by Jessica Gunn
“She won’t get me,” Shawn said, defensive. “I didn’t realize Hydron even knew about the prophecy.”
The Hydron special agent laughed. “You’d think that now. But with a bounty on your head as high as it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone came out of the woodwork.”
Which was, of course, when the wall facing the street shook so much that it gave out. The hole let in the cold nighttime air, cooling me immediately. But in through that hole flew a human-sized shadow.
I tried to follow it, but it moved too fast. That’s when said shadow landed inside the room and slammed a fist into the ground, superhero style. The entire building shook, but something told me that it was the cianza that was actually shaking.
Then Kinder looked up and focused her view directly on me. “Surprise me once, shame on me. Try to surprise me twice, shame on you. Stay off of my cianza unless you plan to help me make it explode.”
CHAPTER 20
KRYSTIN
Kinder slammed her foot into the ground and a pillar of cement rose right in front of Ben. He saw it in time and leapt but was so distracted he didn’t see her next attack—a flying bar of metal. She slammed the bar into his gut and he collapsed, falling forward with one arm wrapped around himself.
“Ben!” I shouted. But as I went to run toward him, a horde of demons appeared. True demons this time with wild auras that whipped around them as though they were wearing flames. The dozen or so newcomers let out war cries, attacking both the Hunters and Hydron operatives.
This had all been a trap by Hydron. And now we might all die because the government wanted to meddle in something they didn’t understand.
One of the demons charged at me. I backed up and readied myself, raising my sword high into the air. I had to get to Ben before Kinder killed him, but without my magik…
No. With the three of us here, plus demons… I couldn’t. Exploding the cianza wasn’t worth killing Kinder.
None of us should even be in this city.
I met the demon halfway, slicing at his middle before coming back up to shove the butt of the weapon’s hilt into his head. He grunted, stumbling, but threw his palm up into the air. I cried out as my body forcibly moved of its own accord and slammed against a wall with my foot and ankle crashing against it first. Pain sprouted, shooting up my side. Stars danced along the edges of my darkening vision. The demon grasped at the air in front of him and I sailed back his way.
Telekinesis. Shit.
His fist collided with my face when I was in range, dropping me like a stone to the floor. My sword clattered next to me. Ow.
“Some powerful Hunter you are,” the demon purred, bending down so his mouth was close to my head. His breath smelled of something foul and it was all I could do not to barf on him. “I don’t see in you what Kinder does.”
“Joke’s on you, buddy.” I kicked up, landing a foot to his face, and forced myself back onto my feet while he reeled away, clutching his bleeding nose. Pain radiated up one leg. I tested it out with one step and pain splintered up from my foot up through my knee. Fuck. I’d landed too hard against the wall.
“I don’t know about that—” The demon’s words were cut off by a sword-shaped chunk of cement flying through the air and into his chest. His eyes shot open wide, but his skin grayed before either of us knew what’d happened.
I glanced in the direction the attack had come from, not knowing if it’d been from another Hunter or from Kinder. But there hadn’t been an earth-elemental on our detail—they were pretty rare to begin with.
Kinder stood there, rocks flying in a circle above her palm. “This fight belongs to us, dear one.”
I straightened and wiped the corner of my mouth. My fist came away red with blood. I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Just thinking of putting weight on my injured ankle flooded my senses with pain. “Why do you demons insist on calling me ‘dear’?”
Kinder smirked as she stepped closer to me. “Because we’re one and the same.”
My eyes narrowed. I bent down and retrieved the sword, falling into my ready stance as best I could. I had to get in some strikes on Kinder—somehow without allowing her within range of me. One touch from her and my magik, though currently bound, would be at her disposal. “You and I are nothing alike.”
She paused. “Are you so sure about that?”
“Yes.” I needed her to act already. To move. To get closer. Because there was a good chance that if I lunged for a first attack, I’d fall flat on my face. My ankle throbbed, the broken bones pushing and sliding against one another. I sucked in deep breaths, trying to center myself.
