Fate

by Nadine Nightingale

  An asshole, that’s who.

  A fucking coward who didn’t know how to survive her proximity any other way. You see, Amanda Bishop was never just a forbidden drug, getting me high. She was…still is the girl I was…I am ready to live for. Yeah, I was supposed to say the girl I’d die for. Every damn love song ever written is about some dude who’s ready to bite the dust for his girl. But here’s the thing, I’d die for a fucking stranger. Almost did. Several times. Sorta comes with the job description of a hunter. PAU looks for Heroes Ready To Die For Others—that’s me, Alex Remington. Except, I’m not a hero. I wouldn’t take a bullet for selfless reasons. I’m the guy who isn’t afraid of death because deep down he’s aware he doesn’t deserve to live. Natasha did. My little sister was sweet and caring. She had her full life ahead of her. Me and my selfishness are the reasons she never gets to grow old. Had I watched her, like my mom asked me to, she’d still be here. Instead, I chose a fucking PlayStation game over her. So yeah, dying is easy. Living for someone, knowing you’ll have to carry all that guilt for another fifty or sixty years? That’s petrifying, at best. Impossible, at worst. Yet despite everything, I saw a future when I gazed at Manda—our future.

  None of that matters anymore, Remington.

  Nope, it doesn’t. After what went down last night in Washington, Manda tops the Hunter’s Most Wanted. Freelancers, PAU agents—they’re all out looking for the witch who presumably killed over five dozen of their own. Guilty or not, they will hunt her down, and kill her.

  I slam the short glass on the table. Over my dead body, a roar echoes through my burned soul. I will not stand by and watch her die. I will find a way to fix this. Whatever the fuck it takes, I am going to make sure Manda is okay.

  Oh, Remington, you said that before, remember?

  How could I forget? It’s how I acquired a first-class ticket to hell.

  ****

  I lay in my motel room, eyeballing the Jim Beam bottle on the table. Whiskey in the morning. Tequila in the afternoon. Bourbon at night. Repeat. Sticking to this daily routine helped me through the past two weeks. The booze erased the images Maria Bishop had planted in my head in that rat-hole of a strip club. When I drank, I didn’t think of Manda as the queen of darkness and bringer of doom. I only thought about getting my next fix so I wouldn’t see her mesmerizing emerald gaze every time I closed my eyes.

  Things changed last night. I’d woken to twenty-two missed calls from JJ. The huntress—one of the few humans who could actually kick my ass—and I had a casual Friends With Benefits thing going in the past. For the time being, we had screwed each other’s emptiness away. Good sex had always been the best way to forget how fucked up one’s life truly was. But even back then, she never called me twenty-two times.

  Hazy and still wasted, I’d keyed in her number. She’d picked up on the first ring. “Alex,” she’d barked. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  Sleeping the bourbon out of my system. “What’s up? Where’s the fire?” I’d assumed she needed help with a case. Never in a million years had I been prepared for what she had to say.

  “Have you heard from any of your grandpa’s old hunter-pals, yet?”

  “No. Should I have heard from them?”

  “Shit. So you don’t know, do you?”

  My mouth tasted like a damn bar after weeks of neglecting to wipe the booze of the counter. I had no patience for rhetorical questions. “JJ, what the fuck is going on?”

  “Is it true you dated a witch?” JJ had never beaten around the bushes. Why would she start now?

  “Alex,” she yelled when I kept quiet. “Did you date Amanda Bishop?”

  I could have lied. “Yes. So?”

  “Do you love her?”

  Odd questions had always been her specialty. “No.”

  “So you do.”

  “I—”

  “Then you should know her mother was here yesterday.”

  Wait. What? “You spoke to Maria Bishop?”

  “She asked me to kill her daughter.”

  Yeah, I wasn’t the only hunter Maria Bishop had approached. According to JJ, the woman had been a busy bee, moving up the east coast, begging every damn hunter crossing her path to off Manda. She shared her horror tales, convincing them her daughter had to die, or all was lost. The icing on the bloody cake? The damn bitch made sure everyone knew about Manda and me. She had told them I refused to kill Manda, because I was truly, madly, deeply in love with her daughter.

