 
KAMLYN PAIGE IS THE

#

#  BROKEN ANGEL

CHRONICLES OF A

SUPERNATURAL HUNTSMAN

BOOK 1

More books by Alex Apostol

Supernatural Thrillers

Earth Angel

(Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman, book 2)

Hunted Angel

(Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman, book 3)

Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman Part 1 (books 1-3)

Wayfare Angel (Chronicles of a Supernatural Huntsman, book 4) (COMING SOON)

Zombie Thrillers

Dead Soil (Dead Soil book 1)

Dead Road (Dead Soil book 2)

Dead World (Dead Soil book 3) (COMING SOON)

Dead Beginnings Volume 1: Lonnie Lands

Dead Beginnings Volume 2: Lee Hickey

It's an Undead Thing (Zooey Zombie Book 1)

So Over the Undead (Zooey Zombie Book 2)

Women's Fiction: Friendship

Girls Like Us

Nonfiction Journals

Novel Notes

Novel Notes Series Edition

This is Me: A Journal of Self-Discovery

Intentional: A Daily Christian Journal

My Riding Journals: Memories and Lessons

My Writing Journal

Homegrown Herbs and Organic Tea Blends Journal

ISBN 978-1522888987

Text Copyright © 2016 by Alex Apostol

Cover Design Copyright © 2016 by Alex Apostol

Writeralexapostol.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means- electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other- except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of Alex Apostol.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

First Edition, February 2016

For Charlotte

The Funeral

I sat in the first row of cheap folding chairs and stared forward with squinted eyes. Light from the bright sun glinted off the small wooden casket in front of me. I wrapped my old hand-knit sweater tighter around me to ward off the chilly mid-November air seeping through the holes. It felt second rate to the hugs I used to get from the even colder body inside the casket.

The priest, dressed in black except for the white strip of clerical collar that matched his wispy hair, made his way frailly up to the podium. He shuffled papers, set them down with both hands, and sighed before he looked up. His wrinkled blue eyes met mine and his thin lips pulled back into a sympathetic grimace.

"The loss of a child is something no mother should ever have to face. It is a heartbreaking occurrence to burry someone meant to outlive you. But to lose a child to such violence is truly a tragedy—one this town will never forget. Unfortunately, tragedy is known all too well by young Miss Kamlyn Paige, who suffered the great loss of her parents just months before her son was born. She was extremely blessed to have the ever-loyal love of her childhood friend, Cara Bellamy, to help her through such difficult times, and later with her wonderful and loving son."

I tried to keep my chin lifted and my eyes clear, but felt the sting of fresh tears gathering in the corners. My jaw clenched as I forced myself to swallow the sorrow. Cara grabbed one of my hands and squeezed it to her chest. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and soaked.

"Daniel Charles Paige barely had the chance to experience this world before he was taken at the young age of five. He was bright, kind, inquisitive, and a loving son who will be missed by everyone lucky enough to have known him, but we can take heart in the fact that he is in heaven now with his grandparents, looking down on his mother who will undoubtedly be thinking of him.

"Let us all take a moment to pray for the capture of young Daniel's killer in the hopes that he is brought to justice for his heinous crime against such a young and caring soul."

As I bowed my head, my wavy brown hair fell over my face and hid the tears that ran down my cheeks. All I could see was Danny—his golden blond curls bouncing around his sweet, smiling face, his pale blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight, and the brown birthmark in the shape of wings on his neck we both shared.

My hands shook causing Cara to squeeze even harder. It was the first time I had left the house since that awful night. I didn't want to have a complete breakdown in front of everyone, but it was growing difficult to keep inside. I took a deep breath to stabilize myself and let it drift out from between my lips. The priest broke the silence, shattering the image of Danny that lingered in my mind.

"Now if anyone has anything else they would like to say, please come up and share at this time."

Cara looked to me, her eyebrows turned upward and her eyes enlarged, as if to ask if I could address the crowd. I knew she had a speech prepared in case I was too distraught to speak. I found it in her top dresser drawer that morning when I went to borrow black socks. But before she could get up from her chair, a young man's voice called out from the back of the crowd.

"Yeah, I've got something to say!"

There was a flurry of whispers as everyone in the small crowd turned around in their chairs. The guy came charging up through the middle aisle in blue jeans and a gray V-neck t-shirt. His brown hair was disheveled and his honey-colored eyes burned with unrelenting fury. He didn't stop until he stood over me, his tall frame blocking out the sunlight.

"How could you let this happen!" he screamed as his fists shook at his sides. "It's all your fault our son is dead!"

A collective gasp rose from the attendants.

I couldn't say a word. My entire body slumped against the uncomfortable chair. What he said was exactly what I had been feeling. I should have been able to save my son.

Cara jumped up and shoved him in his chest. "How dare you, Rob! How dare you!" She shoved him again harder and he raised his hands in surrender as he stumbled.

The more I replayed his words in my head, the hotter the fire inside me grew. Sharp bursts of air shot from my nostrils. I straightened myself up again.

As I stood up, Cara turned to look at me with her mouth open. Everyone sat in complete silence as they waited to see what I would do to my ex-boyfriend and father of my late child.

I walked up to him and shoved my finger in his face.

"Maybe if you hadn't bailed the minute I told you I was pregnant our son would still be alive!"

Another gasp from the spectators. It was the first time I had admitted Danny belonged to anyone else but me.

Rob stood a full six inches over me with his chest puffed out and his chiseled nose turned up to the sky. His bowed lips formed a straight line across his face, breaking it into uneven halves of mixed emotions. Our eyes locked for a full minute. Then he turned, stalking off through the cemetery and back to his car.

Cara let out the breath she held in and pressed a hand to her rosy cheek. Her long blonde hair fell out in curled tendrils from the bun atop her head.

"How did he even find out?" I whispered. "What's he doing back in Indiana?"

"I heard he didn't do so well out in L.A. In almost six years he couldn't scrape up one acting gig, not even for a commercial. After that, he started drinking and his mother paid for his ticket home. Nancy told me two days ago, but I didn't want to tell you. You had your hands full with the funeral," Cara said, shaking her head as my eyes followed him to his car. "Who would have told him about the funeral, though? I thought no one except you, me, and him knew Danny was his."