Kinder chuckled and reeled back her palm. “We will see about that.” She threw her palm forward, sending the rocks flying my way.
I moved my sword, using it to deflect as many as I could—which wasn’t much. A sword wasn’t a shield. I stepped out of the way of the attack, but as soon as weight landed on my hurt ankle, it gave out and I fell to my knees. The cement landing shot pain all the way up my leg and I cried out. White-hot pain pierced my arms, which slicked with liquid—blood—almost immediately. I looked down. She’d hit me with at least two of the rocks, splitting my skin in long tracks.
Kinder stalked closer, peering down at me. “The great Daughter is defeated already?”
Where was Shawn? Where were Ben and Rachel? I knew Ben hated me right now, but there was no way he’d leave me here to die. He wasn’t that cruel, even to his enemies.
Or maybe he was. Maybe I hadn’t known Ben at all and now I never would.
I glanced up at Kinder through a curtain of my hair. “It’ll be a lot harder to kill me than that.” I lifted my elbow, slamming it into her chin. The blow connected and she fell back, but not far. Just far enough to allow me to stand and, swallowing every inch of pain blooming from my ankle and foot, lunge for her.
Two, three, four strikes of the sword. She formed another cement scimitar of her own and we danced, blades sliding together, moving around each other in circles for what felt like forever. Each step nearly blinded me with pain, but I kept moving. One false step and I’d be dead.
Kinder slipped up, showing me her next move before she made it, and I went in for the strike while keeping careful watch on her hands—to stay out of reach. At the last moment, she kicked up a small pillar of cement that knocked my sword off its target, allowing her to get into my defense space. She parried my sword out of my hands and grabbed me by the neck, lifting me up off the ground.
She grinned evilly and looked all around her. A few demons had fallen but far too many of our Hunters were also down. Dead or unconscious, I couldn’t tell. This mission had gone from bad to worse in a manner of seconds—a mission that wouldn’t have been conducted if Hydron had ever fucking told the Circles what they’d been up to.
“Maybe we should even this fight out a bit, hmm?” she asked me. “I don’t like easy prey.” Before I’d processed what she meant, she reached for the crystal at my neck and tugged it off. Holding it in the air before us, she asked, “Why block your powers? It doesn’t change who and what you are. You shouldn’t be ashamed.”
“Not ashamed,” I gritted out. “Too powerful…for cianza.” Like you, I wanted to add, but my breaths wheezed in and out past my lips.
Kinder’s eyes gleamed and narrowed thoughtfully. “Is that what you think? Do you not know the true nature of your magik?”
Oh, great. Another person who claimed to know more about me than myself or Jaffrin.
“I can see what he was attempting to do,” Kinder continued. “Giyano. He always had a thing for gifted witches.”
I kicked out at her, but she dodged it and dropped me to the ground. She still had my crystal in her hand. The cianza was already acting up; I’d felt it the second we’d gotten into this part of town. The magik from the other day was still too raw, still reacting with the geological magik center. If she broke that crystal and released my magik, it might be the tipping point Cianza Boston needed to teeter off the rail
s again.
“Don’t,” I told her, almost begging. “Is destroying the entire northeast really worth your revenge?” That was what this was about. It had to be. Because the Fire Circle had turned on her, a Fire Circle Hunter, and tried to assassinate all those years ago. She’d been trying to get revenge on them ever since. “Why wait this long, for this exact moment?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now.”
What was there to “figure out”? Kinder was one of the most powerful, most influential individuals in the magikal world. If she wanted to take out the cianza and the whole Fire Circle in one fell swoop, she could have done it all along. This cianza had existed here since the beginning of time.
Why now?
With a sudden, striking clarity, the answer rang in my head: Alzan. Her daughter’s plan. Shawn and me. What we’d all do to Cianza Alzan in the final conflict just by being there.
Everything came down to that stupid city no one alive today had ever even seen. To Lady Azar and her plan, and the prophecy claiming Shawn and I would stop her. What was so special about Cianza Alzan that it was worth going to war over?
