by Jessica Gunn
My eyes flickered down at them. They looked normal enough. “Doctor! I need a doctor right now! My friends are dying!”
Dying.
They’d warned us, all of us, when we’d graduated from training that Hunters tended to die young. Not many made it to thirty. But I was twenty-four. Nate was only twenty-two. This was young, too young.
And every single part of it is my fault.
I pushed the thought from my mind and concentrated on keeping Nate’s blood from pouring out of his body—and failing miserably. Help arrived in under a minute as nurses and a doctor ran out of the emergency room entrance. They wheeled over two gurneys and fell to the ground at Nate’s side.
“What happened?” the doctor asked as nurses flocked in around her.
“He was impaled,” I said, my voice cracking on every word. “Please, help him. He’s my friend. My teammate.”
Oh, god. What if he died? What if they all died—him and Shawn and Jaffrin, just like the rest of the Hunters at Headquarters tonight? All because of Krystin and Kinder…
“Back up,” one of the nurses said as she placed a hand on my shoulder. “We need some space.” She winced and pulled back. “Full of static, are we?”
Only then did I feel the small sparks of lightning dancing around my fingertips. I tucked them into the front pockets of my jeans. “Guess so.”
The nurse followed me back a few steps and pulled out a pen light. “Follow the light, please.”
I pushed her hand away and rose to the balls of my feet to see Shawn and Nate over her. “I’m fine.”
“You’re in shock.”
“No fucking shit.”
Her face hardened. “Sir, I know you’ve been through something traumatic, but I need you to calm down and cooperate.”
Cooperate. Cooperate when half of the people I cared about in this world were nearly dead? “I’m sorry.”
Her brow knitted together. “Wait a minute.” She turned behind her and looked down at Nate as the doctors worked to get him onto a gurney. Another set of nurses and doctors were at Shawn’s side, fitting him in a neck brace. The nurse turned back to me. “Ben, right? Hallen?”
My eyes narrowed, jaw setting hard. “How the hell do you know my name?”
She looked behind her again at my teammates, then back up at me. “No, you probably don’t remember me, but… What happened? Did Fire Circle Headquarters get attacked?”
I stepped back from her and reignited lightning in my hands. “Who the fuck are you?”
She lifted her palms and calmly said, “My name is Beverly Rose. It’s been so long, but I’m the nurse that called you from the hospital, years ago, to let you know about your pregnant girlfriend’s car accident. Three or so years ago now, maybe?”
My eyes narrowed, fists clenching. “Excuse me?” How did an emergency room nurse know about the Fire Circle? How did this nurse even remember me when that was three years ago in a different city altogether?
Her eyes rounded. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. I’m the one who called you. I was transferred to Boston a few months ago. I remember you because the baby had traces of magik in his system. I saw it when we ran blood work following her accident.”
Rage surged beneath the surface of my skin, barely contained. I reached up for her throat but stopped short of actually strangling her. Too much tonight. “Get to the damn point.” I didn’t know if I believed her. If it was even possible for me to believe her right now.
Beverly’s eyes watered and she began shaking her head slowly. “No. This is our fault. The attack on Fire Circle Headquarters. Your son being taken.”
“What?”
The doctors and nurses working on my teammates looked up, but she waved them off. “I’m a member of a demon faction working against Darkness, destroying them from within. I told our faction leaders about the Power being in your son and somewhere along the way I fear that other demons of Darkness got involved.”
My knees weakened, my legs like jelly, and I fell to the pavement. The broken bones in my leg shifted against one another, but I didn’t cry out. I had nothing more inside me to give. Krystin was gone. Headquarters had been torn asunder. And now this nurse was telling me she was the reason Riley had been taken years ago? How was it possible that nurse had ended up here, in Boston, miles away from me the entire time?
Because this war is coming to a head. And Boston is at the center of it all.
“Why now?” I asked. “After so many years?”
“I never knew where you went.” Beverly knelt before me. “Ben, I’m so sorry. Lady Azar has your son again.”
I stared past her, unable to focus on anything but Shawn and Nate being carried away on gurneys. “This wasn’t Lady Azar. This was a Fire Circle Hunter.”
Beverly’s mouth fell open and for a moment, I swear the streetlamp overhead flashed against her eyes, revealing contacts and a reddish color underneath them. A demonic burgundy color. “A Hunter caused all of this?”
“A powerful one,” I mumbled. “And Kinder.” I shouldn’t have told her that, but at this point, I wasn’t sure it mattered. Kinder had as many enemies inside Darkness as she did the Fire Circle. Who the fuck cared anymore?
All sound processed through cotton balls in my ears. Muffled. Grainy. Barely anything at all. Krystin had done this. All of it.
“Ben, I’m sorry,” Beverly said again.
“You don’t even know me.”
“But the Rebel Darkness Faction is the reason these things are happening,” she said, looking me in the eyes. Searching for understanding I didn’t have for her right now. “Our mistake is why Lady Azar knew about your son and the Power. And why she has him now. Why she’s going to… She’s going to do it and you’re going to need our help to stop it.”
My brow furrowed. “Do what?”
