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

  Right?

  “We’ve got this,” Zach said, and Tyler nodded, pulling me away. Grim had already turned and headed back into the shadows, and within a few seconds, it was just me and this tall, handsome college guy walking down the cobblestone lane, deeper into the center of campus, away from the gates of the academy.

  Away. I stopped, pulling my hand free of Tyler’s. I instantly missed the contact, but I clearly needed to stop being so distracted.

  “Yo, I kind of need to get back to my apartment.”

  “Fair enough.” Without missing a beat, Tyler gave me another cocky, self-assured smile. The kind of smile that told me he didn’t often get turned down. “Let me walk you home.”

  I shook my head. “I can take care of myself.”

  His smile kicked up one corner of his mouth. He really had an exceptional mouth. “Yeah, well, a complimentary walk home comes standard with every monster attack at Wellington Academy, especially since it’s the first time you’ve ever been attacked in your life.”

  I hesitated. There was no way I could counter that without revealing the truth—that I’d been fighting monsters since I was four years old. And to be honest, I found I didn’t mind the idea of walking with Tyler so much. Despite Mom’s apparent long-ago warning about some crazy dude gang, Tyler didn’t feel like a danger, exactly.

  Right.

  Well, not that kind of danger. Either way, he wasn’t an actual monster and we were going to be walking in public. I could handle this.

  Without further discussion, we turned and headed back toward the same wall where I’d entered. From this side, it looked like a perfectly ordinary gray brick barrier, complete with cheerful ivy, until I got right up on it. Then I could see the figures carved into the rock—ghoulish gargoyles, medusas, and howling demons. We ducked under the archway, and I peered back—and was met with more horrible faces, half hidden in the foliage.

  “How has nobody figured out what you guys are?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “People see what they expect to see. It’s like the monsters themselves. We’ve been told over and over again that their numbers are diminishing, that they only live in super remote places, definitely not roaming the streets of Boston anymore. I mean—that second land worm that attacked you, it was epic. We haven’t seen a real-live monster, ever, other than the ones we keep in the menagerie here on campus. And those guys have been with the academy for so long, it kind of sucks to even call them monsters. We don’t fight them, we protect them. Everything else we do is with holograms and illusion magic. We’re the best in the world at fighting monsters—but there aren’t hardly any monsters left anymore. Or so everyone keeps trying to tell us.”

  He said this last with a wry twist to his lips, and I had to laugh.

  “I meant what I said back there,” I blurted, feeling a rush of awareness about how close we were walking together—and how comforting it was—that left me both awkward and emotional. I didn’t want to trust this guy—I didn’t trust this guy—but the facts were the facts. “You totally saved my ass. If you hadn’t incinerated that thing, I would eventually have hacked my way out, but I wouldn’t have been in good shape.”

  That, at least, wasn’t a lie. When I got attacked and actually caught by monsters, I’d been seriously screwed up on more than a few occasions. There were definitely some scars on my body I couldn’t quite remember how they got there. In the past year alone, I’d ended up in the hospital a couple of times, though I’d managed to slip out before I’d had to give my real name or identity. I didn’t have insurance, of course. Even if I had, with a preexisting condition of monster meal, I didn’t think I was going to get comprehensive coverage.

  What had Grim called me, again? Monster bait? Asshole. At least I was warming up to Tyler.

  “The fact that you even think you could’ve hacked your way out is awesome,” he continued. “You’ve obviously got zero formal self-defense training.”

  Okay, well, I had been warming up to Tyler.

  “It was that obvious?” I offered noncommittally. This guy didn’t know me. I’d flat-out lied to him. He had no idea what I was capable of—

  So of course, he dug himself in deeper. “Oh, yeah,” he chuckled, managing to sound like every elitist asshole who ever lived. “I mean, thank god you were carrying a knife, but…” He paused. “Why were you carrying a knife anyway?”

  “Oh, you know. Muggers.” I stopped short of batting my eyes at him, but it was a near thing. “I’m so glad you guys were able to protect me.”

