Hunter Circles Series Complete Boxset: An Urban Fantasy Adventure

by Jessica Gunn

  Fantastic. Because I wanted to lead us into a city filled with people we didn’t know and a massive cianza looming in the distance—all on another fucking plane of existence.

  Totally normal.

  A good two hours, maybe more, passed as Shawn and I slowly made our way down the cliffside and past the courtyard, skirting the perimeter of Cianza Alzan the best we could. Getting down from the mountain we’d emerged onto from our plane of existence proved the most challenging part. But now that we were on flat ground and nearing the city settlement, the trek got easier.

  Shawn leaned on me down the mountain. Now, farther away from the cianza, he walked by himself beside me.

  “Almost there,” I said, glancing him over. “You doing okay?”

  He nodded, his eyes tight. At least he’d stopped sweating so much; his face was less warm now. But that could have also been because Alzan appeared to be a bit of a paradise compared to Boston. Where it’d been hot and humid as hell back home, here the sun shone less intensely and a breeze kept it from feeling too hot. And now that we were in the shade of tall marble stone buildings, goosebumps broke out on my skin. And my stomach growled.

  Shawn paused, looking at me. “You too?”

  I grabbed my middle. “Yeah. I hadn’t eaten in a while to begin with when you showed up at Hunter’s Guild.”

  “Same.”

  I dug into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out a handful of coins and a single ten-dollar bill. “What are the odds they’ll take American?”

  “Probably not good. Maybe they’ll make an exception for the Son and Daughter, though.”

  I winced. “Are you sure you want to broadcast who we are?”

  He pointed on ahead of us to a group of people talking over a cart of fruits. They wore long, tan tunics over white pants and sandals. “I think they’ll figure it out.”

  “Better get it over with then.” I walked straight for the people around the cart. We’d have to speak to someone eventually, hopefully someone who understood how we’d gotten here and what we were supposed to do now. The city, what little of it we’d seen, seemed pretty calm for what might be a battlefield a few days from now. Maybe they didn’t know Lady Azar and her legion of Shadow Crest soldiers were coming. And if not…

  “Krystin, wait,” Shawn said.

  “No. It’s time to get this show on the road.”

  I left him behind as I approached the group of people, mostly men, speaking around the fruit cart. They stopped their conversation as I approached, looking me over with curious gazes.

  “Hi,” I said, hoping—belatedly—that they spoke English. What if they didn’t? “How much for some of your fruit?” I didn’t direct the question at any one person. I couldn’t tell who actually owned the cart.

  A woman stepped forward with a warm smile. She had light hair and brown eyes that sharpened with the look of a merchant trying to make a good deal. “Three pieces of silver for one.”

  Pieces of silver. Well, the coins in my hand were neither bronze nor silver, but would they know the difference? I pulled out a combination of nickels and dimes until I had six and handed them over. “Two pieces of fruit please.”

  The woman looked over my coins with a confused expression on her face. Then her eyes narrowed in on the ten dollar bill. “What currency is this? I’ve not seen it before.”

  “Looks stranger than what they use at the outer peninsulas,” a man chimed in, chuckling.

  I bit my lip, unsure how to go about this. Asking outright about our shared destiny seemed like a crappy idea. But sooner or later someone was bound to realize we weren’t from this plane. I just wish I knew who to trust with the Son and Daughter information.

  “You can have all of it if it pays for the fruit,” I said, then pointed over my shoulder at Shawn. “My friend is very sick and he needs something to eat. We’ve traveled a long way and were definitely not prepared.”

  “Then why did you travel?” the woman asked.

  “Accident, I assure you.” I lifted my handful of coins. “Will this cover it?”

  “Where did you travel from?” the man asked. The others took the moment to leave rather than get caught up in this. Which was pretty much the sentiment I seemed to cause everywhere I went lately.

  Shawn finally joined me at the fruit stand and said, “Far away.”

  “The outer peninsulas?” the woman asked, an eyebrow raised.