Beverly stared me right in the eyes, tears building, face splotchy. “We heard earlier today that Lady Azar has turned a boy with the Power into a demon to claim him for Shadow Crest. She’s going to enact her plan to get to Alzan this fall. During Autumn Fire.”
“No. You’re lying.”
She shook her head. “I wish I was, Ben.”
But this couldn’t be true. None of this could be real. All of this, from Kinder’s appearance to Krystin’s attack, it all had to be fake, some instrument of torture developed by Giyano and meant specifically for me.
This was my own personal sort of hell.
But when Beverly didn’t look away or move, my heart sank. The world fell out from under me. My vision spun. And my face and chest planted themselves into the pavement.
Riley was a demon. Krystin was gone.
And the world had been turned upside down.
Chapter 29
BEN
Three hours.
I waited three hours after waking up in a hospital room before they’d let me see Rachel. Before I recounted to her what that nurse had said. Beverly Rose.
Rachel shook her head. Her arm was in a sling held tight against her chest. “I barely remember that even happening.”
“It was right before finals,” I said, the memory growing clearer every time I thought about it. “I was studying with your brother when I get Beverly’s call. It was the first time I really realized Sandra and I were having Riley. Like, actually having a kid.”
Rachel’s blue eyes narrowed, then widened with fear. “Wait a minute. Wasn’t that also the first time you saw a demon stalking Sandra? Wasn’t he right outside her hospital room?”
My breath hitched. “Yes.”
Beverly was telling the truth.
The beeping of the machines monitoring Rachel’s vital signs was the only sound in the room.
Chapter 30
BEN
“This is the first time they’ve let me see you.”
I sat next to Jaffrin’s bed, almost the same way he’d visited me after that stupid warehouse fight in Salem three months ago. Only he was much more out of it.
; His fingers slid over the morphine drip as he administered himself some more. I was sure they’d cut him off soon, but I didn’t blame him. The end of his left forearm had been wrapped in white bandages that Rachel couldn’t stop staring at from the other side of the room. Jaffrin paid her no mind, except for when we’d first come in and he’d asked what had happened to her shoulder.
“How are Nate and Shawn?” Jaffrin asked, his voice raspy. His face had paled considerably. Rachel had gotten him here just barely in time.
Rachel sobbed and turned away.
“Still out of it,” I said. “Both of them. They’ve got Nate in a medically-induced coma and Shawn’s just… out.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “I think Iris’s asanak screwed with his magik at a soul-level.”
Jaffrin’s eyes fell. “Not Iris. It was the stone.”
My brow furrowed. “What stone? The one he said Kinder broke?”
“Yes. It was tied to his destiny at Alzan. With it destroyed, I fear…” He blinked slowly and then shook his head. “I fear too many things.”
“Well, so do I,” I snapped.
This wasn’t fair. Jaffrin didn’t get to fall apart while I was left picking up the pieces. We’d all lost shit two days ago. Krystin was gone. My entire team was in the hospital. Headquarters had been ripped apart, dozens of Hunters killed or injured. They might as well have booked an entire wing of the hospital. Jaffrin didn’t get to just give up at a time like this. He was the Leader of the fucking Fire Circle, for God’s sake.
Jaffrin’s weak eyes lifted to mine. “Take care of your team, Ben. Let Dacher and the Ether Head Circle cover the rest.”
I clasped one fist behind my back where he couldn’t see it, then nodded. “Yes, sir. And you get some rest.”
The Ether Head Circle had ‘taken care of’ enough, as far as I was concerned.
They’d gone and caused all of this. They were as responsible for this team falling apart as Krystin and Kinder were.
Rachel and I left Jaffrin’s room and returned to the room Shawn and Nate shared.
“Wake up,” she begged as she dragged a chair between their beds. “Please, you two.”
But to wake up would be to acknowledge this wasn’t a nightmare. That everything that’d happened was real. And this reality was nothing I wanted to be a part of.
Not if my son had really been turned into a demon.
Chapter 31
KRYSTIN
I didn’t stop teleporting until I was sure I’d lost anyone who might have been following me. Until I’d gathered what I’d need to remain hidden: my bag, money, and crystal from the room at the inn Kinder had dragged me from.
Only then did I settle in at a cash-only hotel and stare at myself in the mirror for hours. I lifted my left hand and held it before me.
This wasn’t me. What Kinder had forced me to do wasn’t me.
But after all the pain, all the death, all the blood… I doubted I’d be able to clear my name that quickly. I needed to remain hidden. Free. Terrified.
And for the first time in almost four months, Giyano’s mark wasn’t glowing. Even he didn’t want to see me. To find me.
Even Giyano didn’t want to be a party to whatever monster I’d become.
The Hero
Book Four
Chapter 1
Ben
Hunter’s Guild. Ever since it’d been rebuilt following Kinder’s attack nine months ago, it’d become seedier than it used to be. Demons flocked to the place like it was their last sanctuary on Earth, leaving witches and Hunters to question whether or not the protection magiks and rules keeping people safe were actually doing their job. Which was, in hindsight, probably why Jaffrin had ordered Shawn and me to come here tonight.