"His mother saw me a few months after graduation when I was starting to show. She might have put two and two together, kept track of us maybe, told him about today."

"Still," Cara said in a venomous tone. "I can't believe he attacked you like that."

Her voice drifted in through my ears and got lost in my absent mind. As my eyes wandered the cemetery, they spotted another man standing at the back with his arms folded across his broad chest. He was tall, muscular, and had dark hair that peppered gray around his ears. I'd never seen him before and wondered if he simply stopped while passing by on his way to visit his own lost loved ones.

Once I sat down again, the rest followed and slowly the distinguished funeral silence returned. A few came up to the podium and shared their favorite stories about my son, including his kindergarten teacher who always said Danny was the most well-behaved kid in her class.

I tried to take in their kind words, store them in my memory for when things got too hard to bear, but found I couldn't retain a single one. Instead, I got lost in the things I would never do again—like I would never again hear my son's infectious giggles as I tickled him on the floor of his sunny yellow room. I would never hold him in my arms while he slept, or feel his sweet, warm breath against my neck. I would never hear him tell me that everything would be okay as I dropped him off at his first day of school, like he did when I took him to pre-school for the first time. I would never tuck him into bed, oblivious to the fact that anything might be lurking in the shadows, waiting to take him.

At that, my mind pressed repeat on an obsessive track, engrossed in the details of that night. I knew, deep down in the pit of my stomach, that Danny's killer would never be caught like we all prayed for. The police would search endlessly, but no human would be held responsible. Whatever killed him was not human at all. They were pure evil and had most likely crawled back into the depths of hell where they belonged to hide out.

Silence was the only thing to pull me back from my insane thoughts of otherworldly beings. I felt the eyes of fifty people boring into the back of my head. Even Cara looked over at me. I scratched at the birthmark on my neck, wishing I had heard the last words spoken.

When it became apparent I had been lost in my own thoughts, Cara stood up to read her written eulogy. She wiped the tears from her face and sniffed back more that threatened to spill out.

"Kamlyn and I have been best friends since the first grade—about eighteen years now. I've never met someone with as much love or loyalty in their heart as her. When I found out she was going to raise a baby with only the help of her parents, I worried for her. We were so young and so inexperienced in the world. We had just graduated from high school. But I saw her sacrifice everything for her child, even before she ever met him—she sacrificed college, a career, her social life...everything.

"When her parents passed I knew I was meant to lift her up and be there for her and her child. In the years we've lived together since then, I've watched her care for and love her son with the ferocity of a truly wonderful mother. Age was no boundary for her love and devotion to him. She grew well beyond her years the minute she held him in her arms."

Cara stopped, the paper flailing in her shaky grasp. She raised a hand to her mouth. Her breaths were short and ragged.

"I still regret leaving them alone that night. Maybe if I had stayed—" She broke down into uncontrollable sobs.

Her boyfriend, Tom, rushed to her side, but she shook her head and waved him off. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she said in a wavering voice.

But she let him lead her away from the podium with his arm around her shoulder. He sat her back down in the empty chair next to mine. When he took the seat on her opposite side he rested a hand on her leg.

This time, I reached for Cara's hand and squeezed it tight. Blaming her had never crossed my mind. I had no idea it had been haunting hers. She leaned her head on my shoulder and I rested my cheek on her soft hair. The casket lowered down into the cold, hard ground slowly.

Panic rose in my chest as my son's body sank from sight. My heart raced and my lungs squeezed, threatening to suffocate me. I took quick, sharp breaths as the fear of never seeing him again took over the rational part of my brain.

Gone forever. That thought echoed over and over again in my head. Gone forever. Gone forever.

I shot up from my chair before the top of the casket sank from view completely, jarring Cara from my bony shoulder. My head shook and I was unable to open my mouth in fear of what would come out. I couldn't watch my son—my sweet little boy—disappear forever.

My legs carried me swiftly over the dying grass of the cemetery as heads turned to follow. I didn't stop until I concealed myself behind the familiar walls of my home, shut in my room, finally alone and free to fall apart.

The Man on the Porch

A week had gone by since the funeral and I still hadn't left the house. I confined myself to my room in flannel pajamas and the same burgundy hand-knit sweater I wore that day. It wrapped around me so tightly sometimes that I hoped it would snuff out the agonizing pain for good. I wasn't that lucky.

It never occurred to me until then why I was clinging to that sweater like it was my one and only life-line. My mother gave it to me as a Christmas present when I was sixteen. It was the ugliest sweater I'd ever seen—made of thick, itchy wool. The sleeves went straight down instead of narrowing at the wrists and it was at least three sizes too big. It wasn't until after she died and I was cleaning out her room that I discovered she'd taken classes at a local craft store. She spent five months knitting it for me.

The sun shone brightly outside, but I kept the vertical blinds closed. The curtains were pulled together to surround myself in a false night. The darkness gave me time to think without the distractions of memories triggered by pictures and familiar items.

When I allowed my tired eyes to finally close, it wasn't Danny's face I saw, but the misshapen, haggard face of the thing that killed him. It was unavoidable, like a disease with no promise of a cure, haunting my dreams and stabbing my heart until I thought I would die.

Unavoidably, I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming, and let myself be carried away to the worst moment of my life. It was a dream I'd had every single night since his death, and I was sure I would have it again.

_____

I counted in my head as I tried to lull myself to sleep in the darkness of my quiet room. Cara had left for the night to stay at her new boyfriend's house. She'd met him a few months earlier at the fifty's diner she waitressed at and they'd been inseparable ever since.

I was glad Cara had finally found someone who treated her right. After all the sacrifices she made to help me and Danny, she deserved nothing less. Tom was older than her, but he had a good head on his shoulders, as my father would have said. I knew if they stuck together for the long-haul he could take care of her.

Even though she loved spending every spare minute she had with Tom, whether she was at his house or he was over at ours, she'd never felt comfortable spending the night away from home. Since my parents died, she'd been with me every single night, but I had finally convinced her we would be fine. It only took me a little over five year to do so.

