by Jessica Gunn
Shiiit.
Kian fell to the ground beside me, his knees slamming into the grass. “Are you okay? What the fuck was that?”
“Distraction. Go.” My mouth barely moved enough to form the words.
Behind Kian, a larger, darker form loomed a few feet away in the shadow of the rising sun. Veynix. From this angle, he looked just as he had on the night he’d murdered my team. After I’d crawled out from the wreckage of the car. Hovering over me with a vial in his hands.
“Care to finish the job yourself?” he’d asked.
Kian slipped his arms under my armpits. “Let’s go. Hang in there.”
It took some doing, but Kian righted me. I leaned on him heavily, thankful for every breath that made it past my aching ribs.
Veynix stood to the side. He’d moved from the stairs but hadn’t quite followed Kian all the way over to me. He watched us with an amused smirk on his face. “You don’t have to fight this, Ava.”
I rolled my eyes and clamped my mouth shut as bile slicked my throat. My stomach convulsed, but I fought it. I was not going to vomit in front of either of them.
But I’d fought him. I’d pushed him back. I’d survived a second time.
Veynix wasn’t infallible.
Kian walked us backward over the wall of protection magiks while Veynix stayed still, watching but unmoving. All the while, I kept my eyes on the demon of my nightmares. Waiting for him to change his mind and charge us.
Veynix didn’t. “Glad to see my venom is working,” he said across the space between us. “I always intended for you to end up alone.”
I’m not alone. Was I?
“Hang on tight,” Kian said before I could respond to Veynix. “Teleportante.”
Chapter 14
This time, instead of Kian dropping us into the lobby of Fire Circle Headquarters, we appeared in the hallway right outside Dacher’s office. Ben and Avery, another one of the top three Leader candidates, stood inside, and both they and Dacher started with our arrival.
I swayed on my feet, the world teetering on a new axis. Kian helped me against a wall and stared into my eyes.
“Breathe, Ava,” he said, his brown eyes shining under the bright lights in the hallway. “We’re safe now. It’s over. He’s gone.”
I brushed Kian’s hands from my shoulders. “I’m fine.”
I really wasn’t. We both knew it. But Kian backed up anyway.
“What happened?” Dacher asked, rounding his desk.
Ben and Avery rushed out to assess what was going on. As soon as they realized nothing had followed us, Ben offered me a hand. I ignored it and walked on shaky feet into Dacher’s office.
“Talon attacked us first at the safe house,” I said. “Then they crowded the hell out of Hunter’s Guild.”
“They’d have torn us apart if not for the protection magiks,” Kian commented. “Although Ava decided to put them to the test.”
My side burned. I looked down and saw more blood had appeared on my clothing. “I need a healer.”
Dacher reached for his phone and called the Infirmary. After a quick conversation, he hung up and said, “Bria will be on her way in a moment.”
I’d wanted a healer hours ago. Now I just wanted a plane ticket to another country.
Avery stood guard at the door. “Are they even allowed to congregate like that?”
Dacher nodded. “Non-violently, anyone is.”
“So they didn’t hurt you?” Ben asked, watching me with careful, worried eyes.
“No.” I pointed to my injured side. “This is from the attack on the safe house. And me shoving Veynix away while still inside the protection magiks wall. Pro tip: Don’t tempt those magiks. It fucking hurts.”
Dacher frowned, his face a hard mask of concern. Good. It was about time someone here was concerned about Talon besides me.
A knock sounded on the doorframe. Bria stood there in light blue scrubs.
“I heard you needed a healer,” she said. She had bags under her eyes and her black hair had been long ago tied up into a bun that now sagged low against her neck. Guess Kian and I aren’t the only ones who had a long night.
Dacher waved her in, and within minutes, the wound on my side was closed. I wasn’t sure she’d been able to heal it entirely, but I was much better off than before. At least I was no longer bleeding all over Dacher’s office furniture and floor.
