Hunter Circles Series Books 1-3: An Urban Fantasy Box Set

by Jessica Gunn

  I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut against a massive headache causing my entire head to throb. That last demon had really done a number on me. “It doesn’t change the fact that after two years of searching for Riley, after finding him, I had to hand him off again.” Correction: I’d chosen to. And it’d been the right decision. But that didn’t make it sting any less.

  “Working yourself to death trying to take out all the demons in Boston inside of a month isn’t going to bring Riley home any faster,” she said.

  “I—”

  She lifted a finger. “And before you say it, neither will training hard and then going after Lady Azar. If—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—Giyano hadn’t stepped in, we’d have all died in Shadow Crest’s lair.”

  I cursed under my breath. Screw Giyano. For stealing Riley. For hurting Krystin. For setting us all up to join the Fire Circle—in one way or another. And now here we were, thanking him for saving us.

  “Believe me, I feel exactly the same way,” Rachel said disgustedly. “In either case, you need to stop going out alone. Does Jaffrin know?”

  “I signed the log. He knows.” My phone rang in my pocket. I sighed, closing my eyes. “What are the odds that’s not him calling?”

  Rachel looked over at the clock above the TV. “At seven in the morning? Not likely.”

  “Great.” I pulled my phone free from my pocket and swiped my thumb across the screen to pick up the call. “Hello?”

  “Ben,” Jaffrin said. “I’ll be sending Avery’s team over with the details later today. I need your team to recon a possible demon nest up north.”

  My eyebrows rose. “North? Where?”

  “New Hampshire.”

  “Near where Hunter’s Guild used to be?” That’d make no sense. No one had built anything within a huge radius of that building. While only the Guild itself was protected under the non-violence magiks, the entire wooded area was generally considered neutral ground.

  Generally.

  “No,” Jaffrin said. “Farther north.” Something about the way his voice faltered set me on edge. Did he know something we didn’t?

  Probably. Jaffrin’s entire M.O. was knowing more about any given topic than anyone else in the room.

  “Like I said, I’ll send Avery’s team with the details later, on their way to patrol downtown,” Jaffrin said. “Take the day off and rest.”

  I nodded, though I wondered if that meant I wasn’t allowed to come down to Headquarters. But the healers… “Will do.”

  “Oh, and Ben?” he asked.

  My stomach dropped. This couldn’t be good. “Yeah?”

  “Good job on those solo missions last night,” he said, sounding genuinely pleased.

  “Thanks,” I said slowly. Jaffrin praising me and Rachel angry at me—both were sure signs of the coming apocalypse.

  The line clicked off and I dropped the phone from my ear.

  “That bad?” Rachel asked.

  “Team mission tonight. He said to take it easy until Avery and his team got here with the information.”

  Rachel looked me over, her eyes rounded. “You better get out of here, then. Sleep and shower. Heal what you can.”

  I nodded, my headache pounding. “Will do.” I pushed off of the couch and climbed the stairs to the second floor of the team’s house, leaving Rachel to make her breakfast.

  Nate’s door was shut, his snoring loud enough to be heard despite it. I chuckled as I walked down the hall, wishing I could sleep that carefree these days. My room was near the end of the hall right next to Krystin’s. Scents of various incense filtered out from Krystin’s door.

  Good. That meant she was awake. But she also might be in the middle of some Blackwood witch thing.

  I knocked softly anyway.

  “It’s open,” she called halfheartedly, like her mind was mostly elsewhere.

  I turned the cool metal knob and pushed the door open a few inches. Krystin sat in the middle of her floor surrounded by papers and maps. She had a large notebook in her lap and a pen in her mouth as she moved a big tome from one side of her to the other. The papers on the floor appeared to be photographs of other books. She’d developed purple bags under her puffy eyes, which stood out against her light gray hoodie and dark leggings.

  “Sleep much?” I asked.

  She glanced up, as though acknowledging my presence for the first time. “Huh, me? Oh.” She looked around at the papery mess. “No. Not last night. Not since Shadow Crest’s lair.” Her eyebrows scrunched together. “What happened to your face?”

