Hunter Circles Series Complete Boxset: An Urban Fantasy Adventure

by Jessica Gunn

  Seconds before my feet hit the bottom landing and the living room came into focus, a blast of warm air sent me careening back against the wall.

  All air whooshed out of my lungs, my heart catching in my throat as my shoulders collided with the plaster. The force of the hit dented the wall and my body bent into the hole.

  I gritted my teeth as I dropped to my knees, falling the rest of the way down the stairs. What the hell was that?

  “Krystin!” Ben shouted, but he was cut off, his words turned into a strangled cry. The sound of a lightning strike filled the space, but the room flashed blue instead of Ben’s normal white lightning.

  Oh, fuck.

  My head spun, but I forced my eyes open and cradled the side of my head in one hand. Forcing my feet below me, I stood, using the banister to pull my weight up off the floor.

  Five demons fought Shawn and Nate, trading magikal blows with them in a kaleidoscope of colored ether. Shawn reached out with the ala-ether and pulverized one demon, then another. But the other three demons were powerful elementalists, whipping around fire and water and earth without regard for the fact that it was still early evening and we didn’t exactly live in a quiet, secluded neighborhood. They’d reveal us, the Fire Circle and all of Darkness with it, if they didn’t stop this.

  But I’d seen blue lightning, and none of the other demons were using it…

  Where’s Ben? Rachel was missing too. I blinked, trying to clear my bleary vision, and found Rachel squaring off with… Lady Azar. The wind attacks had been hers.

  I jumped from the bottom of the stairs and used teleportante to close the distance between them and me, throwing myself in front of Rachel. I came up, closing my fist tight, and slammed it against Lady Azar’s jaw before thrashing her in the temple with my other fist.

  She flicked up her hand between us. Wind coursed through the room, swooping against me like a solid stone pillar. She slung me up into the air and against the ceiling. The plaster and wood bent beneath my body and the force of the attack. My body screamed in pain, but I tried to force it from my awareness. Not now. Feel it later.

  “What do you want?” Rachel cried as she backed up a step. Water gathered up her arm, spiraling into the living room from the kitchen sink in a torrent. It twisted in coils that turned into ice spikes. Her other hand remained free of water, but her fingers were twisting and bending in a pattern I couldn’t make out. Like she was trying to write something.

  I groaned, pain lancing up my spine.

  “To kill you,” Lady Azar said, looking not at all bothered by my appearance or the fact that the rest of the team was swiftly taking out her guards. Instead, she looked unaffected and regal in blood-red armor with black scales running up the top of each shoulder. A golden tiara sat atop her head, shining in whatever light was left in the room. By whatever hadn’t yet been destroyed by her and her minions. “If you want something done right, apparently, you have to do it yourself.”

  The blue lightning shot out again, coiling around Rachel’s form and striking all over her body. She cried out, falling to the ground, convulsing, her skin tinging blue as light glowed from her eyes.

  That’s when I saw him for the first time walking slowly toward Lady Azar with a grin on his face. An evil one. A grin I wasn’t aware small children were capable of creating. Three-year-old Riley now stood beside Lady Azar, draped in Shadow Crest’s colors of blood red and black, a small, blue lightning storm in his hand. The strikes trailed behind him, where Ben appeared to be being dragged by the lightning.

  “Riley, stop this!” he shouted, pain wrapped around every word he said. “This isn’t you!”

  “Ignore them,” Lady Azar said to Riley without ever breaking eye contact with Rachel. “Perhaps we’ll start with the aunt who left you behind.”

  “No!” I screamed, fighting against the tornado still pressing me into the ceiling. “Teleportante.” The pull of teleportation clawed at me, but it was like running headfirst into a brick wall. Lady Azar’s magik had warped around my own, holding me in place.

  I closed my eyes and searched for the part of my soul that was connected to Alzan. That white, warm light of power that had always been there, even when the darkest parts of me were winning.

  And found it. I pulled the chord between us taut and opened my eyes, tearing through the tornado with ala-ether around my fingers.