  And as if that hadn’t been bad enough, I’d gotten hundreds of texts in the past few hours. All from hunters. All asking the same damn thing: Is it true, you’re in love with a witch?

  The only person who wasn’t aware of what was happening was my little brother. And I was going to make sure it stayed that way.

  “Sure you don’t want to come?” he asked, strolling out of the bathroom, all dressed up in his FBI attire.

  I shoved the pillow under my head and nodded. “You’ve got this.” He wasn’t going to hunt the vamp we’ve been tracking for days. He was just going to talk to some witnesses. Jesse could handle that. And more.

  “All right.” He grabbed the car keys. “See you, later.”

  “See ya.”

  “And Alex,” he said, hand on the doorknob. “Try not to drink yourself into the grave, okay?”

  My gaze darted to my best friend—bourbon. While he’d helped me through the past weeks, I had a nagging feeling he couldn’t solve my current state of misery. “Get out of here.”

  He sighed heavily. There was something bothering him. But he knew me too well to get on my bad side on days like these. “Take care.”

  My thoughts revolved around hunters, witches, and death when someone knocked on my door.

  I got up, certain Jesse had forgotten his keys. Again. But it wasn’t my brother glaring back at me when I swung the door open. It was a tall dude dressed like James Bond with better shoes. Seriously, the leather sparkled.

  “Can I help you?” I grumbled, on the brink of slamming the door in his face.

  His lips twitched into a half-smile. “Alexander Remington?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m Legend,” he said. “And we need to talk about Amanda.”

  Legend? As in the fearless and ruthless leader of the Malleus Maleficarum Order—a society dedicated to rid the world of demons? I had heard stories about him and his companions. They were living legends in every sense of the word.

  I stood there, dumbstruck. What the hell was the super-hunter doing here? And had he really said we needed to talk about Manda, or was I imagining things?

  “Can I come in?” He pushed past me, not interested in my answer.

  I didn’t appreciate the dude’s attitude. “What do you want?” The edge in my voice clearly defined my emotions.

  “Maria Bishop said you refuse to believe her?”

  If I heard that name one more time, I was going to find her and kill her myself. Manda’s mother or not, the woman was a piece of work I couldn’t handle.

  “Maybe you’re more inclined to believe your ancestors.” He pulled an ancient tome out of his bag.

  I gazed at the blackened monstrosity, unsure what to make of it. The pages were tattered, the writing illegible.

  Maybe you’re more inclined to believe your ancestors, he’d said. Probably because the book was written in old German. Despite my heritage—my mom’s family had moved to the States from the land of Oktoberfest and beer—I’d never learned the language. I only recognized it because my grandpa had old hunting books in German.

  Legend rolled his sleeves up, exposing his arm-full of symbolic tatts—old, protective runes, Buddhist mantras, Hindu prayers, the Muslim symbol for Allah. The guy was a walking and talking manifestation of religion in all its forms.

  “Let me help you.” He hovered over the ancient tome and read, “And with the help of the First Knight, the queen of darkness shall rise. Born of the ashes of the oldest magic, blessed with second si
ght and endless power, the untouchable brings forth hell. For she is the key. She is the beginning and the end. Woe to you, Prince of the Dark. She will be what makes you afraid of the dark.”

  I had no clue what any of that meant. Frankly, I didn’t want to know Legend’s theory either. Something told me I wouldn’t like it.

  I was right. “I’m aware you have feelings for Amanda Bishop.” He took a deep breath, masking the pity in his cold blue eyes. “But she needs to be stopped.”

  My voice slowly returned. “What makes you so sure this is about her?” It could be about any witch fated to be the new ruler of hell.

  Legend came prepared for that question. He pulled a stack of photos out, scattering them across the table. “Look at them,” he urged. “You know him, don’t you?”

  I recognized the photo he pointed at immediately. It was sent to me, anonymously, with a note stating Amanda Bishop was a witch. Yup, Legend had a photo of the dead mother who tried to assault Manda in that alley. “So?”