“Thank you,” I said to her.
She gave me a small smile and nodded to Dacher. “She’ll need to come to the Infirmary later so we can check her over fully, but she’s good for now.”
Dacher dismissed Bria back to the Infirmary without another word. A dark, almost deadly tone fell over the room.
I leveled Dacher with a look. “Veynix is alive.”
His expression didn’t change even in the slightest. “We know.”
My eyes narrowed. “You knew.”
“We assumed,” Avery said, stepping in to smooth over the tension. It didn’t help. Avery and I didn’t know each other at all. He’d been one of my trainers, sure, but my team had never interacted with his. Even despite us having a similar no magik scenario.
“Then you should have assumed the risk to Headquarters was worth it and let us stay here.” My words were harsh even to my ears, but I was tired of being treated like a victim, being tucked away, hidden with no real reinforcement.
Ben opened his mouth to speak, but Dacher beat him to it. “We had a delegation here attending to matters related to your case. Specifically, to Veynix.”
“Fantastic,” I spat. “I’m your number one source of information, then.”
“Delegation from where?” Kian asked.
Dacher glanced at Ben. “It’s a bit of a long story, but what’s important is that they’ve helped us track new victims of Veynix’s mutated platypus venom. Thankfully, it leaves a rather specific marker on someone’s—”
“New victims?” I asked, scooting to the edge of my seat. “When were you going to tell me he’s been attacking others?”
“When you got here this morning after I cleared you to return,” Ben said as he crossed his arms. “It’s been a long night, Ava. Trying to find all the victims at various hospitals around the city, taking in Hunters coming back from patrol. It’s not limited to any one team this time.”
To any one team this time.
Ben’s words felt like a mockery of my feelings right now, the idea that this entire thing centered around me—which was both true and untrue at the same time. But I knew Ben was only reporting the facts of the situation.
“How many?” I asked.
“Fourteen,” Dacher said. “Only nine of which have ties to the Hunters Circles.”
“How’d you find out about the others?” Kian asked.
“Ben has a connection to area hospitals,” Avery said. “She’s been feeding us the names and symptoms of anyone who’s come in with ‘strange’ issues.”
“Like super-intense, full-body pain and no discernible normal cause?” I asked. How many members of my team had also felt these symptoms that night before they’d died from wounds sustained in the crash?
An image of the car tumbling end over end down the ravine flashed through my wind. My body went rigid with the memory, frozen with shock and guilt over running from them. Over all the things left unsaid. Over losing my best friends and my boyfriend within minutes.
Dacher nodded. “Precisely.”
“Fantastic.” I swallowed down the memories haunting me and gave Ben a hard stare. “Care to recall your team to help with this now?”
He returned his own hard look. “It doesn’t work that way and you know it.”
No. Because his team was still alive. His team could still fight.
“Looks like it’s just us, then,” I said without looking over my shoulder.
“Guess so.” Kian shifted closer to me. “I’ll get her to the Infirmary for a closer examination, then we’ll figure out the next step.”
“Next ste
p?” Dacher asked. “What’s next is figuring out how they’re poisoning this many people.”
“Drinks at bars,” I said. “Water supply. Food. That venom can be in anything that leads to the bloodstream. Veynix didn’t really care who he poisoned as long as it created chaos. We may never know what his ultimate plan is besides tormenting Hunters and distracting them from Talon’s business.”
Which was exactly what he’d been sent after my team to do. Distract us. Taunt us. And in the face of our fear, enjoy us.
“I have a few ideas for places we can check and investigate,” Kian said.
I glanced up at him. “How?”
“Just from talking to people.” His answer was vague, but the pleading in his eyes to drop the subject made it clear it probably had to do with our involvement in Midnight and Crimson.
“Okay,” I said.
How had Kian gone from my most unexpected opponent to my only ally?
Because Talon’s desire to hunt us is apparently greater than the Fire Circle’s ability to protect us.
