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

  I blinked, and Zach said, “Look down.”

  4

  I looked down, but I still didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, not at first. Only when Zach pressed aside the grass did I notice the thin line of white crystals that gathered on one of the tombstones before disappearing into the grass again.

  “Salt?” I asked. “But there’s a ton of dew here. It’s already dissolving. How could that help?”

  “It couldn’t help trap the demons, you’re right,” Zach said. “But it allowed the space where you all were standing to be reconsecrated, at least for a few minutes. The demons didn’t feel that until they were right up on us. You were never in any danger.”

  That seemed to make everyone happier, and Zach spoke on for a few minutes, explaining that the demons had been dispatched forever and would not bother them again. This last he gave almost as a benediction, and I could glimpse the prayerful boy he must once have been, tapped to help his father banish demons from a frightened flock.

  The students dispersed after that, no longer walking individually, but gathered together in groups of four and five. A separate, smaller cluster remained behind, peppering Zach with questions, and it took another ten minutes before he was able to send them on their way.

  By then, we had all started walking back toward the main campus, and I breathed a sigh of relief when we entered the reinforced stone walls of Wellington Academy again. I didn’t want to admit it, but that entire sesh had scared the crap out of me.

  Zach seemed to notice. He turned to me after he sent the last pair of students off, his gaze heavy with concern.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and I nodded quickly.

  “I am, I just…I mean, that was kind of creepy, right? The demons standing among the students, looking like they were part of the class? And some of them straight-up going inside the students until you called them back out? Were you expecting that?”

  He grimaced and scanned the central quad, apparently convincing himself we were alone. “Truth?” he asked. “Not even remotely. That little demonstration was way off the charts. Even during my first year here, I didn’t attract that kind of attention. And those guys were not messing around.” He glanced around again and lifted the hem of his shirt. I blinked. A deep, bright red furrow now marred his abs, joining other long-since-faded marks.

  “Whoa! When did that happen?”

  “When the first one hit,” he said. “Stupid of me, but I wasn’t prepared. It caught me off guard and got a swipe in before I was able to neutralize it.”

  “Does it hurt?” I asked and winced. “Sorry, dumb question. Of course it hurts.”

  He laughed a little grimly. “Not as much as you might think,” he admitted. “It looks bad, but it’s all in the eye of the beholder.”

  “Well, my eye is beholding it, and it looks pretty awful to me.”

  “Ah, but remember, a demon’s greatest magic lies in illusion. You were expecting to see something bad when I lifted up my shirt, not just get treated to my super-sexy, rock-hard abs.”

  I snorted, ignoring the fluttery bump of my heart against my rib cage. Zach did have super-sexy, rock-hard abs. And the kind of scars I knew all too well. “Fair enough. And—your neck too. They got you there.”

  “Really?” Zach’s brows went up as he lifted his hands to run his fingers over his neck, wincing at the abrasions. “So they did. Normally, I notice when something’s trying to choke me to death, but that’s the problem with demon attacks—humans are wired to forget the trauma as quickly as they possibly can. Good thing nobody but you could see so much. I mean, they witnessed the demons, yes. But not the damage the demons left behind. They’d have been way more freaked, and we need that like a hole in the head. The monster hunting minor has enough bad press.”

  “Yeah—though it was kind of cool, what you did, fighting the demons and sending them away. So maybe…?”

  “Cool is in the eye of the beholder too,” Zach countered, grinning. My heart jittered again as we shared a glance, ignoring my attempts to shush it. We were bonding like normal people. Like friends. That’s it. I needed to get ahold of myself. “All it takes is one student flipping out about how I led them into danger, and it’d be lights out. So—I’m careful. Most of the time, they only see what they want to see. Sort of like with ordinary monsters.”

  I nodded, my fingers drifting to the bracelet that was wrapped snugly around my wrist…the one that kept Zach from reading my mind. “Yeah.” It was true enough. Most people never realized monsters were right on top of them until it was too late. And they never saw me fighting anything supernatural. The only guys who ever had were monster hunters themselves.

