Hunter's Revenge: A Mayhem of Magic World Story (Rebel, Supernatural Bounty Hunter Book 2)

by Nicole Zoltack

  The cainians shake their heads like dogs. Half charge toward me, the rest toward Darius. Desperate for a better vantage point, I glance around and rush over to the nearest tree. I quickly jump and climb onto the lowest branch and don’t stop climbing.

  Thankfully, Darius takes note and does the same. Once we’re high enough, I ready to take aim when something heavy slams into my tree. I grip the trunk, thankful the scepter hasn’t fallen out of my hand. I need it to be soldered to my palm. If I drop it, if they somehow get their grubby paws on it, that’s it. They would destroy it and any chance of destroying them.

  One of the cainians is actually biting Darius's tree. Seriously? They have razor-sharp teeth, but now they're going to act as if they're part beaver?

  I shake my head and grit my teeth. The others are going over to join the one biting Darius’s tree. Only one is beneath me, and he’s slowly changing back to human form.

  He’s going to climb the tree.

  With great care, I stand on the branch.

  “Darius!”

  He eyes me, the “human” cainian, and then the scepter.

  I hold out the weapon, but before I can accept his magic, the cainian does something surprising.

  He starts to lift the tree out of the ground so violently that I begin to fall headfirst.

  “Darius!”

  His magic somehow connects with the scepter, and I blast the cainian with everything the scepter has. A blast sends me back upward into the air. I’m almost flying for a moment before I rushing back toward the ground even faster now.

  I fall onto something cold and hard.

  The cainian.

  The dead cainian. There's a massive hole where his chest used to be.

  With terrible whines, the cainians back away from Darius’s tree as they realize one of their numbers has fallen.

  One down. Four more to go here with twelve more to go overall.

  Scratch that. My heart sinks as two more cainians appear out of nowhere.

  They can teleport now?

  And that means half of them are here.

  When will this never-ending nightmare end?

  Chapter 26

  It doesn’t take the cainians long to recover from their grief at their fallen brother. They tilt back their tiger-like heads and howl before nearly snapping at each other in their haste to attack the tree Darius is in.

  My knees shake, and my legs are more than a little unsteady after that fall and hard landing. I stand, stumble, and right myself before swallowing hard. Darius is trapped.

  Or is he?

  “Darius!” I shout.

  Once he meets my gaze, I pointedly stare at the next tree over. It won’t be an easy jump for him, but if he can keep the cainians focused on him, maybe I can take out another one or two. The faster we kill them, the better our odds at surviving.

  Darius gives me a look that says you’re crazy. If I am, so is he, and what choice does he have? The tree is already swaying. It's going to come crashing down, and he could get hurt in the fall, and the cainians will pounce on whatever remains of him.

  The witch doesn’t need any more prompting. He clings to the trunk as he climbs to his feet, and he runs along the branch and jumps. My heart leaps into my throat, and I actually fist bump as he lands on another branch.

  Only his feet slip out from under him. He starts to fall, but he manages to grab onto the branch with one hand. For a long moment, he dangles before he’s able to hold onto the branch with his other hand and pull himself up.

  That's Darius, all right. Always has to make things interesting.

  My heart won’t stop beating heavily as I aim the scepter.

  Nothing happens.

  I’m out.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  If Darius shoots the scepter now, they’ll know what my plan is. As it is, they’re scrambling over to Darius’s new tree. Everything is going according to plan, only my magical scepter isn’t quite so magical at the moment.

  I have two choices. I can either climb a tree, head toward Darius, and get him to recharge it, but chances are high that they'll realize what I'm doing.

  Or I can just chase them down and attack them using the scepter as a weapon. If they turn against Darius and all converge on me, I won’t last long.

  Neither option is for the best, but I have to do something. They’re headbutting Darius’s tree, and their massive strength is working far better than their teeth had. This tree will be down in no time.

  It’s now or never.

  I swallow hard, suppress a yell that I’m not even sure why I feel like bellowing, and race toward the cainians. Darius’s tree is starting to crack. Holding the scepter like a javelin above my head, I close in.

  Darius’s arcane magic strikes the scepter.

  His tree falls.

  Two of the cainians whirl around to face me.

  Hoping Darius had time to jump to another tree, I jab the scepter forward but don’t release it, only sending out the magic. The cainians avoid the blast, and I grumble under my breath. I used up a lot of the magic in that attack. Maybe I should’ve kept more in reserve and done two smaller ones. If I do one and then the other, maybe the second could redirect the first to make sure it hits its mark.

  Too late now.

  The cainians close in, and I jump back and lash out with the scepter. The backward and forward motions so quickly together have me falling flat down on my stomach, and I roll away just in time to avoid being crushed under the paws of one of the cainians.

  “Come on now,” I chide as I climb to my feet. “Don’t you want to fight me as a man?”

  But the cainians just stalk toward me, and I mutter a curse to myself. They're playing with me. Maybe they can sense when the scepter is low on magic.

  Just then, Darius lets out a yell. Tears prickle my eyes. In a blind rage—seriously blind, I can hardly see—I race forward, slashing wildly with the scepter. One of the cainians roars, and I open my eyes. I nipped his paw, that’s all, the same paw he’s bringing forward to swat me.