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” I looked to Dacher. “With your permission, sir.”
“You need to go the Infirmary like Bria requested before you do anything,” Dacher said. “And you should see Will. He’s awake and has been asking for you.”
My fists clenched in my lap. Of course they wouldn’t tell me that earlier, or tell Will where I was. “Then I’ll check in with Will. But I refuse to wait to act any longer. Obviously, we can’t take the most direct path because we’d die the second we stepped into Landshaft, but I’m not sitting around waiting anymore, either.”
“You’ll have to,” Ben said. “For another twelve hours or so. Besides, you probably need a good, uninterrupted stretch of sleep anyway.”
Did I look that bad? Probably.
“What’s the holdup now?” Kian asked. “Hasn’t this investigation and risk assessment been going on for a while?”
Dacher, Avery, and Ben shared a pained look. But it was Dacher who spoke first.
“Hydron’s now involved,” Dacher said. “They’re also sending a delegation group and some investigators to determine the impact this might have on Boston and to help Bria and the other healers here create an antidote.”
Something you should have done months ago.
But then I thought of what my team had discovered. “Are they also coming to finally look at the plan my team foiled?”
Dacher nodded. “Yes. While we’ve seen no evidence that Talon and the Trade’s plan to increase Ember witch trafficking has succeeded, it’s impossible to tell how many witches they already have in their possession. Using their poisons to push Ember witches’ magik fully demonic is not something we want them working on, whether the program has indeed concluded or not. Demonic Ember witches are even more powerful and volatile than unchanged ones.”
Kian’s eyes narrowed and he turned to me. “That’s what your team found out?”
I nodded. “That’s why they hunted us down. They didn’t want the Hunter Circles to know the extent of their trafficking. I’m willing to bet whatever Veynix’s true issue with me is, he’s also involved with the increased Ember witch need.”
“No wonder Veynix is obsessed,” Kian said under his breath. “They might have been building up an unstoppable army of Ember witches.”
Too bad it only explains half of his obsession. I mostly assumed Veynix found something about me and his venom, that combination, attractive. I never wanted to delve too deep into it, but I had to believe it had something to do with how I’d survived that venom, how I was scared but also not. How he’d managed to get so close to me by pretending to be Brian.
My eyes closed with the memory of my now-dead boyfriend. The dates to the bowling alley we used to go on. The demon patrols. The night we’d met, how he’d saved me from a demon attack.
“You can’t go after Talon without help either way,” Ben said, pulling me from my thoughts. “So please don’t.”
“I’d be happy with just killing the one demon,” Kian said.
“Me too.” With Veynix dead, I might have been able to finally move on. I’d still have to watch out for Talon and the Trade at every step, but at least my nightmares about Veynix would stop.
“Go see Will,” Ben said, his expression softening. “We’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay,” I said, although I wasn’t sure anything was. Veynix was alive. He was sure to figure out that we were at Headquarters. And now… now I was wondering if Kian and I would always be on the run, only allowed home when one of us was injured.
No. I couldn’t live like that. And if Kian was so entwined with Talon too—actually, especially because he was—then I had to keep fighting, for him too.
Whether I had the Fire Circle at my back or not.
“I’ll see you up to the Infirmary,” Kian said as we walked down the hall to the staircase. “If you want me to, I mean.”
I nodded. “Sure. And… thanks for getting me out of there earlier.”
He shrugged. “Not a big deal. We’re partners; that’s what we do.”
“Seriously,” I said. “You didn’t have to walk me through a panic attack when you could have gotten out of there yourself.”
“I wasn’t ever going to leave you, Ava,” he said, his brown gaze holding mine. “I don’t leave people behind, least of all in a room infested with demons. Ben might have assigned us because you needed back-up, but I’m choosing to stay, if you’ll have me. You’re a great fighter.”
“Even after our argument?”
