Broken Angel (Book 1 in the Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman series)

by Shannon Lee Martin

That night, Holly and I stayed up to study the material given to us by our Djinn instructor. There was an entire binder full of information on spirits—their history, their forms, their common vengeances, what they can do, what they can’t do, how they can hurt people, and infinitely much more. There were endless ways of getting rid of them it seemed. It overwhelmed and intrigued me.

  The two of us went through every bit of information over and over again until it seared itself into our brains. Holly quizzed me and then I quizzed her and then we started the process over again. It was maddening, but it worked.

  “Okay, what is the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist?” Holly asked from her bed as I paced back and forth across the room.

  “A ghost is a manifestation of a dead person who can’t move on, and a poltergeist is a supernatural being which causes physical disturbances to people and objects,” I answered confidently.

  “And…”

  I froze and ran my hands through my hair as I dug through the recesses of my memory. “And…and…oh! And a ghost is attached to a location while a poltergeist is normally attached to a specific person!”

  Holly smiled. “That’s right!”

  “Yes!” I breathed out as I flopped down onto my bed.

  “You’ve got this,” she said, tossing the big black binder onto the floor. Her mouth pulled into a yawn as she stretched her hands above her head.

  “Maybe we should go over it just one more time to make sure.”

  Holly cocked her head to the side and let her full hair flow onto the bedspread. Her normally large eyes were halfway closed, heavy with sleep. “It’s noon. We have to be up in four hours,” she groaned.

  I glanced at the clock and inwardly debated with myself. “Maybe I’ll just look it over one more time.”

  I couldn’t stop. As much as I wanted to, something inside wouldn’t let me. Once I learned these beings were real, I craved more knowledge about them.

  “Whatever you say,” Holly said and then laid down in her bed facing me.

  “I have to work twice as hard as everyone else. You might not be a descendant, but your godmother raised you like one. I only learned that things like demons existed a few days ago. If I want a chance at becoming a Huntsman I have to catch up.”

  Holly simply grinned. “Ten more minutes of studying and you’ll have surpassed every one of us.”

  I tried not to smile, but my lips fought the suppression.

  Holly rolled away and covered her head with the blanket. I tucked myself into bed, propped the pillows up on the headboard, and settled in for at least another hour of studying.

  Twenty minutes in, my eyesight blurred. It was hard to keep my lids from drooping shut. My head lolled to one side as I let my eyes close. Only for a quick second, I told myself.

  The darkness shifted into the familiarity of my house back in Indiana. I saw the upstairs hallway and Danny’s closed door. It was the dream. I tried to force myself to wake up, but it was no use. There was nothing left to do except let it play out as usual. My hand twitched at my side as I sank further inward.

  I opened my son’s door, but it wasn’t his room inside. Instead, it was a large storage room with shelves that went all the way up the endless walls to a ceiling too far away to see. Each one was packed with items that resembled junk at a garage sale—a broken lamp, a doll with a cracked porcelain face, a teakettle with a faded floral design, an old rusted typewriter. There was a dim, yellow light coming from nowhere in particular. Standing in front of one shelf was a figure in a black robe with its hood up and back turned. Whoever it was, they had no idea I was there.

  The figure slowly reached out a gloved hand toward a black goblet with dark creatures decorating the outside. Time slowed down as the hand inched closer. Before the person’s fingers could grasp the stem, my eyes sprung open.

  Someone had turned off the bedside lamp and placed the binder on the nightstand. Holly lay on her back with her arm flung over her face. Her lips were parted, releasing small snores with every breath.

  I’d had bizarre dreams before, but this felt different somehow, like I was catching a small glimpse into someone else’s future. There was nothing distinct in the dream that told me it wasn’t the present—that someone wasn’t in that cluttered room right then getting ready to snatch some useless goblet. I simply knew deep within my gut I had seen something that would inevitably happen. The question was how and why? And why did I have a dreadful feeling churning my insides?

  Tossing and turning, I replayed the dream over and over again. The clock read two twenty-three. Each time I looked at it, the numbers went up and sleep grew more distant. I wasn’t sure if I should tell someone what I saw. How would I explain it? And would they even care?

  Suddenly, the blaring of the alarm interrupted my thoughts. I let it continue until Holly rolled over and turned it off with a groan. I hopped out of bed, eager to start my day and forget about the weird dream. There was no telling who the man was, where the room was located, or why it felt so menacing—all I knew was that I had to put it behind me and concentrate on my training. That was the only thing that could bring me my revenge.

  The gun range