  I stand my ground and wait, wait, wait, now! With everything I have, I swing the scepter, and I cut the paw right off. Black blood sprays everywhere, and I run forward and jab the scepter upward through the underside of the cainian’s mouth. I keep pumping my legs and shoving upward, trying to force the scepter up through the roof of the mouth into the brain, but either this cainian or the other one knocks me right off my feet. I slam to the ground too quickly for me to breakfall, and my head hits a rock. Dizzy, I sit up. A curtain of black blood falls from the wounded cainian, and I grab onto the scepter.

  Thankfully, my hold is tight and secure because the cainian takes off running. With every step, I yank the scepter out a little more until finally, the weapon is free… which means I slam to the ground again. Air whooshes out of me. I’m really taking a beating, and it’s more from my efforts against the cainians than anything they’re doing to me. Man, are they a pox on the Earth!

  Darius screams again, and I jerk to my feet. My head is so woozy that I can’t orient myself. Which direction did his scream come from? He’s wounded. I’m wounded. One of them is, but the odds are so in their favor.

  The odds have always been in their favor.

  We're going to die fighting them, and while that's a noble enough death, and the cainians' numbers will dwindle even more, but will there be any way in the future for the others to be killed? How exactly had Morgana been able to recover pieces of the scepter to give the fighters before us a sporting chance against the cainians? I have so many questions for them, but honestly, questions mean nothing. Only results matter.

  I need to make like Yoda. Dad and I both love the character, and the little green dude has it right. Trying isn't ever good enough. You either do, or you don't, and I've never been one to settle for second best. I've always been a go big or go home type of girl, and I’m not about to go home.

  A single step has me falling down onto one knee inches from a sharp, ja
gged rock. A grin crosses my features as I seize it and use the scepter as a walking stick to support me as I straighten and toss the rock up, catch it, and toss it again and again.

  “Hey, I heard your dad died from a bunch of rocks. What a lame death.”

  The wounded cainian gargles and charges me. I sway back and realize there’s a tree there. Good. Using the tree for support, I toss up the rock one more time and use the scepter as a bat. The rock hits the cainian right between the eyes, slowing the beast down enough that I aim the scepter at his eye. He resumes his pace, and I shift to stand beside the tree, readjust the scepter, and the cainian—the stupid creature—runs right into the scepter. Down he falls with a thud, and I have to brace my foot against the back of the trunk to pry the scepter out from his eye.

  Two dead. Darius wounded. I refuse to think he might be dead. I’m somewhat wounded myself.

  A backhand to my shoulder has me staggering, and I whirl around to see the other cainian who had been stalking me. He’s in “human” form, and he’s glaring at me.

  “Darwin got him. I always knew he wouldn’t be the last among us to stand tall,” he says bitterly.

  “He almost made the top ten. That’s impressive.”

  The cainian stalks toward me, and I walk backward cautiously. I don’t want to walk into a tree, but I don’t dare look away.

  “You think you’re so smart,” he spits out.

  “I don’t think anything at all.”

  “You will fall if you do not join us. Our patience has limits.”

  “Why on earth would you need me?” I ask.

  “You wish to be paranormal, do you not?”

  I say nothing.

  “We can grant you the power to become one of the horsemen. War suits you rather well. After all, what if you kill the next archduke?” His grin is terrible and wicked.

  My stomach twists into knots. “No. I’m done killing.”

  "Don't lie, girl, not to me, not to yourself. The only reason why you survived both attacks on your family is because we knew you would become a killer under the right circumstances, and you did."

  "Yep. I'm a killer, all right. Killer of two of you. Want to be the third one to die?" I lift up the scepter.

  The scepter is lifted into the air.

  What in the world?

  I grip it with two hands as a bleeding Darius pulls me up into the tree. It’s a mad scramble to get high enough to get out of the clutches of the cainian, but we manage.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him.

  “I’m fine. Fineish. I’ll survive.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  He blinks once.

  Yeah, that had been a stupid question on my part.

  I glance around and realize just how many trees he’s had to have jumped from, one to the other, to get over here.

  “Are you part monkey?” I ask.

  “Now’s not the time for jokes,” he mutters.

  “Sure it is.” I offer him a smile.

  A massive roar beneath us has me realizing that the cainian who spoke to me is in his hybrid form now. The others have crowded around the bottom of the tree too, and the talker places one paw and then another onto his brothers’ backs. Is he going to climb on top of them? No. He’s using them to prop himself onto all fours.

  And if he’s seven feet tall as a human, he’s more like ten feet tall now and at eye level with us.

  Darius reaches over and touches the citrine, powering it directly. Before the cainian can react, I’m blasting him with the magic of the scepter square in the face. His face disintegrates into ash, and he slowly falls backward.

  Of course, the cainians below us scatter so that he doesn’t fall onto them, but their numbers are dwindling. Maybe we really can do this!

  “Hurry,” I murmur to Darius, and he charges the scepter again.

  The cainians, though, are running around too fast for me to hit any of them even with the wide radius of each magical blast. A few of the trees end up taking the brunt of the attacks, and more than one sways.

