

  And Rachel was powerful as hell.

  She seized on the floor of the office, her body convulsing. I crawled over to her, to hold her still, but the demons yanked me away. Two held Ben up between them. His eyes fluttered open, confusion sinking in.

  I told you it was a trap! I shouted at him in my thoughts. Not that he could hear them. You dumb fucking idiot!

  “This is the end, Benjamin,” Giyano sing-sang at him. “Stop searching for your son of your own will, or I’ll make it so you never can again.”

  “Screw you, asshole!” Ben shouted. His eyes met mine first, then cut down to Rachel’s body. She shouldn’t have attacked. She should have known about elin and what it could do.

  It was the only thing keeping me from firebombing them with my abilities. What good was I to my team, to Alzan, if I died because of my own power right here, right now?

  None.

  But just as Giyano stepped in front of Ben, a ball of blue fire in his palm ready to burn Ben’s face off, gunshots rang throughout the space. Two of the half-dozen demons in the room took bullets to the head, dropping instantaneously. Their skin ashed over, but no one had time to dispose of them right now.

  I pulled down against my captors, dragging them to the ground and away from the gunfire. Whoever had brought guns into an ancient, magik-fought war should themselves have been shot for their dishonor and unfairness.

  But then Jaffrin stormed through the door, Avery and his team behind him, and dispatched the demons. More gunfire and a flurry of swords were all that made it through the haze of elin. The more I fought, the more I even thought about jumping in and using my powers, the more its effects worsened.

  The last thing I saw was Giyano leaping out the second story window.

  Bastard.

  My world darkened as I thought of his escape. As I thought of hurting Ben when we got out of this alive.

  Chapter 16

  BEN

  Harsh daylight shone through my eyelids, forcing me into a waking state. When I opened my eyes, they were blinded by a full-on view of the sun. I slammed them shut again, a headache already pounding away at my head. My stomach roiled. It was like I’d relived homecoming in freshman year of college all over again—the worst hangover in the history of all hangovers.

  I rubbed my face and willed my eyes to adjust to the light by turning over onto my side. As soon as I started the action, pain lanced across my ribs. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Happens when you fly through the air and land on filing cabinets.”

  I glanced up at Rachel. She sat in a chair next to my bed. “Where are we? What happened?”

  “Fire Circle Headquarters, the Infirmary,” she said, her stare pinning me to the bed. “You were an idiot. That’s what happened.”

  “What?” I wracked my memory. We’d been in Salem. On assignment. A kid screamed. “Riley!” I looked to her. “Where is he?”

  “Think harder.” Her words cut through me like the ice missiles she loved sending into demons.

  Oh, god. What had I done? I fought through the fog and came up with only one chain of events: we’d been attacked by Giyano and his friends. Poisoned.

  “You do remember what elin is, right?” she asked.

  “I…” This was too much right now. After the failure. After being unconscious.

  “That’s okay, Ben. I’d forgotten, too.” She adjusted her position on the chair. “You know, until Giyano’s lackeys infected me with it and I went all Amazon lady and fired my full power on some of the demons.” She shook her head, then looked out the window, anywhere but at me. “I don’t know why I’m awake and you’ve been out this whole time. Krystin says I’m lucky to have woken up without an Infirmary stay at all.”

  My stomach dropped at the mention of Krystin’s name. She’d been right all along and I’d blatantly ignored her in favor of a world where I was going to successfully save Riley at all costs.

  “Yeah,” Rachel said. “She’s pretty pissed.”

  “She has every right to be,” I mumbled. I’d messed up. Big time. God damn my head and these emotions and my inability to control any of them!

  “You’re fucking right she does,” Rachel snapped. “She might be a big know-it-all most of the time, her and her mightier-than-thou outlook, but she’s good at this, Ben. She paid attention in training. She learned all the word-magiks and the histories and the ways in which demons fight. She might not have seen the elin coming, but she knew enough to stop using her powers to avoid the backlash from it.”

  Rachel stood, tossing the chair aside. “I get you want Riley back. So do I, Ben. He’s my baby cousin. But jumping dick-first into situations because you can’t control yourself—leaving me to back you up knowing full fucking well that you’re being the dumbest man on Earth—is not okay. You might be out to save Riley, but I’m here too, Ben. I’m also your family, remember? My life matters just as much as anyone else’s.” She shook her head. “Or maybe it doesn’t, I don’t know.”

  “Rachel…”

  She held a hand up between us. “No. There was a day I’d follow you to the ends of the Earth, Ben. And I did coming here. Joining the Hunter Circles so we could master our powers and find Riley. That’s about the only reason I’m here right now, so we can bring him home. But it looks like you want us returned home in caskets.”

