Hunter Circles Series Books 1-3: An Urban Fantasy Box Set

by Jessica Gunn

  Shawn closed his eyes and turned away, like he couldn’t deal with me. Which was fine because a lot of the time, I couldn’t deal with me either.

  “Maybe it’s best we bind my powers again,” Shawn said quietly. “In case it helps with us being so close to the cianza.”

  “Binding your powers doesn’t make you not have them. And if you yo-yo too much, you might risk losing them altogether.” My own mother had only bound my magik because she’d been scared of the damage an angry, telepathic, and telekinetic nine-year-old could wreak.

  Shawn shook his head. “No, but it’ll make me less likely to use them instinctively, which will directly affect the cianza.”

  “Good point.” Hard as it was to admit. I sighed heavily. “A very good point, especially after last night.”

  Shawn turned to me, his eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”

  A lot of shitty, shitty, stupid things. “Maybe we take it one step further.”

  He tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  It was a risk. A big one. But so was putting us so close to the cianza after what’d happened yesterday. I understood Jaffrin’s thinking, and the fact that we would probably draw so much attention… depending on the size of that operation, it might be helpful to have some extra good magik to balance out the scales.

  But if Kinder or Giyano, Lady Azar or any number of Old Ones showed up… all the good magik in the world wouldn’t matter.

  Why was this cianza so damn special?

  I looked up at Shawn with an awful, sickly dread forming a pit in my stomach. Each word out of my mouth felt as though it’d been dredged up from that hole. “I think we should take a trip to that store of yours, buy more crystals, and bind my powers, too.”

  CHAPTER 19

  BEN

  I’d never seen an operation like this. Five of the best teams in the Fire Circle. Twenty-five Hunters, plus three Cassano freelance witches and a possible Ether Head Circle babysitter escort. They weren’t with us now, as the other Hunters and I made our way from Headquarters to the center of the city. But hopefully, they’d show up sooner rather than later.

  The night was cold and the wind that picked up, carrying the start of a snow shower on its wisps, chilled me to the bone. I wasn’t totally superstitious or anything, yet that put me on edge. We picked up the pace and were soon outside an older brick building that, according to the sign out front, claimed to be the home of a newspaper company.

  Not anymore. Now it was home to a faction of the Trade, of Landshaft, brave enough to make a base for itself inside of the city. Right near the cianza.

  I watched Krystin as Avery called the positioning shots. She wasn’t shaking or paling like she and Shawn had been the other night. For now, it seemed like they were safe from the effects of the cianza. Luckily enough, this building was a little farther away from Cianza Boston than the demon bar had been.

  Avery made hand signals, ordering everyone to take their places. We took up position behind his team, acting as immediate support for anything we found inside. Avery waited a good sixty count for the other teams to get in place, then he lifted his gun and looked to me, nodding once.

  My hand lit up with lightning and I sent a strike of it to the wooden door. The wood splintered into a hundred pieces, which Nate’s ether-shield kept from hitting all of us. Then Avery took point and ran into the building’s dark first floor.

  The dimly-lit room we ran into smelled of cleaning solution and something vaguely rotten, a combination so weird that it caused me to hesitate enough that I didn’t see the first wave of demons coming.

  Landshaft’s minions shouted as we breached the first floor of their compound and about a dozen jumped out of the shadows. I readied myself, sucking in a breath, then leapt into the fray. My lightning and Nate’s ether sailed around the room, incapacitating demon after demon. Krystin drew her favored three-piece sword and, with Shawn at her side, took on a group of three demons.

  An errant swing connected with the side of my head. Stars danced along the edges of my vision, but I remained upright, dazed but otherwise fine. I turned on the demon and caught the fist he’d sent flying at my face, gripping on to him and sending a shock of lightning into his body. He jerked, seizing, and dropped to the floor. Unconscious but still alive.

  Grunts filled the air alongside shouts and the scraping of blade on blade. Krystin fought expertly with her sword, working with Shawn to dispose of the demons without using magik. Which was weird—magik was second nature to her, last I checked.