  I dropped to the ground, free from Lady Azar’s hold, and swung once at her, shooting out a crescent-shaped ala-ether attack right at her neck.

  She jumped to her right at the last moment, but it was long enough for Ben to reach out with his own lightning magik and flick his hand at the air.

  Lightning coiled around Lady Azar, striking her over and over again. Riley screamed, the blue lightning storm around him growing until even Ben looked at him in fear.

  Why the hell had she brought Riley with her? To make him watch her kill us? The kind of damage that could do to a child… No. Not a child. Not anymore.

  My gaze settled on Riley’s burgundy one. His eyes and even the feel of his magik were demonic now. I’d known this. Had seen it a few days ago in Shadow Crest’s lair. But that Riley and this one freely attacking us were so different, I didn’t know what to believe was real.

  “What did she do to you?” I asked him, although I doubted he’d answer. He hadn’t known me before this, and he wasn’t even acknowledging his own father’s presence aside from attacking him.

  A shock of white ether slid past me and collided with Lady Azar as Nate appeared from nowhere. Shawn followed up, reaching for my hand and producing a wave of ala-ether.

  “If we end this now, she’ll never get to Alzan,” Shawn said, pulling me along. “Just tap into your magik this one last time.”

  I shook my head, already feeling my veins burning at his words. “No. Bad idea.” Besides, the chances we would actually win this fight—

  The air rippled around us. Another wave of demons appeared. They were dressed the same as Lady Azar in armor that’d negate any attempts at fighting them with anything other than magik.

  Fantastic.

  Sirens sounded in the distance which—although not uncommon in the city—didn’t bode well for us. Had one of the neighbors called 911?

  “Ben!” I shouted, but it was useless. Riley still held him inside an inescapable lightning storm. And now Ben’s eyes were glowing blue too, just like Rachel’s.

  Rachel and Nate turned on the new wave of demons, throwing everything they had at them. Shawn squeezed my hand tighter, looking at me out of the corner of his eye as though he expected me to act.

  But I couldn’t. Not here. Not without risking my own death before—

  If we kill her, she’ll never get to Alzan.

  I closed my eyes, sucked in a deep breath, and braced myself for immeasurable pain. But as my own hands began glowing with ala-ether, a shockwave coursed through the room. Glass shattered and furniture was tossed asunder, some of the wood splintering. Various odds and ends from shelves and the coffee table flew along with the shockwave. I covered my face with my hands and braced myself on my back foot, sliding along the floor.

  The blue shockwave died down as quickly as it came, leaving behind only the team and me, Lady Azar, Riley, and one of the four additional demons that had appeared. But Rachel and Ben were waiting, the only two still standing after the attack.

  Rachel snaked water around the demon’s neck and pulled tight, snapping it in quick, practiced motions before lighting a cedo match on his hair. The demon’s body burnt up in a brilliant flash of purple.

  Ben had been blown away from Riley’s hold in the shockwave. But when he and Rachel stood next to each other, the blue glowing in their eyes grew brighter. Tattoos made from cobalt ink twisted alongside their eyes up onto their temples, and Rachel’s water attacks and Ben’s lightning now each had a glowing blue tinge to them.

  Like Riley’s lightning.

  “No,” Lady Azar said, backing away a step as she looked between R
iley and his father and aunt. “I thought… Impossible.”

  “We’re Neuians,” Ben said as he fell into a ready stance for another lightning attack. “Or did you not know that when you kidnapped Riley?”

  “I thought he’d stolen their magik from someone,” Lady Azar said. Her gaze trailed down to her young protégé.

  But Riley’s magik had been this off-color, this blue, when we’d fought Shadow Crest days ago. We—or at least I—had thought it was a byproduct of him being turned into a demon, like how Giyano could control white-hot flames beyond what a normal fire-elemental could do.

  Guess not.

  So his Neuian magik—the Power, I guessed—had finally shown up in him.

  Oh, my god. The Power is Neuian magik.

