by Jessica Gunn
I stood off to the side, watching them. I didn’t have to stay, but Ben had asked me to, whether for moral support or to keep him from throttling Jaffrin, I wasn’t sure.
“Hey, buddy,” Ben said, his hand pressed to the large television screen. “You doing okay up there?”
Riley nodded, grinning. “Yup, Daddy!”
Ben laughed, though his back remained rigid. “Good. I miss you guys.”
Sandra sat behind Riley, bitterly staring Ben down like this was his fault. But it wasn’t—not all of it. Even after two and a half years of training and experience, I doubted Ben could take Giyano with a group of demons at the same time. Or even one-on-one. That bastard always seemed to have something up his sleeve to escape.
And yet I’d constantly sought him out anyway. I shifted uncomfortably, swallowing tightly. Eventually, I’d have to tell Ben what I’d been up to. I dreaded having that conversation.
“We’re fine, Ben,” Sandra finally said. She had her hair up in a loose bun. It was still early in the morning, clearly before she’d had a chance to put herself together. But the stern, unforgiving face she gave Ben seemed to be an everyday thing.
I didn’t really blame her. She hadn’t asked for any of this. None of us had. But her especially.
“Good,” Ben said. He glanced over his shoulder at me, his expression unreadable. His thoughts, too. Then he looked back to Sandra. “I just wanted to check in.”
“Everything okay there?” she asked, though it was clear she didn’t really want to know.
I was happy to be off-camera. Ben had gone to great lengths to keep them safe, but Sandra didn’t know the truth. Not all of it. So to her, even though she’d gotten Riley back safe, she must have been so confused and hurt by Ben making her move to Canada, essentially without explanation. I felt for her. But I wasn’t sure that in her place I’d care. The father of her son had done what he’d had to in order to ensure their son would never be taken again, and that was that.
At least we hoped. After tonight, I wasn’t so sure.
My heart broke for Ben as the call wrapped up, ending with Riley telling Ben he loved him. After the screen went dark, Ben stood there, hands on either side, fingers digging into the wall. I feared he’d actually break through wood with the anger and other emotions rolling off of him in waves.
I looked away to give him space, but it did little good. It wasn’t his thoughts I heard this time, but his emotions, each hitting me one after another. Rage. Guilt. Shame. Love. Heartbreak. Utter heartbreak.
I closed my eyes and tried to block him out, this man who had somehow gotten past my carefully-constructed mental wall.
Jaffrin broke the silence. “I told you they were fine, Ben.”
Ben’s hands curled into fists. “But for how long?”
“We can move them again, if you wish,” Jaffrin said softly, ever the diplomat.
My ass. I stood from my chair and closed the distance between Ben and me, making myself a shield for him against Jaffrin’s indifference. Indifference he had to have, to give him credit, in order to lead the Fire Circle. “We’ll make sure no one gets Riley.”
“Then we need to kill Lady Azar,” Ben growled. “It’s the only way. With her dead, Shadow Crest falls. Maybe Landshaft, too.”
Jaffrin whistled. “That’s a tall order.”
Ben spun on him. “It’s the only one I’m interested in. If you’ve got something else in mind, fire me the hell from this job right now.”
Before Jaffrin could react, I stepped between them and pressed my palm against Ben’s chest with a little light telekinesis action. “What Ben means to say is that we’re going to take today off to gather ourselves, and then we’re going to wait and see what information Avery and you continue to dig up about this situation as a whole. Kinder. Lady Azar. Landshaft. All of it. Because it’s gotta be connected and it’s high time we figure that connection out. Right, Ben?”
Ben gnashed his teeth together and, beneath my fingers, his chest muscles constricted. His skin felt hot to the touch, even beneath a layer of clothing. Shit. If he went full Hulk-mode, I wasn’t sure if I could stop him from wringing Jaffrin’s neck. I also wasn’t sure I cared too much about that.
I blinked, clearing the thought from my mind.
“Yes, Krystin,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “That’s what I meant.”