  Obviously, Alzan itself was just a city, and after time they would have expanded in this plane of existence. Now, I wondered how far they’d gone in either direction, and if the outer peninsulas were actually as far away as they sounded.

  And then I wondered if this plane was just a mirror of ours, and if so, where in the world were we?

  I gulped. And how the hell did we get back home?

  “Yes,” I said before Shawn could answer for me again.

  The man’s careful eyes studied us. “You do not look like you’re from there.”

  “Not originally.”

  “Krystin,” Shawn hissed.

  Right. The less information we half-assed, the less of a situation we might find ourselves in. “Will these cover the cost of fruit?”

  The woman eyed us for a moment longer, then pulled back and smiled again. “Sure, friends.” She scooped up the coins from my hand then reached for two fruits that looked like apples.

  Please, God, let them actually be apples. But this was a whole new plane of existence and I had no idea what the rules—or types of food—were anymore.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking them from the woman and handing one to Shawn.

  She glanced wearily at Shawn as he ate the apple-lookalike without a single moment of hesitation. “If your friend is sick, you should bring him to the healers.”

  “We know what’s causing it. He’ll be fine in time and with some distance from here.”

  Her eyes narrowed, brow furrowing. “Distance?”

  “Let’s go,” Shawn said, a huge bite of the wannabe apple in his mouth. “Keep moving.” To the woman, he said, “Thank you for your hospitality and understanding.”

  I nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  But as we walked away, the man called, “Wait a minute. Stop right there.”

  I gulped and looked to Shawn. “What do we do?”

  “We don’t know they’re stopping us,” he said quickly.

  “Probably something to do with us not looking like people from the outer peninsulas—”

  A rough hand landed on my shoulder and turned me around. Behind me stood the man from the fruit cart. “You’re not from here, are you?”

  The apple rolled from my hand to the ground. “No. We told you, we’re from the—”

  The man shook his head. “I mean from this plane.”

  Silence filled the space between the three of us, and for the first time in nine months, I wished I still had my telepathy so I could know what this man and Shawn were both thinking. We had to give this man an answer, and I sure as hell wanted my story to match Shawn’s.

  I looked over to Shawn, who was still chewing that same large bite from before. He stopped and looked back at me, shrugging. God, damn his fucking love of shrugs. “Fine,” I said, looking up at the tall man. “No, we’re not. We’re the—”

  “Invaders!” the man shouted. Almost immediately everyone else in the areas, including the owner of the fruit stand, froze. Then they all screamed. Half ran away, but the other half, armed with broomsticks and swords and angry fists, turned to us. “Invaders from the origin plane!”

  My stomach dropped and I turned to Shawn. “See what your fucking shrug gets us now?”

  He glared at me. “At least we’ll probably still be here when Lady Azar attacks, even if it’s in prison as the Son and Daughter.”

  I watched the citizens of Alzan close in around us. “You’re assuming they won’t kill us first.”

  Chapter 18

  Ben

  I hadn’t expected Sandra to take everything so well.
But to have her laugh at me regarding Krystin was the weirdest thing to have ever happened to me. And even now, later in the day, she and Rachel were back to talking like they used to when we all were friendly and hung out. Back before the accident on the lake that’d given Rachel and me our powers. Before I’d gotten Sandra pregnant. Before the Hunter Circles had changed our lives irreparably.

  All we needed to do now was wait out the Fire Circle and whatever Hydron might do about Sandra until after Krystin and Shawn got back. And then we had to save Alzan.

  I closed the fridge door and grabbed the magnetic bottle opener. Cap off, I returned to the living room, where Nate sat with Rachel and Sandra in front of the television. We had one, like every other twenty-something in the United States, but we rarely used it. Especially lately. These last few nights, for instance, were the longest Nate had been home in a long time.