Alone in my dark room, I began to think otherwise. When I was a child my parents allowed me to watch all the horror movies I wanted, thinking it would help me learn to process fear. At the time, I wasn't scared of anything, but years later I felt anxious while trying to fall asleep. I pictured frightening things moving around in the dark, watching me.

That night there was the unmistakable feeling of eyes on me even though I knew I was alone. In the corner I thought I saw something move in the pitch blackness, a cloaked figure with boney hands. It felt like death himself was keeping a close watch over me.

It was the same figure I saw the night before my parents died. The corner of my eye caught the image of a skeletal figure in a robe outside the window as I watched TV on the couch. It had made me jump and I almost choked on the popcorn I was eating.

For the second time, he appeared before me. My mind had to be playing cruel tricks. I decided right then that Danny wouldn't be allowed to watch scary movies until he was a teenager. A heaviness settled in on my chest. I had to distract myself from the rising fear.

I counted to a hundred five times before I heard the creaking of someone coming up the stairs. The house was fairly old and whenever someone took a step, some floorboard somewhere gave a loud groan that echoed throughout the hallways. It was an effective alarm system since the tiniest noise woke me up from a dead sleep.

I figured Cara must have changed her mind about staying over at Tom's. She was the only other one with access to the house, so the thought of it being someone else never crossed my mind. I hoped they hadn't had a fight, but I knew if they did she would want to talk about it with me. My head lulled to the side to look at the bedroom door as I waited for her to walk in.

When the door remained closed, I resumed counting, but didn't reach ten before I heard Danny's piercing scream from down the hall. I jumped out of bed and sprinted into his room, throwing the door wide open, but stopped in my tracks.

Cowering over my son's bed was a dark figure in a black cloak. Its face hovered over Danny's while it emitted a low, rattling growl from deep within its throat. Even from across the room I could smell its putrid scent of rotten eggs and rancid meat. The figure raised its head slowly and stared at me with yellow, snake-like eyes—never moving, continually glaring, as they bore through me. Its gray, leathery skin seemed to glow slightly in the shadows.

The urge to flee spread through every bone in my body, but the ferocious mother in me won. When that instinct took over, there was nothing that could have stopped me from protecting my son.

The adrenaline that coursed inside me screamed for me to tear the thing apart with my bare hands. I picked up the heavy snow globe from the dresser by the door and ran at the cloaked figure. I yelled at the top of my lungs, the cry tearing at the skin of my throat.

But before I reached the bed, the figure opened its mouth and let out a shriek that rivaled any capacity of the human race. An enormous gust of wind circulated around the room as its cry grew more powerful. I fell to my knees and covered my ears, trying to block out the horrible, ear-splitting noise. The snow globe lay next to me in pieces, the glittery water from inside dripping onto the soft carpet.

As the wind rushed around the room, the figure's hood blew off, revealing long, matted black hair that raised up and moved around like slithering serpents. Its lips peeled back to expose brown teeth rotting out of its head, jagged enough to tear through human flesh. It never took its yellow eyes from me until it spun around and jumped through the open window next to Danny's bed.

I rushed over, but there was nothing except blinding darkness below. Suddenly, there was a sharp pinch on the bottom of my big toe. I lifted my leg and saw a small piece of broken glass stuck in my calloused skin. Pulling the shard out slowly, my gaze fell to Danny. The covers were tangled around his motionless body.

"Danny!? Danny, can you hear me!?" My voice rose in panic.

Tears filled my eyes as I knelt beside his twin bed. He didn't move. I gripped his shoulders to shake him, thinking he might have fainted, but he remained still. His skin was as cold as ice.

A heavy weight set in on my chest and threatened to crush my lungs completely. I knew my son was dead.

_____

I sat up, hunched over, gasping for air. The palms of my hands pressed firmly into the mattress. Every time I dreamt about that night I felt like I was reliving it all over again—the gut-wrenching sickness, the heartbreaking sadness—it all came back in an unforgettable rush I could never seem to get away from.

After several minutes, my heart finally returned to its normal pace and my lungs stopped gulping at the stale air of my bedroom. There was no hint of light peeking through the blinds or curtains. It was dark outside.

I picked up my father's old alarm clock from the nightstand and held it close to my face to see where the hands pointed. My fingers clumsily grazed the brass chimes on the top. It filled the room with a hollow jumble of clinks and clanks. It was four thirty-seven in the morning.

I threw my aching body back down onto the bed and let out a cleansing sigh. Even with my eyes closed, my mind wouldn't stop wandering to avoid slipping back into the nightmare. It was too big of a risk to fall asleep again. I threw the covers off and pulled on my knit sweater.

Downstairs in the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator and rummaged through its contents. It was stocked full of casseroles and lasagnas, condolence dinners from the neighbors. I couldn't eat any of it. It was like they were saying, "Sorry your son is dead. Hope this baked mac and cheese makes up for it". Just looking at it made my stomach churn with contempt.

Instead, I grabbed a handful of ingredients in the hopes of distracting myself from my dizzying thoughts—eggs, milk, cheese, peppers, syrup, filtered water, pancake mix, oranges, and more. I set to work.

By the time Cara came downstairs and shuffled her way to the kitchen in her pink robe and fuzzy slippers, the sun was up. I moved frantically from the stove to the oven to the counter and back again.

"Morning," I said, forcing cheer into my voice.

Good morning, Kammy. What's all this?" she gawked from the entryway at the food spread on the old, round wooden table.

"Well, I couldn't sleep so I decided to make breakfast. There's fresh orange juice, pancakes, omelets, biscuits and gravy, and I even used your mother's pumpkin mix and what was left of the ice cream to make waffles a la mode."

She stood frozen, staring at me with her mouth slightly open and her brown eyes wide.

"Don't just stand there," I urged as I washed the dried mix off my hands. "Dig in. I already poured you a fresh cup of coffee with French vanilla cream, just the way you like it."

She knit her brow as she made her way to the same chair she sat in every morning for the last six years. The table shook as she slid herself forward. She raised a hand to catch the stack of eighteen pancakes leaning to one side.

Once I'd searched the kitchen for anything else to do and found there was nothing, I joined her. My eyes fell on the empty chair next to me and my stomach sank. Danny used to sit there, eating his eggs and drinking his orange juice out of a mug. He liked to pretend he was drinking coffee, like his mommy and auntie Cara.