  I sucked in a deep breath, which only served to jostle my ribs and make them ache. “Exactly what it looks like.”

  “You went out by yourself again?”

  I… hadn’t realized she knew. Okay, Rachel had probably told everyone. But none of the others necessarily kept tabs on me. Even Nate never did back when it’d just been me, him, and Rachel. “Yeah. It was rated as an easy mission.”

  She looked at me, deadpan. “‘Easy’ for a five-man team does not mean it’ll be a walk in the park for a single magik user.”

  I shrugged and eased myself against the door frame. “It’s over now. And all the demons are dead.”

  “Seems like you’re not far behind.” Her eyes wrinkled. “Do you want me to call a healer from Headquarters?”

  “Rachel already offered after lecturing my face off. Jaffrin’s got us slated for a recon mission tonight.”

  Krystin’s eyes lit up. “Oh? Back to normal so soon?”

  “I doubt it’s as normal as he’d have us believe.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  I filled her in on the few details Jaffrin had given me, moving to the edge of her bed when my body started to ache too much. “What are you working on? Looks like you’re preparing to break into something.”

  Krystin pushed the book off her lap and swiveled to face me. “Just some demon research, mostly on Shadow Crest. I want to be prepared for when Lady Azar inevitably strikes back at us.”

  I groaned. “I don’t want to think about that.” But how could I push it aside? Lady Azar’s eventual revenge and Riley’s safety were not mutually-exclusive items. “Find anything useful?”

  She shook her head and stood. “No. I think I’m going to move on to a list of Old Ones instead. Try to figure out who’s responsible for Hunter’s Guild.”

  “Good plan.”

  Krystin looked down at me, her blue eyes a lot darker today. In fact, her skin looked grayer than it should. “You sure you don’t want to go to Headquarters now? I’m sure they’ve got at least one healer free.”

  I stood, too, and made for the door to her room. “I’m good. Be ready for later.”

  “Okay,” she said, and I left.

  The longer I avoided Jaffrin about my demon fights last night, the better off I’d be. Maybe I could get out of going to Headquarters tonight at all.

  Wishful thinking.

  LONG AFTER AVERY and his team had dropped by with the mission’s details, Jaffrin led us from Headquarters to a Fire Circle station somewhere in northern New Hampshire via teleportante. There, he left us to go on the mission by ourselves.

  We headed out into the woods under the cover of nightfall toward what was supposed to be an abandoned building, but which had recently seen demonic activity. The night’s sounds stirred in the crisp, cold air. Owls and other small nocturnal animals scurried away from our path. I tucked my nose into the top of my jacket and pulled my hat down over my ears.

  Krystin shivered beside me. “Okay. We need to pick up the pace or I’m going to freeze.”

  “I second that,” Nate said, hurrying alongside Rachel, who was nearly jogging. “It’s so much colder here than Boston that I might walk around in shorts when we get back.”

  Shawn chuckled dryly. “You’re insane. Even back home it’s too cold for shorts.”

  “Where are you from again?” Krystin asked, peering at him over the tips of her fingers. She had her hands ov
er her mouth, blowing air onto them as if that’d help warm her fingers up. Not likely at this hour of the night.

  “North Carolina,” Shawn answered, stepping over a log in our path. “This kind of cold isn’t something I enjoy.”

  “With any luck, this will be over quickly,” I said. “Recon. In and out. Jaffrin doesn’t want us to attack.”

  “Wonder why that is,” Rachel said. “Usually he’s keen on demons being forced out of an area.”

  I shrugged. “Who knows? Let’s stay quiet from now on unless someone sees something.”

  We marched on through the cold winter woods for another half hour, keeping a lookout for this supposedly once-abandoned building. We’d seen nothing, aside from trees, more trees, and the occasional animal that didn’t get the “humans on the way” alert.

