by Jessica Gunn
“How?” I asked as I stood. Pain sliced through my side and I winced. “I think I bruised a rib.” Or worse.
Nate stood in front of the main entrance with the turnstile doors. “There’s magik protecting the entire exterior. I can feel it pulsating. It’s keeping everyone out. Our teleportante must have bounced off it like what happens if you try to teleport into Hunter’s Guild.”
Except we hadn’t been expecting it, hence the fall. “They just got here. What could Kinder have done that blocked us out like this?”
“Might not be Kinder,” Shawn said. “Fire Circle Headquarters has protocols in case of attack. A shield might be one of them, like the ether shield that was protecting Lady Azar’s lair.”
I turned to Nate. “Is this one ether-based? Can you break through it?”
He shook his head. “No. I… I don’t know what type of magik this is. It’s neither ether, nor elemental. It’s something else.”
Shawn’s fists clenched at his sides. “It can’t be, though. There is no other type of magik.”
Nate stepped forward and raised his hand but stopped short of actually touching the front door. “It’s older. At least, it feels ancient.”
“Fucking fantastic.” I made my way over to Rachel and checked her shoulder. It was still bleeding. I tugged off my jacket and tied it as best I could around the wound. It didn’t exactly look like high fashion, but she wouldn’t bleed out. “You need a doctor.”
“And Fire Circle Headquarters needs help,” she said. Her gaze wandered over my shoulder. “People are staring, Ben. We appeared out of nowhere.”
I turned, watching the people who were, indeed, stopping to look at us. Not good. Not fucking good at all. “Is there another way into Headquarters?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of. And anything we do now will be seen by innocents.” And given the building looked one hundred percent different from the outside, there was no way to know where we would pop up even if we did get inside.
“Shit!” I shouted. This had become the worst sort of day.
The people watching us jumped and hurried away, but it wasn’t long before more people stopped to stare.
Rachel reached out for me. “Stop, Ben. There’s nothing we can do.”
Nate looked over his shoulder. “I can try to break through. The intent is the same as the shield surrounding Shadow Crest’s lair, even if the magik type isn’t.”
Shawn’s gaze snapped to his. “We have to do something. Krystin’s inside this building attacking and possibly killing people under Kinder’s control. You saw what happened at that Hydron operation. It only took a few seconds. Kinder has had her for entire minutes.”
“Dude, chill,” Nate said.
Shawn glared at him. “No. My magik’s gone. I’m useless in this fight. If Iris hadn’t cleaved my magik in two, I’d probably be able to get through that fucking shield.”
“How?” I asked. “If Nate can’t get through it—”
“Because my magik is half-demon, same as Kinder’s. And she started all of this.”
“We need Giyano,” Rachel said, her words cutting through the devolving situation with ease. It silenced all of us.
I spun on her. “Are you kidding me?”
She looked up to me. “I don’t know, Ben. It’s all I can think of.”
“No, we’re not trying to find that bastard. We’ll get in ourselves.”
“Then we’ll deal with the consequences of this after,” Nate said.
“What?” I asked, but he’d already placed both of his hands on the front door of Headquarters.
Nate’s body recoiled against whatever shield was there, but he held on, digging his fingers into the magik shield. White ether ebbed out of his hands and flowed against the shield like water.
Passersby gasped. One raised her phone as if recording the scene.
“Nate!” I called to him, but his focus was entirely on whatever he was attempting to do.
Our secret would be out for sure. All of the Hunter Circles would be exposed because of this. Because of Kinder and Krystin.
Lightning crackled around my fingers, little strikes hopping from one finger to the next. There’s an idea. I lowered the charge as best I could and sent the low lightning, almost static, toward all phones in the area. The woman holding hers up jumped and dropped hers as it shorted out in her hands.
“Ben,” Rachel warned.
“Just enough to keep this from getting out,” I said. “There’s no other way inside. We have to let Nate try.”
“It’s not working,” he called over his shoulder. “Whatever this is, it’s too strong for me. Too ancient. My ether can’t break through it.” Nate stepped away from the door, his expression fallen.
