Deadly Trade- The Complete Series

by Jessica Gunn

  War was coming. Real war. It had felt like war had been on its way for a while now, sure. But after attacking and angering the Neuians after Lady Azar had tried leveling Alzan, after everything with Talon and Hydron and everything in between… The war between Darkness and the Hunter Circles, between good and evil, had never felt more real. And the realization that this second Great War could very well happen not only within my lifetime, but within the next year if we weren’t careful, was terrifying.

  To say the least.

  My hands shook as I joined Will on the mat. We sparred, somewhat painfully for me, for a long time, joking and chatting in between to pass the time. Will had gotten damn good in just a few weeks of training. He even caught me a few times and laid me out on the mat. But more often than not, I’d serve it right back at him and gave him pointers to be better in the future.

  In a lot of ways, this was the same normal we’d always had in our friendship. Years ago, when we’d been kids, Will and I used to spend hours hiking trails and getting into trouble. Now we’d be satisfying our need for adventure by fighting demons alongside each other as freelancers.

  “Hey,” Kian said as he came down the stairs hours after Will and I had started sparring.

  We stopped. Will waved and I met Kian at the edge of the mat, hugging him. Kian kissed me, then nodded to Will.

  “You’re getting good,” he said.

  Will nodded, grinning. “That’s what Ava said right before she kicked my ass.”

  Kian laughed. “What can I say? She’s not a woman you want to get into a fight with.”

  Will waved a hand. “Please. I could have told you that years ago without breaking a sweat.” As if to emphasize the point, Will ran his arm against his head to wipe away perspiration.

  I laughed and shook my head. Whatever might be coming next for us, one thing was certain: I wouldn’t be able to live without either of these men in my life. My best friend and my love.

  “How’s your day going?” I asked Kian, smiling up at him.

  He nodded to the stairs. “They’re calling another meeting for anyone around. I suppose they’re having Hunters come in, too. Lissandra said it was pretty important.”

  I sighed and tried to fight the feeling of dread that washed over me. The Command and their meetings. Nothing good ever came out of them. “All right. Let’s go, Will.” I dropped my gloves to the ground.

  Will did the same and grabbed a towel to properly clean up. The three of us then joined the rest of the Hunters in attendance in the great hall.

  Like normal these days, Johanna took up residence behind the podium, waiting for everyone to arrive. I saw Ben and Krystin, along with the rest of their team, in the front row again with Areus. At the other end of the row sat the rest of the Fire Circle Command.

  Johanna cleared her throat loudly, and gradually, the room fell silent. I held on to the edges of the bench to steady myself, and when that failed, I grabbed Kian’s hand. He squeezed mine once.

  “I have both good news and bad for you all today,” Johanna started. “The good news is that our esteemed Leader Dacher has woken up and is doing well upstairs in the Infirmary.”

  Sighs of relief and some cheers spread around the room.

  “Thank god,” I whispered.

  Kian smiled and squeezed my hand again. “This is the best news we could have heard.”

  Johanna nodded, acknowledging the shared relief. “I know he wants to address all of this with everyone once he’s feeling up to it; however, given the past two weeks, we felt it was imperative to inform you all as soon as possible. The next best news is that it appears our efforts have, in fact, both crippled Talon’s ventures as well as put a big dent in Landshaft’s capabilities. Our sources say that their Autumn Fire harvest and transformations are about thirty percent of what they were last year.”

  That deserved a round of cheers all on its own. And it got one as the room erupted in applause. Yet it still felt like a huge but hung somewhere at the end of all of this.

  Johanna confirmed that when she lifted a hand. “The problem is that, in doing so, we’ve facilitated the widening of the power vacuum created by Lady Azar’s passing. With Talon temporarily incapacitated and Jerrick dead, Cinaed has lost his main ally in a bid for the throne we already know he was struggling to keep. And while that may suggest that Darkness will topple, that will probably not be the case. There’s always someone else waiting to take their throne.”

  Johanna was right there. I just hoped whoever was next after Cinaed wasn’t as insane as Jerrick. Even Aloysius seemed like a saint next to him.

  “Additionally,” Johanna continued, “there is some concern given the attack on Headquarters weeks ago that demon attacks will get bolder, more public. And so in response to this, there are many talks occurring between Hydron and the Hunter Circles in case the worst should happen and this war is revealed to those around the world who currently live a better life not knowing what dangers await them.

  “But make no mistake: the final war is coming. The second Great War. The one we’ve all been told stories about. And it started on the Neuian plane two weeks ago. It’s time to prepare. To recruit more Hunters. And to graduate the current class early. Those of you in attendance, please rise.”

  I glanced to Will with a curious look. His face was full of as much shock as I felt. Still, he climbed out of our row and up to the dais stage with the other seven people in his training group. As they arrived, another one of the Command members rose to the stage as well with a small tray of Fire Circle Hunter knives.

  Johanna turned to the potential Hunters and said, “Take the oath and receive your knife.”

  One by one, each of the new Hunters was called forward by name and recited the Hunter vow. Then it was Will’s turn.