  “I’d say a good half of those students talked a good game, but they were pretty stressed when they showed up for class this morning. Now, hopefully, they’re impressed.”

  I lifted my eyes. “Well, I’m impressed, and you’re not even reading my mind.”

  He nodded, but a definite edge entered his eyes as he watched me, making my breath catch. “Just think of how much more impressed you could be if I had an unfair advantage. Wanna test it out?”

  “I…” I swallowed as, too quickly, the answer formed. Yes, I did want to test it out. I wanted to slip this bracelet off my wrist and see what it would feel like to have Zach touch my mind, know my thoughts. I wanted him to push into my mind while he skimmed his hand over my skin and—

  Down, girl.

  “I—think that would be pretty interesting, eventually,” I finished lamely, not missing the strange flash of fire in Zach’s eyes. Had he known? Had he sensed what I was thinking, despite the mind-warding bracelet? “But you’re not the only demon hunter at Wellington, right? I mean, that class was full, and none of those students are in the monster hunter minor.”

  Zach’s features smoothed out, and he gave me a quick, conspiratorial wink.

  “Despite the general disdain for monster hunting, there’s a full-on demonology major here, as it turns out. Little known fact, though: true demon hunting is an inherited job skill, not a learned one. More than that, not every kid born to every demon hunter gets the mind-melding talent—the Williams family is just particularly lucky. I didn’t even know I was doing it when I was a kid, until my dad figured it out. That would’ve been right around the time my mom cheerfully announced that I could eat my favorite sugared cereal for breakfast and lunch. I thought it was the greatest thing ever. The honorable Reverend Matthew Williams, not so much.”

  I winced. “Did he come down on you hard?”

  “Not as hard as he could have, though arguably a little harder than maybe he should have for a six-year-old boy who had no idea what he’d just done,” Zach said, with a wry smile that spoke volumes. “But that’s my dad. His world is heavy on the black and white, not all that great with shades of gray. It had to be, given what he did for a living. He yelled at me, and, though I can’t really believe it now, I yelled back, protesting my innocence of doing anything on purpose till my voice went hoarse. I got sick after that and thought God was mad at me, which made Dad feel pretty bad, I think. He was super nice for like, weeks.”

  “Aw, man.” I laughed, not sure whom I felt worse for. “Parenting must suck sometimes.”

  “Yeah—and to be fair, the ability to push minds is only a tiny talent for us, but it’s there, even if it’s much less prominent than our ability to read minds. Dad needed to both make sure I stayed safe, and to protect other people from my budding abilities and questionable impulse control—especially my mom and my little brother. He also needed to try and guide me the best he could. Not everyone handles the experience of being a demon hunter well, inherited skill or not. His own dad had sort of fallen apart on the job—his wife died suddenly, and he sort of cracked. He gave Dad to a local preacher to raise. So Dad was adopted by the preacher, but it’s not like he didn’t know my grandfather. My grandfather just couldn’t raise him anymore. Not after what happened to my grandmother.”

  “You’re kidding
me. Your grandfather gave up your dad for adoption?” I protested, my eyes wide. “That…isn’t that terrible?”

  He shrugged. “No more terrible than growing up with a broken-down demon hunter drifter who didn’t know how to care for you. Family’s what you make of it sometimes.”

  “Yeah…” I considered that, remembering my mom’s carefully worded letter to her own family, added to over so many years…but never sent. “I guess.”

  “In my dad’s case, it turned out to be for the best. The preacher and his wife took Dad in, he grew up absolutely loving the work with the congregation, and eventually, he found a wife of his own. I showed up after that, with my little brother following a few years later. Fortunately, Jeremy avoided being a freak. He’s a senior now at the local high school, not an ounce of weirdness to him. But once Dad realized I had the gift of demon hunting and mind reading as well, and could handle it, he put me to work.”