Not that it mattered too much. I couldn’t count how many times any of my old teammates had gotten into a fight with Jeremy over bad calls, iffy take-out places, or watching something besides sports on the TV. But Kian and I had been assigned to one another out of necessity, not because we needed a partner due to some age-old rule. Only official teams had a five-Hunter mandate. Freelancers could do whatever they wanted. And I supposed I was a freelancer now, wasn’t I?
Kian’s lips pressed together for a long moment. To my surprise, I realized his answer mattered to me. A lot. “You turned on Veynix this morning and told him to get lost. You braved the protection magiks around Hunter’s Guild to give us a window of escape. That was pretty brave for someone who lost her entire team to that demon.” He paused. “Along with whatever else happened that didn’t make it into the reports…”
My eyes narrowed. “Nothing else happened that night.”
Kian gave a little shrug. “Point is: I don’t think you’ll ever leave me behind, either. That’s enough for me.”
Silence fell between us as I took in the weight of his words. He might never ever trust me like either of us had at one point trusted our first teams—that kind of bond was hard to recreate—but he was right: we’d never leave each other behind.
“Sure,” I said. “But before we go making this official, we need to take down Veynix and any other Talon soldiers we can. We can’t let their poison masters rule the city anymore.”
Kian smiled as though he were happy about the decision, but something about his expression didn’t ring true. A slight wince, an odd look in his eyes.
Before I could ask what he wasn’t telling me, he continued on toward the stairs. I followed in silence as we climbed up to the Infirmary, where Kian left me to attend to other business.
Bria stood at the Infirmary’s front desk, still dressed in scrubs and now also a white doctor’s coat. She looked up as I came through the door.
“I’m here like you wanted, but first: How’s Will doing?” I asked.
Bria lifted a clipboard and scanned its contents. “Okay. We were able to decrease the dose of his pain medication, but it’s going to be a long road.” She glanced up at me. “I’m hoping that once Hydron gets here, their scientists can help me develop an antidote.”
“Ben said they should be here soon.”
She nodded. “Great. This is some tough stuff, that I can say.”
“I wish I knew ho
w Veynix made it.”
“Me too,” she said. “It’s complicated as hell. It’s like all the things that should work don’t. None of the normal anti-venoms work, either. Nothing.”
“Well, if I see Veynix again, I’ll be sure to ask for pointers.”
Bria offered me a small smile, though we both knew nothing about this was funny. It was just the only way to deal with all this hurt and death—to deal with working in the Hunter Circles.
“Please do.” She gestured to the right wing of the Infirmary. “Will’s in room four. He’ll be happy to see you.”
“Thank you, Bria.”
I left her to her work and hurried down the short hallway to Will’s room. Peeking in, I saw him sitting upright in his bed watching some movie on his phone, which was plugged into the wall. I softly knocked on the doorframe so as to not startle him.
He looked up immediately, eyes bright and alert. “Ava! Oh, thank god.”
I shut the door behind me and crossed the room to him. “Can I hug you? I really want to hug you.”
He winced at the idea but nodded anyway. “Yeah. I need it, too.”
I gently wrapped my arms around him, careful not to squeeze too hard. I knew far too well that even the lightest touch could burn for days under this venom. “I was so scared, Will.”
He nodded into my shoulder. “Me too. They wouldn’t tell me anything about where you were or what was happening, just that I’d been poisoned by that bastard’s venom.”
I pulled back. “That’s what happened. Then Ben and Dacher sent me to a safe house with Kian. But that was attacked, so we ended up at Hunter’s Guild and then—”
Will’s face screwed up. “Who’s Kian?”
“He’s the one who stepped in to help us during the fight in the locker room,” I said. “He’s also Blood Hunter, that Fire Circle Hunter Riker made me fight in the ring.”
“That asshole is now our ally?” Will asked. “He nearly beat you to death!”
I scoffed in mock offense. “Hey, I had that fight on lockdown, thank you very much.”
