by Jessica Gunn
My stomach dropped. A cold chill crawled up my back. “You know about that?”
An evil grin slid across his face. He flicked his hands and two sets of red-orange manacles formed around the couple’s wrists. “I know quite a lot about you, Ava. Or should I call you ‘Christine’? Which is more preferable to you these days?”
Don’t. If I reacted, if I let him get to me, I’d lose my head completely. But even as I gave myself the command, a cold sweat slicked my brow and my pulse raced in my ears. Plenty of Talon soldiers knew my real name. But how many Ember witches did?
None. Not unless they worked for Talon and that organization had sent them specifically after me.
Except… the Fire Circle hadn’t heard anything in the past three months. Unless you counted the Ember witches at Headquarters earlier today. Only now were Hunters being attacked again. And from the looks of things, this demon had been trying to round up…
They’re not humans. Not normal ones. The couple had to be witches. Or magik-users. This close to Autumn Fire at the end of August, this particular demon must be rounding up magik-users to be turned into demons.
“Now you’re piecing it together,” the demon said in a low voice.
Kian finally stood behind him, watching the exchange.
“You’re one of their soldiers,” I said. Talon’s plan had worked. At some point, they’d been hoarding Ember witches to turn fully into demons because their magik was mostly demonic to begin with. But that didn’t explain what he was doing here.
The demon’s grin became a laugh. “Soldier? Hardly.” He waved his hand again and a wall of flaming Ember ether rose between him and I—also separating him and Kian. “Until next time, Ava.”
The wall of flames grew, flashing with power for a few seconds before dropping completely. The demon—and his victims—were gone. In the air where he’d been standing was a mirage; it wasn’t the result of the Ember ether but from the teleportante trail he’d left behind.
A trail that probably went to Landshaft.
“Don’t,” Kian said as he staggered forward, clutching his side. “We can’t follow them into the demon city.”
“I know.” Aside from it being fully stocked with thousands of demons, we’d probably die from aura sickness upon landing the teleportante. “We should at least report this, though.”
Kian’s eyes went wide. “And let Dacher know we broke out for the night?”
My gaze drifted to his side. The demon had slammed him into the wall pretty hard. Hopefully. Kian had just been bruised. “That demon knew my name. Don’t you also find it strange his magik wasn’t pure Ember ether? Something happened, Kian.” I glanced down the alleyway to the bar we’d met him at. “Talon’s plan, the one my team lost their lives to report, must have worked.”
“They’ll be pissed,” Kian said.
“Dacher’s smart enough to realize we weren’t going to stay under house arrest forever,” I said. “Besides, you need a healer.”
Kian’s mouth slammed shut, his jaw locking. “Guess so.”
Irritation bloomed inside my chest. “What is your problem tonight?”
“You get magik, and we still couldn’t defeat that demon.”
I blinked at him, my jaw hanging open. Anger swelled in my chest. “Excuse me? Did you see the way he was using his magik? That guy has absolutely had magik his entire life. I couldn’t take him out, not even if I’d been training for longer than three months.”
“At least you have magik,” Kian spat. “You can fight. I ended up injured. Again.”
I reached out for him. “Kian—”
“No,” he said. “Let’s just go back to Headquarters. Teleportante.”
A cold wind swept through the alley in the wake of Kian’s exit. I stared up at the night sky, wondering… wondering too much. I sighed, closing my eyes. I supposed it was only a matter of time before one of us went nuclear.
Chapter 4
Fire Circle Headquarters was still a bustling mess when we returned. It was hard to believe that after months of relative silence from Talon, they were finally beginning to retaliate. Our run-in with that Ember witch-turned-demon had shaken me to the core.
“Ava!” someone called from the other side of the lobby.
I rocked on to my tip-toes to see above the crowd. A head of short, blond hair was headed toward me. Ben Hallen, one of the Hunters involved in my case from last year and one of three Leader candidates, wore a scowl on his face as he pushed through the crowd to me. He was focused on me rather than the crowded lobby. Which meant only one thing: he and Dacher knew we’d left.
