Huntress Clan Saga Complete Series Boxed Set: Books 1-6

by Jamie Davis

  “No. All Upwood said about the magic of the place was that it was to be used as both a gateway between dimensions and a way to pinpoint incursions from the netherworld. I suppose that would require powerful magic, though. Possibly even wild magic, right?”

  “Maybe,” Miranda said. “Taylor, you said the wild magic was a layer on top of the spear’s inherent magic?”

  “That’s what it felt like.”

  Miranda shook her head. “Then I doubt the spear is the source we’re looking for. It might have absorbed some of the wild magic, or this might just be another random manifestation of magic gone haywire.”

  Quinn didn’t like the sound of that. “Damn, so we’re no closer to an answer than we were when we started. I feel like we need to talk to an expert. Who do you go to when there’s an outbreak of wild magic?”

  Clark shrugged. “Usually the local Hunter clan would have a house mage steeped in arcane knowledge to deal with the outbreak. They would instruct the Hunters about what needed to be done.”

  “Well, our mages are tapped out,” Quinn said with a glance at Taylor. “What else do we have?”

  “I have an idea,” Naomi said. “But I’m not sure how we’d pull it off, or even if we want to.”

  Quinn shrugged. “Don’t have another option. What’s the idea?”

  “We ask a demon.”

  Clark shook his head. “We can’t summon a demon, even for something like this. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Why is a demon something we’d want to bring into this situation?” Quinn asked.

  “It’s rumored that wild magic was used to imprison the demons in the netherworld long ago. It plays across the boundaries of their prison, and they’re intimately acquainted with its power.”

  Taylor let out a wry chuckle as she sat up. “Too bad we killed all of VirSync’s demon-kinder. Those possessed dudes could have answered our questions if we’d captured one. I don’t suppose any are left in hiding somewhere?”

  Clark shook his head. “We killed them all, or Quinn and Naomi did. It’s better we did. It’s never a good idea to leave a demon alive, either in possessed form or a real manifestation.”

  Quinn smiled. “Maybe we can find a way around that problem.”

  “What are you thinking, Quinn?” Naomi asked. “I don’t like that smile. It usually ends up meaning trouble. You heard Clark. No matter how badly we need it, we can’t conjure a demon. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I think I have the perfect solution. We won’t have to summon a demon, or at least not a new one.”

  When her friends stared at her with puzzled and concerned expressions, Quinn said, “Trust me. I have a plan.”

  Chapter Five

  Quinn glanced at Clark as he pulled into a short driveway leading to closed iron gates. It was just after nine at night. A single overhead street lamp illuminated the area around a small unoccupied guard shack. The formerly immaculate landscaping had become overgrown with weeds. They’d stopped beside a card reader sitting on a pole at the same height as Clark’s driver’s window.

  “I still don’t like this, Quinn,” Clark said.

  “Unless you know of another demon we can talk to, this is the only option.”

  Taylor leaned forward from the back seat, where she sat beside Naomi. “What if Jared isn’t down there anymore?”

  Quinn shrugged. “We come back up and figure out a new plan. Come on. He’s harmless now. Remember, we trapped him inside that magic pedestal. He can’t hurt anyone.”

  Naomi shook her head. “Demons are always capable of causing harm, Quinn. They can never be trusted, even when you think they’re trapped.”

  “Mom, I promise, this one’s as harmless as a demon can get. He’s locked inside the stone in the middle of a cavern no one knows about.”

  Quinn glanced at Naomi, who didn’t look convinced. “You’ll see.”

  Clark nodded at the gates. “How do we get inside? I don’t feel like climbing the wall.”

  Taylor handed him a keycard with wires running from it to the laptop on the seat beside her. “Try this. The red light on the swiper is on, so there’s power. I think I can hack it.”

