The Hunted: Hunter Circles Series Book One

by Jessica Gunn

  It didn’t matter. Anywhere we used teleportante, they’d be able to follow if they caught our trail. And unlike the demons who frequented the Guild, I was pretty sure none of the Shadow Crest demons cared about risking the wrath of Fire Circle Headquarters.

  Assuming we lived long enough to try escaping.

  I shut my eyes and breathed in deep. No. I trusted Krystin’s judgment on this. If tomorrow was the last night Shadow Crest could turn humans into demons for a long time, they’d be out collecting magik users for energies. She had to be right about that.

  “There’s a door,” Nate said. “They’ve disguised the side of the mountain with magik, but it’s ether. I can feel where it begins and ends.”

  I walked up to the rock and placed a hand on it. The cool stone froze my fingers. “Seems solid enough.” Anyone who happened to find Shadow Crest’s secret lair wouldn’t see it unless they knew what to look for. And even if they did, they had to get past this magik wall. Smart of them.

  “Magik can be convincing,” Krystin said as she and Rachel joined me and Nate at the mountainside. “Where’s the door?”

  Honestly, I didn’t really care. All that mattered was whether or not we could get through it. My fists balled at my sides and my legs itched for movement. For action.

  Nate squinted as he ran his hands all over the area, then paused. “Here. The mouth of a cave starts here and—”

  “Good. Let’s go.” I set off at a steady pace toward the area Nate stood in front of, holding a hand out before me as I approached the rock face. “Here goes nothing.”

  “Wait, Ben!” Nate shouted right as my fingertips touched the stone.

  An electric shock coursed through my body at that same moment, seizing my muscles, burning them, as I was propelled from the wall of magik into the air. Wind whipped past my face and my vision darkened. But none of that was as disorienting as being yanked to a complete stop, whiplash spreading throughout my shoulders and neck. I hovered there above the ground.

  “Uh, never mind,” Nate called, cringing. “You found the ether shield.”

  “Jesus, Ben,” Krystin hissed as she lowered the hand she had held out before her. She must have caught me with her telekinesis. “If an ether-shaper tells you to wait up because of a wall of ether, maybe you should listen to them, you think?”

  “Clearly not,” I grumbled, rubbing my neck as Krystin lowered me to the ground. My feet touched down and I lurched the first few steps. “That’s some wall.”

  Nate shrugged. “Not too bad. I can take it down. The ether magik around the monastery I trained at was just as thick. Give me a few minutes.”

  Nate shook out his arms and cracked his neck, then stood with his feet apart and his hands on the stone. Ether, bright and white, poured out from his hands and fed into the mountainside. Beads of sweat formed along Nate’s brow and his arms shook as minute after minute ticked by. Slowly but surely, the magik wall buckled, shimmering out of existence until only the mouth of a cave remained.

  I sighed in relief, closing my eyes. “Good work, man. That was incredible.”

  Nate pulled himself away from the wall and gave the team a shaky smile. “I had good teachers.”

  I opened my eyes and focused on the opening to the cave. “Any chance there’s another way out?”

  “No,” Krystin said. “Anyone dumb enough to enter isn’t likely to make it out and everyone else is welcome.”

  “Except us,” Rachel said.

  I nodded. “Except us.”

  “Let’s hope I’m right about this,” Krystin murmured. She was rubbing her arms. “I still feel a presence. I can’t tell if it’s left over from the vision.”

  “It’s not,” said Nate. “I feel it too. There’s a powerful ether-wielder in there.”

  “Another shaper like you or…?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I can’t tell.”

  “Well, it’s not Lady Azar. She’s been documented with elemental magik,” Krystin said. “And even though you have elemental-based magik, Ben, it doesn’t mean Riley does. If he does have power, one strong enough that Shadow Crest wanted him so early, then it could be him we’re sensing.”

  My stomach churned. “Fantastic.”