“Hi,” I said as Ben approached.
“Over here,” he said, indicating an alcove off to the side of the space.
Kian was already in there, leaning against a set of windows. From here, we could see outside into the busy streets of Boston. But anyone looking in simply didn’t. On the outside, Headquarters looked like any other skyscraper in Boston’s financial district. Only a ton of ancient magik kept the true nature of the building a secret.
“Hey,” I said to Kian, as if we hadn’t spent the last few hours together. He only gave me a small nod in return.
“Where have you two been?” Ben asked. His blue eyes were electric with anger, though I doubted all of it was geared toward us. Not with the attack on those Hunters earlier.
“We went out,” Kian said. “Just to leave Headquarters for a few hours.”
“And?”
God, he sounded like a parent. Well, Ben was a parent. Just not ours. Not that I’d seen his young son in months now. He must be living with his mother while all this crazy crap with Talon was happening.
Still, Ben had mastered the tone.
“And it was relatively uneventful,” Kian responded. “We stayed out of the way of known demon haunts and only ran into one demon.”
“That part doesn’t fall under the ‘uneventful’ label, unfortunately,” I said when it was clear Kian intended to keep what happened a secret.
Ben’s gaze flitted between Kian and me. “Someone want to fill me in on the truth?”
“There you are.”
I glanced up in time to see Krystin weaving her way through the crowd of Hunters. Well, shit.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“Already got an answer to that,” Ben said through clenched teeth. “You do know the point of protective custody, don’t you?”
Kian crossed his arms. “You should know better than to try keeping people cooped up in Headquarters for months at a time. We were gone for just a few hours.”
“And ran into trouble, apparently,” Ben said. “Explain.”
Krystin’s blue-eyed gaze settled on me, too.
“It was a demon,” I said. “One with Ember witch magik, who ended up taking two magik-users hostage for Autumn Fire.”
“Ember witch magik?” Krystin asked.
I nodded. “At first, I didn’t think much of it because Ember witches are taken by the Trade for demonic transformation all the time, but his magik was incredible. I’ve never seen an Ember witch use their magik like that. Even Shawn.”
Krystin’s face hardened. Shawn was one of her and Ben’s other teammates, and an Ember witch. Or he had been before they’d gone to Alzan and some crazy magik stuff had happened that the rest of the Fire Circle wasn’t privy to. Something weird enough that Krystin didn’t often use her magik now—something she’d been renowned for.
“That sounds unlikely,” Krystin said.
“Can Shawn use Ember ether without being near the ether he produces?” Kian asked. “Because that’s what this guy did tonight.”
Ben and Krystin shared a concerned look. That same kind of look married couples who’ve been together for ten years could share, where a whole unsaid conversation passed in milliseconds.
“I’m starting to wonder if this witch was affected by the poisons Veynix and Talon were trying to produce when my team discovered their plan,” I said. “It’s the same sort o
f result they were looking for.”
Ben nodded. “Maybe. But why send someone so obvious as a transformed Ember witch after more magik-users?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. What concerns me greater is that it was pretty obvious this demon had great control over his magik. It wasn’t just the strength with which he used it, but how. He’s clearly had his magik for years, if not since birth. Meaning that poison Veynix was working on has been around for a lot longer than we thought.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed. “Since birth?”
“Kian can attest to it. His magik was like an extension of his body, not like someone who was transformed into a demon and suddenly had magik because of it.”
Kian pushed off the wall he was leaning on. “What Ava said.”
Ben turned to Krystin. “You don’t think…”
“Think what?” she asked him.
Ben backed up a pace and peered into the lobby. On a wall near the front desk was the Missing Persons board. Ben’s own son had had a picture on there before they’d rescued him from Lady Azar’s clutches. The late heir of Darkness had stolen Ben’s then-newborn son and held him prisoner for years.