  Clark took the card and checked to see where the magnetic stripe was. He repositioned it, then held the card out the window between his thumb and forefinger and passed it through the reader on the post. A second later, the gate jerked open. It groaned in a way that told them it hadn’t been opened in a while. Slowly, it slid to the side until there was room for their car to drive through.

  Clark passed the card back over his shoulder, saying, “Lucky.”

  Taylor smiled. “Nope. Pure skill.” She detached the connector holding the wires to the card. “Hold onto it. I left the programmed code in the strip. It should open the doors into the building up there, too.” She pointed up the hill at the darkened VirSync building.

  The place had been vacant since Quinn and the others had disrupted their operations, stealing their VR technology to stop their plans to let demons into the world. Weeds had started taking over, growing through the cracks in and around the parking lot. The once-carefully-landscaped and manicured grounds were now overgrown. No one had been here in months.

  Clark drove up the circular road off the main parking lot that passed the entrance and switched off the engine, pocketing the keys.

  Quinn popped open her door. “Let’s go.”

  The others climbed out and joined her on the sidewalk.

  “No lights on,” Taylor said, gazing at the empty building. “This isn’t creepy.”

  “Oh, you can’t see in the dark,” Quinn said. “I didn’t think of that. Maybe Clark has a flashlight.”

  “I’m good. My werewolf side can make do in a pinch, but it’s not the same as a real light. Don’t worry, I can figure something out.” Taylor raised one hand beside her head and traced something in the air. She finished and snapped her fingers. A glowing blue-white orb about the size of a grapefruit hung just above her hand.

  “How’s that?” she asked.

  “That’s great,” Quinn said. “Your magic is getting better all the time, T. My night vision ability is cool and all when there’s no other option, but nobody’s around now, and I can see better with that light.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Clark said. He held up the hacked keycard. “The sooner we get in there, the sooner we find out it’s not going to work.”

  Quinn walked past him, snagging the card from his hand as she did. “You don’t have any faith in my ideas—until they work out, that is.”

  Clark grumbled, Taylor laughed, and Naomi shrugged. The vampire leaned in as she passed Clark. “She’s not wrong. Come on, let’s see what she’s got up her sleeve with this trapped demon.”

  Quinn glanced back as she headed for the front doors. Clark followed at the end of the quartet with his usual grim expression. She decided to let up on him a little. He’d been through a lot, living on his own for so long. He still wasn’t used to having a clan around him again. She had to remember that.

  Taylor’s hacked card worked like a charm, opening the outer doors and both sets of inner doors on the first floor and basement levels they needed to pass through to get to the freight elevator down to the underground caverns.

  The building was in a poor state of repair inside, too. There was evidence that looters had been in here and cleaned the place out, probably breaking in via one of the back doors. Light fixtures had been removed; even a few water fountains had been stripped from the hallways. Hopefully, the looters hadn’t been able to get into the secured areas. It didn’t look like they’d gained access to the basement and the caverns below.

  The freight elevator creaked and groaned quite a bit as it descended the dark shaft to the caverns. Quinn hoped it was a question of needing lubrication and nothing else. She wasn’t sure how they’d get back up if it broke down. There was no cell service down there.

  The descending car finally jerked to an abrupt halt about two feet above the grou
nd at the bottom. Quinn and the others waited to be sure the elevator car had really stopped before they lifted the wire mesh gate and jumped the rest of the way.

  Quinn bent down to look under the elevator car and saw that small boulders from a cave-in had rolled into the bottom of the shaft. The car had come to a stop on top of them.

  Clark spotted them, too. “I hope that doesn’t mean this place is getting ready to cave in.”

  “Boy,” Naomi said. “You’re just a joy to be around tonight, aren’t you? These caverns look like they’ve been here forever. We’ll be fine. You can stay here to guard the elevator if you don’t want to come with Quinn and the rest of us.”

  “Oh, I’m coming. I’m just a realist,” Clark said. “Someone in this group has to be.”

