The Hunter's Call (Monster Hunter Academy Book 1) Page 15

  A new wave of creatures descended like a cloud. Liam started shouting instructions. “Pair off, pair off! They’ve only got one eye between each tactical group, so hit the sighted ones first.”

  I whirled around, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, as something out of a Salvador Dali painting lurched in front of me and Tyler. Three gibbering rubber men, only one eyeball between them. This was not something I could unsee, and I winced at my unintentional joke.

  Tyler had no such hesitation. He turned toward me and pressed what felt like brass knuckles into my hand, gifts from Liam’s backpack, I had to assume. I peered down at them. They were brass knuckles—only made of iron. I let him strap them on over my fingers, clenching my fists while he shouted orders. The creatures attacked before he could explain to me how to use them, but, my legs still churning in the muck, I improvised.

  I continued like that for another thirty seconds, and I was actually feeling kind of good about myself, when Liam shouted in alarm. I turned around and saw that he was up on some sort of ledge and was no longer fighting the eye-sharing rubber men. Instead, he was grappling with three different women, all of them without the benefit of legs. Instead they had sort of swirly mist everywhere beneath their thighs, and what was above their thighs was pretty freaking impressive. One of them had her hands wrapped around Liam’s pack.

  Beside me, Tyler burst out in laughter. “Goddamn succubi. They never leave him alone.”

  My eyes popping wide, I barely missed a swipe from my closest blind assailant. “Succubi?”

  “No. Worse.” The shout was from Grim. Then he thrashed toward us, and I realized the water had drained enough for a tall man to stand. I tried to bounce up on my toes, but Grim was coming fast, and a second later, he reached us. “Caralons. They won’t leave him alone until they get their mouths on him. We don’t want that.”

  Curiosity shot through me. “Why are they only bothering him?”

  Zach howled, “Long story,” as we raced by.

  To my surprise, the moment we reached Liam, the caralons looked up, their faces turning toward me. Much like the creatures made of rubber, these monsters were sightless. They had eyes, large and black, but didn’t seem to be tracking me with them as much as they were sensing where we were.

  “That’s what makes them worse,” Grim explained. “Succubi, you can bargain with, get out of the trap. These are a step below. And reasoning is not their strong suit. All you can do is confuse them.”

  He was right. No sooner had we burst into their awareness than they turned and started following us, then became tangled up in each other, screeching and biting and howling their anger. I twisted around and saw we were heading toward an opening in the arena wall, at the base of the rapidly draining pit. One I hadn’t seen before, presumably because it had been covered in oil. Sure enough, an iron door peeked out from the top of the arch, indicating that this opening had once been closed.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “Strike!” Grim ordered, and though I didn’t know what I was lashing out at, I had the benefit of my powerful iron knuckles. I whirled around, arms flying. I connected with something tall and thin, my own screech ringing in my ears. Then there were more of them, a veritable forest of creatures with long pale hair, glittery eyes, and ravaged faces.

  “Don’t look, hit,” Grim commanded, and then we were through the wall of creatures and diving for the doorway. The guys came piling after us, swinging blades, their eyes screwed tightly shut.

  We splattered into the center of a marble-floored room, the rocks surrounding us gleaming with spectral light. Without warning, a blast of water pounded down from above us, hot and cleansing, slicking off the worst of the goop. I took a step, my feet unsteady, but of course Tyler was there, ready to grab me and hold me upright.

  “You did awesome, you did awesome,” he said. I wasn’t exactly sure what I had done, but there were no more monsters for the moment, so I would take it.

  “What is this place?” I asked. Liam answered, his shoulders still shuddering from his wheezing breaths as he dragged his hands through his oil-soaked hair. Ordinarily, his hair was a sandy brown, but now it looked as dark as Zach’s.

  “Part of the original construct of the academy,” he said. “Remember, this entire place used to be given over to monster hunting. They have so many rooms and facilities that have been bricked up and boarded over, it would make your head spin.”

  “And it was owned by a man named Wellington? Or his family, anyway?”