Worrying his lower lip, Ben stared at the board for a few good long moments. Then he turned back to me. “Did the demon look like any of the people on that board?”
I walked a few feet closer so I could see it and glance it over. Kian followed closely behind.
“Kind of like him,” Kian said, pointing to a picture on the children’s side of the board. “Exactly like him, actually.”
“Yeah,” I said, seeing who Kian was pointing to. A kid about ten to twelve years old with dark black hair. “How long has he been on the board for? He looks too young in this photo.”
“Shit,” Ben said as he approached Lissandra’s desk, the main admin for Fire Circle Headquarters. She was gone from it for a rare change, so he took her chair and slid it underneath the board. “Krystin, do you remember?”
“Yeah,” she said, following Ben. “But that’s impossible.”
Ben lined the chair up with the kid’s picture, then climbed up to grab the photo from the wall. On the back were a bunch of scribblings of information. I’d never seen the backside of one of those pictures before.
Ben got off the chair and brought it over to us. “I thought so too, but…” Ben read the information on the back. “Mason Whitmore. Kidnapped from his Ember witch parents at age ten. Yeah, see. This makes no sense.” He met Krystin’s curious gaze. “When we saw him in Salem, what, almost two years ago, he had to have been ten or eleven. Twelve years old max.”
Krystin nodded. “But he recognized my witch blood. And he still felt like an Ember witch to me, despite being a demon. It was weird.”
“Two years ago?” I asked, stealing a glance at Kian. “There is no way Mason is fourteen.”
Kian’s expression darkened. “Nineteen with a fake ID at the youngest.”
“How is this possible?” I asked Krystin. Of all people to understand how magik worked, she’d be the most knowledgeable.
Krystin ran a hand through her hair. “I… have no idea. We know demon magik slows down aging so you appear immortal even though you’re not, right? So…”
Ben frowned. “So what?”
She shrugged. “How many Ember witches do we recover after they’ve been turned into demons?”
“None,” Ben said.
Probably because by that point, they’d be considered the “enemy” and were disposed of as such, assuming we even ran into them. Ember witch magik was often unstable enough to begin with, forget adding a demonically dark soul to it. From everything I’d ever learned, most of those witches-turned-demons imploded from their own magik.
“So maybe it’s possible that demon magik plus Ember witch ether causes an acceleration in aging,” Krystin said, but even her tone sounded unsure. “I’ve never run into this before, Ben. I have no idea. You’d be better off asking Shawn, or maybe even Areus.”
“Then get in touch with Shawn,” Ben said. “In fact, recall the entire team, just in case. Obviously, whatever this poison is that awoke Will’s innate Ember magik and the poison that they’re using to force transformations of Ember witches has been around for a lot longer than we ever knew about.”
Krystin sucked in a measured breath. “Are you sure? I think if we pull Nate out of his studies in Tibet again, things might get hairy. And not just for him.” She gave him a weighted look.
Ben nodded almost imperceptibly. “It’s fine. I’ll work it out with Dacher. We’ll be fine, Krystin.”
“Not so sure about that,” she mumbled. “I’ll get a hold of the others.”
“Thank you. You can go now.”
Krystin gave him a lingering look before nodding. “Be back soon.”
After Krystin had walked off toward the freelancer job boards, Ben turned back to us. “Stay at Headquarters. For real this time. The fact that Mason Whitmore has returned to Boston and is somehow tied to Talon enough to know who you are, Ava, concerns me greatly.”
“Take a number,” I said. “It was like he knew much more about me than my name.”
“Why don’t you and Kian, if you’re feeling up to it, go check out the library in the basement,” Ben said. “See if you can dig up any information about Ember witches after they’ve been turned into demons.”
I nodded. It sounded better than twiddling my thumbs for hours inside the small room on the top floor I currently called home. “Will do.”
“Sure,” Kian said.
“Good,” Ben said. “I’m going to go inform Dacher of all of this.”