A hard lump rose in my throat. I swallowed to force it back down. My lips pulled back into a pained smile as I turned to my best friend.

She held the coffee up to her face and let the steam rise into her pores. Her high cheeks turned a pale rose color from the heat. Several golden tendrils framed her tired face while the rest pulled back into a floppy bun on the top of her head. It was frizzy and loose which told me she hadn't slept well either, probably tossing and turning all night. Her normally bright eyes looked dull and lifeless. I didn't even want to know what I looked like.

"I go back to work today," she said softly.

Staring down into my Chicago Tribune mug, I watched the swirls of brown and cream mix together before taking a large, soothing gulp. "M-hm."

She bit her bottom lip. "What are you going to do today?" She asked this in a way that suggested I should have had a plan, the corners of her full lips turned upward.

What was I supposed to say? I was going to poke around at the massive breakfast I spent hours making? Take a bite, maybe two, and then force my legs to take me back upstairs, where I would shut myself in the dark and forget that I was still a part of a cruel world that would allow the love of my life to be taken away from me? I didn't want to worry her. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders and hid my face behind my mug again.

"You really should get out, just for a bit. Take a walk or something. Clear your head. I think the fresh air will do you some good."

My eyes met hers and I nodded. "Yeah, sure. I'll do that."

"Promise me," she pushed.

"I promise I'll get out."

"Good."

We sat in silence as she picked up her fork and shoveled in a large bite of pumpkin waffle, syrup, and vanilla ice cream. Her mouth remained closed as she chewed, but her eyes lit up like a display of fireworks on the Fourth of July.

"Oh my goodness, this is delicious!"

I couldn't help chuckling aloud at the ridiculousness of her expression. The moment it escaped my lips, I clamped my mouth shut to stifle the foreign sound. How could I have allowed myself to laugh when my son was dead?

"I think I'll take that walk now," I said as I stood up.

"You haven't even touched your food yet."

"I'm not hungry," I called back on my way to the door.

The crisp, cool air hit me in the face like a brick wall, waking me up from my pitiful stupor. I raised my hand to my forehead to shade my eyes from the unrelenting sunlight. There wasn't a cloud in the sky.

One foot slowly in front of the other, I walked down the creaky porch steps onto the concrete walkway that lead to the neighborhood sidewalk. Large, ancient trees provided shade as I made my way past the house and around the corner.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The fresh air in my lungs felt good. The coolness on my face seemed to wake me up and renew the lost energy inside me. Even my legs didn't feel as frail and wobbly with the exercise they'd been sorely lacking finally brought to them.

Each house on the block looked different than the last, unlike the newer developments built anywhere they could cram them in. These houses were old. They had character—a history to them. Generations had lived inside them, or at least several different families. They'd been remodeled and remodeled again, like withering women who refused to age.

Some were one-story ranches, some were two-story homes, and one was even a three-story with a balcony on the roof where the owners frequently enjoyed tea together as they read. Dogs barked as they frolicked in the backyards. Kids' laughter escaped through the open windows of their bedrooms.

For the briefest moment, I forgot who I was or why I was outside. Everything about me slipped away as the rays of the sun warmed my cheeks and the cool, gentle breeze brushed my hair behind my shoulders. It was the kind of day Danny loved to play outside in.

And just like that, it all came rushing back. My feet froze on the sidewalk. They felt like lead, unable to lift and move themselves forward. All the muscles in my face sank.

Danny. My sweet Danny.

Suddenly, the earth started to spin. The trees danced around me, mocking me and the pain I couldn't escape. The laughter of the neighborhood children sounded malicious, like the cackle of little witches prodding the agonizing grief inside me and awakening it again.

I raised both hands to my face and held them there as my chest heaved. The spinning worsened. My body swayed and caught itself against the trunk of an old Willow near the open field Danny used to kick his soccer ball around in.

Unable to keep myself up, my back slid against the rough bark until I was curled up at the base on the cold dirt and dried leaves. Tears poured from my eyes as I squeezed them shut. I didn't want to see the world crumbling around me. I didn't want to see the faces of those passing by, looking down at me with pity. Blocking out my surroundings, the only thing I heard was the distant chirping of the birds in the branches.

"You okay down there?" a gruff voice called out from somewhere.

I was tempted to open my eyes, but didn't. Whoever it was, maybe they'd go away and leave me alone if I played dead like a possum. I wished I were dead.

"Miss?"

Dammit, he wouldn't let me have a breakdown in peace. I pushed myself up and brushed my hands together to shake the dirt loose. I straightened my sweater and wrapped it around my waist, holding it in place with the tight grip of my arms.

With a sniff and a shoulder rub against my wet cheeks, I was ready to lie. I would say I was fine and then head back home to hide myself under the covers like I should have done from the beginning of the day.

The man sat on a rustic porch swing, swaying back and forth with his arms crossed at his chest and one leg rested on the knee of his other. It was the same mysterious man I saw standing in the back row of Danny's funeral. I could tell by the salt and pepper hair around his ears and his thin blue eyes that pierced through me, as if they'd seen things they could never speak of.

"I'm fine. Thanks," I called back to him.

I raised my hand in a gesture of goodwill. Blood rushed to my face. Luckily, the man was far enough away that there was little chance he saw how badly I was blushing.

"Why don't you come on up here for a minute?"

Was he asking me to come sit with him? A strange man whom I had never met in my life, who crashed my son's funeral and didn't bother to say a single word? Now he wanted me to what? Sit next to him and stare up at the sky in awkward silence?

I couldn't think of a more horrible way to spend the morning. All I wanted was to be alone. But for some reason I couldn't say no. I tried. My mouth opened, but the words wouldn't come out. Before I knew what was happening, I climbed his porch steps and sat next to him on the old, rickety swing.

Neither of us said a word. The rhythmic creaking of the metal chain put me into a hypnotic trance as the leaves blowing in the breeze lulled me into complacency. There was no explanation for why I was there. He swung, back and forth, back and forth, until I felt like my entire being was melting away into the earth where it belonged. It was calm...peaceful.