  I thought about the elegant-looking monster I’d seen, the Boston Brahmin. Was he connected to the academy in some way?

  “Yep,” Liam said, answering my original question. “Philanthropists, literati, politicians. They founded the academy to combat all things dark and evil.”

  “It goes deeper than that,” Tyler said. He squeezed my arm and stepped away from me, leaving me standing next to Grim. He walked over to the side of the room and gestured to the bricks surrounding it. Many of the bricks were inscribed with names. Family names, it looked like. Sponsors maybe, or contributors of some sort. He found what he wanted and tapped it, and I read the name clearly. PERKINS.

  “Our families were close all those generations ago. The rumors were that they became vigilantes to take out a monster that walked among high society. Back then, they never would reveal who their eventual target was, but sort of took it upon themselves to kill it discreetly. Like a gentleman’s agreement. We always figured the creature came from another prominent family, and believe me, when I was a kid, I searched long and hard in the Perkins family archives in case we had a hidden monster in our ranks. I’m still not convinced we don’t.”

  Grim snorted. “Monsters don’t breed with people. Ever.”

  “You don’t know that, man,” Tyler shot back with a grin. “Just because they don’t get crazy in the old country, doesn’t mean we do things the same way here.”

  Grim rolled his eyes. I shook out my hands, then pulled my shirt away from my skin, grimacing at its oily sheen. “So now what?”

  To my surprise the guys all look around at each other, kind of at a loss.

  “So now, nothing,” Tyler finally said. “You’re part of the collective, right? You passed the test. We made it to the safe room, so we’re done.”

  The guys shared nods and grins—all except Grim—and a knot of apprehension unwound inside me. I blew out a long, careful breath.

  “Okay,” I said, nodding as well. I could handle this. I didn’t feel any differently about the guys. I felt a sense of camaraderie and kinship, maybe even a kind of buoyant joy, but nothing weird, nothing creepy, nothing like I had feared—

  “Give it a minute,” Grim murmured.

  Lights exploded in front of my eyes, and a wave of power so strong it practically pulverized me blasted me to the side. My breath froze in my throat, I was thrown across the room, while fear, rage, joy, love, and white-hot blinding passion exploded in my brain.

  Everything shorted out.

  19

  My body felt like it was coming apart, as two totally different bolts of energy coursed through my body from two sets of hands. One set was large, rough, and handled me like I was a side of beef; the other was equally strong, but careful—almost gentle. I shook my head hard to refocus, but I was still surprised to lock gazes with Zach as I snapped my eyes open, the visceral shock to my system at his deep, dark, worried blue eyes enough to send another wave of convulsions through me. He didn’t just see me, he saw into me, his concern touching a place in my brain that I didn’t think was open to outside view.

  At that touch my vision blanked, and I could only see my own mother, her face white as snow, her eyes frantic. “Run,” she shouted, surging up, blood pouring from her shoulder. “Promise me.”

  I reared back instinctively, and Tyler’s voice at my ear sent my heart jackrabbiting in a whole new direction.

  “Jesus, Nina, I’m so sorry,” Tyler said, his words low and fast. “I had no
idea—Frost didn’t—we didn’t know. I definitely didn’t know. But you’re going to be okay, I swear you’re going to be okay. We didn’t go through what you’re experiencing, because clearly, you’re special. You’re safe, though. I swear you’re safe. You’re part of us now and we’ll never let anything hurt you again, just like you’ll never let anything hurt us.”

  Tyler’s words washed over me in such a deeply relaxing flow that I felt my eyelids drooping, cutting me off from the shockingly intimate yet strangely fantastic touch of Zach’s gaze. I didn’t want to let that go, though, didn’t want to lose him. Panic welled up within me, and I saw Zach smile as my eyelids fluttered.

  “We’ve got you,” he said, and I shivered again, warmth spreading from my belly to my chest, heat flushing my cheeks even as a new zing of electricity slid down my spine.

