by Jessica Gunn
Krystin and I walked down to the end of the short hall lined on each side with portraits of deceased Fire Circle leaders until we got to Jaffrin’s corner office. I knocked on the dark wood door frame, breathing in the scent of the amber incense he was always burning.
Dressed in dark suit pants and a tieless button-up, Jaffrin would have better fit in at a board meeting than as the head of the Fire Circle. Every major decision, every team member placement—it all came directly from him. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been a Hunter or if he had magik–I didn’t really know anything about him—but his opinion was trusted absolutely by the Ether Head Circle leaders. And anything that pleased them generally made everyone else quake, Hunter and demon alike. Those intense bastards were real end-of-the-world-dramatic types.
Jaffrin stood as we entered, a weary smile on his face. “Ben. Good evening.” To Krystin, he said, “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Blackwood. I see you’ve met your new team.”
Krystin smirked, probably remembering how hopeless a situation she’d found us in. “I did. Nice housing you’ve set them up in.”
Jaffrin gestured to the two chairs opposite his desk. “The incentives are plenty. I try to make my Hunters feel as comfortable as possible.”
Before they inevitably die young, he didn’t say.
It wasn’t some hidden fact. Most Hunters got into the business early because the younger you were, the more resilient you tended to be. Stronger and faster—with better reflexes. The older you got, the more the opposite was true. If you didn’t die young because of a demon, you’d probably lose your life to one before your midlife crisis.
Luckily for Jaffrin, my life meant little without Riley in it. If we didn’t rescue him, I’d run this body into the ground chasing down every demon responsible, no matter how long this body had left to live.
Krystin and I took our seats, she more collected than me. But the way she let her body relax into the chair wasn’t out of comfort. Arrogance. Did she really think she was better than Jaffrin? Or was this the whole witch lines hating the Hunter Circles thing?
“Happy to be here,” Krystin said. “Despite the circumstances.”
Jaffrin’s smile faltered again before falling completely. “Well, thank you for checking in. When I add new Hunters, I like for the teams to stop by. Are Nate and Rachel here as well?”
I shook my head and inched to the edge of my seat. “No. We left them behind just in case.”
Jaffrin lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve seen the news reports then, I assume. That’s why you’re here.”
Nodding, I said, “We came across a similar demon attack earlier tonight, only the demon we killed said he wasn’t the demon that had committed the attack. Which seems to be backed up by round two.” I pointed to the tablet on his desk, which was playing the news on a low volume.
Jaffrin turned it off and glanced from me to Krystin and back again. “It appears we might have a serial killer on the loose. A demonic one.”
“You think?” Krystin said under her breath.
Jaffrin’s eyes hardened at Krystin’s words, but he addressed me instead. “We might have to increase overnight patrols. Will your team be ready?”
“Absolutely, sir,” I said. “Krystin’s already moved in. We’ll rest this morning and then get right to it.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“I burned the body,” Krystin said out of nowhere.
Jaffrin’s gaze settled on her. “Excuse me?”
Oh right. I’d forgotten. And now I worried we’d screwed up big time. “The body.”
Krystin nodded. “I… don’t know what I was thinking beyond hiding evidence, but I burnt the first victim’s body. She’s probably nothing but charred dust now. There’s no way we can ID her and find out what, if anything, links this new victim with the first.”
Silence—probably stemming from a stunned daze at our mistake—filled the space between Jaffrin and us. Long moments passed before he finally leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his bald head. “Well, at least there won’t be two bodies tonight.”
Krystin nodded slowly. “At least there’s that.”
“You should have called it in.”
Krystin went to reply, but I held a hand up. “Yes, and it’s my fault. I was too focused on finding out who Krystin was and introducing her to the team. We all recognized the attack as weird—demons don’t normally mutilate their victims. But by the time we saw the news report at the house, the deed had been done. It’s my fault, sir.”
Krystin’s eyes narrowed. What, I wasn’t allowed to take one for the team? Maybe she shouldn’t have burned the body with cedo matches, but by doing so, it’d proven that the first victim wasn’t magikal in any way. All demons had magik, the same magik that turned them from human to monster. And if the victim had been a Hunter, she’d have had their Circle knife.
…not that we’d checked for one.
Shit.
“Go home,” Jaffrin said. “Rest and patrol. We’ll figure out more in the afternoon. Until then I have to make sure ‘serial killer’ doesn’t turn into ‘demon.’”
“Humans are monstrous enough,” Krystin said. “I doubt anyone will make the connection.”
“Unless they’re already connected to our side of the world,” I said and I hated every word. There went my brain, thinking of all the worst-case scenarios again.
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Jaffrin said right before his smartphone went off. He picked it up and glanced at the screen. “These guys will make sure of it.”
“Ether Head Circle?” Krystin asked.
“I wish,” he replied. “Hydron. Not a good sign if they’re involved.” He stood from his seat. “Like I said, rest and patrol. I’ll have more information for everyone in the morning. And Krystin? Stay out of the city’s center.”
She nodded and then we stood, too, and made for the door. As we passed through the archway, Krystin turned back and said, “He’s powerful.”
Jaffrin had already answered his phone but paused to look at Krystin. “What?”