  A son with some crazy power, just when I thought that maybe after we’d gotten him back I could leave the Hunter Circles for good. It wasn’t a secret that I’d only joined to find him. But if he had some superpower and needed training or other guidance, would I alone be enough to help him? Would I even be able to protect him if other demons decided to attack after Shadow Crest was out of the picture? Assuming we even got Shadow Crest out of the picture. Even if we rescued him, hoping they’d be gone forever was nothing more than wishful thinking.

  “The good news is that he’s definitely probably here,” Nate said.

  “Definitely probably?” I asked.

  He cringed. “Well, it’s that or he’s so powerful that he’s left residual power behind.”

  “Which is virtually unheard of, isn’t it?” Krystin said. “Let’s stay positive here. We’ve got enough working against us right now.”

  My temper seethed, bucking against what little control I had right now. My fingers wouldn’t stop moving, my fists clenching. We were close, closer than I’d ever been, to getting Riley back. I would not accept that he wasn’t here.

  “Then let’s go,” I said. “Stop wasting time. Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. Just keep your wits about you and hope for the best.”

  “And remember the training,” Krystin said. “Muscle memory is our friend.”

  “Stop treating this like it’s the first game in little league,” Nate said. “We’re about to infiltrate fucking Shadow Crest.”

  Rachel turned to Ben. “I take back what I said in Salem. Please note that only you and I have senses of humor in dire situations.”

  I snorted a laugh. “Will do.”

  I reached behind me and pulled free my Fire Circle knife from its sheath. The others also readied themselves. Nate prepped a block of ether to follow us inside like a shield, and Krystin drew a three-piece sword from a sheath on her back and put it together. I’d have to get myself one of those sometime soon. I’d been leery of using a sword in training, but anything that put more than an arm’s length of distance between me and a demon was fine by me.

  When we were ready, we headed inside the mouth of the cave on unsure feet. I pulled lightning from essentially nowhere into my palm, like an alchemist might turn one form of matter into another, and forced five deep breaths into and out of my lungs.

  If I didn’t keep my cool, if I lost my head like I had in Salem, we weren’t coming out of this one alive.

  The initial opening of the cave required daylight to see through, and daybreak was still an hour or so off. But after a few dozen yards, torchlight bounced all the walls and illuminated a multitude of walkways. Shadow Crest’s lair stretched out before us in a labyrinthine pattern with no one hallway marked clearer than any others.

  “Well, then,” Rachel said. “Who wants to decide where we go?”

  I looked to Krystin. She’d had that weird reaction in the woods outside. “Do you feel anything now that we’re in here?”

  “Power,” Nate said. “A lot of it. If this is your kid, Ben, they’ve turned him into a magik beacon.” His lifted his hands and the block of ether followed. Or it appeared to. Nate had turned it as invisible as it could be at some point during our walk into the mouth of the cave. Usually, his ether blocks glowed. I hadn’t known he was able to tone that down.

  Krystin bit her lip and her arms stiffened. “I don’t think it’s just Riley.”

  I recognized that look by now. “It’s Giyano, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe,” she said as her eyes darkened. “We need to move. Let’s go down this center path and see what we find. I’m sensing lots of power this way.”

  “Me too,” Nate said. “At least, I sense the source of the ether-magik.”

  I didn’
t have the heart to tell them—or to admit to myself—that their magik-sensing didn’t necessarily mean it was Riley we’d found. We’d come too far to stop now either way.

  We took off down the middle stone corridor, ducking and dodging hanging stones. Torches had been hooked into the walls every twenty feet or so, enough to light our way. But with each new lit area came another twist or a choice between paths. We followed Krystin and Nate’s magik-sense, though I trusted Krystin’s more. Relying on her ability to feel and see auras as a Blackwood witch seemed more logical than following Nate’s ether-shaping abilities. With Krystin, we might get an accurate count of enemies regardless of their magik type.

  My feet pounded against the stone, no longer able to take it slow. The farther we went into the cave system, the faster my heart beat against my ribcage until it felt like it might rocket out through my chest. Riley was close, I was sure of it, and nothing would stand in my way of getting him to safety.