  So simple a conclusion. Why hadn’t this clicked before now?

  I looked around at the tattered walls of our team’s house. The one between the living room and the kitchen had all but been blown out. Every window on this level was gone, the glass shattered on the ground. The sirens grew closer, and through the now blown-open front door, bystanders peered in from the street.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Lady Azar took note of them too, but only in passing. “Now!” she ordered Riley and as Riley unleashed a lightning storm attack at all of us, she sent mini-twisters spinning through the air.

  I dove, tumbling until I found Shawn. “Screw it!” I screamed. Our ala-ether magik filled the space around all five of us in an instant, blocking out their attack. But not for long.

  Agonizing pain ripped through my arms and legs, seizing my breath and focus. The ala-ether shield dropped for a moment, replaced only by Nate’s own ether.

  Before we could fight again, Lady Azar scooped Riley up onto her side and let out a ferocious, frustrated sound. “This isn’t over! I will march on Alzan. It looks like if I do it now, I might have a shot.” With a lingering look at Shawn and me, she disappeared in wave of teleportante.

  Shawn reached out, swiping at the air with his telekinesis, and the front door slammed shut again. Another wave and the curtains—what little remained of them—at the front window slid closed, hiding the living room from view. “The cops will be here any second,” he said as he let go of my hand. “Are you okay?”

  My body shook, a cold sweat breaking out as my muscles spasmed. “No. I don’t think so.”

  Rachel cried out, convulsing on the ground as blue ether whipped around her. Ben fell too, the same happening to him.

  Nate’s eyes went wide and he backed away, nearly running into the kitchen. “No. They’re—”

  His words were interrupted by another scream from Rachel.

  “What is it?” Shawn asked as my world grew blurry with pain and hurt and confusion.

  “Their magik. There’s ether there, eating away at something inside of them,” Nate said, his eyes widening still. “I-I can feel it. Their pain. Their magik is flaring, but it doesn’t know where to go. What to do.”

  Shawn looked to me, weariness and worry etching lines around his eyes. “One last time, Krystin. I need you to use your magik once more.”

  I groaned, rolling my eyes. I wasn’t sure I had it in me, but I understood what he meant. Areus and Alzan were the only solutions to my problem too. “Fine.”

  Shawn helped me over to the others and Nate touched a hand to each of our shoulders. Shawn ran his Fire Circle knife over his palm, then mine, silently cursing that there wasn’t a better, easier way to get to Alzan.

  Then we left for the city. For Ben and Rachel’s only hope of survival. And possibly mine.

  The last thing I heard before we left was the blaring of sirens as police cars and an ambulance arrived at our house. Not that they could have helped us anyway.

  Chapter 10

  Ben

  My head pounded to the beat of several small humans picking away at stone. Light filtered in through my eyelids, much brighter than any lamp at the house could produce.

  I covered my eyes with my fingers, removing them one by one so I could adjust to the brightness. What I saw when the light finally stopped blinding me was just as confusing as watching Lady Azar and Riley attack us in our home. I was definitely not on the origin plane anymore.

  Riley had attacked me. He hadn’t even blinked. Not a moment of hesitation. Had Lady Azar’s brainwashing taken hold so strongly that he didn’t care about attacking his own father?

  He barely knows you, my mind reminded me. The thought, true as it was, cut straight through the core of everything I was. Riley didn’t know me. I’d only been around for the first couple weeks of his life, really. And there was no way he’d remember that.

  But I did. I’d stayed up with him the first few nights. Fed him at three in the morning. Changed his diapers. I might not have been the best dad along the way, but I’d tried. And if I’d had any idea of what was going on the morning he was kidnapped, I would have been able to fight off Giyano and the other Shadow Crest soldiers.

  But I hadn’t. And it was time I stopped thinking about that past because there was nothing I could do about it now, least of all because Riley was now a demon fully brainwashed into thinking Lady Azar was his mother.

  Mother.

  An idea popped into my head then, so outrageous and insane that it had me springing off the bed I’d been lying on.