Kinder smiled, devoid of evil intent. Like she was proud of me or something. “Now you see.” She shrugged. “Unfortunately for you, I still want the Fire Circle to pay.”
I forced myself to stand, lunging for her, but Kinder’s fist closed around the crystal and, with her magik, she crushed it into fine dust that slipped from beneath her fingers onto the floor. A sudden rush of warmth coursed over me as my magik returned, the sheer power of my birthright crashing over me like a wave. The Alzanian magik I still couldn’t use poured over my ankle, numbing it enough to move, and I ran for Kinder, sword raised high. But instead of swinging it, I swiped my hand across the air in front of me.
Kinder flew all of three feet before shackles made from the cement below grabbed on to her ankles and held her in place. She recovered quickly, shooting cement discuses at me, which I tossed out of the way with my telekinesis.
The ceiling above us shook and the walls buckled. Heat rushed over me, a tingling that lit my veins on fire. The cianza.
I looked for Shawn in the chaos. Many of Kinder’s henchmen demons still fought our Hunters, but the odds were very much in our favor now. He met my gaze from across the room, his face paling. If the cianza reached the point it did the other night, we’d have to leave no matter what.
But so far, I was still standing. I’d continue to fight.
I swung my sword, slashing at Kinder over and over again as the floor beneath us cracked and splintered across the room. The Hunters began unlocking their comrades from the cells and taking down the rest of the demons. But enough demons remained to keep my team busy. To keep them away from me when I needed them most.
Because the longer I held back on using my magik, the longer I fought Kinder with a sword—to keep my distance from her—but unable to get in a requirem, the more this situation would delve into city-destroying bedlam.
Kinder got inside my defense space again, but I threw up my palm and stopped her from touching me.
“Use your magik,” she hissed.
I lifted my sword. “I’m not helping you blow up this cianza.”
“Oh, but you will.” She faked me out again, moving too quickly, but I raised my sword and swung for her head. She caught the movement, clutching the blade with one hand and my arm with her other.
It was the latter I should have seen coming.
Palm bleeding, blood running down her arm, Kinder closed her eyes and grinned. My body froze, chills overcoming every inch of me as all the warmth in my body drained completely. I watched as my skin paled to almost full translucence before Kinder let me go. I stumbled to the ground, weak and shaky.
She’d taken my magik.
“Hmm,” she said as she stared at the hand that’d done the deed. It glowed red some, but it wasn’t like back at the bowling alley. “Still not the Alzanian magik, but it’ll do.”
Kinder shot out her hand and everyone in the room—demon and Hunter alike—flew to the outside perimeter. She walked into the center of the space and looked around until she found what she was seeking. Shawn.
“There you are,” she said to him and she used my magik to drag him into the center of the room. “I need something from you.” She made a quick fist and yanked, pulling the crystal from around his neck to herself and crushing it all in one move.
Shawn’s eyes flashed orange for a second. As the Hunters and demons started to get up from the floor and resume fighting, Shawn stood, facing off with Kinder.
“Bad idea,” he said to her. “Or did you forget what happened last time?”
“I wasn’t ready for you then,” Kinder said. “You surprised me; I’ll give you that.”
He grinned. “Good.”
But as soon as he shot an attack of orange flame-ether, the building shook violently. The ceiling above them caved in, but they got out of the way in time.
Kinder laughed, the sound drifting closer to where I sat on the floor, unsure if I could even stand in this state of weakness. My head spun and my breaths came quickly, too shallow.
“One last item on the list,” Kinder said as she approached me. She used my telekinesis to lift me into the air. There was nothing I could do to stop her. I could barely breathe.
She looked at me, genuine concern wrinkling her eyes, and said, “This might hurt a little.”
Kinder lifted her free hand. It glowed a rainbow of colors, like actual little fires and waterfalls and landslides and ether were wrapped around each of her fingers. Each magik, each ability she’d stolen over the years… it’d stayed within her.