  He knelt before Johanna and said, “I pledge to fight the Darkness, keeping true the tenets of the Hunter Circles: protect the innocent, fight with bravery, and never leave a Hunter or innocent to the clutches of Darkness. I pledge my life before my fear and my blood before retreat. My body and my life belong to the Fire Circle.”

  I grinned as Will recited the words I’d vowed to the Fire Circle myself not that many years ago. Will’s eyes were full of happiness and reverence… and seriousness, too. He hadn’t known the oath-taking would happen today, but even so, even after what Johanna had said about the war and the power vacuum, Will still could have declined and no one, including me, would have thought any less of him for it.

  But some people were born to be Hunters. It was in our blood. To fight the necessary fight. To protect those we loved and to see things through to a better world.

  And Will was the embodiment of that.

  Kian and I walked out of the great hall ahead of Will and the others. Some had stayed to talk to their friends or to strategize for the worst. Will and the other new Hunters had been asked to remain for assignment to a team. But Kian and I had no interest in waiting in there.

  Instead, we climbed the stairs up and into the lobby, then went to sit on the front stoop of Fire Circle Headquarters. I looked up at it from the outside, along the outer skyscraper appearance. The buildings on the Neuian plane really hadn’t looked so different. It could have been Cianza Boston that had exploded instead. One simple insurgency like Jerrick had carried out, and this entire city could be gone.

  “It’s crazy,” I said after a number of minutes had passed in silence between us. I leaned my head on his shoulder.

  Kian gently wrapped an arm around my side. “Yeah. That’s one word for it. I wonder how things will be now.”

  “Guess we’ll find out,” I said.

  The turnstile doors behind us shifted and Will appeared. “You’ll never guess what just happened.”

  I looked back at him and grinned. “You finally learned how to cook?”

  “Ha ha,” Will said as he sat down next to Kian and me with a sheet of paper in his hands. He showed it to me. “You’re looking at the newest member of the newest Fire Circle
team.”

  My brow furrowed and I glanced at the paper. And was shocked. “Well, then. That’s a thing.”

  “It is a thing!” Will said, now grinning from ear to ear. “This guy’s gonna love me.”

  “Hmm,” Kian said as he snatched the paper from my hands and read it. He paused, looking at Will, then to me. “We’re a team now?”

  “Suppose so, buddy! Apparently the first three-man, er, person team,” he said with an amused expression at me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure, sure.”

  Kian shot me a knowing glance. “Like you said, crazy.”

  I smiled and wrapped my arms around both of them with me in the middle. “But there’s no one else I’d rather face crazy with. Not in the entire world. And no one else I’d rather call my team.”

  The End

  Thank you so much for reading and supporting this series! It has been a wild ride, and I wouldn’t be able to do this without you, readers. Thank you :)

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  The Deserted

  A Deadly Trades Prequel Novella

  Chapter 1

  “Dammit, Kian! Hurry up, man!” Charlie shouted, his voice breathy from laughing and too much to drink. “We need the good bottle!”

  “On it!” I replied.

  Sound became color as the blaring music made its way into my ears. I looked down to the Solo cup in my hands—red and almost empty—and wondered what had been poured inside. And what, if anything, Charlie meant by “the good bottle.” It was possible I just couldn’t drink like I used to anymore.

  Disappointed, I pushed myself through the crowd of people partying in my living room and aimed for the stairs as a pounding headache began to form.

  Charlie always liked throwing parties. Loud ones. The kind of parties that always attracted the cops and drew unwanted attention to a house full of demon Hunters who very much needed not to draw attention. Not everyone here was a Fire Circle Hunter, either. No, this time Charlie had invited plenty of people he and Zach knew from their college football team, and Georgie and Tanner’s chess teams were here too.

  Normal people. The kind who can party the night away, carefree and unaware of the creatures of the night lurking around on every street. Some of these creatures were benign and wanted nothing to do with humans. But many demons of the Empire of Darkness would do anything to help the Empire win power by any means necessary. Least of which was picking off a few drunk humans at a college party.

  I’d never been so happy to have dropped out in my life.

  My eyes narrowed on my drink again as my feet brushed the landing of the stairs. I always became a melodramatic guy when I drank.

  I threw back the rest of the drink and took the first shaky, uneven steps up the stairs. The fog and unease spreading across my mind mixed with a warm buzz from the alcohol, furthering my intoxication.

  Sure, I liked to party. But I never usually let myself get this far gone knowing at any moment we could be attacked.

  Okay. Maybe I became paranoid and melodramatic.

  I’d made it all the way through the arduous journey from the first floor to the second when an earsplitting scream tore through the party during a break in the music. I spun fast, instincts kicking in before my addled brain could, and managed to catch myself on the banister before I tumbled all the way back downstairs.

  More screams chorused, and as I started to make my way back down to see what was wrong, a wave of partygoers ran for the door, tripping over each other and pushing people out of the way.

  “Charlie!” I screamed, the word slurred, as loud as I could over the music that pounded once more.

