The Hunter's Call (Monster Hunter Academy Book 1) Read online

  Frost merely studied Tyler with renewed interest, his dark eyes narrowed below his bushy brows. He gestured for all of us not to move, and I realized with a start that Tyler’s eyes looked different. They were glowing the faintest blue.

  “It’s not enough,” Frost agreed, and his words carried a curious resonance. “How will you find what we need to know?”

  “It’s here—the answer’s here. It’s always been here,” Tyler muttered. His lips tightened, then spoke in a rushing hiss. I was the closest to him, but I couldn’t make any of them out—though across the room, Liam’s eyes flew wide. He almost surged forward, but Frost’s sharp gesture kept him in place.

  “Choate…why Choate?” Tyler demanded suddenly, sounding strangled. His hands were clenched into fists, his face mottled with fury. He looked…for a moment, he looked exactly like the Boston Brahmin as he’d glared at me over Betty the barista’s inert body. “How dare they try this again?”

  A whistling wind blew through the room, blasting the books from their piles on the table and knocking them open, pages whipping in a frenzy. The computers slid across the table and crashed into each other, while more books crashed to the floor outside the room and slid forward, banging into the doorframe of the war room. Frost pointed with a sharp, discreet gesture, and Liam and Zach surged for the newly arrived tomes, grabbing them and tossing them onto the table. The moment the heavy books hit the marble surface, they flapped open, pages whipping furiously.

  The wind stopped. Tyler slumped, and Grim and I bolted forward to catch him and help him into a chair as Liam fairly leapt onto the table in his haste to read the books.

  “Perkins,” he gasped. These are all references to the Perkins family—Tyler’s great-great—I don’t know how many generations back. Obituaries, articles, purchases, and accords…”

  “Same thing over here,” Zach said. “Every reference ever written in the newspapers or journals of the—I guess the 1850s?”

  “Dude,” Tyler muttered from his seat at the table. He leaned forward, his hands flat on the marble surface. “What the hell was that?”

  I blinked at him. “It wasn’t the ghosts?”

  “The what? They’re back?” Liam’s head bobbed up from behind his laptop as Tyler shook his head, wobbling a little.

  “No ghosts,” he managed. “Something different.”

  “Something quite different,” Frost agreed. “That, Mr. Perkins, was a spell of discernment the likes of which I haven’t seen in twenty years—and then by a grand master instructor, not a student. Information on William Perkins doubtless lies within these books. But I’m afraid we don’t have the luxury to review them at our leisure. With the escalation of the Boston Brahmin’s activity, we’ve been commissioned into battle.”

  We all turned and focused on him, Tyler shaking off the aftereffects of his spell casting. His eyes were still a hazy blue. “Commissioned by whom?” he asked sharply.

  Frost regarded us steadily. “There was a time in the academy’s distant past when it was held in high esteem by Boston’s elite magicians, a time when Wellington Academy served a very real and immediate purpose. That time, it appears, has returned. The first calls came in around ten a.m. this morning, through channels that have lain dormant for generations. Monsters have returned to Boston, and they are attacking the richest and most magical families in the city. It’s time for us to act.”

  27

  Of all the guys, Tyler reacted the most. “The families?” he asked. “Which ones? What’s the connection between them? Are there any enemies of the Perkins in there?”

  “Unknown,” Frost said, the force of his words making his beard jerk. “Reports of the Boston Brahmin’s appearance are all over the place, however, aided in no small part by the disorientation of the victims. However, what’s clear is that the attacker is dressed like a member of the elite cast of Bostonians, circa the mid-1800s, that he’s searching for something, and that he knows the area intimately. Which led me to my original suspicion that this is no monster, but some sort of curse laid upon a past generation of the families—a suspicion which is, frankly, aided by your work here, Mr. Perkins.” Frost gestured to the books on the table. “But no curse ends up replicating like this. There’s something more at work.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Liam said. He was rummaging through the books on the table and pulled one up, spinning it around toward us. “I mean, if ol’ Willie Perkins has been reanimated, we’re dealing with necromancy magic, right? We have to be.”

