The Hunter's Curse (Monster Hunter Academy Book 2) Read online

  “Well, good,” I offered. He’d told me only the tiniest fraction about her, and that referenced back to when he was a little boy. “Is she okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve been thinking about her the last couple of days, with Dad here and everything. Normally, he doesn’t leave the congregation for too long without taking her. She doesn’t like to be alone.”

  “That would be hard, I think.” For so many reasons, not the least of which was living in what I suspected was a super-creepy clapboard house in the middle of the North Georgia forest. “But he’s back, right?”

  “Yup. He got a call and went home as soon as he could stand upright. It sounds like someone’s pregnant daughter got sick, and everyone is convinced it’s demons. Mom says it isn’t, but Dad can’t stand for fear to take root again, so he needed to be there to calm everyone down, exorcise some worry goblins, as he likes to call them. Anyway, she just texted to tell me he was safely home, and everything’s fine. So that’s perfectly reasonable, but…it still feels like she’s worried.”

  I nodded. If the good reverend had spilled the beans on what was happening up here, his wife’s worry didn’t surprise me. “Does she text you a lot?”

  “Not really. I mean she checks in once a month to make sure I’ve got everything I need and that school is going okay, but she isn’t a helicopter parent. She kind of was of the mind that college was something I needed to do to get away.”

  He frowned. “In fact, those were her exact words, now I think about it. That she wanted me to get away. I never really thought about that before now, and I’ve been here three years. But those were strange times in the run-up to coming to the academy. I thought I was going to go to engineering school, like I told you, when the welcome package came in the mail for Wellington. My mom got it before Dad could see it, and showed it to me, but there was no keeping a secret from my dad, of course. He acted like it was a big surprise, though now I know that was bullshit. I guess…I guess he just wanted me to be prepared. To learn to fight the evil that’s out there, waiting to trip up everyone who isn’t watching out for it. I think he suspected I wasn’t cut out for being a preacher.” His lips twisted. “I can’t believe I never figured out that he’d been here himself. I never even asked where he went to school—which is crazy.”

  “Yeah.” I could relate, of course. “There’s all sorts of things that I didn’t talk to my mom about. And then one day she got sick, and it seemed like all we discussed was how she was going to get better and all the things we were going to do after.”

  Zach reached for my hand, and it was the most natural thing to do to curl my fingers into his palm. I looked forward, but my vision blurred, images of my mom surfacing in my mind along with the press of tears behind my eyes.

  “Those conversations gave her hope,” he said quietly. “That was important to her.”

  “It was,” I nodded, trying to even out my voice. It sounded almost strangled. “But I can’t help…I mean, there’s so much I don’t know. So much I didn’t think to ask. Setting aside an entire family I never knew I had—that almost bothers me less than not knowing what her hopes were when she was a little girl. Her dreams. Had she always wanted to be a teacher? She was a botanist. Did you know that?”

  He squeezed my hand, and my throat tightened. “I didn’t,” he said. “That is pretty cool, though. Did she use plants as medicine, or—”

  I coughed a short laugh. “That’s what she told everyone,” I sighed, thinking about the fairy-tale garden behind our cottage, everything bunched together in a riot of colors, shapes, and sizes. That garden was my mother’s pride and joy. She’d always been happy there. “But she confided in me that she mostly planted what she thought was pretty. I never knew whether to believe her about that or not.”

  “Moms generally tell you what they want you to believe, if they can,” Zach said, laughing softly. “They protect you even when you don’t need protecting, I know from experience.”

  “Yeah?” I glanced up at him, happy to turn the conversation away from my own regrets.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, glancing down at me with a smile, his dark eyes deep pools of warmth. “For the longest time, she gave me Bible verses to tuck into my pocket every time Dad trooped me out to an exorcism, even though he always did the heavy lifting. She was petrified I’d be called to fight and not have the shield of God to lift up high.”

  I chuckled, liking his mom better for it. “She sounds pretty sensible to me.”

