by Jessica Gunn
“You’re not evil, Krystin,” I told her. “You’re not even a demon. There are plenty of things I’m still learning about Darkness and the Hunter Circles, but I do know Giyano couldn’t have turned you into a demon just like that. You need more power involved and Autumn Fire.”
Autumn Fire was the changing season when dark, demonic magik was at its height, and when the Trade rounded up and captured humans, Hunters, and witches to be transformed into demons. It was a special kind of nightmare that no one ever wanted to endure.
Krystin curled in on herself, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Her shoulder, bare underneath a tank top, had healed completely. Whatever damage Giyano had caused now only lived in her head—the wounds that took the longest to heal.
I should know.
“I can feel his magik inside me, Ben,” she said. “It’s not gone. And because it’s not ether-based, it should be being destroyed my own magik. But it’s not. It’s still there.”
“It hasn’t even been a day,” I said. “Give it time.”
She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and rocked forward to blow out the candles on her small table. “We don’t have time, Ben. All Hallows’ Eve is right around the corner. Any last demonic transformations that are going to happen will happen before then. And that Giyano is being ballsy enough to attack us outside Hunter’s Guild says that whatever Lady Azar has planned for your son, Riley, it might be happening soon.”
“Don’t say that,” I snapped.
“Oh, come on, Ben,” she said, looking up at me. “Don’t tell me you haven’t considered the possibility that her goal might be to turn him into a demon.”
My fists balled in my lap. “She’s had him for two years. Why now?”
“Actually two years or more than two years?” she asked.
I glared at Krystin. “Why does it matter?”
“Exactly two years or more than two years, Ben. That’s the question. She kidnapped Riley when she did for a reason.”
I gulped, thinking back. It’d been more than two years. Giyano had kidnapped Riley on a summer morning in late May. It’d now been over two years since that day.
My stomach dropped, blood rushing out of my face and limbs. My fingers went cold, shaking. “No.”
Krystin looked away, as if the sight of me losing my shit was too much for her. “That’s what I was afraid of. Are you one hundred percent sure Riley doesn’t have magik, Ben? Because I think Lady Azar has been waiting for All Hallows’ Eve, for the last night of the year they can turn someone into a demon, for the night when that dark magik is at its strongest. Which means she must be utterly terrified of what Riley’s capable of, especially if she’s waited this long.”
I shook my head. Slowly at first, building as the thoughts swirled together and fit themselves into place like a jigsaw puzzle. No, Riley didn’t have magik. Not that I knew of, but I hadn’t known much two-and-a-half years ago. My own powers hadn’t come in until I’d turned twenty-one. But Rachel had an older brother and he didn’t have any powers that we knew about. “No, Krystin.”
“I’m just saying—”
I glared at her. “Riley does not have magik. And even if he did, it’s likely to be elemental magik like Rachel’s and mine. Weak magik. Nothing worth waiting until All Hallows’ Eve for. And why didn’t she do it any other Halloween previous?”
But the more I said it, the more Krystin’s words sunk in, I realized that maybe, just maybe, there’d been more to Riley than we’d known. That maybe he had stronger magik than I ever could have fathomed. Strong enough to warrant Lady Azar’s apparent waiting.
“We’ll get him back,” Krystin said. “I won’t let you lose him. And I sure as hell won’t let Lady Azar turn him. He’s just a kid.”
“My kid,” I said. Mine. The child I’d freaked out about having until the day he’d arrived. The baby with blond hair like mine and eyes like his mother’s. My nose and ears. My infuriatingly stubborn streak. He’d been taken from me—maybe for good—by Shadow Crest. And I was scared, so unbelievably scared, that we’d never get to him in time.
“It’s okay,” Krystin said.
But it wasn’t. None of this was.