  I blinked, and Grim issued a low, feral growl. “Ah, man,” Zach sighed. “You do not want to get me started on that.”

  He spoke with such world-weariness that I shot him a glance. What horrors had Zach seen as the son of a preacher that I didn’t even know about? What monsters had he fought before finding his way to Wellington Academy?

  “It’s possible,” Frost said thoughtfully. “If the original monster was a cursed member of one of the first families and was awakened, that’s one thing. But if a necromancer is involved, perhaps raising some unfortunate soul who had no intention of being raised, then yes. Yes, there could be a replication.”

  “But how does that work?” I protested. “There’s only one Brahmin, right? So you can only raise him one time. Are the other versions of him illusions?”

  “Not exactly,” Liam said, paging quickly through the book. “More like overlays. You bring more bodies up, and they get the Boston Brahmin treatment too. You knock them out, they’re going to turn back into sweet Aunt Sally and Cousin Jojo. But until they get walloped…”

  He turned to Frost. “Best way to kill a zombie, which is essentially what we’re dealing with here, is to chop off its head. Those aren’t the kind of blades you had me bring up.”

  “They are not,” agreed Frost. “Because we have two missions here. The families want us to stop the attacks. We will. The Brahmin will not survive the day if we hope to retain the monster hunter minor another year. That’s been made loud and clear: you cannot fuck this up.”

  “Appreciate the vote of confidence,” Tyler drawled, but Frost waved him quiet.

  “This isn’t simple necromancy, however. William Perkins, if that’s the real identity of the Brahmin, is looking for something. Letters, from several different accounts. A watch. A ring. There’s a scandal here, and that scandal is important. To Mr. Lockton’s point, the monster isn’t to blame here—the magician behind the monster is. What is his motivation? Because even if we take out the Boston Brahmin…”

  “He’ll try something else,” Tyler said. He was still staring at the map, as if committing it to memory. “The necromancer. He won’t stop.”

  “He will not. And if he’s able to create multiples of poor Mr. Perkins, he’s a powerful magician indeed.”

  We all considered that for a second, silence heavy in the room. Then Liam gave a startled, satisfied laugh. “Got it,” he said, spinning his laptop toward us. A scan of a handwritten letter filled the screen. “According to the esteemed Griselda Collins, widow of Judge Collins, mother of approximately fifty-seven children and grandchildren, the foozler William Perkins died in 1853 from a knife to the heart. Inflicted by an unknown burglar, it says here, under circumstances the family deemed private. She thinks he killed himself with drink, but—there you go. We’ve got our dead guy.”

  “Knife to the heart.” Frost nodded. “Then our course is plain. You have to go out and find these six Boston Brahmins and knife them in the heart. If they are not the Brahmin, they’ll die regardless, returning to their natural forms, which at this point will be an advanced stage of decay and desiccation. If it’s the Boston Brahmin, then the spell holding him will shatter when you replicate the killing blow.”

  “And if he didn’t die from a knife to the heart?” I asked. “What if William really did drink himself to death?”

  Tyler turned to me, twirling one of the jeweled stickpins. “Then after we’ve tried all the slicing and dicing, we’ll offer the poor man a shot of whisk
ey,” he said. He stepped forward and affixed the stickpin to the collar of my shirt. It lay nearly flat against me, close to my collarbone. “I’m thinking these are going to be our communication devices, a little more hands-free than our phones, and we don’t have the right tech yet for anything more elaborate.”

  “Plus, they’re super fancy,” Zach deadpanned, eyeing the pin as Tyler affixed it to his shirt. Liam picked up another of the artifacts and tossed one to Grim, who caught it with a slashing movement of his hand, almost too quick for the eye to follow. He scowled at the piece of jewelry, but put it on.

  “We go out together, as a pack,” Tyler said, and the way the others turned to him, I got the impression he typically led their hunts—even though the hunts up to this point had been against fake monsters. My jaw tightened, as I wondered about his real feelings for me, but I couldn’t argue with his logic. I had helped the team by joining the collective. I’d helped him.