  “As a six-year-old?” I asked almost playfully, expecting him to say no. To my surprise, Zach shrugged.

  “You’d be amazed at how quickly people relax when an exorcist shows up with a little kid in tow. It made everyone unwind and believe that it was all going to be okay. Which was part of the game. The more riled up you get in the midst of a demon possession, the more power you cede to the bastards. They’ll take every advantage that you’re willing to give up. Unfortunately, most people have no idea how easy they make it on the very creatures they’re so desperately afraid of.”

  “I bet you were a lot of fun at birthday parties,” I said drily, and he laughed. I liked making Zach laugh, I decided. I got the feeling he didn’t laugh all that often.

  “Guys!”

  I looked up to see Tyler and Liam heading toward us, my heart catching as I focused on Tyler. Tall and even more well-muscled than he’d been when I’d first met him several days ago, he was now a pinup model for Big Man on Campus: dark brown hair tumbling over his brow, whiskey-colored eyes that made you feel like you were his entire world, an easy smile that bordered on smug most of the time—and when it didn’t border, it was right smack in the middle of it. Tyler was confident, strong, and smart as hell, with an added dollop of spell-casting prowess that made him a natural leader for our little monster hunting collective. Even better—he was mine…and I was his.

  And that was all that mattered, dammit.

  I set my jaw, determined not to pay any more attention to Zach, or to Tyler’s best friend, Liam, who walked beside him, with his darkly tanned face and river-stone hazel eyes, his messy fall of brown hair that made him look like he’d just pulled an all-nighter studying. Liam was hot in a way that made me shiver—smart hot. A-guy-who-knew-stuff hot. A-guy-willing-to-try-anything hot. A—

  Will you stop! I ordered myself, glancing away from Liam’s face to his hands. Which was when I realized that Liam and Tyler were holding enormous cups of—oh thank God. Coffee.

  Liam reached us first, high-fiving Zach as Tyler stopped to pull me into his arms for a kiss. I went willingly. Never mind the weird fluttery feeling I got with Liam and Zach right there—especially Zach. With our impromptu demon fight still fresh in my mind, I felt his energy more than Liam’s—and that energy had a dark, possessive resonance I’d never felt with Tyler, even when he was being overbearingly rude. Which was a lot of the time, especially when we first met.

  Then Tyler’s mouth came down on mine, and I couldn’t think of anything else. The connection we had was so intense that it took my breath away. Kissing him should’ve felt like coming home, except for I didn’t have much of a home to go back to anymore.

  We broke apart, and he grinned down at me. “You taste like sulfur,” he said.

  I shot him a horrified glance. “Are you serious?”

  “Sulfur?” Zach asked at the same time. By now, we’d turned toward the monster hunter quad, the guys setting off at an easy pace. “Well, that’s kind of cool. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced that. I wonder if it’s because you’re part of the collective now—we’re, like, more connected now?”

  “Really,” Liam echoed, with a tone of voice that made me think he was going to add this little tidbit to some journal he was keeping about all my rogue monster hunting quirks. I fought the flush—what kind of information would he record, exactly? Did I really want to know?

  Zach’s speculation sparked a lively round of discussion that took us through the rest of campus and under the stone wall that separated the main section of Wellington Academy from the monster quad. This morning more than ever, I was happy to see the collection of tidy brick buildings and open fields. While technically still part of the campus, the monster quad was surrounded only by the original stone walls of the academy, not the reinforced barriers that protected the core of the school. It had become as segregated as the monster hunter minor itself, pushed to the side for more popular majors, never mind that it was the school’s original prime directive. Much like with Tyler’s kiss, however, the moment I stepped onto these hallowed grounds, I felt like I was coming home.

  When we neared Lowell Library though, Zach’s steps faltered. A man was waiting in front of the building, looking like any one of my professors, right down to the somber suit and scowl. Also like many of the professors, he was glaring at us.