“The demon that did this,” she said. “I felt his aura even after an hour, still strong enough as if he were standing right next to me. Whoever did this is an Old One.”
Jaffrin’s gaze dropped and for a single moment I swore I saw his hands shake. “Thank you, Krystin. Goodnight.”
We trailed back down to the lobby in silence. Lissandra typed away at her computer while answering phone calls.
The Old Ones. Those were the demons older than most human civilizations. The demons that came from the old world, before the American Fire Circle branch was anything remotely resembling a dream.
If an Old One was in Boston, risking waking the cianza at its center for whatever they were after, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know why. But then I remembered—Riley had been stolen from outside Boston. Riley had been kidnapped by Shadow Crest, a whole clan of Old Ones.
And if they were here, maybe Riley was, too.
CHAPTER 5
KRYSTIN
Despite the threat of Old Ones taking over Boston, and despite dreams of me tipping the balance and Cianza Boston exploding because of me fighting said Old Ones, I’d slept like a rock until noon. Only when I’d woken up from the second nightmare did I force myself downstairs for breakfast and coffee—and defeat. The others were up, too, and Ben had apparently already briefed them on our meeting with Jaffrin. I wasn’t sure why else their faces were so sullen.
“We’ll figure it out,” I told them as I sat down in front of the coffee table next to Rachel. She had a camera in her hands and was flipping through pictures of the city. “We have to let Jaffrin sort things with his command and the Ether Head Circle.”
“And Hydron.” Ben groaned, his grip on his steaming coffee mug tightening. “What a headache that’ll be.”
Hydron was a group comprised of Water Circle Hunters from the southeastern United States along the eastern seaboard and of CIA government agents. Ja
ffrin had kept the exact details of Hydron’s origins a secret, but I’d heard the Water Circle was nearly exposed and the CIA had stepped in to take care of it. The government knew about the Hunter Circles… but the rest of the American people did not. That seemed to be the favored arrangement across the globe, too.
“We’ll be on patrol all night tonight,” Ben said. “Probably for the rest of the week.”
Nate chuckled. “So we shouldn’t bother training, then?”
“Good luck with that,” Rachel said as she put down her camera. “I want to be in top shape if this is going to be our new normal, even for a short amount of time.”
She wasn’t wrong. And I still wanted to see what they could really do. “I think we should. I still haven’t seen the training room, either.”
Ben downed the rest of his coffee in one gulp. “Sounds good to me. Everyone finish up breakfast and meet downstairs.”
TWENTY MINUTES later found us all shuffling down into the basement of the team’s townhome. The cement walls of their—our—training room shimmered silver in magikal soundproofing. Too bad they weren’t also made of magikal padding. I’d heard horror stories of training sessions with other teams getting so out of hand that Hunters had cracked their heads against walls. That’s what happened when teenagers and college kids were thrown into a world of Hunters and demons with zero training. Like when my telekinesis had appeared to the tune of all my mother’s fine china plates falling off shelves and shattering on the kitchen tile. I’d been ten years old and angry. Very, very angry.
Blue gym mats covered the floor beneath two punching bags hanging from the ceiling. A few dulled swords lay in a corner next to what appeared to be a bucket of water. Beyond that, there wasn’t much down here. Not much of a training room at all. Good thing this wouldn’t be weapons class.
I shrugged off my jacket, pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket, and tossed both to the farthest mat. I didn’t plan on getting thrown too far. Stretching, I asked, “Who’s first?”
The others similarly readied themselves, but only Rachel stepped forward. “Sure. Why not?”
Interesting. I’d never squared off against a water-elemental user who wasn’t a demon hell-bent on tapping into my life energy before. My fingers twitched with anticipation of the unknown. A fully trained water-elemental magik user could take down anything and anyone. Whole mountains if they wanted to. The amount of power flowing within Rachel was palpable, like an extra ray of light just beneath the surface. She was incredibly powerful—or would be one day with proper training and practice.
“Stop underestimating me,” she said, tossing the edges of her blonde hair over her shoulder. Her eyes were a light blue, sharp, and watching my every action.
“I’m not.”
“I can see the look on your face.”
I shrugged. “So wipe it away.”
Rachel waved her hand in the air. A trail of water materialized behind it. “Sounds good.”
My magik hummed in proximity to hers. Not every magik user had this reaction when their type of magik met the opposite—in this case, my ether and her elemental. I’d long suspected it had to do with this Alzan prophecy and the “can’t put Krystin near a cianza for too long” thing. And yet, Jaffrin had. He’d placed me on a team so close to downtown Boston that I’d probably have to leave every few weeks just to keep from accidentally tilting the balance there.
Rachel cut my thoughts short with her first attack, a quick wave of water flying in from my left. I lifted my hand and swiped it away with my telekinesis, accidentally splashing Ben in the process. Seething, he glared. I laughed and moved back, dancing across the mats while I waited for Rachel to make her next move.
She did, lunging forward with two waves of water arching on either side of her body. I swiped at them again but at the last second, she shifted them from water to something more solid—ice? My telekinesis moved them out of the way. The ice blocks shattered against the cement walls of the training room. I started at the noise and, in my moment of distraction, Rachel struck, kicking my feet out from under me. She landed three blows to my face and abdomen before I knocked her away and rolled into a crouching position.