"I know what you're going through," he spoke in a voice just above a whisper.

He never turned to look at me. His haunting eyes remained focused on the world outside his home just beyond his wooden porch. The heavy toe of his boot tapped on the floor as we rocked.

I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing at all. What could I say? How could anyone know what I was going through? I wanted to lash out at him for being so insensitive, but he spoke first.

"My wife and daughter...they were killed the same way your boy was."

I highly doubted that. No one knew what really happened that night in Danny's bedroom but me and the unearthly, murderous hag. I hadn't told a single soul what I really saw that night. I knew the minute that thing jumped out the window and disappeared forever there was no finding it. No one would ever believe me, not even Cara. I let a judgmental puff of air escape my lips.

"I'm guessing it wasn't no ordinary man or woman you saw, am I right? It was something else—something dark, evil, and truly terrifying."

My back stiffened and my legs stopped moving to the motion of the swing. I dug my fingernails into my knees, afraid that any movement I made would give me away and I would be hauled off to the nuthouse for thinking I saw such outrageous things.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said with a snort. "I know what you saw because I saw it the night my wife and daughter were taken from me, and you're right. It's not something of this world. It's something dark."

I couldn't sit there with someone who was obviously crazy. He was putting me on, for what reason I had no idea, but I would not stand for it. I'd been through enough already and I didn't know how much more I could take before I broke into a million pieces. I didn't know what I saw that night.

"Look, I don't know who you are or why you're telling me all this, but what happened to my son is none of your goddamn business." With that, I stood up and turned away to leave.

"Wait," he called after me, rushing down the stairs. He reached his hand out, but stopped just short of grabbing my arm when I whipped around and fixed him with a withering glare. "Just hear me out. I can help you. I want to help you."

My face scrunched up as I knit my brow and turned my mouth down into a dismal frown. "No one can help me. My son is dead. Do you understand that? There's nothing anyone can do to bring him back."

I wanted to slap him, punch him, kick him in the groin—anything to make him feel the horrible pain that was gnawing away at my insides from our conversation.

"No, no one can bring him back I'm sorry to say—"

I didn't wait for him to finish. I stormed off. Leaving the house had been a horrible idea. I was never leaving my room again. I hoped I would waste away into nothingness and finally be able to feel some semblance of peace.

"—I can help you get revenge!" his voice echoed out and rang in my ears.

I stopped in my tracks and stared down at the horizontal crack in the concrete. This man was sick. He was cruel and sadistic for dangling any hope of redemption in my face. I slowly turned with my lips parted and tears glistening in the corners of my eyes.

"It's true," he said as he rushed over. He placed his large, calloused hands on my shoulders. "It's true. What killed your son was a demon, a creature of the Darkness, and I know how to kill them. Please, let me show you. I can take you to the Chamber of Darkness and we can get you trained. You can learn to fight these things.

"Nothing will bring back your son, but you can stop another mother from having to feel what you're feeling right now. You can save lives. And you can find the demon who killed your son and put an end to its existence."

I couldn't do anything but shake my head. Too many tears had gathered and my eyes could not contain them. Like a dam overflowing, the flood gates opened and the salted water ran down my cheeks in falls.

"Please, let me help you!" the man called after me as I ran down the road and around the corner.

My legs didn't stop until I wrenched open the front door and locked it behind me. He was insane. There was no such things as demons. There was no heaven, there was no hell, and there certainly weren't any angels looking out for me and my family. The nerve of someone to say something like that to a grieving mother. A good slap to the face was what he needed.

I trudged the stairs, averting my glance as I walked past the closed door of Danny's room. I was still unable to bring myself to look at it and the picture he drew of me and him holding hands in front of our house. There was nothing left to do but lock myself in my room, shut the light out, and try to forget I ever attempted to pretend life could be normal. Things would never be normal again.

The Choice

Alone in the darkness of my room, I turned over in my bed endlessly. I couldn't get the words of that crazy man out of my head. I suspected Danny's murderer wasn't entirely human, but never said it aloud. Was I mistaken? In the gruesome horror of that night, could I have possibly altered my memory of a completely normal person who killed my son?

Questions without answers and thoughts without direction poured through my mind. I picked up the cellphone on my nightstand and looked at the time. It was one seventeen in the morning. Sleep was further from me than when I first laid my head down at four thirty in the afternoon.

I had skipped dinner, not wanting to discuss with Cara how the walk went. There was no way I could tell her what that man had said. She would probably call the police and have him arrested or sent to an asylum. Maybe that was where I belonged too.

I turned my head to the right and sighed as the coolness of the pillow sank into my warm cheek. My stomach gave a low growl. It was probably safe to go downstairs unseen. Cara was always in bed by eleven at the latest, even on nights when she didn't have to work the next day. She'd never been the party girl, or even the girl to go out to a late movie. A fun night with her consisted of home-cooked meals, catching up on shows she missed, or getting lost in a new Fantasy novel. She always loved a good story.

My stomach gave another grumble. It felt like the noisy organ inside me had teeth and was using them to eat its way through my body. I pulled my knees to my chest and curled up into a ball. The hunger pains would have to continue because there was no way I could force myself to get out of bed and make something to eat. In fact, the pain was good. It was better than feeling numb, which was the only thing I had felt since I came home from my walk.

I rolled over onto my back and threw an arm across my face, covering my eyes with the crook. It forced them to stay closed and me to make an honest attempt at sleeping. My thoughts drifted and tangled up inside my head the longer I stayed still. The day I found out I was pregnant flowed in and played like a movie I had seen a hundred times before.

_____

I graduated high school with a class of over seven hundred kids, but that didn't guarantee me the best social skills. Aside from Cara, I kept to myself. Schoolwork never interested me. Instead of doing biology homework, I shut myself in my room all night and read anything I could get my hands on from my dad's personal library.

Teachers wanted us to take endless notes on things that happened hundreds of years ago, but instead, I wrote Cara notes about every thought that flittered through my mind. When my teachers, talked I stared at them, trying my hardest to concentrate on what they said only to realize by the end of class that everything had already vacated my memory.

The only class I ever took seriously wasn't a class at all—it was the last period of the day when I got to work on the school's newspaper. It was there that I realized what I wanted to do with my life.