  Tyler nodded, blissfully oblivious to my sarcasm. “Me too. Though I’m pretty sure the land worm was only active because of us. Again, I’m really sorry about that.”

  I let him continue to take the blame for the night’s events as we strolled up the street, two college kids out for an evening walk. Like normal people, almost. “So, what does one do with the monster hunting degree?” I asked as we turned onto Newbury Street.

  Tyler’s dejected sigh took me off guard. “Honestly? Not a hell of a lot anymore, at least not in the good ol’ US of A. They still need monster hunters in the old country, though, and there’s been a demand for the skillset in South America of late. That’s probably where I’ll be heading after graduation next year. Figure I’ll spend a couple of years roaming around the rainforest, or what’s left of it, doling out my services wherever they’re needed.”

  I peered skeptically at him. “People pay for that?”

  “A hell of a lot, actually. Or they used to. That’s probably the other reason why they’re looking to phase out the minor. It was endowed with legacy dollars from way back when the university was founded, and things really ramped up around the middle of the 1900s. Anyone who successfully graduates as a monster hunter is set for life. I’m talking millions of dollars if you want it all at once. More over time if you don’t need the lump sum. If the academy could find a way to legitimately repurpose those scholarship monies to other parts of the campus, believe me, they would. There’s also the issue that most people don’t believe there are any more monsters in the world of the truly magical variety.”

  “Oh?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully flat. Millions of dollars? More over time? Was he serious? Why hadn’t my mom ever dropped that little bit of information on me, in between lessons on the J-hook knife thrust and how to flame your dragon? “Where do they think all the monsters went?”

  “Died out, disappeared into a portal to another dimension…there are all sorts of theories. An entire subgroup on campus thinks they never existed in the first place in any real numbers, never mind all the history and spell work and totems that have been amassed over the centuries to fight them. Those students subscribe to the fairy-tale theory that monsters were made up to scare populations into compliance with local government regulations. Kind of like religion.”

  I remembered Zach’s reaction when I had used the name Christ. “So where are you guys from?”

  “All over,” Tyler said. “Zach’s from Georgia, Liam and I are Boston boys. Grim’s from…God knows. Europe, we think, but he doesn’t really talk about it much.”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t seem like he talks much in general.”

  “Not if he can avoid it. But it’s actually kind of nice having four of us in one class. Most of the time, it’s only two or three people total. And some classes even skip a year because of the requirements it takes to enter the minor. We’re all officially majoring in Magical Sciences, sort of Wellington’s version of General Studies, but very, very few students get into this minor. We’ve got a couple of new freshmen who are promising, but who knows what the situation is going to be like by the time they reach their senior year? And, they’re kind of entitled assholes.”

  He said this last with a very self-aware smile, and I had to chuckle. Despite his seemingly ingrained-at-birth arrogance, it was easy to laugh around Tyler. Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed with anyone other than my own thoughts. But with Mom’s warnings ringing in m
y ears—though far more faintly now—I needed to understand their group connection. I tried to circle my way around to that topic as delicately as possible. “So, you and Liam knew each other before you came to school here?”

  “We’ve known each other since we were kids, yup. We also knew we were headed for monster hunting from a very young age.”

  “Because monsters chased you?” I asked, since, duh.

  Tyler shot me a surprised look. “Like when we were kids? No way. That would have sucked ass. We just knew, the way some people know they’re going to be doctors or work with animals, that we were supposed to hunt monsters. Sort of like a calling, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I lied, hiding my frown. I hadn’t been called to hunt monsters. I’d been called to keep them from killing me on a frequent and escalating basis. Even Mom had never actively gone out on a hunt, like she was going to go harvest mushrooms or something. She’d simply done everything she could to help me fight off the monsters that never stopped coming—and then recorded my successes in one long, carefully written letter.

  But I was willing to go with Tyler’s spin. It sounded much nicer. “And Zach came up from Georgia?”

  “Yup. We’ve been tight since freshman year. His dad is a preacher, if you can believe that.”