Krystin reached out a hand to mine and squeezed. The contact sent chills rolling down my spine, spiking awareness of where our skin touched, where she existed in relation to me. “I’m scared too. I’m terrified Giyano is right—that this power inside me is dark magik. I’m scared we won’t find Riley in time. I’m terrified of what Lady Azar’s plans mean for the Fire Circle, for Cianza Boston, for everything headed our way.”
“Fantastic,” I snapped. “Our fear won’t help us.”
“No? I think it will.”
I met her icy blue gaze with my own. “How?”
“Because Lady Azar has no fear,” Krystin said. “She doesn’t know the meaning of the word. She’s never had to. Aloysius himself is her father. She’s been protected and trained her entire life.” Krystin smiled. “But you know who else has? Me. And I’m on your side. And if we have fear and she doesn’t, that means we have the one tool we need. You know what that is?”
“What?”
“The will to live. Lady Azar’s never feared death, never had that rush of beating it. She doesn’t know what it’s like to have something to fight for, and that’s the most powerful magik in all the world.”
I cracked a smile. “Hope?” I said it like it was the stupidest word in existence.
“No, Ben,” Krystin said, smiling. “Unfettered determination and human instinct. Demons don’t know, don’t remember, what that is. We’ll get Riley back, and we’ll do it before All Hallows’ Eve because we have the one thing they don’t: faith.”
Chapter 13
KRYSTIN
Giyano’s magik wasn’t in me for long. My body rejected it in fewer than twenty-four hours, although the small taste offered so much more than a mere glimpse. No, his magik had given me the barest understanding of what made dark magik dark. Demonic. Different. But more than the fear that understanding caused, that feeling of being able to look headlong into a demon’s magik and see exactly how it’d twisted Giyano’s once-human soul, the dark magik called to me. Like a set of magnets set millimeters apart—calling, scrambling to get closer, defying even gravity to do so.
That was what Giyano’s magik had done to mine, to my soul. It pulled mine closer to his until it had almost killed me. He must have only given me a minute dose, but not enough to kill me. Not this time. Instead, my magik had backfired. And I’d been out for too long.
The next morning, Jaffrin called. We’d purposely neglected to tell him about our run-in with Giyano at the Guild the night before.
I sat next to Ben on the couch, trying to ignore the way his powerful aura rolled off of him the way Rachel’s magik did. Except, on Ben, his power always arrived with the barest wisp of the thoughts he couldn’t keep to himself. It wasn’t enough to understand the words, but impressions sometimes made it through my mental walls. And right now, Ben was feeling my power, too. He couldn’t see it, but with the two of us this close, our magik auras twisted together into a fluorescent green.
When he hung up, I asked, “What’d Jaffrin want?”
Ben pocketed his cell. “He’s looking for volunteers to go up to Salem with Avery’s team.”
Rachel’s gaze lifted. “He doesn’t think Avery can handle it?”
“Jaffrin’s always assigned a few dozen Hunters to the area right before All Hallows’ Eve,” I said. Though I’d just now been assigned to a team, I’d volunteered to go up to Salem before. There was something about Salem during Halloween, when the air was crisp and the leaves changed, that drew sightseeing tourists in droves to marvel at what once was. Salem, Massachusetts, once the home to the “witches” of Colonial America.
So much more had happened there besides the witch trials. But neither the tourists nor townies knew. And there was a certain beauty in that. Lucky them.
“I say
we go,” I said. “There’re only nine days until All Hallows’ Eve. Something’s bound to be going on up there. Call Jaffrin back and tell him we’ll meet the other teams there. It’ll be good for us to get out and train against actual demons.”
Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. It seems like nothing more than a good way to get tourists killed.”
I twisted, sitting sideways on the couch to catch Ben’s eyes. “Okay. You’re right. Darkness doesn’t often do anything on All Hallows’ Eve. That’s because they’re usually too busy channeling power at some random conduit point somewhere and making new demons. We more than likely won’t run into any demons. But that’d be good for us, too.” We needed to learn how to work together, and doing so in a situation in which we wouldn’t end up dying was the perfect occasion.