I wasn't on the fast track to a prestigious Ivy League school by far, but I had good enough grades to study down state and follow my late-blooming passion for writing. Eventually, I wanted to travel the world as a journalist—see things no one else got to see, go places most people only dreamed about. The world was waiting for me, I just needed that golden ticket out of Valparaiso...a college degree.

I couldn't wait to start that new chapter in my life. Though I'd wanted to leave Indiana originally, getting out of my small hometown was good enough for me in the end. I knew I would miss Cara terribly. She had decided at the last minute, against her parents' wishes, to take a year off and figure out what it was she wanted to do with her life. The promises of many visits comforted me.

A few weeks after graduation, I fell ill. At first, I thought I had the flu, but after two weeks of feeling nauseous and spending hours in the bathroom I knew it was something else entirely. I was too tired to stay awake, frequently falling asleep in the den while reading. My eyelids did a tired dance of fluttering open the minute they closed only to slowly shut again. I had an idea what could be wrong, but there was only one way to be sure.

As I waited in the grocery store bathroom for the test to show either one line or two, I thought of everything I would lose if it turned out I was pregnant. I wanted to travel the world and experience different cultures. I wanted to write about everything I saw. Hell, I wanted to be on my own for the first time in my life. I wanted to live in a dorm room and go on dates with boys. I wanted to find the right guy and get married. I wasn't naïve enough to believe Rob, the first boyfriend I ever had, would be the one for me. We were only kids.

If I had a baby at nineteen, nothing I wanted would be possible. I would have to stay home, get a job, and try not to screw up raising another human being. Going out with new friends would be replaced by late night feedings and spit-up on my shirt. Romantic date nights would consist of me changing dirty diapers and rocking this tiny thing to sleep.

Thinking about the responsibilities I might face made my stomach clench and twist into knots. It churned the contents of my lunch until I couldn't take it anymore. I raced into one of the stalls to throw up. Luckily, there was no one else in the bathroom to hear me.

When I finished retching, I sat on the edge of the sink to consider my options. It was a different time than when my parents grew up. Maybe getting rid of it wouldn't be such a bad idea? Having the life I had always dreamed of was still an option. I was young and smart. My life might not be glamorous, but there was some kind of future for me to look forward to besides being a parent. Why should I have to give up everything I had worked somewhat hard for because of one mistake?

And what about Rob? What would he think? How was he going to handle it? I couldn't decide what to do until I discussed it with him. It wouldn't be right. After all, he was the father. There was no doubt about that.

My mind wandered to the day Rob and I first met in our junior year in photography class. We were in the dark room. The red lights made him look mysterious and dangerous with his tousled hair, toned muscles, and tight jeans. He hooked me immediately and reeled me in.

My watch beeped, letting me know the wait was over. I reached for the test on the counter. My hands shook as I gripped the plastic stick. I picked up the box to make sure I had read it correctly.

Everything I thought about before washed away when I saw the results. I threw the test away and looked at myself in the water-speckled mirror. My long, wavy hair was frizzy from the summer heat. There were bags under my eyes from constant exhaustion and a lack of makeup, and there were several red spots on my chin that signaled the oncoming of pimples.

I was going to be a mother.

I left the store and got into my dad's old pickup truck. The door squeaked as I closed it. He had let me borrow it for the first time, which was a big deal for the both of us. He loved that '69 forest green Chevy like it was a member of our family. Years went into rebuilding it, and he had finally trusted me to drive it without his supervision. Knowing I would never have his trust again made my eyes sting, but it wasn't time for tears yet. I sniffed them back and let the engine roar to life.

When I got to Rob's house I touched my finger to the doorbell, but paused before ringing it. There was no telling how he would react. Maybe we would be on the same page and maybe we wouldn't. I had to be prepared for anything.

I pushed in the lighted button, causing the whole house to fill with the melody of antique chimes.

"Hey, babe. Come on in," Rob said when he opened the door.

He took no note of the crack in my voice as I responded. His fingers intertwined with mine as he led me to the couch. The smile on his face was cool and collected. He had no idea what was coming.

I decided it was best not to prolong and dove right in. If I didn't, he might notice that my hands were starting to sweat. I pulled them away and wiped them on my jeans.

"Rob..." I said timidly before gaining the confidence to push forward. "Rob, I'm pregnant. I just found out and I came right over to tell you and I don't really know what else to say other than I'm pregnant."

His lips parted and hung open. All at once, like a switch went off, he shot up to his feet and ran his hands through his hair, causing it to fall back into his brown eyes. He frantically paced the living room.

"Okay...either you can keep me and give up the baby, or you can keep the baby and give me up," he said with panic overtaking his usually calm demeanor.

I saw his mind racing, but there wasn't a hint of regret on his face for what he had said. It wasn't the same Rob I had known for the last year. He wasn't the handsome guy I had seen glide down the school hallways. He was scared out of his mind and willing to say anything to make the problem go away.

In that moment, I made my decision. Rob was my first boyfriend and he meant the world to me. He was my first French kiss, my first time. Hell, we even went skinny dipping together in Lake Michigan. Rob was irreplaceable.

I stood on my tip-toes and leaned in to kiss him on his soft lips. As he held me against his body, I looked up into his dark eyes, which relaxed back into their almond shape. He really was too handsome for some small town. He would do great things someday.

"Goodbye, Rob."

I backed out of his arms, turned for the door, and didn't look back. It was time to let go.

On the drive home, I rehearsed how I would tell my parents that their only daughter would not be the first in the family to graduate from college, at least not as they had planned. Maybe someday I could make time for it, but there was no way I would be able to with a baby and no help if they kicked me out. There was nothing I could say to make it any easier for them to hear.

I turned the engine off and sat in the driveway while I collected my thoughts. The best thing to do was to be direct about what I wanted. I was an adult and the decision was mine to make. I heaved a sigh and got out of the truck to make my way to the front door.

When I walked in, I noticed how quiet it was. I liked the quiet. I would never have peace and quiet again, not with a baby screaming its head off all the time. The weight of the situation sank onto my shoulders physically for the first time. I rubbed at the back of my neck. My life would never be the same.