  I stood behind the couch and, instead of watching whatever mind-numbing show they had on, tugged my phone out of my pocket. I’d kept it on silent for most of the day. There was little chance Krystin or Shawn would call if they were in trouble rather than teleporting home, and there wasn’t anyone else I wanted to talk to. Even still, seeing no messages from either of them, especially Krystin, made my heart sink a little.

  Where are you?

  A knock sounded on the front door, followed by the doorbell. No one, even me, got up right away to see who it was.

  “What are the chances that’s a Fire Circle envoy?” Nate asked, a gaze cast wearily on the door.

  I stood and did the same. “Decent. Sandra?”

  “Yeah?” she said, standing too.

  “Can you do me a favor and go upstairs, just in case?”

  “Sure,” she said slowly, looking from me to Nate and back again.

  Rachel walked with her as far as the stairs. “If anything happens, I’ll be right up. I’ll get you out of here.”

  Sandra’s face paled. “What else is going to happen? They already have Riley and threatened me.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” I said as I moved for the door. Luckily for us, demons didn’t usually use doors when they dared to enter a Hunter’s home. That limited the amount of danger Sandra was in, but not by much.

  As soon as Sandra was up the stairs, Rachel standing on the bottom landing, I reached for the doorknob. “On me.”

  Nate and Rachel nodded, but when I unlocked the door and pulled it open, only one person stood outside.

  “Max.” My brow furrowed at the sight of the tall man, my cousin’s new boyfriend. And Hydron agent.

  “Hi,” he said, holding a hand up to block out the sun.

  “Max is here?” Rachel asked, stepping from the landing.

  I held up a hand. “Apparently. Tell me, Max, are you here on official Hydron business or is this a personal call?”

  I didn’t need to look over at her to know Rachel rolled her eyes. Her tone sharpened as she made her way to the door. “Get out of the way, Ben.”

  Max’s stare leveled me. “Both. I was sent to follow up on the Sandra situation and I wanted to check in and make sure everyone was okay.”

  Rachel nudged me out of the way and invited Max inside. “We’re fine, Max. Ignore Ben. My cousin likes to pretend he’s in charge of me.”

  Max nodded once. “I understand. I have two little sisters.”

  “Are they Hydron agents too?”

  Rachel shot me a glare.

  “No,” Max said. “They’re sixteen and eighteen. And, god willing, they’ll never know about this side of the world.”

  I swallowed hard, holding Max’s stare. I had the same hope for Amanda, my younger sister. So far, her only brush with this side of the world had been the boating accident that had seen the awakening of Rachel’s and my powers. With any luck, she herself would never develop any and I’d never have to introduce her to the Fire Circle.

  Assuming Rachel and I were still Hunters when all of this was over. And if Lady Azar didn’t succeed in her march on Alzan.

  “Chill out, Ben,” Rachel said.

  I straightened and looked toward the stairs. “No. Not until I know why he’s officially here. What do you want, Max?”

  His face hardened into a familiar mask. Krystin wore the same one when in Hunter mode, when seriousness and duty were more important than feelings or anything else going on. “It’s more what Hydron wants,” Max said. “Chiefly, to be sure you’ve handled the situation with your ex.”

  “Sandra isn’t going to be a problem. I’ve taken care of it.”

  “Meaning?”

  My jaw tightened, but Rachel’s continued glare was enough to convince me to chill out. Only by a little. So help me, if Max turned out to be a traitor too, someone out to screw us over like Jaffrin, I’d kick his ass into the nearest demon lair and leave him there.

  “Meaning I’ve talked to her and she’s agreed to stop talking about it, in person and on social media,” I said. “She’s under my care and my protection. You and your little Hydron buddies and the CIA can back the hell off now.”

  Max, to his credit, didn’t flinch. “And what steps are being taken to make sure she’s not a security threat to the Hunter Circles and the country in regards to Lady Azar and Shadow Crest?”

  “I just told you,” I snapped. “I’ve taken care of it. Now back off, Max. Tell your boss things are handled, and that if they don’t believe me, they can come to Boston and see for themselves. Or, better yet, they can join us in the fight against Lady Azar. Then you’ll know for certain.”