I tossed back the rest of my beer and scanned the room once more. The demon-to-everyone-else ratio was heavily in the demons’ favor tonight, although for the first time in weeks there didn’t appear to be any Landshaft dealings going on. Strange, because in two weeks Autumn Fire would end and with it the peak time for humans to be transformed into demons.
“Stop going overtime,” Shawn said as he finished his own beer. “Nothing’s happening here tonight.”
“I can see that. That’s the problem.”
He leveled me with a look. “You’ve been preoccupied lately.”
I glared at him. “Don’t know what gave you that idea.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “My bad. Chill out.”
“Chill out,” I echoed as I smashed a French fry into a waiting pool of ketchup. I didn’t have to say anything else. It wasn’t like my sour mood was anything new, nor were the reasons for it any different than yesterday or the month before. And when I glanced up at Shawn to reply, seeing the scar running jagged across his eyebrow didn’t help. “I’ll chill out when we get Riley back and all of this is over.”
Shawn winced. He ate another chicken wing instead of replying. Hunter’s Guild didn’t always have the best food, but apparently, Wings Tuesdays were a universal thing. “I get it, Ben.”
“Good. End of conversation. Let’s keep an eye on this place a little longer and then get home.”
If no one was here trying to traffic any witches during Autumn Fire, then there was likely little other activity that would occur. Everything with Darkness had seemed to die down recently, which was something I’d never seen before. Not this close to the peak of transformation season.
It worried me, but after practically living in a hospital for two weeks when my team almost collectively died, I could deal with a little worry.
Jaffrin had recovered, though now he lived with a prosthetic hand. Shawn and Nate had spent time in various comas but eventually had woken up. Ever since, Nate had spent more time out looking for Krystin, swearing up and down both that she was innocent and that he wasn’t searching for her. But I knew the truth. On both accounts.
“Where’s Rachel tonight?” Shawn asked.
I shoved the French fry in my mouth and chewed before responding, hoping to keep the bitterness from my voice. “With her new boyfriend.”
He nodded and refocused his attention on his dinner. “Still haven’t met him, then?”
“No.” Rachel was old enough to make her own decisions, obviously. Didn’t curb my older-brother tendencies one bit, though. “One day soon.”
Shawn laughed and flagged down a waitress for another round of beers. When she came back with them, he looked to me and said, “One day soon all of this will be over and we’ll all be able to live normal lives.”
“Whatever those are.” I doubted I’d be able to live ‘normally’ again. Even if we rescued Riley, he’d still be a demon. I didn’t know the first thing about raising a human son—forget one who’d need to feed on human life energy every now and again.
I’d spent too much time over the past six months wondering if it was possible to reverse a demonic transformation. But Jaffrin wouldn’t field the conversation and no one else had been able to give me a straight answer. If there was a way to do it, I’d find it and save Riley. Otherwise… I didn’t know.
I wouldn’t have even known Lady Azar had turned him into a demon if that nurse hadn’t told me. Beverly Rose, the same nurse who’d noticed he had the Power before he’d even been born. The same nurse whose communiqué to this “rebel Darkness group” had been intercepted, thereby allowing Lady Azar to find out about him and to order his kidnapping three years ago.
I rubbed the back of my neck with a hand and downed more beer with the other. “I hate this. Every part of this.”
Shawn nodded as he watched the crowd. “Me too. But nothing’s going to come of it if we rush headfirst into fights we can’t win.”
I sighed and looked down at my drink. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Only sometimes.”
“Wish you’d been right about your powers returning. Might be helpful if this thing with Shadow Crest escalates.”
Shawn frowned and refocused his attention on the crowd of demons. “I don’t
think my magik being gone has anything to do with Iris’ asanak.”
Or so he’d said. Even Nate was sure the now-dead ether-shaper’s attack would have worn off by now. It’d been six months since she’d taken his magik from him in that soul-cleaving move, and still, Shawn’s magik hadn’t returned.
“Then what?” I asked. “Is it because Krystin’s gone?”
He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure that stone Kinder crushed in Jaffrin’s office was one of the two the Powers had created to store the Son and Daughter’s power. That stone was mine.”
“Well, that doesn’t bode well.”
“No.” He lifted his beer to his lips.
Kinder. All of this had been because of her, and now she was as gone and disappeared as Krystin. Who knew if they were still working together, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Except Krystin had looked so terrified that night, at the end. After Nate had been impaled and Shawn knocked out. She’d stared me down—and guilt and shame and fear, it’d all twisted together in her eyes.
Then she ran. Like Krystin always seemed to.
“Let’s go home,” Shawn said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “There’s nothing here and I’m exhausted.”
“Me too.” I stood and left money on the table to cover our tab.
We made our way to the door, weaving in and out of groups of demons. My fingers slipped to the hilt of my Fire Circle knife out of habit, though we should be protected in here. But there were no guarantees, not in my mind. Not after Krystin had nearly killed us all.
Shawn pushed open the front door of Hunter’s Guild and we walked out into the hot, sticky late summer air. Mosquitoes flocked us almost immediately. I swatted them away as Shawn and I filed away from the Guild and into the woods beyond the protection magiks wall.