Every night after dinner, my mom liked to sit in her pajamas on the bed and read through stacks of magazines. I stood in the entryway picturing her brushing her beautiful, shoulder-length blonde hair as she wished for the smooth, vibrant skin of Charlize Theron.

My dad was most likely in his office, reading on our old, brown leather couch. When I was younger, I used to read next to him every night in the book-filled room. Whenever he wasn't paying attention, I looked up and tried to count the speckles of gray hidden in his dark, curly hair.

"Mom, dad, can I talk to you in the living room?" I echoed through the house.

Slowly but surely, my parents made their way to me with their brows knit together in confusion. I had never called a family meeting before, and I hoped I would never have to again. I sat them down in the living room and stood before them in silence.

They looked small as I stood over them. My mom's face was stone-cold and suspicious while my dad forced his lips to pull back into a straight-lined smile mixed with anticipation and fear.

"Mom, dad..." I said in a meek voice, looking down at my feet. "I don't really know how to tell you this...but I'm pregnant."

When the words finally escaped my lips, everything else I said became irrelevant. They stared ahead into a deep void in space. Once the information processed within them, tears streamed down my mother's face. My dad took off his glasses and rubbed between his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

Saying nothing, they both sighed and looked at each other with disappointment in their eyes. There were no questions of where Rob was in all of it and no demands I give up the baby. They accepted it in silence. I talked and they listened, just as I had wanted them to. But if it went as I hoped, then why did I feel so lousy? I turned and went up to my room, leaving them to sit by themselves and reflect on my mistake.

Days went by and my parents didn't talk to or look at me. I sat at the kitchen table across from my mom and ate her homemade chicken soup, trying to build the courage to break the silence. She had half her face covered by a tabloid magazine as she read at the table with a cup of coffee. Her gray-blue eyes didn't look up at me once.

"If you don't want me to live with you and dad anymore, I understand," I said, continuing to stare into my bowl. "I know you both must hate me for what I've done."

My mom finally looked up softly and smiled. She set the magazine down and rested her hand on top of mine.

"Honey, no matter what you do, we'll always love you. Your father and I will help you through this. Don't worry."

Five months later, they died in a car accident.

_____

I tossed my arm aside and opened my eyes again. The clock on my cellphone read one thirty-nine. If time crawled any slower I would have no choice but to fling myself from the roof for sweet release. I sat up Indian-style, rested my elbows on my knees, and let my face slump into the palms of my hands.

Every sleeping pill in the house was gone. I had taken most of them the first few days after Danny's death. It was the only sedation I could find for the unrelenting ache in my heart. The damn doctor I was coerced into seeing was one of those naturalists who didn't believe in prescribing pills on the first visit. Instead, she wanted me to come three times a week for the foreseeable future to talk about my feelings.

I wasn't trying to lay my pain out on her couch over and over again, making it impossible to move on. I was just trying to get through the day, something she couldn't understand. She wasn't a mother. I knew because there wasn't a single picture of her with a smiling child anywhere in her office. She would never understand what I was feeling, even if I was willing to explain. There were no words for it. Safe to say I never went back to another doctor after that waste of an hour.

My hands ran through my hair and pulled at the tangled ends. I hadn't showered in three days and it looked like I was building a bird's nest on my head. Straightening up, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The Wal-Mart down the road was open twenty-four hours. I could sneak out of the house and pick up a bottle of Nyquil to get me through the rest of the night.

Then, I remembered Cara was the world's lightest sleeper, even more so than me, and the creaking of the stairs would wake her up. She would be all over me within seconds, wondering if I was okay and where I was going and if I needed her to make me anything, or if I wanted her to lie down with me until I fell asleep. I picked my legs back up and tucked them under the covers again.

With the slow passing of time, my concise thoughts morphed into ones I would never consciously form. They flowed from one to the other like images moving in the water. If I were to end the horrible pain I was feeling, how would I go about doing so? First, I saw myself hanging by the neck from the banister. It seemed like the cleanest way to go. But what would Cara do when she walked in and found me like that?

Black water overtook the image like spilled ink and formed into the next scene. I was laying down on my bed and holding a gun to my head. Seemed like the quickest and least painful way. But again I thought of Cara and what it would do to her to see me in such a way. It would scar her for life. Again, the inky water changed the image.

My body relaxed into the softness of the mattress and my breathing was deep and heavy. I tried to wake up before the dream overtook me, but it was useless. I was already in it and counting in bed. I ran to Danny's room, as always. But when I saw the monstrous thing's face, with its unnatural, dried gray skin and dreaded black hair that defied gravity, my eyes popped open. My mind was clearer than ever.

The crazy man was right.

In a hurry, I scrambled out of bed and grabbed for my sweater in the dark. I didn't bother trying to keep quiet as I took off down the stairs and out the front door. I wasn't even sure if I closed it behind me. Every ounce of muscle in my body propelled me forward and down the street to tell the man I believed him before he faded away into one of my nightmares.

I banged my fist into his door over and over again. There were no lights on inside. I couldn't hear any movement. The place looked run-down and abandoned in the silvery light of the half-moon. Shutters were missing or hung by their corners, ready to fall off into the patchy bushes below. Even the white paint on the swing looked more chipped than I remembered. Were the chains rusted and uneven before? Could I have imagined the only man who understood what I saw? Was I really that crazy? It didn't look like anyone lived in the house I was knocking on furiously.

When the door flew open, I jumped back and clutched my hand to my chest.

"What in the hell do you think you're doing banging on my door at this hour? Are you crazy?" the man's raspy voice growled from the shadows within.

All I could see was his muscular arm covered in faded tattoos, a white t-shirt, and gray sweatpants. For all I knew, he didn't have a face. I really needed to get a grip.

"I believe you," I huffed out. "I believe you and I want to learn."

The man stepped into the moonlight. His thin lips parted into a rough smile surrounded by black and gray stubble. "I'm Don Vander," he said as he stepped aside and held his arm out to welcome me in.

I walked past him and disappeared into the darkness of his home. Without hesitation, he walked over to a small writing desk and reached for a piece of paper and a pencil. He scribbled something on it.