Kinder splayed her fingers in the air and slammed her open palm against my chest.
My heart burned, unable to compensate for the amount of magik flooding my system. My lungs gasped for air as I was burned alive from the inside out by magik both good and evil, elemental and ether—power, pure power. Uncontrolled, like Giyano had done. Untamed. Wild. Magik in its rawest form. A white-hot burning that slid along my veins all the way from my heart to my fingers and toes and back again until only a single thread of magik remained.
Only that thread ran along every inch of my body. And Kinder held the end of it.
That was when another wave of demons landed in the crumbling room with us, a familiar leather-clad woman standing in the lead.
Tatiana Viynar.
CHAPTER 21
BEN
I wasn’t sure which was worse: Tatiana Viynar, one of Landshaft’s top bounty hunters, and her sudden appearance, demon entourage and all, or whatever Kinder had done to Krystin.
Krystin stood there, frozen, as her skin flashed color after color, as if she stood beneath concert lights at a rock show.
Kinder turned to face Tatiana, a sneer on her face. “Retreat now and I’ll let you escape with your life.”
My body tensed as I thought through our options. Retreat didn’t sound like a bad idea. But attacking both of them, killing both, sounded even better.
Rachel grabbed on to my arm and squeezed. “Don’t.”
“Krystin—”
“Isn’t on Tatiana’s list,” Rachel hissed. “Kinder is. She’s on everyone’s.”
Tatiana mostly hunted Ember witches. Which was exactly why Hydron had set up this trap for her. But with Kinder here, I wasn’t sure if Tatiana would go after Shawn or Kinder or anyone valuable.
I watched as Shawn inched away, using Tatiana’s temporary fixation on Kinder to back up. How’d she even find us here? She hadn’t attacked when Shawn’s magik hadn’t been bound a few days ago. Why now?
Unless she really was after Kinder.
“Kinder,” Tatiana said. “Betrayer of Darkness. And the Fire Circle.” She reached for a glowing knife sheathed at her waist. “I wonder who will pay more for your head, the Fire Circle or the husband you left behind?”
Dust and debris continued to fall from the ceiling, the walls shaki
ng. I wasn’t sure how much time we had left before the whole structure came down, but it couldn’t be long. And we still had to get all the Hunters out of here, most of whom were unconscious or severely wounded.
My heart raced, too many plans of action racing through my mind. I should get the others out first. Avery had to be thinking the same thing. But all I could focus on was Kinder and Tatiana about to square off—with half of my team directly in the line of fire.
Nate. Where’d he go? I glanced around the room and spotted him crouched behind a fallen chunk of cement, not ten feet from Krystin. Waiting. For what? Ether swarmed around his hands.
Kinder watched Tatiana, her eyes narrowing. Kinder could take us alone, but I had no idea how powerful the bounty hunter was. Kinder must not have known either because she paused for way too long. “My business is my own. Leave, bounty hunter.”
Tatiana lifted her glowing knife in front of her. “And leave you to wander free? Your head alone would let me retire in excess comfort for the rest of my life.” She chuckled darkly. “If I turned you in to Aloysius alive, well… he might just make me immortal, too.”
Kinder’s gaze turned into a fiery glare as her body went rigid. “You will never take me alive.”
Tatiana tilted her head. “Guess we’ll see about that.” She lunged for Kinder, moving much faster than a normal person or demon should have. Gusts of wind picked up around her. She was an air-elemental. That was the only explanation.
“Go!” I yelled to Nate. With both of those powerhouses distracted, now was the perfect time to collect our teammates. To Avery, I shouted, “Get everyone out of here now. This building is coming down.”
As if on cue, another chunk of ceiling fell, but Kinder moved it aside, throwing it into a nearby wall as she traded blows with Tatiana. I wasn’t sure what sort of magik was on her knife, but whatever it was had scared Kinder half to death. And that was enough to terrify me into never wanting to know.