  But, finally, the smell of a wood fire burning wafted under my nose. I paused, sniffing some more. “Guys—hey, I think we finally got something.”

  The others looked to me and I waved them on in the direction the smell seemed to be coming from. We climbed up a small hill that turned into a ridge on the side of a drop-off. In the valley below, only visible thanks to light peeking out through the windows and the smoke billowing out of a chimney, was a huge log cabin, much bigger than even the lake house my grandfather owned. But the cabin, what little I could see under the bright moon, appeared to be older rather than newer, with wood stains and worn-down corners.

  “Well, at least it’s something,” Krystin commented. She swung the backpack off her shoulders, dug out two pairs of binoculars, and handed one to me.

  “Thanks.” I grabbed them and settled in against the cold ground so there was no chance anyone from below would see me peering down at them. “Recon is a go.”

  Krystin hunkered down next to me and brought her binoculars to her eyes. “Seems like a normal old house to me.”

  “That’s always what they want you to think. Odds are this is nothing more than a demon nest that’s gotten out of control. Let’s move in.”

  Krystin and I moved to flank the house, with Shawn, Rachel, and Nate heading straight for it. We moved on light feet, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. Being stealthy wasn’t by any means our strong point, and no matter what we tried, it seemed that, in the dead of night in this cold forest, every twig arose to impede our path.

  By the time Krystin and I had gotten into position at the back end of the house, the others had texted me.

  “They’re ready,” I said.

  But Krystin had frozen beside me. Anything that made Krystin freeze up terrified me to the bone. I looked over and saw her eyes wide, unblinking, her mouth agape.

  The house was small enough to see around to the front from here, where the others would no doubt be able to watch this same scene unfold.

  A group of demons teleported to the front of the house. A fresh teleportante from somewhere unknown. The group was mostly male with one female in front carrying a giant shimmering chain that led to somewhere in the middle of their party of a dozen or so members.

  “Wha—” I started.

  Krystin pressed a hand flat against my chest, the silent command clear. What had her so…?

  Auras. I’d forgotten Krystin could see them, a byproduct of her Blackwood heritage. All demons carried auras, a sort of floating cloud of light that followed them around. The brighter and stronger the aura, the more powerful the demon—or so I was told. If Krystin said to wait, these guys must have had strong ones. Auras powerful enough to warrant not attacking.

  I gulped.

  “Let’s get a move on,” the woman ordered, her voice strong and sure. She wore dark pants, a deep purple top, and a fine, long jacket. From where I crouched behind a large boulder, it was hard to make out more than that, though the bright moonlight bounced off the jewelry at her neck and wrists, bracelets hanging over a set of black gloves.

  “Yes, mistress,” one of the men in the group said, tugging on the chain coming from the woman’s hands.

  The group started to move, but someone screamed from the middle of their party. “No! Please! Don’t do this, we’re not—”

  Someone surged backward, making a run for the trees. My muscles tensed, feet poised to move and intercept. Krystin’s palm pressed harder, some hidden force keeping me in place—her telekinesis.

  “Enough!” shouted the woman. Her hands glowed a bright gray and she yanked on the chain, forcing a middle-aged woman, two men, and a female teenager to take a few awkwardly-large steps toward her or risk falling to their faces. They had their hands bound before them, each a link in the chain the demon woman and her entourage held on to.

  My stomach lurched. No… no way. These demons, they were like the ones I’d fought in Boston right after I’d joined my trainer team. They were trafficking… witches, it had to be, to hold for Autumn Fire next year. To turn them into demons, or to use them for life energy to keep other demons alive.

  “Witches?” I mumbled as quietly as possible, so as not to draw attention our way. How we’d gone undetected so far, I didn’t understand. Especially Rachel, Shawn, and Nate. Were they seeing this, too? Would they attack before Krystin and I did?

  Krystin nodded almost imperceptibly in the dark.

  Shit.

  Slowly, I reached toward my back to grab my Fire Circle knife. Not that it’d do much against eight powerful demons, but it’d at least give me a sense of control, considering mine was suddenly otherwise spiraling out of the picture.