  Quinn started down the sloping passage, with Taylor right behind her. Memories of coming down here the first time washed over Quinn. They walked past the room where Taylor had laid in a coma all those months ago. A shiver ran down Quinn’s spine at the thought of how close things had been. She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d lost Taylor that day.

  Taylor’s floating ball of light did an excellent job of illuminating their way. The old electrical lights strung on cables down the passage weren’t all working. About half of them had burned out, leaving broad sections dark.

  The pervasive smell of rot and death was the first indicator that they were getting close to the bottom of the passage. Despite her confidence in the plan, the smell forced Quinn’s doubts to the surface. She’d seen a lot of dead bodies by this stage in her time as the Huntress. She shouldn’t be squeamish. Her return had her stomach in knots by the time she arrived at the end of the tunnel and stood at the opening to the ceremonial cavern.

  Taylor stopped beside her, waved a hand in the air, and muttered some words Quinn couldn’t make out. The illuminated globe floated into the center of the room and up toward the ceiling, stopping about ten feet off the ground. It brightened, filling the room with blue-white light.

  In the center of the large open cavern stood the waist-high stone pedestal. Covering the floor in all directions for at least ten feet lay the partially desiccated bodies of the former VirSync VR candidates. The memory of fighting them as they reanimated into zombies shook her. She’d been friends with some of them.

  Taylor said, “Okay, now what?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Quinn replied. She could feel her friends’ eyes upon her. “Look, you knew a certain amount of this was going to be improvisation. We don’t even know if Jared’s demon soul is still trapped in there.”

  “He hasn’t acknowledged our presence,” Taylor said. “Maybe you’re right and he’s gone.”

  Naomi pointed at the floor of the tunnel in which they stood. “Or, he can’t sense anything outside the room in which that rock stands. Look, the floor in there is worked and flattened to form a disk around the pedestal.”

  They could stand here arguing the how and why all night, but Quinn needed answers now. She took a deep breath and stepped into the room. When nothing happened, she turned and looked at her friends, shrugging.

  She jumped when Jared’s voice boomed across the cavern.

  “I knew you’d be back, Quinn. I told you that when you left the last time.”

  “How’s life in the pedestal, Jared?” Quinn asked. “Everything you dreamed of and more?”

  Jared let out a cackling laugh with a hint of insanity in it. “I have spent my time awaiting the one who might set me free. I was surprised it is you who’s come to do so.”

  “I’m not here to set you free, Jared. I have come with questions for you.”

  Another brief burst of laughter was followed by, “I have no desire to answer any of your questions, girl.”

  Clark stepped over the line into the room and moved to stand beside Quinn. Naomi and Taylor joined him.

  “We know how this has to work, demon,” Clark said. “You’ll answer our questions, or we’ll go and seek out information elsewhere.”

  “Quinn,” Jared replied. “You brought your friends. How delicious. It doesn’t matter, though. Unless you have something to give me, or better yet, plan on setting me free, I don’t think I want to play along with your little game.”

  Quinn searched for something she might use in trade for what Jared could tell them. She glanced at her friends, shaking her head.

  Naomi spoke up. “Demon, I heard what happened to you. Quinn didn’t banish your soul into this chamber for all time. Others were involved. Perhaps you’d like to know their fates.”

  For a few seconds, there was no answer. Then Jared said, “I suppose it might be nice to know if they met a fate worse than my own. Perhaps a trade, then. A question for a question?”

  Quinn smiled and nodded a thank you to her mother. “That is acceptable, but we go first.”

  “Very well, ask your first question. Make it good. I bore easily.”

  Quinn paused, searching for the answer they needed to know more than any other. She couldn’t just ask for random information on wild magic.

  Taylor came to the rescue. “There’s an outbreak of wild magic in the city.”

  Jared replied, “I sensed a taint of it on you when you entered. What is your question?”

  “We seek its source. What is the best way to track down wild magic so we can contain it?”