An idea popped into my head, one that might go nowhere. Still, I climbed up the steps and stared at the door. It’s worth a shot. I looked over my shoulder to Shawn. “Isn’t the Alzan magik ancient, too?”
Shawn’s glare turned on me. “I can’t work it without Krystin. And we never unlocked it anyway. That requires these stones and time and—”
“But you healed her with it once,” I said, looking him right in the eyes. “And she said she felt it inside of herself before, too. You do have access to it, Shawn. But maybe just in dire situations.” I glanced at Headquarters. The shield was so thick that I couldn’t even see the lobby like I normally could. “I think this counts. Just think of what could be going on inside right now. The number of Hunters dying or needing help.”
Shawn’s gaze dropped. “My magik’s gone, Ben. Iris’s asanak.”
“Can you reverse it, Nate?” I asked, though I figured the answer was probably a no. If he could, Lady Azar would have had one of her ether-shapers reverse it by now.
Nate shook his head. “No. I didn’t realize Iris or any of the other ether-shapers in the Ether Circle could use that move. I knew they were powerful, but…”
“They never told you?” Rachel asked.
“No.”
“Figures,” I said. Seemed like the Circles didn’t want to foster anyone’s abilities if they got too strong. And Nate was one hell of a magik-wielder.
He waved it off. “I learned more from the monks, anyway.”
“Doesn’t solve my problem,” Shawn said. “I can’t work magik that isn’t there.”
“That’s just my point.” I pointed to the knife at his waist. “Remember what Krystin’s mother did to track her? That was blood magik, not witch. It’s an older form of magik that’s been forgotten.”
Shawn’s brow furrowed as he peered up at the shield surrounding Headquarters. “I don’t know that this is going to work. This magik, whatever it is, it’s meant for Krystin and me. Not one of us on our own.”
He shook his head, then he reached for his Fire Circle knife. Shawn sliced open the palm of his left hand and slammed it against the magik shield. His entire body shook as the shield swayed beneath his blood. A bright white light washed over the building, electric shocks riding each floor. Two ancient magiks warring over a building that stood for too much in this war until finally, the magik shield around Fire Circle Headquarters dropped, shaking Shawn away from the door.
“What the hell was that!” someone shouted from the streets. A few other screams followed.
Shawn stumbled backward a few feet and tore off a piece of his shirt to wrap around his palm. “That shouldn’t have worked, blood magik or not.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go. We need to save whoever’s left.”
But as we rushed into Headquarters, leaving the civilians outside to wonder what they’d just witnessed, an overwhelming blanket of smoke and the smell of burning human flesh seized my lungs.
There might not be anyone left to save.
Chapter 25
KRYSTIN
We left a bloody, burnt trail behind us as we went. Kinder stayed behind me the entire time, cleaning up any Hunters I missed along the way. And while each step closer to Jaffrin’s office
stirred a sense of wrongness inside me, of a darkness I couldn’t extinguish, each ball of fire thrown at a Hunter gave me freedom. Hope.
For so long, I’d wanted this: to be free of the Fire Circle and from Jaffrin’s control. Just three months ago I’d considered, in a brief moment of dark thoughts, killing him where he stood. And now, I would.
I grinned as fire scorched the walls of the second floor. Fire Circle Hunters poured in from every doorway, but I flung them away with air pushed into their faces. They flew down the corridor, against walls. Finally, it seemed, I’d learned how to use my new air-elemental magik.
“Almost there,” Kinder purred as we approached Jaffrin’s door at the end of the hall.
“Finally, he’ll get what he deserves,” I hissed.
Kinder laughed. “Good to see at least that genuine side of you right now. I knew you weren’t as blinded by the Fire Circle as you pretended to be.”
“Jaffrin is a bastard.”
“And a liar,” Kinder said. “But that’s something for another day.”
I shook my head and picked up my pace into a jog as I made my way down the hall. Avery, the leader of Jaffrin’s top team, ran out of Dacher’s office with the rest of his team in tow. They formed a barrier near the end of the hall, protecting Jaffrin and his second-in-command, Dacher.
