Venom in the Skin_Deadly Trades Series_Book One

by Jessica Gunn

  Hearing Veynix’s name spoken drove daggers into my skull. My breath stilled, shallowing out.

  “I’m sure he’d love to know we finally found Christine Drake. His pristine—”

  “Don’t you dare say it,” I hissed, advancing a step.

  My shoulder throbbed despite the new rush of adrenaline flooding my system. My awareness jumped three-fold to the point where, past the pain in my body, I swore I heard Will trying to get around the wall of earth separating us.

  “And what are you going to do?” the demon asked, an eyebrow raised. “Run? Again?”

  My teeth gnashed together. “Teleportante.”

  I blinked out of existence and returned not a full moment later behind the earth-elemental. “Requirem!” I shouted as I slammed a palm against his back.

  His body quivered and for a moment, I wasn’t sure the word-magik had worked. Then the cage around Will dropped along with the demon’s access to his magik.

  Before the demon fell to his knees, I snatched the short sword at his waist and brought it up, brandishing it to the other two.

  “You’re not taking me tonight,” I growled and, swallowing the pain and exhaustion from my earlier fight, I lunged for the ether-shaper demon. Getting hit with ether would hurt substantially less than fire.

  “Ava!” Will yelled, but it was no use. I couldn’t get to him, or vice versa, with both of these demons still in the way. And I doubted my teleportante trick would work a second time.

  I slashed upward, hitting his armor, and danced out of the fire-elemental’s way. Flames rose at my feet, lapping at my ankles and shins. I ignored the burning as best I could as I unleashed attacks on the ether-shaper demon.

  The fire-elemental left us alone, instead choosing to go for Will. I watched briefly as Will backed up as far as he could against a locker before realizing there was nowhere left to go. In a quick moment of thinking, he jumped up and grabbed a rusty broken pipe overhead. It snapped in two places, releasing steam but giving Will a weapon.

  A solid block of ether slammed into my gut. It sent me flying backward into another set of lockers. My head hit first with a loud thud, my breath leaving me with the hard impact. Crumpled on the floor, I looked up at our attackers.

  Will swung once, twice at the fire-elemental, but the demon ultimately grabbed the pipe with two hands and melted it before Will’s eyes.

  “This is the end, Christine,” the head demon said as he made his way over to me. “Luckily for you, both Jerrick and Veynix want you alive. For two very different reasons, I’m guessing.”

  I didn’t want to think about Veynix’s reason.

  I went to stand up despite the stars assaulting my narrowing vision. The moment I put weight on my legs, they collapsed. I couldn’t move, not without risking the world swaying. Instead, I groaned in protest.

  “Do you know what they call you in Landshaft?” the demon asked as he knelt down before me. “Veynix’s pet. That deal you supposedly made with him to save your life has earned you quite the notoriety there. Almost like you’re actually his lov—”

  The first ten inches of a blade sprouted from the middle of the demon’s chest. His skin immediately turned to ash with the mortal blow. As soon as the blade was pulled out again, a wave of purple flames burned the body up.

  Cedo matches? That must mean…

  I looked up. None other than Blood Hunter himself, parts of his face still crusted over with his own blood from my final hit, stood there, looking down at me. His sword shone in the light and—

  His mask.

  He wasn’t wearing it anymore.

  “Come on,” he said, reaching down for me. “Get up. We need to go.”

  I pulled my hand out of his grasp. “Will—”

  “Who’s Will?” he asked.

  The fire-elemental demon appeared before I could answer him. Blood Hunter now had his Fire Circle knife at his hip. I reached up and threw it at the demon. It landed in his chest, but not close enough to his heart to disrupt the flow of his magik.

  Didn’t matter, though. Blood Hunter followed it up with a swing of his sword, finishing the demon with impressive speed.

  That just left… I glanced to where Will had been, only to find him lying on the floor. He stared up wide-eyed at the ceiling.

  My heart stopped. “No! Will!”