“Good,” said Jaffrin, pretending to have not heard Ben’s outburst, though his own jaw was clenched. “See you tomorrow. Check in then.”
I turned Ben around and nearly pushed him out the door. After I shut the door behind us and we’d gotten into the hallway, I grabbed Ben’s arm.
He spun fast, knocking off my touch. “Don’t. Not right now.”
I lifted my hands in surrender, and he used teleportante to bring us both back to the team’s townhouse so we could tell them what we’d learned.
“You know what?” Rachel exclaimed the moment Ben’s explanation of recent events had ended. “We need to de-stress the hell out. Go bowling or something. Right now.”
Everyone turned to her, deadpan. Was she serious?
“Lady Azar is after us again,” Nate said. “What about that screams ‘night off bowling’ to you?”
“All of it,” she said, her eyes fierce. “We’re all losing it. We haven’t had fun in weeks and, last I checked, we all slept through the day, which means no one’s sleeping tonight.”
I sat back onto the couch cushion, my knees only inches away from Ben’s. He hadn’t spoken a word since the debriefing. “I don’t know, Rachel.”
“I don’t think she’s wrong,” Shawn chimed in. “A little R&R might help.”
“We’re already targets,” Nate said. “The last thing we need is to be out in public.”
“As opposed to clustered together inside of our home which, by the way, Lady Azar already knows the location of?” I asked. “Or did we all forget the body she sent us weeks ago?”
“Enough,” Ben snapped. “Rachel’s right. If nothing else, I need to get my head screwed on straight. Which means I need to forget about this shit for a while.”
Nate shot him a look. “This is ridiculous.”
Ben shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s all I’ve got right now. So, if the others are game, let’s do it. One night off. Just until they close.”
Shawn checked his watch. “In three hours. It’s 11.”
“Good,” Rachel said as she pulled Nate off up the couch. He fought it as best he could, becoming deadweight, but she managed it well enough. “That’s plenty of time for a few rounds.”
“All right, fine,” Ben said again. “Let’s go.”
I followed them out the door, for once going on foot instead of teleporting.
We walked through the front doors of the closest bowling alley twenty minutes later, although it was sketchy as hell. The lanes were old, the benches falling apart, and virtually no one except the staff was inside.
“School night,” Rachel answered as if sensing my question.
“Still, this place is deserted.”
“Good,” Shawn said as he swung past us to the front desk. “No one will be here to see me take on all of you.”
“What, you’re good at bowling too?” I asked.
“Better at it than magik, I hope,” Ben muttered.
Shawn spun back and winked at me. “You nervous or something?”
“Absolutely not.”
We signed in and grabbed shoes and a scorecard, then headed to our lanes. Shawn and Nate versus Ben, Rachel, and me. This was sure to go splendidly.
Except both Nate and Shawn had clearly bowled way more in the past than they’d let on.
“Are you serious?” Ben shouted as Nate rolled his fifth strike in a row.
Nate grinned back, wide and proud. “Damn straight.”
Rachel laughed and laid a hand on her cousin’s shoulder. “Not everyone can be good at every sport, Ben.”
Ben wrenched a bowling ball off the return machine and walked
up to the line for his next turn. I laughed with Rachel, watching the ball split his pins right down the middle. Ben groaned and threw his head back.
“Try not to roll it so cockeyed next time,” Nate offered.
Ben shot him a glare as he grabbed another bowling ball.
“Okay, I need a drink for this,” I declared as I stood. I needed the drink both to deal with the guys’ ridiculousness and because it still didn’t feel right to be having this much fun after everything that’d happened. Like I was constantly looking over my shoulder for the next thing to go wrong. “Anyone else want something?”
Shawn stood, shaking his head at Ben and Nate. “Yeah. A way out of this insanity.”
I waved him over and we headed toward the bar. “This was a good idea.”
Shawn nodded. “It’s definitely provided a better look at the team dynamics.”
“Oh?”
“Well, for starters, I know Ben’s the leader and all, but damn can he not handle competition.”