  One of the cainians rams into a weakened tree, and I gasp. “It’s going to fall right into our tree. Darius, we have to move!”

  He stands, sways a bit, and jumps to the next tree. “Come on. It’s not that bad.”

  “Not that bad, he says,” I mock. I close my eyes.

  “You can’t jump with closed eyes.”

  “Watch me,” I mumble, but I do open them right before I leap.

  I fall through the air, pass Darius’s outstretched hand, and make the stupid choice to look below. The gaping maw of a cainian’s salivating mouth is directly beneath me.

  As I fall, I force the scepter to point straight down. The teeth cut into my clothes and nip at my skin, but the scepter’s tip carves straight through the back of the cainian’s mouth. The neck falls slack, and I have to crawl out of the mouth, yanking the scepter with me.

  Nine left. That’s it. We’ve killed four already. Three more are here.

  Darius scrambles down the three and helps me up as the three converge on us. I can’t see Darius in the flashes of fur and fangs, and I can hardly use the scepter. I can hardly move. I can’t see. There’s only darkness around me. Is this it? Is this the end? I got too big for my britches, and I won’t be the only one to pay the ultimate price. Darius will too.

  Somehow, I can see again. The cainians are stepping away from me, and I lift my head enough to see that another cainian has arrived.

  One I recognize.

  The one who killed Mason and Gracie.

  I try to sit up, but I can’t. My body aches everywhere, and I feel crushed. Utterly crushed. Both emotionally and physically.

  “It’s time,” the most hated cainian says.

  My ears prickle. Time? Time for what? What’s going to happen now?

  Through tear-laden lashes, I watch as the cainians start to run away. One by one, they disappear.

  They’re gone, but somehow, that’s even more terrifying. Just where are they going? What do they have planned? What can be more important to them?

  My chest tightens, and I can hardly breathe. I don’t want to know the answers to any of my questions, but I have a feeling I’m going to learn very soon.

  I also have a feeling I’m not going to like any of the answers.

  “Darius…” I force myself to sit. No way am I going to even attempt to stand right now. Where is he? Ah, he’s not that far away at all.

  “You’re going to be the death of me,” he grumbles.

  “I’m trying to do the exact opposite,” I inform him as I crawl over to him.

  “Yeah, well, try harder.”

  “Picky, picky.” I sit and brush his sweaty hair from his forehead. He looks as bad as I feel, and I bet I look as bad as he does too.

  “What do you think it’s time for?” he asks.

  Somehow, I find the strength to clasp his hand and help him to sit upright. “I have no idea.”

  “Doesn’t sound good.”

  “No.”

  “Time for them to end us?” he guesses.

  “They wouldn’t have to flee for that.” I bite my lower lip. “No. My theory is that it’s time to end the world.”

  Chapter 27

  The amount of fairy dust I have is almost gone, but I don’t want to wait around here in case the cainians return. Should we return to my house? To Morgana’s island? Maybe she has some healing potions we can use. If I don’t have a healing potion or spell, I’m not going to have enough fight in me to have another go at the cainians.

  “You’re thinking so hard I can smell your brain burning,” Darius jokes.

  “At least I’m thinking,” I retort.

  “About?”

  “Where to go.”

  “To find them?”

  “No! So we can recover.”

  Darius snorts. “I don’t think they’re going to give us enough time to fully recover.”

  “All we need is a potion.”

  �
�And where are we going to get one?” he asks.

  “You’re the witch, not me. You seriously have no idea where we can get a potion?” I’m incredulous.

  “Wherever you want.”

  I furrow my brow. “There aren’t going to magically be potions wherever I want.”

  He sighs. “You can’t think of any places?”

  “Ah… My brain hurts.”

  Darius laughs. “Everything on me hurts.”

  “No, I think I might have a mild concussion.”

  “I take it wouldn’t be your first.”

  “No,” I say dryly. “It wouldn’t be my first.”

  “Then you really do need a potion in case of a brain bleed.” He rubs his forehead. “We might as well go to Ye Ole Chestplate.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to endanger any of my friends.”

  He grins. “Fun. Then how about we endanger my friends instead?”

  “I don’t know of a lot of trustworthy witches, remember?”

  “Yes, yes.” He sighs and rubs his forehead.

  “Do you have a concussion too?”

  “No, I didn’t hit my head. Maybe we should go to HEX U.”

  “No way. I would rather go to Magical Hunters Academy.”

  “No, let’s not.”

  I frown, confused. “Why not?”

  "Let's just say that things there have gone a little downhill since I graduated. There's a new headmaster, and I don't know if she would appreciate a former paranormal executioner showing up and demanding potions. It's not exactly good for morale, you know? It won't look good for the school. And I know you don't have a good feeling about HEX U, but—"

  “We just need to get out of here,” I interrupt.

  “With a destination in mind.”

  “Yes. Of course. Let’s go to your… No.”

  “My what?”

  “Nothing. Forget about it. Bad idea.”

  “Tell me,” Darius begs.

  Me and my bad mouth. I had been about to suggest his parents since I figure they’re witches too, but I do not want to meet his parents.