  Max relaxed his stance, his expression softening. “Okay. Sorry about that.” He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a wire and recording box, then disabled them both. “I have to ask those things exactly or they’ll punish me. And I think that, at this point, you guys need every ally on the inside you can find.”

  I bit my tongue so hard to keep from speaking that I tasted blood. “You’re making one hell of an impression, Max.”

  “Seriously,” Nate said. He’d been so quiet this whole time, I’d forgotten he was there.

  Rachel wrapped her arm around Max. He returned the embrace, looking down at her. “I’m glad you’re safe. I heard half your team is missing and wanted to be sure you’re okay.” He looked up again. “All of you. Despite what you might think about me, Ben, I really am on your side. And not just because I’m seeing your cousin.”

  “Why, then?” In my experience, my team had never been good at making allies. One of the most useful had just turned tail and run back to the demon woman who’d held him captive for hundreds of years. Bile rose in my throat at even the thought of considering Giyano an ally at any point in this insane adventure. But he’d never been mine, only Krystin’s. And look where that had gotten her.

  Max shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Because you guys are one of the last defenses Boston, maybe the entire country, has against Darkness’s hold. You’re the good guys, and the only ones capable of handling that threat.”

  I don’t know about that. Lately, it seemed like we couldn’t handle making breakfast, forget fighting this war. “And what about Sandra? What will happen to her?”

  Max pulled away from Rachel, back to being the Hydron agent as soon as his expression changed. “Nothing, as long as she stops telling people tales of demons and magik.”

  My jaw clenched. “She will. It’s already been taken care of. She’s under my watch.”

  “Good.”

  “You know, Max, I have to admit I’m not a big fan of your organization,” I said. Rachel shot me a look. “What I mean is I don’t like the government having any control over the Hunter Circles. This is our war. We’ve been fighting it for thousands of years without outside influence.”

  Max leveled me with a look. “The fact you’re still fighting it gives me the impression that maybe it’s time for that outside help you claim to not want. Without Hydron, the ‘gas leak’ nonsense from nine months ago would have been a disaster.”

  W
ell, he sure as hell was right about that. “Touché.”

  “Good,” Rachel said, looking between us. “Now shake hands and actually introduce yourselves because I’m over whatever male positioning is happening here.”

  I swallowed my response, and my pride, and then offered my hand. “Ben Hallen.”

  Max shook it. “Max Jones, Hydron Agent and also friend. I’ve been seeing your cousin for a few weeks now.”

  Stay calm, Ben. “Treat her right and you’ll never hear from me.”

  He nodded, his stare hard. “Understood.”

  I let go and backed away, my gaze landing on the stairs. Sandra was still standing at the top, listening to all of this. “I’m going upstairs for the rest of the afternoon. Let me know if anything changes.”

  “Okay,” Rachel said, watching me go as I climbed the stairs.

  Sandra waited for me at the top, just as I’d guessed she would. “What’s the word?”

  I laughed a little, but nothing was funny. “Like you weren’t listening in the entire time.”

  She shrugged, grinning. “Obviously. I wanted to know if I was about to be arrested or not.”

  “I never would have let that happen.” Except I’d already let the Ether Head Circle take Krystin once before. What good was I to either of them, really? “I need time from them. You’re probably safe to go downstairs if you want.”

  Sandra bit her lip and looked down the hall. “Honestly? I’m a bit tired. Everything about this has been exhausting.”

  I crossed my arms, shoving my hands into my armpits as I rocked onto the balls of my feet. “If it won’t be weird, you can take a nap on my bed. I was going to do some research online.”

  Sandra laughed. I’d forgotten how beautiful her smile was, especially since I hadn’t seen a genuine one aimed at me in almost three years. “It won’t be weird to me unless it’s weird to you.”

  “I think I’m too tired to care.”

  She gestured down the hall. “Then lead the way.”

  I nodded and guided her to my room.