I snickered. “Nope. He hates that. The night I met them all, I took down a demon by myself that he’d been struggling with. Not the best impression.”
Shawn paused, stopped walking, and turned to me. “Like those dark veins on your arm?”
I looked down. Shit. Were they showing? No. Then… how did he know?
“I saw them the other day when we were sparring,” he said.
Like I’d seen his tattoo. “What about them? I have a medical thing.”
Shawn shook his head and resumed his walk to the bar. I caught up with him as he said, “I didn’t know dark magik was a medical thing.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped, stopping in front of him. Shawn was taller than me, but he didn’t carry the same fire that Ben and Nate did. He was confident without exuding strength, and though I knew it was there, he didn’t intimidate me at all. “What do you mean by that?”
He lifted his hands, shrugging. “Look, I’m not your babysitter. But I’ve seen those kinds of dark veins before on magik-users who’re seduced by dark magik. Demonic power. I only bring it up because despite what you’re probably going to say, it is my business. Right now, you’re the only one of us that’s—”
“Screw the damn prophecy.” I didn’t actually believe those words. Not really. I didn’t want to see Alzan fall, but neither did I want to spend my entire life in a bubble inside Boston, hostage to Jaffrin’s orders.
“You don’t really think that,” Shawn said—not a question.
I stiffened, caught red-handed. “No.” I just wanted this conversation to end before Shawn uncovered the truth.
“Then why would you be seeking power like that from a demon?” he asked, searching my eyes like they’d give him the answers he wanted.
Well, tough luck for him. “It’s complicated. You wouldn’t understand since you don’t have magik to begin with.” But it wasn’t complicated. I’d gone to Giyano because he had answers, even if he never wanted to give them in full right away. And I went to Giyano’s magik because it made mine sing, strengthened it. It felt like a drug.
“Maybe not,” Shawn said, still watching my every reaction. “But I’d still never go to a demon for anything. They’re all slippery, untrustworthy bastards.”
I shook my head and pushed past him to the bar, which was currently empty. A bell lay nearby and I pushed it, hoping the bartender would return from the back sometime soon. Preferably this instant.
Shawn didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d never understand what it was like for me to grow up beneath the Fire Circle’s careful watch and still manage to touch the darkness of this world.
I gave him a hard stare. “This world isn’t black and white, Shawn. Clearly, whoever raised you taught you it was. There is more going on here than the war between Darkness’s Empire and the Powers, and this stuff with the prophecy, with you and I and the rest of the Fire Circle, we’re caught in the shades of gray in between.”
Shawn’s jaw set hard, his cheek bending like he was chewing on the inside to keep from speaking. Finally, after a few long moments, he said, “I’m well aware of how gray the world is, Krystin. That wasn’t my point.”
“Then what the hell was?” I asked. “You came with me over here to, what, accuse me of something?”
He shook his head and reached over the bar for the closest bottle of liquor. “No,” he said as he undid the cap. “I wanted to ask why—”
Before he finished his sentence, the ceiling above us caved in, a mighty crack heralding the split. Shawn pushed me out of the way and we rolled to safety. But the second we stood, a portion of the side wall was thrown inward.
When the dust settled, a woman stood in the hole that had been made.
“My, my,” she purred, a chunk of rebar mixed with cement flying in the air beside her. “What Fire Circle Hunters do we have here?”
Chapter 13
Ben
SMASH. The sound of breaking glass and ripped metal filled the air as dust and cement flew toward our lane. I jumped in front of Rachel at the last second, catching a chunk of cement to my side. I yelped, stumbling sideways, as pain sliced up my ribs.
“What the hell?” Nate asked as he stood, brushing off his knees where he’d fallen.
I looked toward the origin of the sound and found the entire front entrance and part of the side wall blown asunder. Krystin and Shawn stood in front of a woman with tanned skin, dark, wild hair, and a floating mass of wall hovering above her open palm. The woman barked a laugh as she threw the mass of cement and twisted rebar at Krystin and Shawn.