“Stop,” Avery said as his scared eyes searched mine. “What are you doing?” He drew a sword from a sheath on his back and fell into a battle-ready stance.
“Ending it all,” I said.
He squinted, then his eyes went wide. “Kinder.”
“Hello again, Hunter,” she cooed, waving to him.
Avery’s gaze returned to me. “If she’s making you do this, tell me, Krystin. Otherwise, I have to take you out too.”
I smirked, considering him. “As if you could.”
A clicking sound echoed from behind Avery, then four pistols appeared over his shoulders. Right. His team was one of the few that fought with cowards’ weapons instead of the traditional ones.
Avery adjusted his grip on his sword, as if wishing for a gun himself. I scared him that badly? Good.
“Your weapons don’t pose the threat you wish,” Kinder said. More Hunters fell in behind her, surrounding us. She turned to me. “Act, Krystin. You have to get to the stone.”
Her words warmed something inside of me again, a wooden fire in the middle of winter calling me home. Home to the only person who understood exactly how I felt.
My fingers twitched, white-hot flames dripping off of them. I swung a leg back so I could easily see both ends of the hallway and then—
The first shots rang out, a barrage of loud bangs firing from Avery’s team. I threw up a fire-wall between us, eating the bullets before they reached me or Kinder, who jumped into the fray with the Hunters down the hall.
Magik flew, both mine and the Hunters’, but smoking out Avery’s team was easy as long as I kept the wall of fire between us. I pushed them backward until Avery forced them into Dacher’s office and shut the door.
Placing my hands on the wooden door, I pulsed fire magik into the panes over and over again, but a golden wave of ether magik fell over the surface, protecting it from my attack.
“Dammit,” I shouted, banging on the wood.
“Focus!” Kinder shouted.
I turned and found her tangling with the Hunters. She’d managed to get a set of weapons from them and was trading blow for blow. A swipe of a sword, a slash of a knife. Now that I watched her fight from a distance, I could see how fast she moved, how agile she was. It wasn’t a power, per se, but a practiced sort of muscle memory that seemed to allow Kinder to move much faster, dodge more attacks, than anyone I’d ever met, demons included.
Maybe that’s what immortality did to you. Right now, immortality didn’t sound so bad.
I raised my hands and pushed them outward, sending a current of air down the hall. It coned around Kinder but pushed back all the Hunters she was fighting. She laughed as they fell, but not before grabbing one of the few magik-users in the group by the neck.
“Thanks for the pick-me-up,” she said to the Hunter as she collected his magik. The Hunter’s eyes flashed white as he winced in pain. Kinder dropped him to the ground, then walked toward me, palm lifted up. A tiny sphere of ether spun there. “An ether-shaper. Convenient.”
“Let’s go,” I growled.
Kinder only grinned.
With Avery’s team locked inside of Dacher’s office, likely evacuating him to safety, that left only one target on this floor: Jaffrin and the stone inside his office.
I continued down the hall, Kinder behind me. Jaffrin’s office door wasn’t shut. My eyes narrowed as I peered inside. “Nobody’s home.”
Kinder’s brow furrowed, but she walked in ahead of me. “Then let’s take what we came here for and go. It is the most important thing.”
I nodded, then followed behind her. As soon as we were both inside, the door slammed shut behind us and Jaffrin melted into sight out of nowhere.
His eyes narrowed in on me, a knife in his hand. “You have one chance to prove you’re just under her control, Krystin. Give me a sign. Even if it’s not verbal.”
A spark of something, desperation maybe, ignited in my throat. My mouth moved, lips trying to form words, but I wasn’t conscious to what they might be. My eyes squinted and opened, my breath coming in shallow gasps.
Kinder placed a hand on the small of my back, though I doubted Jaffrin saw the action. “She’s not under anyone’s control anymore, are you, Krystin?”
My breath evened, determination settling in my gut. Centering me. Get the stone. I was too far in to stop now.