  “Son of a bitch,” Zach muttered as I took in the tall, fair, dark-haired man. “It’s my dad.”

  5

  The door to the library opened as we approached, and Commander Frost stepped out. While technically a guy named Dean Robbins was in charge of the monster hunter minor at the academy, Frost was the minor’s unofficial leader, not to mention a badass monster hunter in his own right. Today, Frost was going full-on Paul Bunyan, all lumberjack muscles, plaid shirt, and heavy jeans, three-day beard, and world-weary frown. He wasn’t sporting suspenders, thank heavens, but all he needed was a big axe over one shoulder and I’d start looking for a blue ox.

  Frost scanned our group, then beyond us, paying no immediate attention to Zach’s father. “Grim?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Classes. We all just sort of met up, not on purpose. I…” Tyler frowned, looking around. “I don’t even know why we’re here, come to think of it. Did you need us? I didn’t get any ping to my phone.”

  “Dammit, Dad…” Zach muttered again, this time under his breath.

  “Language,” the reverend chided heavily, making Zach roll his eyes. Meanwhile, an amused expression flitted across Frost’s face, then he turned to Zach’s father, who apparently wasn’t a stranger to him.

  “Good to see you, Matthew. Come inside.”

  Zach’s dad took his time, his disapproving gaze lingering on Zach, who didn’t rise to the bait. I didn’t have a lot of experience with parental disapproval, but a wave of indignation swept up through me at the stare. Tyler squeezed my hand, and I stayed quiet.

  “Zachariah,” Reverend Williams finally said, nodding. His voice was strangely light, almost warm, in direct contrast with his expression. “You’ve fought recently.”

  Zach spread his hands. “Demonstration only. Something for school. Over at Bellamy Chapel.”

  “The chapel?” his father asked sharply. “You mean the grounds.”

  “Sure, yeah,” Zach agreed. “The graveyard. We did a sunrise ceremony, nothing major.”

  His father narrowed his eyes at him. “And…were you hurt?”

  “Not at all.”

  I kept my face carefully neutral, and Reverend Williams nodded. “I’ll want to hear more about that, then. The number of the horde you attracted, anything unique about them. It’s important.”

  “Of course,” Zach said, his words equally as easy, almost friendly, though not exactly warm. Not like I’d talked to my mom, back when we were still able to talk. How would I have talked to my father if I’d known him? More authentically than this, I was pretty sure. It made my heart hurt a little for Zach, and I’d barely met the man who raised him. Maybe passing on demon hunter genes took more out of you than I expected.

 
The preacher’s gaze shifted to the rest of us. “You’re all classmates?” he asked, skipping over me to focus on Tyler and Liam. I didn’t mind that so much. It gave me time to study the dark-haired, dark-eyed man more as Zach made hasty introductions.

  Matthew Williams was taller and thinner than his son, but wiry looking in his simple suit. His clothes were well made but not fancy, and I imagined his hands were callused and his skin tanned beneath the shirt. He looked like any small-town preacher should, I thought, but I knew better than to discount him. If he was anything like Zach, he could read minds, and I didn’t have a special bracelet to ward him off. Was the one I had against Zach’s intrusion enough to cover both Williamses?

  I hoped so.

  “We should get inside,” Tyler said as the preacher finally focused on me. The oddest riffle of awareness skittered over me, gone almost as quickly as it arrived, as Tyler gestured Reverend Williams ahead, his fingers still firmly interlocked with mine. I thought about that. Was Tyler protecting me in some way? Reverend Williams certainly seemed to take note of our connection, and his gaze was both assessing and congenial. I couldn’t decide how I felt about him.

  Zach’s father turned and preceded us into the cool confines of Lowell Library, but I tugged Tyler back for a second. “Can you feel that?” I whispered when he glanced back at me. “The touch of Zach’s dad’s mind or whatever?”

  “I mean, a little, sure,” Tyler said, shrugging. “But Liam made sure our wards covered all the Williams boys. You’re solid.”