  Krystin’s hand on my chest turned into a fist and she funneled her telekinesis into pushing my feet back an inch in the dirt.

  Okay, okay, jeeze, I thought as loudly as I could, hoping that the thoughts would make it through her mental walls. She had spent the last month telling me how loud I was to her telepathy. Maybe she’d hear this, too. Intercept or run?

  She didn’t have time to answer, as one of the male witches broke the line again, taking off at full speed to the right. He created fire out of nowhere and set one of the demons alight. The demon cried out as he dropped to the ground and started to roll, trying to put out the flames.

  Still, Krystin’s hand held fast on to my chest.

  We need to do something, I thought at her.

  She shook her head again just as the demon woman—who appeared to be in charge—slammed a fist into the ground. A pillar of earth jutted up out of the mossy undergrowth beneath the man, shredding him… in two. In half, right up the middle.

  My stomach roiled and I closed my eyes, blocking out the sickening sight of the two halves of him dropping to the ground with a near-simultaneous thud. The rest of the woman’s captives wailed, screaming out.

  “I said enough!” the demon woman bellowed.

  She waved two closed fists in the air and the handcuffs holding each witch’s hands flew up and knocked each one of them in the head. The entourage of demons caught them and, at the woman’s command, carried them inside the house.

  Stomach churning, sweat beading on my brow, I turned to Krystin, whose chest heaved with heavy breaths. Without a word, she slipped her phone out of her jacket pocket and texted Nate three words: Retreat. Headquarters. NOW.

  CHAPTER 8

  KRYSTIN

  We landed almost instantaneously back at Fire Circle Headquarters. I tore my arm from Ben’s grip and started pacing up and down the main hallway. This was not good. Not fucking good at all.

  “Krystin?” Ben asked, following me with his eyes.

  But I didn’t know what to do first: tell them or tell Jaffrin or run as far as possible right now. Away from New England. As far away from Landshaft, the city of demons, and its bounty hunters as humanly possible.

  Those poor witches—they’d be held and sacrificed next Autumn Fire, during the time when most captive humans were forcibly transformed into demons. A time of the year when dark magik was at its height. And there was nothing we could have done about it. Anyone who made an enemy of Landshaft soon found themselves with a bounty on their head a
nd assassins on their trail, whether we’d successfully saved those witches from being trafficked or not.

  Luckily for us, I was pretty sure I’d gotten the team out of there before we’d been seen.

  I rushed down the hall and into the lobby.

  Derek, the night administrator, sat behind the front desk, eyebrows scrunched together. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be on a mission right now?”

  I leaned over the counter, glaring at him. “Call Jaffrin in. He’s gotta be back by now.”

  Derek glanced nervously from me to his computer. “It’s one in the morning.”

  “Do I look like I care?” Jaffrin might have set us up. I couldn’t knock that feeling, though I knew it was likely my own bias. But if he didn’t know, he needed to. Right fucking now. “Tell him Landshaft is involved.”

  Derek’s eyes bugged wide. “I’m sorry—what?”

  “Call Jaffrin,” I shouted. “Now.”

  “Krystin, you can’t be serious,” Ben said as Derek made the call.

  I trailed back into the hallway, where the rest of my team still stood, now with shocked faces. “Yes. That’s exactly why I pulled the plug. We can’t take them on.”

  Ben swallowed hard and ran a hand over his face. “This is…”

  “Not good, I know,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” Nate asked. “It seemed like a normal house to me. You know, for a demon nest.”

  “That was Tatiana Viynar,” Shawn said, hands clasped behind his back in a military pose. “Head Huntress of Ember witches. She’s known in this area in particular.”

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. “And you know this because?”

  “Training, mostly,” Shawn said. “And hearsay. I went through my training period with a handful of Ember witches. They were all told not to go to New Hampshire for this very reason, not to mention the fact that everyone knows the top bounty hunters operate within Landshaft. The Trade isn’t a joke.”