  “All of these men are dead because they fucked with your witch one way or another,” he blurted out.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What are you saying?” Of course, I knew what he hinted at. That Manda killed them. That she was a killer that needed stopped. But I had to hear him say it.

  “See that symbol?” He pointed at the chest of the alley asshole. A sigil—the personalized mark of a demon—had been carved into it. “Every single victim has the same mark. It’s the mark of a Knight of Hell.”

  I burst into laughter. Not because any of this was funny, but what Legend suggested was even crazier than Manda being a heartless killer. “You think Amanda Bishop works for a demon?”

  He shook his head, slow and deliberate. “No.”

  He confused the fuck out of me.

  “I’m saying the Knight of Hell goes beyond and above to protect your witch,” he continued his cryptic speech. “Why do you think he does that?”

  I grew tired of the asshole. “Enlighten me,” I barked, arms crossed.

  “Amanda Bishop is the key to unlocking hell,” he said. “And this Knight of Hell will do anything to draw her to the dark side.”

  Fear chewed at my gut. “Did you watch too much Star Wars as a kid?” I tried to sound cool and funny; he didn’t need to know how petrified I truly was.

  He drew a deep breath, meeting my gaze. “Unlike Maria”—they obviously knew each other well enough for first name basis—“I’m not here to ask for your help, Remington.”

  Had I mentioned how badly I wanted to smash the dude’s face? “Then why are you here?”

  He gathered the photos and the book, shoving them in his bag. “This is a courtesy visit,” he announced after a short pause. “We’re both hunters. You deserve to know that all of my men are out looking for Amanda. They have strict orders to kill her.”

  My heart failed me. The tales told about the Malleus hunters were gruesome. They had never shown mercy, and once they set their eyes on a target, they finished the job. In short, Amanda was a dead woman walking.

  I wanted to throw the bastard out and call her. Someone needed to warn her. Handling a bunch of freelance hunters was one thing. Being on the kill list of the Malleus Order something completely else. There was just one problem. Legend’s visit wasn’t just to inform me. The guy was smart. He’d calculated the odds and assumed I’d get in touch with Manda. Then he’d only have to track my call, or follow me and bada bing, bada boom Manda would be six feet under pushing daisies.

  Nope. I wasn’t going to play his game. Manda was intelligence walking. She had never used her real name when checking into motels, only paid cash, and hadn’t left a paper trail so far. I had always kept tabs on her—even when I tried to forget her existence. So it’s safe to say it’s easier to spot Elvis’ ghost than Manda. Meaning, they wouldn’t find her unless I helped them, or she wanted to be found.

  “Thanks for the heads up,” I said, holding the door for him. “And good luck with your hunt.”

  He left without another word.

  I swore an oath, right then and there. I would not stand by and watch Manda die. I would find a way to fix this. Whatever the fuck it took, I was going to make sure Manda would be okay.

  ****

  “Classy.” Jesse yanks the short glass out of my hand. “Real classy, bro.”

  My gaze darts from him to Carter. The two have me surrounded. Carter raises his brows. “You’re getting shit-faced while your girlfriend is out there wreaking havoc?”

  I smirk. “What do you want me to do? Call the witchbusters?” It’s either sarcasm or a mental breakdown. I don’t think Carter and Jesse could handle the latter. Not when I have a gun in my holster.

  “Shut up,” Jesse hisses. Last time he wore that particular expression in tenth grade, he’d beaten up Tom Stratford for being an asshole to his girlfriend Kimberly. The girl wasn’t the brightest bulb and Tommy-boy loved to embarrass her. By the time my little brother was pulled off Tom, Tommy-boy lost most of his front teeth. Guess the joke was on him. Yup, high school never forgets when a senior gets his face smashed by a fifteen-year-old.

  I keep my gaze on the counter. “How did you even find me?”

  Jesse pulls a barstool out. “Your phone has GPS, remember?”