  I spun, looking for Rachel, whom I’d lost in the initial chaos. She sparred with a woman toting two swords, slashing away at Rachel’s ice attacks before any of them landed. I ran over and shot lightning at the water Rachel was gathering in front of her chest as she moved, dodging the demon woman’s attacks.

  Rachel nodded and swung the water into the lightning’s path, then pushed the water right at the woman. It clung around her like a cocoon and shocked her. She convulsed and fell to the floor.

  “Thanks,” Rachel said, her breath ragged. “Needed that.”

  “Always.” I turned to survey the rest of the fighting, which seemed to be dying down. Krystin took one last swing at a demon and knocked him out.

  “Everyone okay?” Avery yelled even as he made his way toward a set of double doors. Various calls of “yes” and “sort of” rang back, but Avery ignored them. “Up and out.”

  This building had more than a few floors, so there was a good chance that—even with flanking and a possible Ether Head Circle escort—it’d take the better part of an hour to clear this place. There was no way that small group of demons were the only demons here, even despite the relative quiet encapsulating the building.

  I glanced up. No alarms seemed to be going off. In fact, even the flood lights hadn’t turned on. Which meant either the team at the back door hadn’t yet cut the generator power as ordered, or literally none of the Landshaft operatives knew we were here.

  A sickly feeling of dread collected in the bottom of my stomach. This isn’t right. My gut revolted. Even if their victims were on higher floors, the small amount of guards down here didn’t add up. Not for Landshaft.

  “Avery!” I called as he reached the doors to the lobby and stairwell. He reached forward and yanked on the door handles. “Hang on—”

  A massive fireball of burning metal and drywall flew out a split second after a thunderous explosion rocked the building, burning my eardrums as I flew backward, arms over my face. My back hit something solid, driving all air from my lungs, and I slid down to the floor. My lungs seized, ears ringing, and I blinked through the shock. All the noise around me seemed to be caught in a barrier made of cotton inside my ear.

  I dropped my arms, looking around me. “What the hell?” Even my own words came quietly, each one wading through a foggy darkness. “Rachel? Krystin?”

  I expected a mess of bodies, of disposed limbs and pools of blood next to smoke and fires. Instead, I found Nate and another ether-shaper kneeling, palms out, with an ether shield encompassing our entire raiding party. Their eyes squeezed together as fire and debris raged around the shield, swirling and dancing along the ether until finally, it subsided. They fell to the ground but held the shield, looking up at the ceiling.

  Gradually, sound returned, but not by much. Nate and the other ether-shaper must have been able to stop the damage but not the concussive force of the explosion. At least they’d been there. If not… Rachel.

  I looked around. Where’d she land? Scattered around, everyone seemed to have taken that part of the blast. But nearly everyone was standing again as the ether shield around us lowered. “Rachel?”

  “Here,” she said. She was helping Shawn up, who was pulling his hand away from his… bloodied head.

  “Shawn?” I asked. “You okay?”

  Head wounds were tricky. You always bled a ton. But here, inside this dimly-lit building, it’d be impossible to know for sure. But he was standing at least. />
  Shawn nodded. “I think so.”

  “Krystin, can’t you do that healing thing he did to you?” I asked.

  Krystin’s gaze fell between mine and Shawn’s, then lingered on him. She frowned. “I don’t know how. I’ve never done it before.”

  “Me healing her was an accident,” Shawn added quickly.

  “Avery!” Nate shouted.

  Avery lay on the ground in front of the door. He was cradling his head with burnt hands.

  Nate fell to his knees at Avery’s side, touching two fingers to his neck. “Are you—”

  Avery shoved Nate’s hand away and grunted. “I’m fine.”

  I rushed over to them with Rachel right behind me. “You don’t look fine.”

  His eyes narrowed, focusing on his burned hands. “It’s okay. The healers can help me later. We need to keep moving.”

  Rachel collected water from her water canister backpack and floated some around his hands. He moaned when she’d covered them both. “This might help for now. Stop the burning. Cool them down. Someone should teleportante you back right now.”