  I crawled over to him, trying to ignore the way the world was swaying as though I were standing on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

  The third demon, the earth-elemental I’d used requirem on, didn’t stand a chance. He cried out as Blood Hunter took him out.

  “Will,” I shouted again as I made my way to him. His skin was hot and clammy, and his chest still rose and fell. “He’s alive.” Although I wasn’t quite sure why I felt the need to tell Blood Hunter that.

  “Is he hurt badly?” he asked, standing over me and Will.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.” Will was unconscious at least, but his eyes were wide open. Only when Will started convulsing did the reason dawn on me. “He’s been poisoned.”

  “Why didn’t they just kill him?” Blood Hunter asked.

  I shot him a glare. “My best friend’s poisoned, and you want me to wonder why they kept him alive?” I turned back to Will and held his body as still as possible.

  That was when I saw the ring of golden green around each of his irises.

  “Oh no,” I said as my fingers began to shake. No, no, no.

  “What is it?” Blood Hunter asked. “Come on; we can’t stay here for long.”

  “I know this poison.” It was Veynix’s mutated platypus venom. The same he’d gotten me with on the night my team died. But if these demons had more Veynix’s favored weapon, then… Was Veynix still alive?

  “Good,” Blood Hunter said. “You can tell the healers what it is at Headquarters.”

  I shot him another narrowed glare. “You’d admit to being at Midnight?”

  “No one has to know that.”

  “How am I supposed to know you’re really here to help me escape Talon and not that you’re just trying to lure me in so you get the money on my head?”

  A chill ran down my spine. Or that he’s Veynix in disguise…

  Blood Hunter bent down to retrieve his Fire Circle knife from the ground and held it out to me. “Ben sent me.”

  I lifted a brow. “And that’s supposed to make me believe you? Anyone can fake a knife and contacts.”

  He looked me in the eyes, his expression hard. “Do you want to save your friend or not? How about you let the Fire Circle determine my trustworthiness instead.”

  “Because I don’t trust the Fire Circle right now.”

  Blood Hunter cursed under his breath. “Look, if I was a demon trying to kill you or turn you in, why the hell would I give a damn about your friend? I’d have taken out the others and incapacitated you. I didn’t. I have a Fire Circle knife. And I know Ben’s a Leader candidate. I know about his entire damn team. Now let’s go, Ava.”

  My heart stopped. He knew my name. Not my old one, but this one. This mask I’d worn for six months, hiding the ugly truth: that I was no longer Christine, but some vague mockery of her, pretending to not have nightmares about what Talon had done to me and my team. Pretending their deaths hadn’t affected me at all.

  I swallowed hard and glanced back down at Will. This poison, this particular one, I’d had my own experience with. Will was in stage one, where the venom overwhelmed your entire body. Stage two would be intense pain, followed by stage three: long-lasting pain or, if the dose was large enough, death.

  This venom’s creator wanted to see me dead. After all, he’d already killed the rest of my team.

  Veynix.

  “Now,” Blood Hunter said. “For the hundredth time, we need to go. My name’s Kian. I’m a freelancer with the Fire Circle and Ben sent me himself to watch your back.”

  “You’re doing a fine job of it so far.”

  He leveled me with another look. “The money is
gone. In case you were still worried about it.”

  “If Ben really sent you, prove it,” I said. My Hunter Circles handler was a lot of things, but uncommunicative about sending someone to watch me was not one of them.

  Kian winced. “I don’t know how other than he sent me. I know who you are, Ava. Or would calling you ‘Christine Drake’ be a better idea? Used to be on a team with Jeremy—”

  “Okay, enough,” I said, resting the back of my hand against Will’s forehead. “We need to get him to Fire Circle Headquarters to see a healer right now. You can prove who you are by helping me get there.”

  Kian nodded. “Sounds good. Let’s go. These three weren’t the only Talon members at Midnight tonight.”

  “Somehow I figured you’d say that.”

  Together, we got Will up and used teleportante to bring us to Headquarters… the one place I said I wouldn’t go until all of this was over.