Ben’s mouth thinned.
Nate crossed the room to the kitchen and began rummaging around in the cabinets. “Krystin’s got a point. Besides, a weekend out of Boston sounds good to me.”
Ben looked to Rachel, who nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll call Jaffrin back. He said they’re leaving this morning, so go pack up while I’m on the phone.”
“Sweet,” I said, then headed upstairs. Not that I had many things up there, anyway. I’d never packed to stay for good when I’d showed up in that alleyway a few nights ago.
Now, I sort of regretted that. Maybe this would work out after all.
There was also just as great a chance that Giyano would tear our team apart.
After an hour-long car ride in two separate cars, followed by another twenty-minute walk from the first two available parking spaces we’d found, we met up with the other Hunters. Many—aside from Avery and his team—I’d never seen before. Most were either younger than us, in their teens but more experienced, and the others were older, probably only on this detail because Salem appealed to them more than the same old activities in Boston.
We greeted the other Hunters in passing along Essex Street, sometimes with little more than a small wave in order to not draw attention to ourselves. Which wasn’t hard. Almost every street and shop had been packed full with tourists seeking out old histories and witch supplies, or just checking out the area. It made canvassing Salem for demons harder since the only way to point one out was by their burgundy eyes or powerful auras.
“Where to first?” Nate asked, glancing around to crowded cobblestone streets and brick buildings.
Ben checked his phone. “It’s only eleven in the morning. If a demon’s going to attack, I doubt it’ll be before the sun goes down.”
“Even so,” I said, “given that All Hallows’ Eve is right around the corner, I’m willing to bet there’s plenty mischief and demonic activity to find.”
“There’re museums,” Rachel said as she pulled her blonde hair out from beneath her scarf. “Festival stuff. Everything. Might as well treat it like a vacation day and keep our eyes peeled for anything off.”
“Let’s head out then,” said Ben. “Keep an eye open.”
And we did. The late morning moved into afternoon as we made our way between brick buildings and shops. Street musicians performed for tourists on Essex Street, their music echoing down the main thoroughfare. The scent of fried dough and popcorn sifted through the air, carried on sounds of children laughing at the occasional person in costume. We passed faeries and witches, ghouls and vampires—all fake, of course. Only one of those things actually existed, and I doubted the witches of my line and of the Cassano and Ember lines matched the witch image in these people’s minds. Although I wasn’t totally sure ghosts didn’t exist, but surely they weren’t like the grey-painted humans walking around scaring people.
Despite the treats and entertainment, we found no tricks, no danger. Which was just as well. I could only imagine the mess fighting a demon here would be. The exposure the Fire Circle would gain as a result. The possible casualties. And with every passing child’s face, I prayed to no god in particular that no demons were here tonight. Or that if they were, they’d at least not cause any trouble.
I didn’t hate demons enough to exterminate them all. That was a fool’s errand. They had every right to be on this Earth, and in Salem, as I did. But that didn’t mean they got to go around killing whomever they liked whenever they wanted.
By 5 p.m. that afternoon, the team and I had settled in at one of the restaurants for dinner and drinks. It wasn’t the worst way to spend a day, aside from being only a half-block away from the Salem Witch Trials Memorial. I wasn’t sure I believed in ghosts and spirits and all that, but this whole area sent uncomfortable chills down my spine. Whatever had happened back then, it’d been a thousand times worse than what history had recorded.
Ben ordered a round of beers for everyone while we waited for our food. I cracked mine as soon as it came, drinking while people-watching as they passed by the restaurant’s window. So carefree. So unaware of the real world. They were lucky.
“Pool table. What do you think?” Nate’s words flooded my ears. I’d been out of it again.
“What?” I asked.
“Knew she zoned out,” Rachel said, laughing.
Nate leaned over the table. “Pool table. We were thinking about getting one for the house for slow days like this.”