  “She’s the best. And though Dad refuses to admit it to himself—he does love her. Maybe he kept himself from falling hard at the start, but you can tell. He’d be lost without her, hates to leave her now, really, despite the tough-guy act. And she loves him right back. Always has. We don’t talk much about her miscarrying Samuel, but she never once blamed Dad for that—at least not in any way I could tell. Samuel was a gift she couldn’t keep for very long, was all. And for both Mom and Dad, the parish means everything. Folks come from all over to hear Dad give his sermons. He does good work. Needful work.”

  I nodded. “You sure you don’t want to do that same work?”

  “Not even remotely.” He grinned, and I felt my own grief lessen in the lightness of his expression, the warmth of his hand in mine. “I came to Wellington to learn how to take demons out, once and for all…and now it looks like I’m going to get my first chance. But this is all reminding me of a few things I haven’t been focusing on enough. If things are about to go down, and I do think they are, we need to get busy.”

  “We do?”

  But Zach merely dropped my hand, focusing back on his phone to text something new. A few seconds later, my phone buzzed. He gestured me to look, and I obligingly pulled it out.

  How to Kill Your Demon 101, his text announced. Training field in thirty. Bring your favorite weapons, but no crosses required. Promise.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and he reached for my hand.

  25

  To my surprise, Zach didn’t head immediately for the monster quad, but cut across campus toward the academic buildings. He only slowed when we reached Cabot Hall.

  “It probably would be better if you stayed out here, but screw that,” he said. “I don’t like leaving you anywhere right now. Not with the shit that’s about to go down on campus.”

  I shot him a glance as we entered the classroom building, the murmur of teachers and students rising and falling from behind closed doors.

  “You really think demons are just going to jump out of nowhere? You think they’re that close?”

  “Honestly, I don’t feel them yet, but that doesn’t make sense. They’re here, and they’re waiting. I don’t know where they’re going to come out, but it’s just a matter of time. I don’t want to leave you hanging around like…”

  He reddened a little, and I snorted. “Like bait. You can say it, I’m getting used to the idea.”

  “Not for long,” Zach promised. We moved quickly up the stairs to the second floor of Cabot Hall, which I already knew was the demonology department. There was nobody up here from the looks of it, and Zach answered my unasked question.

  “Classes are done for this semester for these guys. The sunrise ceremony is sort of an unofficial capstone every spring, and then they’ve got finals next week. Believe me, I wish they were all already home and off campus completely. It was never my goal to involve them in any of this.”

  “You don’t think they can help you at all?”

  He sighed. “It’s not that they can’t help me, it’s like what I said back at Lowell Library. These are my family’s demons. They are very specific. All the usual tricks and tools to exorcise a demon, to remove it from plaguing a person or a space, are all great, but they’re only the beginning of what’s needed. Honestly, that’s why I think our team of monster hunters has a better shot at these guys. You guys won’t get hung up in expecting all the traditional solutions to work. They’ll help, without question, but they’re mostly going to be useful to keep the demons
trapped long enough for us to finish the job. We’re not looking to perform an exorcism here, if you get what I’m saying. We’re looking to kill these assholes.”

  I considered that as Zach tried one of the doors of the closed classrooms. It was locked, but without missing a beat, he swiped out a key card and pressed it against the panel. The door clicked open.

  My brows went up. “What is that, an All-Access Pass?”

  Zach shrugged a little ruefully. “I’ve had the run of the place since I got here, pretty much. I’ve tried to repay the favor to the extent that I can too. These are good guys—women too, for that matter. Though like everything else at Wellington, it’s mostly dudes.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll try not to hold it against you all. Enlightenment comes more slowly for some schools.”

  He snorted, then moved forward quickly in the gloom of the classroom. Several rows of tables stretched out in front of us, with a long whiteboard across one wall filled with Latin and Greek.