  My gaze fell to the bed. She was right.

  I buried my face in my hands, unable to even look at myself or any part of this big dumb person in this big dumb, useless body. I just wanted Riley back. That’s all I’d ever wanted.

  Rachel sighed and plopped back into her chair. “Sorry, okay? I’m sorry, Ben.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. “No. I deserved every single word of that.”

  “I still shouldn’t have lost my shit on you.”

  “Oh, please. I’ve seen worse. I’ve just never been on the receiving end of it.”

  She rolled her eyes and reached for my hand. “We can’t be reckless anymore. Riley is counting on us, that’s true. But we also have family at home. Your sister, my brothe
r. My parents. They’re waiting for us to come back from whatever insane trip they think we’ve taken.”

  Guilt washed over me. We’d never told her parents where we’d gone. Just that we’d come back home one day. “I know, Rachel. I just…”

  She squeezed my arm. “We will. I know we will. But we won’t do it by rushing into clearly-marked traps.”

  “Noted,” I said.

  A knock sounded on the door to my Infirmary room. Jaffrin stood in the doorway, a mask of concern on his face.

  “Glad to see you’re awake,” he said. “The doctors here were worried for a while.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m good to go.”

  Jaffrin chuckled. “We’ll see about that.” He looked to Rachel. “Can you please give us a moment?”

  She nodded. “Sure thing. I’ll see you later, Ben.”

  I waved her way. As soon as she was gone, I said, “If you’re here to fire or replace me, do it. I deserve that.”

  Jaffrin nodded, not saying much until after he’d sat down on the windowsill next to my infirmary bed. It was wide enough that he was able to turn his body into it, so he looked at the city while talking to me. “Yes, you do.”

  “So, do it. Please.”

  Jaffrin went to speak, then stopped. Paused. “No. And you know why?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Hell if I know. I’d fire me. I almost killed my entire team.”

  “That is also true. But you didn’t.”

  “Might as well have.”

  “Ben,” Jaffrin said as he turned back to me. “We all make mistakes. And yes, what you allowed to happen tonight was stupid. But… your team, your collective power…” He nodded. “We’re counting on you to stay in this. To beat Shadow Crest when you get your son back.”

  “And to help Krystin save Alzan?”

  He shrugged. “More or less. I’m not going to remove you as a team leader. But you are to sit here while you heal and contemplate all the ways in which you can promise me a careless decision like that will never happen again.” He stood from the windowsill and made for the door. “Think you can do that, Ben?”

  His chastising tone said I’d never get another chance like this, and I wasn’t dumb enough to ignore second chances when they were given.

  I swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” Jaffrin said, smiling. “Heal fast. We’ve got work to do.”

  Somehow, I figured he meant my mental state and not the fact that with every passing day, it felt like my team was declaring war on Shadow Crest.

  We totally, absolutely were.

  Chapter 17

  KRYSTIN

  I woke up too early to speak to Jaffrin the morning after Ben recovered. Although I doubted that, after the mess the night before, he’d ever gone home. I wasn’t sure exactly where he lived, but it wasn’t at Headquarters. Either way, he probably didn’t want to see me at five in the morning.

  Instead, I showered, careful to avoid the injury still healing on my side, threw on a new shirt provided by Headquarters, and headed down into the basement. The Fire Circle’s library was extensive. Their records covered the entire span of the Circle’s New England history from the very moment the Fire Circle was created in Europe to when it came here to establish the U.S. branches of the Hunter Circles. This library contained everything from training and birth certificates to Leader histories, from many books on demons to magik.

  Dim lighting bounced off walls propping up floor-to-ceiling piles of texts and cabinets for the finer artifacts of our history. I’d spent one entire summer in the back corner that was cordoned off just for texts pertaining to the witch lines. Volumes upon volumes of all the information the Blackwoods, Cassanos, and Embers from this area had ever learned. I’ve watched my own mother make additions to some of the texts.

  But those weren’t what I was after today.

  I couldn’t get my vision out of my head. I didn’t often get them. In fact, I was pretty sure I could count the number of visions I’d ever gotten on one hand. For some Blackwoods, that was their only form of magik. But visions—and telekinesis, to some extent—were almost passive magiks, passed down from mother to child for generations. Every Blackwood witch was susceptible to visions. Most didn’t get them, though. Like me.

  Except for last night.

  I’d touched the pavement in that alley and had been transported back in time. It was like I’d been placed in a total immersion video game for a few seconds—moments that’d felt like entire days.