  Was that all I was supposed to do?

  “There are six monsters,” Tyler continued. Are they all working singly or are any in pairs?”

  “Excellent question,” Frost said. “One pair that we’ve been able to identify so far, both looking exactly like the Brahmin.”

  “Still, that duo probably won’t be our guy,” Zach put in. “He’s worked alone up to now. Why would he suddenly want to bring on a partner?”

  That logic seemed sound enough, and Frost illuminated a new set of dots on the screen. “The initial attacks today took place on the sidewalk beside the Boston Public Garden. Ultimately, that has to be the origin of the dark magic.”

  “It can’t be, though,” Tyler argued. “You’re talking zombies here, and zombies need cemeteries, or at least a mausoleum. You’re not going to find that in Boston Public Garden.”

  “I am aware of the logistical inconsistencies with this theory,” Frost informed him, well, frostily. “I’m simply giving you the most likely locations and a potential reason for them. Since the beginning of the Boston Brahmin strikes, the garden has remained a primary origination point. It has also served as such for the monster attacks separate from the Brahmin. There’s no reason to discount it out of hand.”

  “And at a minimum, it’s a good place to start,” Zach said, stepping toward the map. His focus distracted us, and I studied him with a little more appreciation. He had to have drawn our attention on purpose to deflect the negative vibe growing in the room. Did he always do that?

  “Okay, what’s the closest report to the garden we have?” Tyler asked. “We’ll start there.”

  Frost pointed at the map. “Mt. Vernon Street. The call came in right before I summoned you. Not an assault, only a sighting. The families are now on alert.”

  I lifted a brow. “You guys have a magical neighborhood watch?”

  “You’d be surprised at how helpful it can be.” Tyler laughed. “Let’s hit it.”

  We headed out of the library, looking for all the world like a group of college students on their way to a two-dollar-beer happy hour. The knives Liam had dispersed among us were tucked safely in belts and pockets and in my ubiquitous ankle sheath, snug up against my own trusty blade. The guys had wanted me to leave my dagger behind, but that was a nonstarter. I never left home without it. Still, that didn’t stop them from trying.

  “You’ve got to understand,” Liam continued arguing as we hit the cobblestones, traveling on foot so we could spread out if necessary at a moment’s alarm. Mt. Vernon Street was barely a mile away, and we were already moving fast. “Your blade is great, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it hasn’t been spelled. The blades we got from the basement have special juju on them. They’re going to be stronger.”

  “Then I’ll use that one first,” I replied, easily enough.

  “But what if you—”

  “She won’t.” To my surprise, it wasn’t Tyler defending me, but Grim. I glanced over to see his flat, unnervingly pale eyes studying me, his lips curled in his usual sneer. “She learned a long time ago how to defend herself against things that go bump in the night.”

  The guys all accepted this, but I found myself glancing away, trying to parse out Grim’s words. They sounded sexual to me…but everything sounded sexual to me lately. And of all the guys, Grim was not on my radar for that. Seriously. Never mind that he was big, powerful, vital, and real. Never mind that I suspected he also had scars on his body he couldn’t remember having gotten. Never mind that the idea of his huge, calloused hands closing around my shoulders, pulling me close enough to smell the fire and cinnamon of his skin, to taste the salt and anger on his lips, to—

  Dear Lord, will you stop. I shook myself, hard. Here I was on my first group monster hunt, and all I could concentrate on was how impossibly strange it felt to be with four different guys who turned me on. I refocused on Tyler, not missing the way my heart surged when I considered him anew…or the whiff of betrayal that now chased that swell of attraction. He’d always seemed larger than life to me, but…was I seeing the true him? Not a boyfriend at all, but a leader—first, last, and always? Giving orders, he strode as quickly as Grim, and moved to the front of our pack as soon as we cleared the walls of the academy.

  We reached Mt. Vernon Street a few short minutes later, and I exhaled on a low whistle, glancing around.

  “Well, if he’s hunting the upper crust of Boston, he certainly came to the right place,” I allowed.

  “Not just the upper crust,” Liam agreed. “The top one percent of all magical families in the city.”