  He shook his head, but I could tell from the way the pain wrinkled his eyes and his drawn expression that he was strongly considering it. Finally, he pushed even Rachel away. “It’s time to move on. Let’s go.”

  “You’re lucky we got the shield up in time,” said Nate as he helped Avery. I grabbed his other shoulder and heaved him into a standing position. “You really need to rest.”

  Avery took a step and winced but kept moving through the now-huge hole in the wall. Parts of it burned and smoked as bits of ceiling fell down around us. “Move out.”

  “The rest of the place could have more traps,” I called after him. I knew I had a stubborn streak, but damn. Avery was crazy. If Nate and the other ether-shaper hadn’t gotten that shield up on time…

  Avery pushed on, leading the group up the stairs as the rest of his team exchanged unsure glances behind him.

  I glanced at my team, but Rachel and Krystin shrugged. “Follow the leader, then.”

  We climbed the stairs and, at the top, Avery stood outside another set of double doors, a finger pressed to his lips and his other fist in the air. Hold.

  Sounds filtered through the door, shouts and panic and hurried footsteps. The explosion would have absolutely given us away, but the real question was: Why not leave immediately?

  Because they have something big to hide. Something huge to evacuate.

  Like a whole bunch of magik-born Hunters and witches being stockpiled for life energy or turned into demons next August.

  “Crap,” I said under my breath. We had to go in. Now. Before they got away with all the innocents trapped in there.

  Avery made eye contact with me, as though reading my thoughts, then dropped his hand. He and his team kicked down the door and breached the room, making way for my team to follow with magik.

  We ran into the brightly-lit space, the sudden intrusion of light burning my retinas. I squinted and pivoted, looking for a target. Any target. But the fluorescents burned through my vision. Immense heat filled the area, soaring in dangerously close.

  I backpedaled to avoid being burned by what I now saw as fire when Rachel and two other water-elementals jumped in and doused the flames. Hissing and sizzling continued as another barrage of attacks came from an unknown number of assailants.

  Gradually, the scene screamed into to bedlam before me: a giant room filled on each side with occupied cells guarded by three dozen demon captors. They squared off with us, no one acting quite yet, until Avery shouted, “Surrender now!”

  But another one of his team, Jana, jumped forward and threw a knife at her closest target. The demon caught it and shouted, charging for us.

  And so did they all.

  I braced myself for a massive fight as the wave of demons and their thunderous footfalls rushed across the room, shaking the already-unsteady floor. How had Nate and the ether-shaper managed to keep the explosion from rocking the whole building?

  I traded blow for blow and shot lightning into the wave of demons, trying to stay as close to Rachel as possible without getting in her way. She drew water from the air and doused flames appearing from nowhere. My eyes caught movement in the corner of the room. A fire-elemental.

  I rushed him, lightning building in my palm, sparking so much, it scorched my skin and bounced off the nearby wall. As I closed in on him, I let the lightning loose, throwing the ball directly at him, then swinging around with another shot from my other hand.

  The demon convulsed, sizzling as he dropped to the ground. The man coughed and blood dribbled out of his mouth. “Stupid for you all to be using this much magik near the cianza.”

  I stood over him, knife at the ready. “I didn’t realize Landshaft was stupid enough to send operatives to even be this close to it.”

  That’s when his eyes went wide, meeting mine. He blinked rapidly, dropping his gaze to the lightning crackling around my hands. He looked back up, mouth agape. “Wait—I know you. Don’t. This isn’t—”

  I shocked him again—with a lesser amount this time—and waited for him to stop convulsing. We needed to know what else was here, why they’d picked this building to risk basing an operation out of. But when the demon stopped convulsing, he fell unconscious. Dammit.

  “Ben!” Rachel shrieked. She was facing a cell but whipped around and searched the room. When our gazes met, her face paled. “Make it stop! There’s been a mistake!”

  “Mistake?”

  “She’s right!” Krystin yelled. “Avery!”