  It probably wasn’t a demon. Maybe a fight had gotten out of hand. Maybe someone had stupidly drew a weapon—or found one, considering how many we had around the house. There was no way we’d been as careful as we should have been about that.

  God, why was I thinking about that right damn now?

  There was no clear response from Charlie for some reason. I pulled a deep breath into my lungs and forced myself to sober up enough to get all the way down the staircase without falling and see what was going on. Each step was a chore, but the closer I got to the screaming and the sounds of fists flying and the clash of glass as it broke, the clearer my mind became.

  “Get over here!” someone called. The voice sounded familiar. Zach, maybe? I recognized the tone in his voice too, belatedly through the fog.

  It was Hunting time.

  Son of a… How had a demon found our house? Our team had a solid track record of finishing the job. For the past year, down to the day we’d been a team, not a single demon had gotten away from us.

  Guess my paranoia has finally proven true.

  My feet finally hit the bottom landing once more and I swung around the banister to see Zach and Georgie facing off against a single large male, their Fire Circle knives brandished for all to see.

  “What is going on?” I asked.

  It was just some dude, angry sure, but right now, from the outside, it looked like Zach and Georgie had just decided to fight some random person with the knife of a clandestine demon-fighting organization. He even had on jeans and a football jersey from a local college.

  “For fuck’s sake, you guys,” I said.

  The huge guy whipped around and glared at me with deep burgundy-colored eyes and a growing fire in his hands.

  Shit. Nope, that was a demon. And a fire elemental at a party full of alcohol to boot!

  The demon reeled back his palm and sent the fireball right at me. I ducked, dropping low to the ground as embers swept along the floor, daring to catch the rug and couches on fire. The sudden movement sent my stomach roiling. Swallowing hard, I promised myself I wouldn’t vomit in the middle of a demon fight. The dodged fireball slammed into our TV stand and ignited the wood and television.

  “Enough!” the demon bellowed. “You’ve killed enough of us in this area!” He meant the city, of course. Our team, like I said, had done a pretty good job clearing out demon nests. But why a direct attack?

  Why a solo direct attack? Like, yeah, no one on my team had magik. But we were damned good at killing demons regardless.

  My stomach sank as I picked myself up from the floor. Were more demons waiting outside the house?

  Georgie roared and launched his hulking form at the demon, who spun at the last moment and clothes-lined Georgie. Georgie sailed backward into a wall, blood streaking down his chin from his mouth.

  Son of a bitch. I inhaled deeply, still trying to anchor myself somewhere closer to full sobriety, and cracked my neck. I didn’t have my Fire Circle knife on me when drinking, so I pushed off the ground and leapt to wring my arms around the demon’s neck. I landed, smacking against his back, and pulled him downward.

  The demon jolted before reaching up to pry my hands away with his. With his chest exposed like this, even Zach, drunk as hell and barely conscious, was able to slam his Fire Circle knife into the demon’s heart, twisting it around for effect.

  The demon’s skin turned an ashy gray, splintering in places. As soon as his struggle stopped and his breath disappeared, I let go and fell to the ground, the demon’s body landing on top of me.

  “Shit,” I hissed, pushing him to the floor. “What the hell?”

  Georgie, Zach, and the other two members of my team all looked to each other for a moment, then to the destroyed living room at large. The overturned couches. The still-burning television. Luckily, everyone who’d been at the party had left. But in the distance, sirens echoed. Someone had called the cops.

  Great. Just great. Like our team needed another warning from Fire Circle Command regarding the Boston Police Departm
ent ticketing us for noise violations.

  Georgie laughed first. Then the others. Nervous laughs at first, then full-bellied ones like nothing had ever been this funny nor ever would be again.

  Idiots. I stood and went into the kitchen for a box of cedo matches and the fire extinguisher. When I returned, I hurried to light a magik match and threw it on the demon, who immediately went up in purple flames. The body, along with his magik, was burned and gone in a few seconds, leaving behind only a pile of dust. I kicked it, scattering his remains before the cops arrived and questioned the dust pile. Then I put out the television fire.

  “The cops are almost here, you morons,” I spat at them as I tossed the extinguisher to the side. “Hide your weapons.”

  “Calm down, Farley,” Zach said as if I were the biggest loser on the planet. Kian Farley, Loser. If me being mostly sober and logical meant that, then a loser I was. “It was just a demon.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Inside our house. At our party. Which dozens of innocents were also at.” I reached down to grab a beer can and chucked it at him. “And now the cops got called.”

  As if on cue, the sirens grew louder until they stopped outside our house. Red and blue lights flashed in the night through the windows.

  “Next time, we might not be so lucky,” I said. At least no one besides the demon had died. And if anyone asked us, anyone normal that was, we could lie and say some random guy had gotten too hyped and started a fight.

  But if we weren’t careful, we’d just end up like a lot of Hunters did: dead at the hands of demons before retirement.

  Instead of waiting for my team’s response, I went to the door to let in the cops and answer their questions.

  On the upside, I didn’t see any more demons lurking around in the shadows.