  I ran out ahead of the team, taking the lead and listening to Krystin’s guessed directions as I went. Turn after turn until—

  “We’re close!” she shouted. “Take a right—”

  A wave of fire scorched down the hall, coming from nowhere. The fireball hurtled toward us and I ducked. Rachel sent a wave of water to douse the flames, but on the other side of the fire wall stood five demons, each with an element floating around them. Earth and fire, water and a block of ether. Wind gusted up between us, controlled by the one twirling his finger in front of his chest.

  “Guess it can’t be that easy,” I said, lunging at the wind-maker demon, knife out and lightning gathering in one palm. But the fact that only five had come to take us down probably meant Krystin was right. And if any guards had been left here at all, that meant Riley was on the other side of wherever this corridor led.

  Krystin came up beside me and pushed an empty hand palm-first into the space in front of us. The entire line of demons flew back into the wall behind them. Several of them grunted with the impact, but it was Krystin who squeaked as she soared back down the way we’d come.

  “Ether-shaper!” Nate called before sending the ether shield toward the demons. He jumped into the fray, squaring off against the demon that stood as his match.

  One of the other demons, the one wielding chunks of stone as though playing with a yo-yo, roared and charged at me. I threw out lightning to rid him of his rock toys, then stuck him in the side with my knife and tackled him to the ground. Ignoring the sharp pain stinging my shoulder from the impact, I pinned him to the stone floor and stabbed him two more times before he recovered enough to knock me off of him. I rolled with the fall and came up in time to whip my hand out and evaporate the water flying toward Rachel’s face.

  The flame wielder and water demon had cornered her, though she appeared to be holding her own. She splashed one and drove ice daggers into the other’s chest. The second demon’s skin greyed. Rachel lit and tossed a magik match onto him. His body burned up in a plume of purple smoke. Rachel used the smoke as a diversion to sneak behind the other demon and throw a rope of water around his neck. She tugged down as the earth elemental user yanked my foot, dragging me across the stone floor back to him.

  I heaved forward and kicked with all I had, catching the demon in the eye. In the time it took him to recoil and clutch his face, I stood and gathered enough lightning in my hands to build a ball the size of a basketball net. I pushed it into the demon, then whirled around, roundhouse kicking him in the gut as he was electrocuted. I burned his greyed body right along with his friends’.

  Two down, three to go.

  Rachel snapped the water-cord taught, killing the demon.

  Okay. Three down.

  I glanced down the hall to Krystin and Nate. It appeared Rachel and I had gotten lucky, easily disposing of our attackers, who seemed to be more normal demons than those of the reputed Shadow Crest standard. What the hell? Was this really Shadow Crest’s hideout? And if it was, why were people so scared of these demons when we had taken them out?

  Nate’s body convulsed as he was lifted into the air by the ether-shaper demon. The demon threw his head back and laughed as turquoise ether-sparks crackled around Nate’s head and torso.

  “Young one,” the demon said to him, “you know so very little about our kind.”

  Nate’s face became a mask of anguish. He reached forward, but his fingertips fell short of any part of the demon’s body. He’d tried to requirem him. Instead, the demon roared as he slammed Nate into the ground with a sickening crack.

  Shit!

  “Ben!” Rachel shouted.

  I turned in time to find a small twister headed my way. Krystin was losing her fight with the air-elemental. Her face had been bloodied, black and blue blooming across her right cheek. But before I could move to intercept any further attack or rush to Nate’s side, the twister sped directly at me. Rachel flung water my way and pushed me into a wall, seemingly out of the way. But the twister changed direction. He wanted to pin me to the wall with that thing!

  I ducked and the twister followed. Not even lightning disrupted it. And just as the wind picked up against my cheeks, slamming small stones into my skin and mouth, something held me in place, braced against the rock.

  I glanced up as much as I dared and opened my eyes long enough to see Krystin’s hand out. She was holding me to the stone walls with her power. At the cost of hers. Because out of the corner of my eye, I saw Giyano standing beside her.