  “Traditional exorcism commands, the heart and soul of the demonology department,” Zach explained. “Judeo-Christian methodology works surprisingly well with demons from any faith system. It’s sort of the OG of the exorcism game, and as with most things, it’s the innate authority with which those commands are spoken that makes all the difference.”

  “Interesting.” I studied the board as Zach knelt in front of a row of cabinets, pulling one open seemingly at random. He chuckled with satisfaction, though, so it clearly wasn’t that random.

  “Okay, here we go,” he said, and I peered over at him. He held what looked like an external hard drive, only equipped with a projector lens.

  “We’re going to take them out with Death by PowerPoint?” I said. “That’s what they teach you here?”

  “You’ll see,” he said with a grin. He closed the drawers, and we were out of the room a few seconds later, trotting back down the stairs. We almost made it to the exit when a familiar voice rang out.

  “Nina, hey! And oh, Zach, it’s nice to…um…wow.”

  Her glorious auburn hair lashed back into a high ponytail and her Wellington Academy uniform impeccable from its tailored red polo to her red-and-black-plaid miniskirt and gleaming black boots, Merry Williams strode toward us down the hall. In one hand she held, oddly enough, a red-and-black megaphone that paired perfectly with her miniskirt, but even that distracted me less than the shocked look on her face as her words faltered to a stop. I tried not to appear smug at her reaction to Zach, but it was tough going. “Hi, Zach,” she finally managed.

  Zach, clueless as ever, smiled at her, completely missing the way Merry’s eyes dilated at the force of his leveled-up attention. “Hey there.” He nodded. “I would have thought they would have cut the veterinary students loose by now. Shouldn’t you guys be getting to your summer co-op jobs?”

  “Oh! Oh yes, a lot of the students are, but this is my last year, so I’m taking care of some final paperwork on campus. I have to say, I’ve never hung around this long after students start to leave. It really is different, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, something in her words hitting me the wrong way.

  “Oh, you know, the energy and all that.” She waved the megaphone. “Everyone seems more preoccupied right now, like they don’t even see what’s in front of them, their heads so full of everything they have to get done, you know? It happens during finals week in the winter, but I guess I’ve never seen it in the springtime.”

  “Got it,” I said. Exhausted end-of-year students being nervous about their exams wasn’t any cause for alarm, and I allowed myself to relax a notch. “How long will you be on campus, again?”

  “Through the summer,” she said, beaming. “You sure you don’t want to take me up on rooming? I assure you it’ll be tidier at my place than Fowlers Hall.”

  “Hey, now,” Zach protested, but he’d managed to start shepherding us toward the front door. In a few more steps, we were out in the sunshine, and I sensed Zach’s urgency kick up a notch, despite his relaxed expression. “Maybe you shouldn’t dis a dorm you’ve never stayed in, okay? Fowlers Hall is very nice.”

  Merry snorted, rolling her eyes. “Spoken like a true homer. The offer still stands, Nina, if you ever need it.”

  We parted ways, though I could feel Merry’s speculative gaze on us as we hustled across campus. I didn’t wonder about what she was thinking for too long, because the guys were waiting for us at the field by the time we reached the monster quad.

  Tyler, Liam, even Grim looked excited, even eager to see what Zach had in mind for this particular round of training. I did too, frankly. The demons we’d fought in Bellamy Chapel had felt a lot like regular monsters to me, but the creatures I’d encountered in Zach’s mind were far worse, in a way I didn’t really understand.

  “My man,” Liam announced as he caught sight of us. “You’re breaking my heart telling me we don’t need any religious tools. I was all set to create holy water squirt guns.”

  “Not necessary.” Zach laughed as we jogged up to them. Setting aside the tote bag that contained my iron box of mementoes, he pulled out the small external drive, then dropped to one knee.

  “Whoa,” Liam said, edging forward. “What’s this?”