“No!” I shouted, bringing lightning to the center of my palm. Nate and Rachel rushed with me toward the woman.
Krystin lifted her hands and pushed against the chunk of cement, but… it didn’t go anywhere. The woman grunted, pressing her hand into the air. Krystin did the same, her eyes growing wide.
“What—What are you?” Krystin ground out through clenched teeth.
Shawn stood behind her, a hand on her bleeding arm. Keeping pressure on the wound as blood seeped out around his fingers.
The woman laughed again, seemingly not breaking a sweat in this magik-off with Krystin. “I think you call me Betrayer.”
My stomach dropped. Kinder. I’d never seen images of her before, never would have known what she looked like until now. I yelled, throwing my palm outward. Lightning arched across the air, crackling as it soared at Kinder’s head. But at the last second, she moved the ball of cement and rebar to act as a shield. The lightning struck and shattered it to pieces.
I protected my eyes as debris flew, the sound of rushing water filling the space around my head. I opened my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. Rachel had saved us with a tube of water surrounding—but not drowning—her, Nate, and me, pulled from a broken water fountain currently spurting water. As soon as the debris stopped flying, Rachel twisted her arms in the air, forcing the water from us and into a tidal wave that Kinder would be hard-pressed to block.
Kinder used her ball of cement as a shield. The water arched around it, but Nate was already three steps ahead. He closed his eyes and a block of glowing red ether formed before him. He sent it flying, splitting the ether block in two as Krystin pushed Kinder back against a solid piece of wall. The ether blocks slammed into Kinder. Her body convulsed under the weight of the blocks and blood crept out of the corner of her mouth.
Kinder grinned wickedly. “Teleportante.” Then she blinked out of existence.
“Where’d she go?” Krystin shouted.
Shawn spun around. “No way this is over yet.”
I did the same, waiting for Kinder to reappear. She did a moment later, right behind Nate.
Nate jumped and tried to maneuver away, but Kinder clocked him across the face and then tripped him by kicking up a piece of floor tile with her earth-elemental magik. The tile slammed into Nate’s chest. Kinder rammed her open palm against his back. Her hand glowed white, then red, the same color as Nate’s attack.
“Not cool,” Krystin yelled as she pounced, Fire Circle knife in hand.
Kinder shoved Nate out of reach, then moved her hands in a block-shaped pattern in the air, pushing outward on her last motion. “Zalenk,” she said as a glowing yellow shield formed around her.
Ether. Had she stolen Nate’s powers?
Krystin’s knife collided with the shield, then folded against itself when the shield didn’t give. She cried out as her wrist crumpled against it before she was thrown away, soaring across the bowling alley.
If Krystin or Nate couldn’t land an attack, we were well and truly fucked.
Kinder turned on me and formed a block of ether in her hand. She sent it my way with a yell. I threw out a lightning strike to meet her, but instead of dissolving the ether, the attacks collided, exploding in the air between us. It sent me soaring backward, though it left Kinder untouched because of her shield.
Kinder turned on Rachel and grinned again. “Come on, water-elemental. Don’t make me steal your powers, too.”
I looked over at Nate as I struggled to get a solid breath in. He lay crumpled on the floor, his back against the lane. Out cold. But his magik wasn’t gone forever. That couldn’t be how it worked. Right?
Kinder pounced, shooting two more ether attacks our way. A block of ether slammed into me, pushing me backward until the backs of my knees hit the tiny desk where the lane’s computer sat. Rachel hit the closest wall and slid down it, unmoving.
Shit. This was how it’d end. No. It can’t end here.
I tried to stand, but my knees gave out and I landed on the floor, watching as Kinder flicked Shawn aside with another block of ether. With no one in her path, Kinder stalked up to Krystin, who now had a ring of glowing red ether around her throat. Krystin reached up and tried pulling off the noose.
My head buzzed, my pulse throbbing in my ears too loudly to hear what was being said. Why was she so interested in Krystin?