I lifted a single finger and brought her up into the air, holding her there. “Now what?” I kept hold of her fingers and hands so she wouldn’t be able to move them to draw enough water to her for an attack.
“Give,” she croaked. “You win.”
I shrugged and let her down. “Just today. We’ll work on it—”
Something utterly solid hit me from the side. Invisible and at full-force, it stole the breath straight out of my lungs. My chest seized as I tore across the room and smacked against an unpadded cement wall, cracking something in my shoulder. I slid down the wall and glanced at my wound, though it didn’t feel broken. “Shit!”
Another block of something hidden knocked against me, like an invisible slab, and pinned me to the wall. I looked and looked—there wasn’t anything there!
Ether.
Nate stood where I’d just been, arms crossed over his chest with a smug smile on his face.
“Are you serious?” I asked him.
“Never fought an ether-shaper before?”
“No one said you’d been trained!”
He shrugged, grinning. The grinning was well deserved for taking me down, but still. “No one said I wasn’t good either, did they?”
I shot a glare at Ben, who was already laughing. “Okay, so at least one of you can handle himself. Good to know.”
“Don’t be such a sore loser.” Ben cackled. “He wasn’t exactly hiding his talents.”
No, but he had left himself open to attack. Nate stood there, arms crossed, nearly laughing. He’d stopped paying attention completely.
I used his moment of distraction to teleportante out of his ether’s hold, moving right next to him, and slammed my palm into his chest. “Requirem!”
The word magik coursed through me and into him. His eyes dimmed momentarily before he staggered backward.
“Okay,” he breathed. “That’s cheap.”
I smiled, satisfied I’d saved my pride for now. Yes, word magiks were cheap when training with teammates, but demons didn’t exactly fight clean, either. My team had to be ready for anything. “Relax. It won’t take away your powers for good.”
Although it was the only way for someone to fight an ether-shaper more often than not. It was hard to deflect an attack made up of something you couldn’t see. Ether was usually invisible or nearly so. The more powerful the ether-shaper, the more discreet their attacks were. I hadn’t even sensed Nate coming.
Our eyes met and I smiled. “You’re good.”
“You too,” he said. “Enough for today?”
“Are you kidding? We’re just getting started.” I looked to Ben. “You’re next. Let’s go.”
His eyes narrowed, and we squared off.
NATE VOLUNTEERED to help me clean up after our training session. Rachel and Ben graciously retreated upstairs, Ben to probably go lick his wounds. Poor guy. I wasn’t trying to be hard on him, but if he was going to lead this team, he’d better be a damned good Hunter himself. And quite frankly, this team couldn’t afford another near-miss like last night, not with Old Ones running around. It was a miracle we’d gotten out of there before the cops had shown up.
I also felt sort of bad for showing him up. Again.
As I put away the last mat, I turned to Nate. “Where’d you really learn to be that good?”
He shrugged. “I’ve always had a knack for ether-shaping. That’s what got me in trouble with Darkness to begin with.”
“Do your parents know?”
Ether-shapers weren’t like witches. There were places they could go to learn, like monks go to temples, but their formal training was the extent of the camaraderie. With the witch lines, we tended to gather in family groups and train our young together. And even considering the amount of magikal knowledge I’d acquired growing up in that environme
nt, information about ether-shapers hadn’t been included.
“They did,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his face. “I didn’t come into my powers right away. I was around sixteen when it happened. So they knew.” His expression darkened, clouds covering his eyes.
“What happened?” It felt wrong to ask. But he’d left that door open.
He shook his head. “It’s not important. Basically, I learned what I could on my own, then I sought out a teacher. But he was old and died not long after I’d joined the clan.”
“Well, that sucks,” I said.
“Indeed.”
I slapped the mat into its holster against the wall and spun to rest my back against it. “So, you know both word magiks and all that stuff?” Ether-shapers had a few outside abilities facilitated by the word magiks that the rest of us couldn’t use. Where teleportante and requirem were universal, the ether-shaper ones were not. And teleportante only worked if you felt the trail or had already been where you were going.
Nate nodded and hopped up to take a seat on a nearby table. “Yeah, all the word magiks. My teacher thought it imperative I know even the non-ether-shaper ones.” He smiled wryly. “I guess I’d forgotten about requirem.”
“Happens,” I said. The spell saved your hide in a close fight, but it took almost as much out of yourself as it did your target. That was about the only reason both Hunters and demons alike tended to leave it to only the direst of situations. “You’re powerful. Your teacher taught you well.”
“Yeah, it was invaluable. He was like another father to me.” And there it was again, that sweeping sadness that encompassed him for a moment before receding.
“They died, didn’t they?” The words escaped my mouth before I could stop them.
Nate’s shoulders shook with the next breath he took, his jaw working. “Yeah. Murdered, both of them.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, frowning. “Demons killed my father, too. When I was a baby.” In some respects, I was lucky I didn’t remember my father. I didn’t have anything but ghosts of memories to mourn.