  “Frost isn’t the only one who’s gotten handy with monster simulations,” Zach said. “The demonology department also suffers from a critical lack of source material, so I worked this up to give them some ideas on what they may face in the real world. A lot less messy than full-on Exorcist-style possessions. Of course, since I knew what would be coming our way eventually, I also made a program with some very particular modifications, complete with AI to keep me on my toes.”

  He pressed a final set of buttons, then got to his feet, backing away from the device. As he did, a light flashed from the unit, sweeping the space in front of the box out about fifteen feet. Obligingly, the guys and I fell back, and as we watched, the light flashed back and forth rapidly, eventually coalescing into five distinct figures.

  “Five?” Tyler asked quickly, his hands coming up as the creatures began to shuffle and stretch, ranging in size from four to ten feet, but all of them sporting impressive mountain-ram-style curved horns, long snouts, and cruelly taloned hands and feet. They also stood upright, and three of them flicked honest-to-God tails. “There are going to be five of them?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea,” Zach clarified. “Usually there are two or three that are the main leaders. Sometimes they come with lieutenants, sometimes an entire horde is let loose on the countryside. If you’re looking at the horde, though, that’s generally the result of an outright attack on the demons versus a sacrifice.”

  “So in other words, exactly what we’re planning on doing,” Liam said.

  Zach nodded, his eyes on the holograms. “Pretty much.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Um, guys?” I asked, as the holographic generation of the demons seemed to complete itself. If I didn’t know they were holograms, I’d be pretty freaked out, and even telling myself they were holograms didn’t make me all that happy. “What exactly do we do here?” I’d already pulled out my iron-bladed knife from my ankle sheath, but I still felt woefully unprepared.

  “To start, we get cocky,” Zach said. “The most important aspect to fighting off a demon is your sense of authority. If they know they freak you out, that’s more than half the battle for them. It’s everything they live for. Make sense?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Liam said, practically bouncing on his toes. He held a short, serrated blade in each hand, and I glanced over to Tyler, who brandished a single, longer blade, almost a short sword. Grim didn’t have anything in his hands, but his meaty paws were clenched into fists. For Grim, I suspected his fists would count as deadly weapons—especially against holograms.

  Then the first wave of sulfur brushed over us, and I froze. “Ahh…are they supposed to stink? Is that a part of your program? Because these things stink and the last time we had
a monster that stank—”

  With an unearthly roar, the demons attacked.

  It was much less a testament to my sense of ultimate authority than the fact I was scared brain-dead at the surge of real-looking demons that I didn’t scream at the top of my lungs. Zach leapt forward first, his arms going out, his face remarkably relaxed despite the urgency in his tone. Was this unexpected to him? Was this part of his program?

  “Desist,” he shouted, and then followed it up with a long line of Latin I had no hope of deciphering in the midst of the bellowing demons. The demons reacted with impressive animation to his words, though not in the way I expected.

  Basically—they got pissed.

  “Infant,” the first one howled, lurching forward as if against some kind of force field, getting farther with each lunge. “You cannot snare us with your traps. We do not care about your souls. We care about your sacrifice.”

  Zach whipped toward us. “Again!” he shouted, and this time, Tyler and Liam stepped forward, reciting the same line of Latin, Zach had spoken. Grim remained silent, but he’d shaken his hands open, and I noticed one was no longer empty. A pile of something round and silver lay in his palm before he closed his meaty fingers around it. He shifted toward me, but I glanced away as the demons’ rage ticked up a notch.

  “You will pay for this, you and everybody you love,” the largest demon declared, shaking its long, almost equine head, and baring its teeth.

  “Okay! That’s all the time they’ll give us,” Zach interjected. “From now on, it’s—”

  Once again, his words were cut off by a screech of fury. The creatures sprang forward. Unexpected fear rocketed through me, and Grim crossed the short distance remaining between us and grabbed my hand, the jolting fire of that connection immediately dampened by the sense of something smooth and small within my palm. He pulled back his hand, and I saw he’d given me a handful of silver pellets. What the hell?