I closed my eyes against his words. “You pretty much just jinxed us to never have a slow day ever again, but sure. If we can find the money.”
The Fire Circle gave us a stipend covering only the basics. Sometimes Hunters held jobs, sometimes not. How the Hunter Circles was even able to afford to pay all its Hunters period was a mystery. Maybe someone higher up in the Circles was a secret billionaire. It wouldn’t surprise me. So many of us lived double lives. Drew, for example. Though he was a Cassano witch by birth, he’d chosen to leave the family and move outside of New England. He teleported into work at Hunter’s Guild every day. His wife thought he worked IT for a business in St. Louis near their house. How he’d managed to maintain the duplicity, I didn’t know. All I knew for sure was I’d never be able to do it.
“Oh,” Nate said, pulling me from my thoughts. “We’ll find the money. Don’t you worry about that.” He reached over the table and high-fived Ben, who sat next to me.
Because that sounded legit. “I thought I was the only one who did shady things for money?” My mouth twisted, wanting to become a smile, but I held it back.
Ben’s eyebrow lifted. No one laughed.
“Joke,” I said. “Jeez. I thought we covered this already.”
“Note to the team leader: Krystin is not a jester,” Nate announced.
Ben nodded, laughing into his beer. “Note taken.”
I scoffed and sat back, lifting my own beer to my lips. “Whatever.”
Rachel laughed. “Hey, as long as we can add a Keurig to that list of things we’ll buy when we have money, you guys can do whatever you want.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Coffee in-house, please. Much needed.”
The guys rolled their eyes.
“Like you need more energy,” Ben said to Rachel. “Remember, I was there the first time you had coffee.”
Rachel cringed. “Let’s forget that espresso incident ever happened.”
“Oh?” I said. “This sounds good.”
“I was nine,” she admitted as our food came. The waiter passed out the plates, then left. “Someone should have hidden the espresso, but they didn’t.”
“She ran around all hyper, destroying the house,” Ben said. “Then she tried feeding it to my sister.”
“No,” she said. “No, I did give Amanda some. You don’t remember her freaking out?”
He squinted, as though the memory was too far off on the horizon to remember clearly. “No, I guess not.”
“Sounds a lot like the first time I drank,” I said. “Let us not speak of it.”
Nate snorted, as if recounting his own terrible experience. “Agreed.”
Dinner went on with more conversation and laughter than I would have thought possibl
e the night I’d met them. We might even be becoming friends. But I’d never been good at making friends, never mind keeping them, so I didn’t want to invest too much into something that might be fleeting.
Naturally, that’s when it all went wrong.
As our waiter came by to clean up our plates, I glanced out the window. The sun had started setting a half hour ago, and now it dipped below the buildings in the area. Oranges and pinks traipsed across the sky with their last evening breaths. Below them, across the street and covered in a shadow of darkness, was a woman walking with her son—and three men trailing behind them.
From this distance, there was no way to confirm their demonic status, but given we were in Salem and it was almost nighttime…
I scooted my chair back and stood. “Might have something.” I dug into my pocket and withdrew a twenty to cover my bill. “I’m going to check it out.”
Ben followed my gaze, locking on to the woman who might need help. Even if they weren’t demons, we were more than equipped to take down anyone looking to cause trouble. You know, until the cops showed up.
“No, we all will.” He threw down the rest of the money for our bill. “Hope everyone was done.”
We left the restaurant and crossed the street, swerving around groups of people and the street performers. As the night came in, the crowds had thinned, people going off to join ghost tours or return home. Not us. Nighttime was when our real work started.
I kept eyes on the woman and her son the entire way, watching as they crossed block after block, then turned down an alleyway I knew contained a parking lot. The trio of potential demons followed them.
“No one use their magik,” Ben said, as if reading my thoughts. “Let’s keep the knives put away too.”
“Aye, aye.” I mock-saluted before picking up the pace to a brisk walk. We rounded the corner behind the pair right as the little boy cried out.