  Chapter 9

  We reappeared inside the lobby of Fire Circle Headquarters. The dark wood walls and old beams greeted us, wrapping me in nostalgia and a desire for easier times. The lights were dimmed due to the late hour. I looked through the city lights glinting off the windows of the lobby. To the outside world, this building looked like any other in the financial district of Boston. But as soon as you walked through the front doors, you entered a world as old as time.

  The original Headquarters building had burned down decades ago in some fire magik gone wrong, though the exact cause of it was a secret no one knew. And although the interior boasted the aesthetic of Colonial America, when the Hunter Circles had first taken up shop here in the new land, the modern era had weaved its way in, too. Electricity, plumbing, heat. Wi-Fi.

  I hadn’t believed it when Jeremy, my team’s leader, had first brought me here. Just stepping through the entrance was like entering a whole new world. When I’d gotten attacked on St. Patty’s Day weekend over a year ago, so long ago now, there was no way I could have guessed I’d be fighting demons two months later.

  Will groaned, pulling me out of my reverie. “Ava?”

  Kian and I had Will slung between us. We set him on one of the chairs in the lobby, then Kian ran to tell Lissandra, one of Headquarters’ admins, we needed to see Dacher.

  I knelt down in front of him. Will was shaking all over and sweat had slicked his brow and neck. He started to teeter sideways, but I grabbed hold of him.

  “Stay with me, Will.”

  “What… happened?” His face contorted in sudden pain. “Everything hurts.”

  I nodded, frowning. My heart ached for him, wishing to take some of his pain away because I knew exactly what he was going through right now.

  The rumors Fire Circle Hunters loved to tell of the night my team had died said I’d made a bargain with Veynix the Venomous to survive. That I’d gotten away unharmed.

  The truth couldn’t be farther away.

  “I know, Will.” I reached up to brush the side of his face, ignoring the slick layer of sweat. “I know. We were attacked in the locker rooms. Talon showed up. They killed Riker and were going to do the same to us. But we had help.”

  “Mo-nay?” he groaned.

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s what you’re worried about?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Escape.”

  I sighed, a ball forming in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure how much escaping we’d be able to do now.

  Hurried footfalls echoed down the hallway that led to the freelancer job boards and the building’s main staircase. A moment later, Kian returned with Ben Hallen, my handler since the accident, and a woman I’d never met before.

  Ben’s blond hair was messed about, as if it hadn’t seen a comb—and possibly a shower—in days. He came to a stop in front of us, his eyes wide. “What happened?”

  I ground my teeth together, both to keep from speaking my mind about the “protection program” bullshit, and from saying the truth. Ben didn’t know about me fighting in Midnight. Until my mask had come off, no one except for Will had known.

  Then there was the sneaking sense of dread curling around my stomach, whispering to me that this wasn’t Ben. That no one here was who they appeared to be. That Talon lurked behind every corner. And that when I least expected it, those closest to me would turn into Veynix, the charade gone, and he’d slide a poisoned blade into my belly.

  Just like he’d done to Brian after pulling him from the car. Veynix had saved Brian just to kill him in front of me.

  That twisting of dread worked its way into my throat, tightening it and threatening to let that emotion out. Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them back. Just in case Ben or anyone else here was a demon, I wasn’t going to let that weakness show. Not this black hole grief that had once nearly swallowed me hole, carved me out from the inside and left almost nothing. Not again.

  “Talon found us,” I said. “Just like I said they would. Will got caught in the crossfire.”

  Ben looked from me to Kian. “I sent you to look out for her.”

  Kian’s expression darkened. “You try taking on three Talon assassins without magik or warning.”

  Ben pressed his lips together, his fists clenching at his sides.

  “So it is true, then?” I asked. “I wasn’t sure Kian was telling me the truth about you.”

  “Didn’t really have a choice, did you?” Kian asked.

  I shot him a glare. “I wasn’t asking you.”

  Ben turned to the woman at his side. She had long, black hair and striking blue eyes. “This is Bria. She’s a new healer we’ve been training, but she’s one of the best. Bria, see what you can do for Will.”