  Carts and horses nearby, crowds had gathered around a burning pyre in the middle of town, swallowed by the darkness of night and bathed in flames and moonlight. Three bodies had been lifted and imprisoned, captured with death as their only salvation to stop the pain. No one spoke or shouted. And, more importantly, none of this matched what I’d learned of Salem’s history outside of the Fire Circle. History had a way of covering up the truth. Or, in the case of demons and Hunters and magik, the Fire Circle had covered everything up. Including exactly how many Ember and Blackwood witches had died in Salem.

  In my vision, I’d walked around the crowd, observing the faces within and studying the pyre. Concentration and dread had overwhelmed me. Then confusion, as my own emotions had seeped into the vision. Why would another witch concentrate so hard on the flames burning their fellow witches?

  Then the me in the dream had lifted my left hand. A male left hand. One with Shadow Crest’s symbol tattooed onto skin with magik.

  It was Giyano’s life I’d glimpsed in that vision. It was Giyano’s dread I’d felt.

  It was Giyano’s concentration on the flames, on keeping them off of someone, that’d confused me the most.

  I tugged a massive volume of text off a high shelf and climbed back down the ladder. The Tome of Demons covered most of the more well-known Darkness members that we hadn’t yet captured or killed. This book in particular held every piece of information known about the older demons with an entire section dedicated to the Fire Circle’s most wanted: a woman named Kinder, turned in Mesopotamia from Fire Circle Hunter into a demon by Aloysius himself. Mother of his children. Betrayer of the Empire of Darkness.

  But she wasn’t my target today.

  I flipped past Kinder’s section—the first 100 pages of the whole volume—and through the ancient ones still walking around. Past Egypt and Rome, through Teotihuacan and Mesa Verde, straight to Europe’s Middle Ages. That was when Giyano had been turned in his late twenties.

  According to the notes recorded here, Giyano had spent at least a hundred years with Shadow Crest before breaking off sometime before the Mayflower had sailed from Europe to North America. As soon as it had docked, he’d retreated into Colonial America and hadn’t resurfaced until mentions of him in Salem had been recorded. His time spent with Shadow Crest had seen multiple counts of murder and conspiracy, arranged Hunter assassinations, and work carried out by direct order from Lady Azar. A slave trade or two, and drugs. But as soon as he’d gotten to America, he’d dropped off the map completely. Utter silence.

  Until Salem in 1692. Until that pyre.

  Until the person—the witch—Giyano had wanted to save.

  The thought of Giyano, one of the old ones, saving a witch from death confused me. But that the witch might have been one of my own ancestors… I shuddered. No one had known back then about the Alzan prophecy. Or they at least had had no idea when it’d be fulfilled and by whom. There was no identification saying it’d be a Blackwood witch. Whatever had happened that day in Salem, it wasn’t why Giyano was focused on me now. But even still, this whole thing weirded me out.

  So why had Giyano bent the flames away from this witch? And which family line did he belong to? And why in the world had the universe deemed that moment so important that it had delivered it to me across the ether of time?

  I’d missed something in my vision. Something obvious. But it’d been so quick. And with every passing moment, I remembered fewer details.

  I whipped out my phone
and took pictures of every page that had Giyano’s name on it. I’d study this guy, learn everything about him that I could, and then maybe, somehow, I’d get the answers I needed. The answers everyone on my team needed.

  And maybe I’d find a way to save Riley since Ben was probably about to get kicked out of the Hunter Circles for good.

  But the more pictures I took and the more pages I read, the more a dreadful feeling settled within me that the answers lay within my vision—but were just out of reach. And with Ben’s future dismissal laying on the horizon, I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  A flash of rage scorched through me. My hands clenched into fists. All Ben had had to do—all he’d had to do—was think for one moment. About the trap. About the coincidence that Riley had supposedly been in Salem when we had. About how stupid it would have been for Shadow Crest to parade him about or to lair nearby.

  Was Ben even capable of thinking straight? Half the time he was the smartest guy in the room. Then you mentioned his family and the red sheet came down, toro toro, and he was gone. No more common sense. No more rational thought. That did not make a good Hunter. Hunters like him ended up dead before making it five years in the Circles.

  And with everything at stake, his actions made him a horrible team leader. He’d almost gotten us all killed. Then what would have happened to Riley? To Alzan, if that whole prophecy thing was still to be considered. In all the two-thousand-plus years Alzan had been missing, I’d been the first person to be called by the prophecy to save the city. Two thousand years. If Alzan was real, I didn’t think they could wait another two thousand years and hope Darkness didn’t attack them in the meantime.

  If Ben couldn’t handle himself, and all things pointed that way as long as his son was in Shadow Crest’s clutches, he’d get us killed. And I hadn’t planned on dying anytime soon. I had Giyano to hunt down first. And a city to save.