  “Easy, Ben,” someone said. Krystin. “Your magik flared. Seems like we’re all having fun with that lately.”

  I swallowed the insane idea I’d come up with and swung my gaze toward Krystin. She stood on the other side of a wall that looked to be made from plastic wrap, glimmering with a shiny pale blue color. I lifted a finger to touch it, curious.

  “I wouldn’t,” Krystin said. “It gives one hell of a sting, or so I hear.”

  I pulled back. “What happened?” And how the hell did all of us keep surviving our magik backfiring? Most of the time, people just dropped dead.

  Because you’re Neuian. And Krystin’s magik might be derived from them too.

  It gave me little reassurance of my mortality.

  Krystin frowned. “Lady Azar attacked us. She said something about doing it herself, likely because everyone else failed. Which is kind of bullshit because she ran too.”

  “It’s because of Rachel and me being Neuian. I think she was scared of what we could do.”

  Krystin shook her head. “She’s fought us all before. She must know this is a recent development.”

  “But Lady Azar ran.”

  “Yes, Ben. That doesn’t mean—”

  I swiped my hand through the air. “She doesn’t want to incur their wrath so close to her march on Alzan.”

  “It’s not like she kept her plans a secret,” Krystin snapped, then regret immediately flashed across her eyes. Her expression softened. “What I mean is… If Jaffrin knew, so did the Neuians. But they didn’t act to stop her at all from kidnapping Riley or using him as a magikal siphon. If they were going to stop her, they would have whether they thought of us as vermin or not. The cianzas are important to them and their history. I don’t think it’s them she was afraid of.”

  “Then what was it? Because it sure as hell wasn’t Rachel or me. Or you or Shawn. Lady Azar doesn’t care about that, Krystin. She’s the daughter of Aloysius. She’s one of the most powerful Old Ones to have ever walked the Earth. And so far, fighting her has been… not easy. But she had every chance to kill us at the house and she didn’t, even when that’s what she came there to do.”

  Krystin bit her lip, a telltale sign she was holding something back. As if she’d had this conversation with herself a million times while I’d been out.

  “What, Krystin?” I asked.

  She glanced away, staring at something behind me for a few moments before looking back. “I think it has to do with Riley.”

  My brow furrowed. “How?”

  “I have to wonder how brainwashed Riley actually is. He’s referred to you as ‘Dad’ before. And he knows you’re involved somehow with Lady Azar.
If in his head he still thinks of you as family and Lady Azar knows this, she might have a problem getting him entirely on her side.”

  I blinked, my eyes widening. “There’s still a chance we can get through to him.”

  “Possibly. But I’m still concerned about what will happen if Riley sets foot in Alzan. Or on the cianza.” Krystin stepped closer to the wall separating us, apparently thin enough to allow sound to pass through. “Even if the Power is related to Neuian magik, Kinder almost tilted Cianza Boston just by being on it. She didn’t have to use her magik before it started tipping the balance of magik there. And we know nothing about how cianzas were originally supposed to work if the part about them being Neuian weapons is true.”

  My jaw locked. “We need to get to him before Lady Azar leaves. Before Riley has more time to doubt her.”

  Krystin nodded. “And we also need to interrogate Jaffrin and find out more about the Neuians, for our sakes as well as Riley’s. And quickly—we don’t have time to waste anymore.”

  Those weren’t the only reasons we’d needed to come to Alzan. “Did you talk to Areus about your magik?”

  She shook her head, her gaze dropping to her hands, which clasped in front of her. “Not yet. I wanted to be here when you woke up and I knew it’d be a long conversation with him.”

  I frowned. I had time with my magik. Krystin didn’t, and hers was more important to the final conflict. I suddenly didn’t care about interrogating Jaffrin or anything else. “You should tell him now.”

  Her gaze held firm. “No, I will after.”

  “How long have I been out, then?”

  “A few hours. Not long at all.”

  Good. That meant we hadn’t lost a ton of time… Oh, shit. “Krystin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you send word to Dacher yet somehow?”