  “Not much,” I said.

  Ben glanced at me. “Why?”

  “That’s Veynix’s poison he has in his system. We both know there’s no cure for that.” A shiver shot down my back to the scar on my arm where Veynix’s poisoned blade had cut into me six months ago.

  Ben nodded at Bria, who knelt beside me. She raised her hands above Will’s middle, where a tiny trickle of blood had formed. They’d nicked him with something, but nothing big. I hadn’t even seen that before now.

  Bria’s hands glowed with light blue ether as she assessed the damage. Something about the whole thing seemed vaguely familiar.

  “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” I asked her.

  She looked to me for the briefest of moments. “Yes. You were pretty out of it, though. Ten months ago, right before I joined the Fire Circle, I’d come here to meet Dacher and Jeremiah. You were badly hurt and I healed you.”

  Right. The memory snapped into place. Bria had had no idea what she was doing that morning, but she’d saved me from dying from a sword wound to my side. “Well, thank you again. I know Will’s in good hands.”

  She nodded. “I’ll try my best, but he’s definitely been poisoned. I don’t know what I can do for him long-term, but for now, I can try to ease it out of his system. Repair some of the damaged nerves.” She looked up at Ben. “Healing magik isn’t a cure-all for everything.”

  Ben nodded heavily like Bria’s admission held the weight of something more. “Let’s get him up to the Infirmary, then. Ava, you can go with him and then meet me in Dacher’s office. I’ll let him know what’s happened.”

  Bria touched a hand to Will’s side. “You know what a teleportante spell does, right?”

  Will nodded lightly.

  “I got it,” I said, grabbing Will’s hand. “Teleportante.”

  After getting Will situated in the Infirmary and leaving him to Bria’s magik, I trailed back to the staircase and headed for Dacher’s office. I hadn’t been at Headquarters in months, not since Ben and Dacher, the Leader of the Fire Circle, had placed me in their “protection program.” It wasn’t so much a banishment as it was house arrest for something I hadn’t done while they investigated all the claims to the contrary.

  Sure, I’d escaped the attack that had killed my team. But I hadn’t done so by making a deal with the devil.

  In
fact, I wasn’t sure how I’d survived at all.

  After a short walk, I came down the hallway where Dacher’s office was. Kian saw me approaching and nodded at Ben. The three of them watched as I entered Dacher’s office.

  Ben shut the door behind us all. “So, Talon found you?”

  “I told you they would.” I crossed my arms. “You of all people should have known that.”

  Ben and his team had tangled with some of the worst demons around, including Aloysius’s daughter. While Aloysius might have created all the demons, he had long ago given charge of the Empire of Darkness to his son and heir. But when his daughter had usurped power, Ben’s team had had to take her out before the world ended. Or something.

  I’d never been sure of the details. The Hunter teams like mine, without magik, had never been privy to the business of those more elite teams. The only time a team of magik-users had needed our help was to assist in heavy demon nest raiding operations.

  Ben’s body went rigid. “We hid you away from them. That should have been enough to get them off your tail until the investigation was complete.”

  Kian coughed loudly.

  I shot him a glare. You wouldn’t. I was fairly sure, anyway. Revealing my status in Midnight’s fighting ring would reveal his in Crimson. And despite us both being fighters, I was pretty sure Kian didn’t have that big of a death wish.

  “That investigation has been going on for six months,” I said.

  “There’s a lot of missing information,” Ben started.

  Dacher interrupted him. “The point of the matter is that your team got caught in a tricky situation.”

  “Political, you mean.”

  Dacher’s eyes narrowed in warning. “Short of keeping you bound to Headquarters, there is no way to guarantee they’ll never find you or Will. The protection program option was given to you for a chance at a normal life until this matter can be resolved.”

  “Resolved?” I asked, then turned to Ben, glaring. “Then resolve it already. Your team took out Darkness’s heir. You’re fucking legends in the Circle now.”

  Kian coughed again. I bit my lip. “Legends” wasn’t exactly the word some of us non-magik-users used, but it was the kindest.