“No.” I reeled back my hand and sent a wave of fire flying at Jaffrin’s face. It wasn’t as personal as a knife or my hands, but it would have to do to kill the man who’d controlled me for most of my life.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a stone, holding it before him like a shield. The flames wrapped around him, starting from the stone, and instead of burning him, my fire leapt to the walls and nearby door. The wood cracked beneath the heat and fire, smoke rising almost instantly.
Kinder launched herself past me, attacking Jaffrin with her fists. They traded blows, Jaffrin weaving and dodging around everything but the first attack. He was a good fighter, better than I’d given him credit for, but Kinder’s relentless barrage of fists left me no opening to help her out.
I watched as both of them landed blows on each other, their faces and knuckles bloodying. Neither slowed down or used magik.
“The stone!” Kinder called as she landed another attack that snapped Jaffrin’s head back against the nearest wall. He stumbled, dazed, and fell to his knees. “Get the stone.”
I turned, looking at Jaffrin’s desk. Behind it was the safe, the one I’d seen every time I’d come into his office. Every time he’d scolded me or given me orders. I’d never given the unassuming oak box a second glance. It was so small, a foot by maybe two. I’d always assumed it was where he kept his personal effects, never once thinking it was a magikal safe.
“Krystin, don’t! It’s not what you—”
A hard smack cut off Jaffrin’s words. “The stone, Krystin.”
I nodded and made my way toward the safe. My fingers brushed the outside wooden edge, smooth and ancient. It had no writing on it and no hard edges. Just smoothed-over corners. A handprint had been indented into the wood on the front face. I reached for it with my right hand, praying that whatever magik locking this safe would allow me inside.
“Don’t! It’ll kill you!” Jaffrin shouted. Another smack of a punch echoed across the room. “Krystin.”
I turned in time to see Kinder lift Jaffrin up by his throat, tiny ropes of ether wrapping around his hands, arms, and legs. He couldn’t move even if he tried—unless he had actual magik, not just parlor tricks.
“Are you telling the truth?” Kinder growled at him.
“Y-Yes,” he said through gritted
teeth as he wrapped hands around her arm. “What’s inside—it needs to be… protected.”
Kinder’s eyes narrowed. “And only you can open it?”
“Forget him, Kinder,” I said. “I’ll be fine. The Powers wouldn’t let him lock something away that I couldn’t get to. Especially if it’s the stone I think it is. They can’t risk killing me.”
Jaffrin’s eyes widened. “Not—it’s not—”
Kinder’s hand squeezed tighter. “Are you the only person who can open it?”
Jaffrin stared her down for long moments, but as his face paled, so must have his resolve. He nodded solemnly.
Kinder smirked. “Good.”
She reached with her free hand for the knife at her side and dropped Jaffrin at the same time. In the next instant, she lifted one of his arms and sliced off his hand. Blood spurted from the wound and Jaffrin screamed, clutching his arm to his chest.
Kinder scooped up the hand and tossed it at me. I caught it, but it slid around in my grip from all the blood.
“What the fuck?” I shouted, disgust running coursing through me. My stomach roiled, twisting around itself as bile rose in my throat.
“The safe, Krystin. Now.”
My panic settled behind determination again, by that need to please Kinder thanks to her borrowed magik. I gripped Jaffrin’s hand tight and pressed the bloody appendage to the safe’s lock. A swirling bright light emerged from his hand and the safe clicked open, the door disappearing all together.
I dropped his hand to the floor as soon as the stone was in sight, sitting there in the middle of the safe. “It’s here.”
“Krystin, please,” Jaffrin begged, pain twisting his features as he rocked back and forth, his words practically being puked out of his mouth. “You don’t understand.”
I whipped around, thrusting a finger at the air. “No, you don’t understand, Jaffrin! You’ve controlled me my entire life. Controlled the flow of information about this fucking prophecy. But now Shawn and I know the truth: you had the keys to our magik all along. And now you and the Ether Head Circle want to weaponize it.” I turned back toward the safe and reached for the stone. “Well, too fucking bad. Game’s over.”