  My step hitched a little, and I winced. “Oh, Jesus,” I said and winced again.

  Tyler laughed. “You got him right where he lives with that one. He’s seen some serious shit. I guess you’d say he was hunted, or at least he’s been around plenty of people who were messed up, particularly by demons. He’s got some stories.”

  “I bet,” I murmured.

  “As for Grim, like I said, no one really knows where he’s from. He showed up freshman year with the right paperwork and that kind of raw intensity about him, and nobody asked questions. Not even Commander Frost, and that man has questions for everything.”

  “He’s one of your professors?”

  “He’s the academy’s head monster fighting instructor—our mentor, really. Way more of a mentor than the dean of our department, that’s for damn sure.” Tyler checked himself, shaking his head. “One more year, though. We’ll make it through.”

  “That’s when you graduate?”

  “Yep, not a second too soon. Those South American man-eating yetis aren’t going to kill themselves.”

  “Fair,” I agreed, and drew in a long breath. I needed to stop dancing around the issue and put my mom’s barely remembered warnings to rest. “So, you and the guys—are you all, like, buddies, or do you belong to a more formal association at, ah, the academy?”

  He quirked me a glance. “What do you mean?”

  I glanced back at him. “Well, you know…”

  The movement behind Tyler happened so fast I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t turned at the exact moment I had. But I’d seen the shimmering bands of night screamers way too many times to miss them when they were right in front of my face. I’d also felt those bands wrap around my throat, tight enough to kill, often enough that I knew they meant business.

  The creatures burst from the shadows as I pushed Tyler out of the way.

  “Run,” I shouted.

  He didn’t.

  6

  Instead, Tyler whirled in a tight circle to face the threat, his hands lifting as I went for my knife.

  “Magla Gušter,” he snapped. The night screamers’ furious rush toward us stopped abruptly. They rotated in a sharp spiral, hissing with fury, but didn’t come any closer.

  What the hell? I danced from foot to foot, hands up, knife out, all weaponed up with nowhere to go. Tyler shot a glance at me, taking in my stance.

  “You’ve seen these before too?” he asked, and I flushed. As far as he knew, I hadn’t encountered any monsters in my life before this week. But before I could explain how I knew about fighting screamers, they struck again. From behind us. Because that’s what they did.

  “Your feet,” I blurted as I awkwardly hopped sideways, while Tyler leapt up and did an elegant twist midair, diving to the side in a neatly executed shoulder roll that got him well out of the way of the sweeping ground attack of the slashing mist.

  I, of course, was neither so nimble nor so lucky. The first swipe of the creatures missed me, but the whipping shadows caught my left ankle on the second try, twisting it hard as it smashed me against the brick wall. My bare shoulder scraped across the stone, the skin ripping open, and I hissed out a sharp breath.

  Fortunately, I’d dealt with these bastards enough times, I knew how to handle them. I crunched heavily to the ground, rolling over onto my back, and caught the trailing edge of the screamer between my palms. One palm still held the flat of my blade, which made for a tidy screamer sandwich: two palms, white mist, deadly iron. Then I held on.

  The thing with screamers, they were chickenshits and hive minders. You hurt one, you hurt them all. You just had to hope you didn’t get beaten to death in the process as they tried to whip you off them.

  “Nina!” Tyler shouted, or I think he shouted. I was too busy getting flung against the brick wall, again and again, until suddenly, I careened into something soft and warm and—surprisingly familiar. Tyler’s well-muscled arms closed around me and held on tight as the screamer, deprived of its slashing defense, yanked us both, hard. We skidded forward a few steps, but Tyler held firm, and then—miraculously—it was over. The screamer did as all screamers eventually must: it exploded into nothingness. A blast of supercharged cold air blew us back into the brick wall a final time, then there was nothing.

  “Son of a bitch,” Tyler breathed, but there was far less fear in his voice than there should have been, and way more excitement than was probably healthy. I gave him a shaky grin, and his face instantly changed to one of horror.

  “Nina, for fuck’s sake, where’s your apartment? Is it close? You’re bleeding. Bad.”