  That zing belonged to the fingers holding my head in a strong and steady grip, fingers that were so sure, so easy and welcoming, soft fingers, but strong. A guy whose hardest labor, I instinctively knew, came at the computer keyboard. “Stretch her out a little. Let her breathe,” Liam said, his fingers spreading wider now, palms cradling my head.

  The sharp, almost brusque pull on my ankles—it almost had to be Grim doing those honors—would have made me laugh if it didn’t set off a swarm of electrical sparks that shot up my legs to stop a few inches south of my belly, the combination finally sending me over the top. I lurched out of my daze and hauled myself up, my senses reeling as all four guys reached for me to make sure I didn’t somehow spontaneously combust or hurt myself or—something.

  They touched me all at the same time. I froze in their grip, my mouth open, my eyes wide, my brain spinning dangerously toward blackout zone again.

  “Nina. Nina, it’s okay. You’re all right. We’re here.”

  I turned toward Tyler and reached blindly toward him, unwilling and unable to process the touch of all the guys at once. Yet as each of them willingly released me, I noticed the departure with an insane, spiking ache. The sudden, rough rejection of Grim’s hands dropping me like I burned him. Zach’s intimate squeeze of reassurance before he left me, convincing himself I would be all right in Tyler’s grasp for the time being. Liam’s rough-padded fingers trailing for a second longer against my neck, almost curiously, gleaning the last bit of data he could from my skin to study and reflect upon while I was safely tucked away. Then the sensation was all Tyler. Broad-shouldered, overbearing, protective Tyler, who smelled of eucalyptus and mint and whose intense emotions enveloped me in a rush of excitement, pleasure, and—

  Down, girl. I blinked hard, trying to steady myself, as I hopped out of the delirium frying pan and into the fire of white-hot need. I’d barely drawn in a shaky breath when another voice broke over us.

  “You can release her, Mr. Perkins. I think we’ve now satisfied ourselves that she’s not going to break.”

  Commander Frost spoke with dry amusement, and Tyler stiffened. Only then did I realize that he’d practically hauled me into his lap—no, not hauled me. I’d crawled on top of him of my own volition and was now clinging to him with all the enlightened rationality of a blind, low-level caralon.

  That comparison was enough for me to straighten and peel myself away from Tyler, my cheeks flushing. “Ah—sorry,” I managed, but the look in Tyler’s eye told me way more than his smooth smile and easy shrug.

  “Don’t be,” he said. My body reacted again to him, need coiling in my belly, but I forced myself to focus on Frost as he strode into the room from a doorway I hadn’t noticed before, the bricked illusion breaking briefly to admit him.

  “Congratulations. You should all be commended,” Frost said, with grudging admiration. “That’s the first successful coed collective Wellington Academy has been able to produce in over a hundred years. Perhaps not surprising, since such collectives were formally banned, as I discovered a few short hours ago, in 1913.”

  “The first successful one?” As ever, Liam picked up on the nuance. Zach tucked his hands in his pockets and Grim folded his arms over his chest. None of them looked happy with Frost’s kudos, though the latter made me feel unreasonably giddy. Weren’t congratulations a good thing? I certainly felt like congratulations were in order, the air around me positively electric with the popping energy of the guys and my heart pumping so hard, it seemed like blood was practically frothing in my veins. “You mean there’ve been other attempts?”

  “Of course there have been other attempts,” Frost informed Liam briskly. “But as I said at the onset, the risks were justified, in this case. As of two hours ago, for the first time this century, the monster hunters of Wellington Academy have been directed to take out a monster terrorizing the city.”

  “The Boston Brahmin,” I said.

  Frost nodded. “He’s leveling up the intensity of his attacks every time. And more and more of his victims are highly placed in society.”

  I frowned. “I just saw him attack a barista up on Newbury Street. I assure you, she wasn’t high society.”

  If I’d thought to catch Frost off guard with this mention, I was mistaken. Tyler had clearly made the report. “Betty Granville, barista at the Crazy Cup, was targeted because she was handy. You were in the area, and the Brahmin was agitated, unfocused. Otherwise, every victim within two square miles of Beacon Hill came from a first family, a magical family, or both. And those specific instances of attacks are heating up. Students from other local academies have now been reported missing. Connections are beginning to be made.”