“So we’re not in trouble for leaving?” I asked, though I probably should have kept my mouth shut.
Ben shook his head and began walking away. “Don’t try it again, that’s all.”
Chapter 5
Kian and I spent four long hours finding absolutely nothing before calling it quits in the Fire Circle’s library. Normally, these ancient texts would be useful for subjects like particular Old Ones or other well-known demons. But the witch lines didn’t always contribute much information to the Hunter Circles, especially a line so looked at with suspicion as Ember witches.
Not long after giving up, Kian and I went our separate ways for the evening. His general air of tension and frustration thinned the longer our research went on for, but I could tell there was still something bothering him. And it wasn’t just from the way he’d shut a book particularly loudly every now and again.
Short of binding and rendering my own magik useless, I didn’t know how to help him. Because I knew for a fact it wasn’t our useless research that was pissing him off.
It was me and my magik.
Night turned into morning again, and I spent it as I had every day since the fight with Veynix at Midnight. After collecting better food from the small kitchens at Headquarters, I smuggled some up to Will in his recovery room.
For the first month or so after rescuing him from Veynix’s clutches, Will spent the majority of his time in the Infirmary. And while he still suffered from occasional waves of pain that seemed to come out of nowhere, not particularly triggered by anything, he’d finally been moved to a more regular room. He was no longer bound to the Infirmary. But they still insisted on watching him closely.
I had no doubt that wouldn’t change anytime soon after yesterday’s insanity.
“I can’t wait to get out of here,” he said around bites of a blueberry bagel. “The free place to sleep was cool and all, but these four walls are driving me nuts.”
I frowned and leaned back into my chair next to his bed. “I hear you there. It’s not much better anywhere else in Headquarters.”
He gave me the side eye. “Have fun last night?”
“Didn’t end in fun,” I said. “It was good for about an hour. Maybe two.”
“Ooh. Trouble in paradise?”
“If there’s paradise to be had, sure.” I scrubbed my eyes with my palms. “I get it, you know? The
whole inferiority complex leading to Demon’s Blood addiction thing. But he’s a fantastic fighter in his own right when he’s not on that crap. What I don’t understand is why it matters that I have magik now. I can barely use it when I want to.”
Will regarded me with a sorrowful look before nearly tossing his bagel back to his plate. “Nothing you can do about it. Seems like something he’s gotta deal with. Like me and this pain. Just because I’ll be in pain for apparently the next several months of my life, that does not mean I can’t learn how to use the magik I somehow inherited.”
I dropped my hands. “How is it, the pain?”
He shrugged, frowning. “Every day it gets better. Or more manageable. Bria seems to think the worst is long over.”
Nodding, I scooted to the end of my seat. “When Veynix got me with his venom the first time—the bad time—it was almost four months before the effects were fully gone.”
Will’s eyes widened in surprise. “You fought in the ring with this?”
“By then I’d already decided the Fire Circle wasn’t going to do enough to help keep us safe. I didn’t see a choice.”
He pushed away his rolling cart, on top of which sat the food tray I’d brought him. “I could have gotten a job or something. Though I know money wasn’t the main thing you were worried about.”
“What’s done is done,” I whispered. “I’m more upset you got involved in this capacity. That venom is horrendous. And now your magik…”
Will shrugged again like it was no big deal. But I knew from our previous conversations that the confidence was purely for my own benefit. “We’ll make it work. We always do.”
“Well, hopefully Hydron will make an antidote that works. God knows the Hunter Circles aren’t funding them to do anything else.”
“Would the antidote work on the Demon’s Blood poison and take away my magik, too?” he asked.
I shifted in the chair and crossed my arms. Blood rushed back to the leg I’d been sitting on, causing the pins and needles I was so accustomed to after training with Krystin. “I have no idea. Maybe. I mean, the only reason Kian didn’t end up with Ember magik too might be because he was already kind of immune to Demon’s Blood. So that combined with his lack of Ember witch heritage… Whatever you have has got to be small, Will.”