  “What?” I managed, but now there wasn’t one Tyler in front of me, there were two—two? Maybe three. Should there be three? I shook my head, and it no longer seemed connected to my ankles. My ankles?

  I pitched forward, and Tyler caught me. “It’s okay,” I managed, as my feet lost contact with the sidewalk and I realized, somewhat belatedly, that he’d picked me up like I weighed nothing. I was being carried by a guy I barely knew, him and his six buddies. Six?

  “Where’s your apartment, Nina?” Tyler asked again. “I swear on the collective, I won’t hurt you, but we’re either going there or we’re going to the hospital, and right the fuck now.”

  I was sliding in and out of consciousness, but my brain’s warning bells started ringing again like a five-alarm fire. There were two really bad things trapped in the words he’d uttered. Two epically awful, no-good things. I latched on to the second one, because it was closer. “No hospitals, ever,” I gasped. “I’m just passing through. No names. No identification. I can’t do hospitals.”

  “Okay, no hospitals,” Tyler said, agreeably enough, and his buddies echoed his response. He was being remarkably agreeable, I thought. Agreeable was much better than smug. A one-hundred-percent improvement, in fact. He was warm and big and strong and…agreeable. All of him. “But where—”

  I frowned. Tyler and his friends asked a lot of questions, and we were already moving in the right direction. How could he not know where I live? “Forty-seven fourteen. No. Fourteen forty-seven. Top floor. Such a pretty place. A pretty place my mom could have lived in, maybe had lived in, back before I was born. You would have liked my mom.”

  His grip on me tightened slightly, and his words were a little rougher when they floated down to me next. “I bet I would’ve, sweetheart,” he said, in a soft, whispering rush of echoes, and then we were climbing a short flight of stairs. Something wet tickled my lips. My cheeks heated. Was one of the Tylers kissing me?

  But no, this was something coppery and slick and—I darted my tongue out and decided it was blood. Blood was good, though. If I wasn’t tasting blood, that meant my heart had stopped bea
ting. I hated it when that happened.

  “You have a key?” Multi-Tyler asked.

  “Right hip pocket. Key card.” I sighed, sensing the oncoming blackness, the healing slide of sleep. I could always fall asleep easily, which you’d think I’d have a problem with, given the monsters that liked to hang out under my bed. Easy solution to that one, of course. Because I was a thinker. I’d simply eliminated the under-the-bed option.

  “No monsters, not here,” Tyler said, and I frowned as he swung my body around, fishing out my access card to swipe it across the panel. Very high-tech, my landlords, for all that the apartment looked like a historical landmark, surrounded by trees and next to the cutest little park—

  Don’t look at the park.

  I clutched Tyler’s arms a little tightly, and he murmured something else comforting I couldn’t quite make out. He seemed to grow calmer the more freaked out I got, which I appreciated in him and all his other Tyler-selves. I furrowed my brow, frowning. How could more than one Tyler be carrying me, though? How did the physics of that work?

  “I got you, Nina. Now up we go, top floor.”

  “Top floor,” I agreed. Part of me felt bad, and I couldn’t figure out why for a second. Then I noticed that all the Tylers were still carrying me up the stairs. That meant three flights of stairs, poor guys. Granted, I’d never gotten around to eating dinner, so at least they weren’t dealing with that extra weight.

  “It’s good, you’re good,” he said, and I wondered if I’d said any of that out loud.

  Before I could ask him, we stopped again, this time in front of my apartment door. Tyler hesitated, but I didn’t. I struggled to get out of his arms, swinging my feet until he let me stand. Then I hauled my other keys out of my front jeans pocket. Three of them, all on a carabiner clip, only slightly sticky from cuttlefish guts. One for the door handle, one for the extra lock the apartment owner had installed after I insisted I was willing to pay for it. And a third one, too, for the lock I’d had installed without the apartment owner knowing—the one he still hadn’t noticed because it wasn’t like he dropped by for unexpected visits, right? That wasn’t his job, and I was a good tenant.