  But the fighting continued. Chaos erupted as some people stopped fighting and others continued, all to the backdrop of shouts and grunts of pain.

  Rachel rushed to me and gripped my shoulders so tightly, it’d probably bruise. “Ben—they’re not demons. They’re humans. Stop this now. Stop him, Ben!”

  My eyes widened, stomach dropped. “What? Human?”

  She nodded quickly, pointing back toward the cells. “They’re normal humans, Ben. And—check his eyes. They’re wearing contact lenses.”

  I looked down at the demon I’d just incapacitated. His chest rose and fell—still alive—but… she was right. He was wearing contact lenses. “Shit.”

  “Make Avery stop.”

  “I can’t, Rachel, he—”

  “Enough!” Krystin bellowed and… no one listened. Why didn’t she just physically stop everyone from moving with her telekinesis? Maybe there were too many people for even her power to control.

  I lit the air near the ceiling with lightning, forcing it to crackle loudly until everyone froze, going dead silent. “Stop for one goddamn second! All of you!”

  Krystin abandoned the demon she’d been fighting and ran across to the center of the giant room. “They’re all covered in witch spells,” she said as she turned around, looking at everyone in turn. “Illusions and glamours, all of them.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “We are not,” the demon fighting Avery said. And yet, he’d stopped, too.

  I turned and looked closer at the demon at my feet again. It wasn’t unheard of for people, even demons, to wear contact lenses. Surely, being a demon didn’t mean you’d have perfect vision. But… something wasn’t right. That much I agreed with. That’s when I noticed the metal chain around the demon’s neck. I leaned down to retrieve it, yanking the chain free.

  Not just a chain. They were dog tags.

  I flipped them over and read the information there. Jason Trudeau, Special Agent, Hydron.

  “Hydron,” I said. “Oh, fuck.” The very people Jaffrin had been worried about earlier, especially given the Ether Head Circle party at Headquarters earlier. Doubly so with the White Flame contingent. And now the CIA-funded group of Water Circle Hunters were here. In Boston.

  I turned and threw the dog tags at Avery, trying not to think of how many “demons” we might have killed downstairs in the basement. Or up here, if any had died. But the wounded…the demo
n at my feet…

  My stomach churned.

  Avery shoved the dog tags at the person in front of him. “You’re not a demon?”

  “No, you idiot,” said the man. He ripped the dog tags out of Avery’s hand. “Why the hell are the Circles attacking their allies?”

  “Excuse me?” Krystin asked.

  With the fighting over, it was easier to traverse the room. I joined Avery in the questioning. “Why is Hydron running an operation in Boston?”

  “Much less one that’s imitating Landshaft and risking the nearby cianza?” Krystin demanded.

  Hydron had been the result of a Water Circle mission gone awry. A team of Water Circle Hunters had somehow revealed the existence of magik and demons, and when the CIA had gotten involved to cover it up, they’d demanded to be part of the operation. Until today, I wasn’t sure they’d known about the other four Circles.

  Avery raised his hand. “One question at a time. Even Jaffrin didn’t know you were here.”

  The man shook his head. “Classified. Leave us be. Return home. Tonight is more important than you know.”

  “Classified?” Avery asked. “I’m Jaffrin’s top team leader. You have to tell me what you’re doing here.”

  The man gave Avery an incredulous look, then shifted his hard stare to Shawn, who wielded a pair of knives in his hand. Krystin stood next to him, her three-piece sword still drawn. Both of them had magik; why in the hell were they only using blades? Wasn’t Jaffrin’s whole point of putting her on the team to make us a magik powerhouse against our enemies?

  “Actually, I don’t have to tell you,” said the man. “This operation has been running for too long to back out now.”

  “What operation?” Avery demanded.

  Still staring at Shawn, the man said, “Hunting Tatiana Viynar, the one who goes after Ember witches. She’s looking for Shawn, and if she hunts him successfully, we’ll be out one half of the Alzan prophecy. We set up this trap to finally capture her.”