  “Your smart little friend seems to be misinformed, Quinn,” Jared said. “Wild magic must run its course once released unless the source decides to rein it in. It won’t be contained.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Quinn said. “How can a spear rein anything in?”

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Jared replied. “That’s a second question. It’s my turn.”

  “Fine, ask your question.”

  “You said something about Myles Hickman and the demon-kinder he created. I know you killed some here when you escaped that first time. What happened to Myles and the others? I hope it was painful.”

  Quinn suppressed a shudder at the bloodthirsty anticipation in the demon’s tone. “We defeated them. I don’t know what you want to hear. They’re all dead, including John Handon and his cabal of vampires.”

  “That’s no way to tell a tale, girl. Your friends must consider you boring as hell. What really happened? I want all the details.”

  Quinn smiled. “As you pointed out a minute ago, that is another question. My turn.”

  “Oh, hellspawn, you’re going to drag this out for the entire night at this rate. I tire of this game.”

  Quinn shook her head. “You made the rules. If you’re more forthcoming, I could give you the details since I killed them all or watched them die at the hands of others. It’s up to you.”

  “That’s a little better,” Jared said. “Ask your next question.”

  Taylor said, “You said the magic must be held back by its source. In our case, that source is a golden spear used to activate the Crystal Well. It’s not alive, so it can’t rein in the wild magic.”

  “It’s simple, child. Wild magic is the oldest of the magics. It dates back to the chaos that predates the formation of the universe. It was contained by the only one who could when the creator brought order to things. Specific ancient races can harness the trapped wild magic. It’s only released during times of great stress or life change, such as death. Has anyone important in the supernatural world died lately?”

  Quinn glanced at Clark and Naomi. Both shrugged, and Quinn said, “No, not to our knowledge.”

  “All right,” Jared said. “You promised me details. I want them, and don’t leave a single scream or spurt of blood out of it.”

  “You didn’t help us with anything,” Taylor said. “Don’t give him what he wants, Quinn.”

  “An agreement was made with you, Huntress. You must abide by it.”

  The last thing Quinn wanted was to relive the near-death experiences she’d had fighting John Handon, Myles Hickman, and all the others. However, she’d made this bargain. The only way
she’d discover anything else was to give Jared what he wanted, no matter how many nightmares returned to disrupt her sleep.

  The more she dredged up the old memories, the angrier she got at herself for letting the demon manipulate her into this. It was like he’d known the effect it would have on her. Quinn’s arms started trembling as she clenched her fists. She thought over the battles in her mind.

  “I’m waiting, Quinn. Tell me every juicy, bloody moment. I want the gore, all of it.”

  Quinn took a step toward the pedestal, raising her hand with her forefinger pointing at the pedestal. “You want gore, you filthy demon, you’ve got it.”

  She never got any farther. The earthquake stopped her and everything else in the cavern. The shaking quickly became so violent that it knocked everyone from their feet. Rocks broke free from the ceiling, railing down on those below.

  Jared shouted, “You brought it with you, you foolish humans. You’ll destroy us all.”

  “What are you talking about?” Quinn yelled over the rumbling. “We came alone.”

  “I can sense it. One of you carries the taint, and it’s set off a new wave here in the—”

  Jared’s voice cut off as a colossal boulder broke free of the ceiling and crashed to the cavern floor, crushing the pedestal into fist-sized rocks and dust.

  “We have to get out of here,” Clark called. He’d crawled back to the cavern’s entrance. “It might be localized to this part of the caves.”

  Quinn nodded and started crawling toward the tunnel leading back to the elevator. She didn’t want to think about what this earthquake might be doing to their only route back to the surface. There was no way she and the others could climb that shaft to the basement.

  She was the last of the group to reach the relative safety of the tunnel. The shaking was less here, but as Quinn crawled into the passage, the rock changed beneath her. The unyielding surface of stone had taken on the consistency of a mattress.

  “What the…” Quinn got to her knees and probed the floor with her fingertips.