  And he was grinning like a cat who’d found one plump, golden mouse.

  Chapter 21

  KRYSTIN

  Giyano wrapped his arms around me from behind, squeezing tight as he yanked me away from the team. I threw my head back, connected, and slammed my heel into his shin. He grunted as his hold loosened. I wriggled free of his arms and threw up my palm between us. He flew backward toward one of the stone walls but caught himself on a chair of fire and used the forward momentum to tackle me to the ground. We tumbled, intertwined, and his magik rolled off him in waves. Strength and warmth, that was all I felt, as my dizzy vision swam.

  “Krystin!” Ben shouted, but his voice cut off as if he’d been attacked. Probably had. This whole mission was a mess.

  Giyano ground my shoulders into the stone floor and grinned at my pain. I tried to move my hands between us, but before I could, he scooped them up with one hand and held them over my head. Giyano slammed his free hand into my chest and purred, “Requirem.”

  My body quivered as my magik left my system—save for a tiny white spark in the back of my mind. It shone in the darkness, a starburst of white—the power of Alzan. It had to be. Which meant Alzanian magik was more powerful than a spell designed to take away power?

  I didn’t have time to think about that right now, or how exactly I was to attempt utilizing that power when it remained so far away from me. I kicked frantically up between Giyano’s legs, anything to give me a moment to act. He grunted in pain as I rolled away to freedom. I stood up fast, reaching to the ground for my sword. I held it up in front of me. “I don’t have time for you right now, Giyano.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re the only reason I’m here,” he said as he righted himself from the ground. “You were foolish to come.”

  “We’re not leaving without the kid,” I told him.

  “My dear, I don’t plan on you leaving period,” he said. “Not for a long while.”

  If that wasn’t an unappealing thought, I didn’t know what was. I still planned on hightailing it out of the Hunter Circles after this mission, All Hallows’ Eve be damned.

  Come on, power, I thought. If you’re there, if any of that stupid prophecy is real, now would be a great time to help me out so we can get on that whole saving-the-city thing.

  Some sort of warmness answered, defrosting the wall around my heart. Not like love or something weird, but raw power. Like the feel of a large campfire after wandering around in the wintertime woods at night.

  The power of the Son and Da
ughter named in the Alzan prophecy, limited as it were. I was only one half of the whole. But it was enough to send a pulse of bright white light out of my body and into Giyano—one which, instinctively, I knew he couldn’t deflect.

  He crashed into a stone wall and slid down it, lifting his eyes. “There you are.”

  “Oh, shut it,” I said and charged with my sword.

  “Maybe another time,” Giyano said as he dodged my swing and came up quickly. “But for now, take this.”

  So lightning fast it barely registered, he grabbed on to my wrist and shot a pulse of fire into my skin. It burned, but as he pulled away, nothing was there.

  Until my veins screamed.

  Dammit. What was this guy’s obsession with dumping his dark magik into my system? Once again, this time it wasn’t enough to kill me or light up my body into rejecting the magik and spilling every ounce of it through every available pore. No, instead his dark magik burned my veins from the inside out.

  My legs gave as my skin flared, a cold sweat dripping down my brow. Shit. I’d fallen for it. Again. This was not good. I managed to look over my shoulder in time to see Ben and the others losing their fights. Despite taking out three of the five demons guarding the antechamber—and I’d been surprised we’d taken out three to begin with—the other two closed in. We were going to lose.

  The upside: If there were this many guards here, Riley also must be here. Which meant we still had a shot.

  I turned back to Giyano. “Look, you sick bastard. I don’t know why you want me so badly. But if you let them live, I’ll come quietly.” I wouldn’t, obviously. If I went with him at all, I’d be kicking and screaming Aloysius’s name to high heaven and deep hell below. But if it got them out alive, maybe even Riley, too, I’d use whatever bargaining chips I had.

  Giyano sneered. “As lovely as that sounds, I know you’d rather die than serve Shadow Crest.”