  “He’s got good taste, I’ll give him that,” Zach said as he nodded to several people puttering in their tiny gardens or walking along the sidewalks.

  “Don’t they know there’s an alert out?” I asked.

  Tyler shook his head. “Sometimes you can’t fight stupid.”

  “But it serves us well,” Grim countered. “There’s something watching them besides us.”

  Tyler turned ever so slightly. “Where?”

  “One of the yards ahead.” I was the one who spoke, and Grim nodded.

  “Just one, I think, not a pair.”

  “Got him,” Tyler murmured. “His energy’s high. Excited, not panicked. Not afraid. This thing isn’t worried about dying. I don’t think it even knows that’s a possibility.”

  “Bravado?” Liam asked, clearly mentally cataloging the reactions of our target.

  “Controlled,” Tyler clarified. “These things aren’t rational, they’re vessels for another person’s magic. And they’re already dead, despite all appearances. May not make taking him down any easier, though.”

  As we spoke, we all moved forward, maintaining an easy walk. In this regard, the blitheness of our fellow walkers was in our favor as we all moved casually down the street.

  “Gardener?” Grim asked as we approached a deep-set mansion with a surprisingly wide yard. There were trees and ornamental hedges, and I saw the same man Grim had, with his long pair of pruning shears. There was definitely a weird energy around him…

  “I don’t think so,” Tyler murmured. “Look beside him, in the chair.”

  I squinted, and Tyler was right. There was a second person in the front yard with the worker, an old man, wizened and frail, sitting in a rolling chair.

  “He’s not the Brahmin. No way,” Liam breathed. “Zombies don’t sit that still.”

  “Shut it, Liam,” Tyler said tersely. “All of us head that way. Easy now, easy.”

  We were still a house away when the bushes beside the gardener and the old man exploded, and a figure leapt out. I got a flash of a top hat and flying, glossy tails, then Tyler and Grim surged forward. I picked up speed as well, but I couldn’t believe how fast they moved. Grim ran like he was born to the hunt, but Tyler was a revelation.

  He launched like a sprinter out of the blocks and ate up the ground between him and the monster, knocking it flat as Grim reached his side. The old man screeched in fear, drawing the attention of the neighborhood walkers, but with one vicious plunge, T
yler lashed out, his blade driving into the chest of the tall, gangly aristocratic form struggling on the ground. I rushed forward to catch a glimpse of the creature’s face, but it was shaking it too fast, all the features blurring.

  There was a whoosh of released air, then something hard crashed—the yard worker, I realized as I raced past him, fainted dead away. The old man stared with horror as Tyler stood, while Grim squatted down to the pile of bones and dust at his feet. The body had already all but disappeared into the dirt—the fastest decomposition act I’d ever seen.

  “Decent compost, anyway,” Liam observed, and Zach punched him in the shoulder.

  “Jonathan! Jonathan.” The old man’s thin voice startled us all, and he struggled out of his chair as Zach shifted over to him, giving him an arm to lean on.

  “Jonathan,” the old man shouted again, and the gardener on the ground stirred. Liam squatted to help him up.

  Then the old man turned with a sharp, fierce glower, strong enough that even the most curious of the watchers flinched. “Stop your gawking,” he shouted to his neighbors. “Be about your business.”

  It was a testament to the man’s tone and perhaps his reputation on this block that the flood of curious onlookers stepped back. And in fact, the Boston Brahmin had attacked so quickly, anyone would have been hard-pressed to believe much of anything had happened…especially if they didn’t notice the small pile of bones and ash at Grim’s and Tyler’s feet.

  The old man turned and glowered at us. “You’re from Wellington?”

  Tyler nodded. “We can’t stay.”

  “Well, I should say not. Be off with you, and if you want to know my thinking on it, target the Saltonsalls’ mansion, or the place that Ames upstart ruined. Fools, the both of them. You’re a Perkins, right? You should know the truth of it.”

  “I know where they are,” Tyler said, but I was watching the old man. It wasn’t the location he was referring to with the word “truth.”