  How the hell could I forget little brother is watching me? I scan the bar for the mamba. “Where’s B?”

  Jesse averts his gaze.

  Uh-oh, I sense trouble.

  “She wanted to be alone,” Carter answers.

  “Like me?” I shoot back.

  Carter sighs. “All right, Remington, spill it.”

  “Spill what?”

  He nods at Jesse, signalizing it’s his turn to break down my walls. “Carter thinks you’re hiding something.”

  I eyeball my boss. “Does he, now?”

  “C’mon, Remington.” He inches closer, lowering his voice. “Do you think I won my PhD in the lottery?”

  God, he’s killing my last nerve. “Will you leave me the fuck alone if I say ‘yes’?”

  “I saw the look in your eyes when you watched the video,” he goes on, constantly scanning the bar for spies. “You weren’t surprised. You were scared. And when I told you about the prospect of Amanda raising hell, you didn’t even blink. Why’s that?”

  I try to play it down. “I’m unshockable.”

  “That’s not even a word,” Carter counters.

  “Dude.” Jesse’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Carter has a point. I know you better than I know myself. Your reaction was definitely odd. So how about you drop the bullshit and tell us what the fuck is going on?”

  Whatever deal I made with the demon is void. I’m not in hell and—whatever. The point is why am I sticking to the terms and conditions of a deal that no longer exists? I meet my brother’s gaze. He was turned into a zombie, trying to save my soul. At the very least, he deserves the truth. “You want to know why I sold my soul, Jess?”

  He furrows his brows. “Yeah, but—”

  “For—”

  Two phones cut me off. Jesse’s rings; mine buzzes.

  A text from B. “There’s something I have to tell you about Amanda and Leandro,” she wrote. “Meet me at my apartment in twenty.”

  I don’t have time to question her weird message. Mostly, because my brother screams into the speaker of his phone. “Are you sure? They’re all…dead?”

  All heads turn our way. Jesse couldn’t care less. He paces up and down, up and down—kinda like Road Runner on steroids.

  “Shit,” Jesse barks, once he’s off the phone.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “They’re all dead,” my little brother murmurs, eyes wide.

  “Who’s dead?” Carter inquires.

  “The witches,” Jesse says.

  I understand jack. “Which witches?”

  He sighs. “JJ called. Cassadaga is a ghost town. Literally.” He swallows hard. “The whole community was slaughtered, Alex.”

  What? “How�
��s that even possible?”

  He shoves a text from JJ under my nose. It’s a pic of several corpses. Behind them, on a wall, is a note written in blood. It reads, On the first day, she saved his soul. On the sixth day, she’ll climb the throne. The prophecy comes true when the moon—it ends right there. Awesome. Just awesome.

  Carter’s lips part. But whatever he’s got to say dies along with the lights, and all electric equipment. Folks groan. Some, including us, move outside.

  NYU is dark. There’s a damn power outage across the city.

  What the fuck is happening?

  Chapter 19

  Amanda

  The First Grimoire is lit up. Letters glow like molten lava. Blood—my blood—courses over the blackened pages of the oldest and most powerful spell book ever written.

  “Finish the spell,” one of Clyde’s minions—a faceless creature with hollow eyes, and no nose—barks.

  Knees weak, palms sweaty, I face Clyde. He sits across from me, completing the circle his five faceless minions formed around the makeshift altar. He shows no remorse, no mercy. And I know…I just know it’s pointless to argue.

  “Do it,” faceless creature one barks. “Do it now!”

  Icy shivers run down my spine. I have already unleashed darkness. The moment I finish the spell, the instant I chant the last line, the eternal balance between good and evil will tip. Only God knows how many innocent people will lose their lives due to what I’m about to do.

  Can you really live with that, Amanda?

  Now I have a conscience? Where were you when I barged into the headquarters of the FBI, huh? Or when I caused riots all over the damn country?

  Fuck. I close my eyes. Alex’s remarkable face blazes behind my eyelids. If I don’t follow through with this, he’s going to rot in hell.

  Yeah, but what happens if you do go through with it?