  “Other victims…” My eyes widened as I processed the ramifications of Frost’s comments. I hadn’t attacked the monster who’d held Betty Granville, I’d shouted at it, fully preparing to run if it chased me. It was how I’d always survived. But because I hadn’t gone on the offensive, boldly attacked it, would somebody else become its victim? More than one person? For the first time in my life, I was hit with an overriding sense of guilt and responsibility.

  “I should’ve attacked it,” I said. “I should’ve fought.”

  Grim snorted, his words like a lash as he tuned his pale-gold eyes on me. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “You don’t have the tools,” Liam said, looking up from his backpack.

  “It’s not safe,” Tyler declared, his words overlapping the others. He folded his arms over his chest and scowled at me, as if daring me to deny it.

  Only Zach remained quiet, studying me. Zach, the gothic angel, all jet-black hair and alabaster skin, who had fought demons with no more formal training than what he’d gotten from his own father and the tools of his faith.

  Commander Frost finally spoke, squaring his shoulders and straightening to his full height in his flannel shirt and work pants, looking strangely unfinished to me because he wasn’t wearing his longbow and quiver of arrows. Beneath his cap of dark, bushy hair, his weathered, bearded face seemed drained by the fluorescent light. This was a man far more comfortable with fighting than chatter, I suspected. And this was a man who would make sure there were soldiers to fight, no matter what.

  “It’s an unvarnished truth of monster hunting that it’s better done in a group than alone. There are plenty of hunters who prefer to go solo because being a part of a collective is a shared burden as well as a shared joy. But the other members of your team are correct, Ms. Cross. You are not prepared to face the Brahmin. Not alone. It’s a monster of unique cunning because it is human aligned—something you’ll learn all about during your nine a.m. class tomorrow, following your eight o’clock official matriculation into the academy.”

  I grimaced. Only an academy focusing on monsters would have classes on a Saturday. “Fair enough.”

  Frost wasn’t finished yet. “That doesn’t end our challenges tonight. You’ve been pressed into the service of the collective before your formal admission. That’s against the rules. You haven’t been vetted or approved by the academy’s board of directors for admission into a highly-specialized course of study. Also against the r
ules. And you’ve fought monsters alongside our students without even a single class under your belt. In short, you’re a walking PR nightmare, and the magic that’s been stirred up with tonight’s endeavors will draw scrutiny we cannot afford. We need to get you off campus before anyone sees you.”

  “No,” Tyler said, moving in front of me as if he could physically ward off Frost’s concerns. “I’ll keep her safe.”

  “Actually, it’s okay,” I said, watching Frost. There was something else he wasn’t telling us, something bad, and I didn’t want to push it right now. “I should go back to my apartment, as if nothing special happened tonight.” I turned to Tyler, smiling a little at his worried gaze. “I’ll be safe. Really.”

  “I’ve arranged for a private car. You’ll be secure,” Frost said. “I’m serious. It’s best if you leave right now. Then tomorrow, when you get to campus, go straight to the bursar’s office in the center of campus. I’ll have things ready for you.”

  “You will come back, right?” Tyler asked me quietly. Our gazes met, and I felt the now-familiar skip in my heart, the rush of emotion. I might have joined the big and mighty collective, but nothing had changed between Tyler and me. Nothing bad, anyway. It was all going to be okay.

  “Tomorrow morning, eight a.m.,” I promised. “I’ll be here.”

  20

  For all my bravado the night before, I remained in bed for two solid hours longer than I’d planned to the next morning, debating the value of simply leaving town instead of heading over to the academy. It wasn’t that I didn’t want everything the guys offered, though admittedly I didn’t fully understand everything the guys were offering. I suspected they didn’t either. But I also had been fighting monsters on my own for a long time now. The Boston Brahmin was only one monster, and the guys could handle him. I knew they could.