I looked around as I waited. A dusty wooden frame placed right in the center of the wall opposite the couch caught my eye. It must have been a picture of his late wife and daughter. He obviously spent an enormous amount of time staring at it, aching over his loss. We had that in common.

When he handed me the note, all it read was, "Union Station in Chicago. Noon. Three days from now."

I looked up at him with my brows furrowed, clutching the paper in both hands.

"You'll have to find your own ride. I need to meet with another Huntsman out in Aurora early in the morning to pick up something."

I didn't question him, didn't demand more details on where we were going or for how long. I simply nodded my head as I folded the paper up and shoved it into my pocket. With nothing more to say, I walked back out onto the porch and down the steps.

"Pack light and don't be late," he grumbled after me before closing the door.

The Goodbye

I returned home from Don Vander's with more questions than I had answers to. When I told him I believed his insane theories about Danny's killer being something not of this world, I expected him to tell me everything. I expected the training of destroying monsters to start immediately. Instead, he told me to meet him at Union Station in downtown Chicago in three days with a bag packed.

That was it.

It didn't leave me much time to figure out how to tell Cara I was leaving for an indeterminate amount of time and for somewhere I did not know. I spent all of the next day packing and repacking my small duffel bag with what I deemed essential items—toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, two pairs of jeans, three different t-shirts, two pairs of socks, four pairs of underwear and bras, a pen, a small notebook, my phone and charger, a book to read, and what little make-up I had, which consisted of eye liner, mascara, and tinted Chapstick.

With the limited items I had chosen for the mysterious journey, I thought I would be done packing in a matter of minutes. But once I had everything in just right, I took it all out again and started over. The first time, I removed the book because I didn't want to come off as going into the trip already bored. Another time, I had seven bras because I wasn't sure if I would be able to get to a laundromat. Finally, by ten o'clock on the first of the three nights, I was completely satisfied with everything the way it'd been the first time I packed it.

My body felt exhausted. I was sure when my head hit the pillow I would be out, hopefully in a dreamless sleep. I closed my eyes and turned onto my side.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room changed, like a presence was there that hadn't been there before. It wasn't the eerie feeling I got when the death-like figure showed up—this was warm and sweet, like when Danny used to throw his arms around my legs and tell me he loved me. Was I feeling my son's spirit? The thought kept me awake for most of the night.

The entire second day, I carefully avoided Cara so I could figure out how to tell her I was leaving. It wasn't hard to do. She worked a double shift at the restaurant. When she told me on her way out the door I sighed with relief. That gave me plenty of time to get my wording perfect.

The minute she left, I grabbed a blank notebook from my dad's old office and set to work on my goodbye speech. It was harder than I thought. How would I begin—as a sad occasion? A happy and hopeful one? That it was a trip I may never return from and it could possibly be the last time we see each other? After I crumpled the twelfth piece of paper and threw it on the coffee table, I decided there was no way I could sugarcoat it to sound sane. What I was doing was insane.

I tore out one last sheet of paper and scribbled a few lines in the middle

Cara,

I'm leaving town with a man I met a few days ago to train to hunt and destroy supernatural beings in the hopes of getting revenge on the demon that murdered Danny. I don't know how long I'll be gone. All I know is I'm going by train. Please don't worry. I love you.

Kamlyn

It was the best I would get out of the situation. Of course, I wasn't going to just hand her the note and walk out the door. But knowing I had something to read when I inevitably stumbled over my words was a comfort. I planned to tell her first thing in the morning. I didn't have to meet Don at Union Station until noon.

If I saw Cara at all before I told her, I knew my face wouldn't be able to hide what was going on. There was a thrilling amount of electricity running through my body. It was almost enough to put a smile on my face—almost.

I spent the rest of the day wondering where we were taking the train to. I had never traveled much outside of Indiana. Danny and I used to spend time before bed dreaming up elaborate and wonderful vacations. We wanted to visit London and Paris and Orlando to see Disney World and Boston and San Francisco. It felt wrong to be going anywhere with my son stuck in Valparaiso, never able to leave again.

But I couldn't deny there was an underlying excitement deep inside me. It was a twisted thrill from fantasizing about my bare hands being the thing to end a demon's existence. If I was ever to move on, which I still wasn't convinced I could, that was the only way it would happen.

The promise of revenge made my nerves tingle. It was the entire reason for going along with Don. I needed the thing that killed my son to be gone forever. We both couldn't survive in the same world together. One of us had to go.

I lay in bed on the second night, back to tossing and turning with sleep nowhere to be found. I was still awake when I heard the front door open, close, and lock. Cara's second shift ended at midnight so I knew it must be almost one in the morning already. Even though the rational part of me said no burglar or demon would lock the door behind them after breaking in, a quick rising fear still spread through my chest.

Her soft footsteps creaked up the old stairs. I expected her to continue past my door to her room, which was my old room, at the end of the hall. I sat up immediately when my door cracked open. My heart pounded and my palms were wet with sweat. It was a reaction I couldn't control, even though I knew it was Cara who was entering the room.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you," she said as she turned on the light. "Were you asleep?"

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands as they adjusted. "No, just thinking. Everything okay?"

She was wearing her diner uniform, which consisted of a white blouse tucked into a soft pink poodle skirt. The leash of the dog went up and around her waist. Her small feet crammed into stiff saddle shoes with the laces tied into perfect bows. When she had left the house, her honey hair had been pulled back into a perfect retro ponytail secured by a frilly scarf, but after sixteen hours of work it had all but fallen out, tied at the nape of her neck.

"What time is it?" I asked with squinted eyes.

"Two thirty."

"You're just getting home now?"

"Yeah, I took an extra-long lunch, so I told Jerry I'd stay late to help clean and prepare for tomorrow," she said with a soft smile on her pink lips. "I got you something."

I cringed. I hated gifts. I always felt like I had to run out and buy the person something equal or better than what they had gotten me, and if it was a surprise gift, like this was, I felt awful for not getting them anything in return. She handed me a small silver box with a large bow tied around it.

I looked up at her and pursed my lips. "I know that I've been single for over half a decade now, but I still don't think I'm quite ready to play for the other team just yet."

She shoved me lightly on my shoulder and giggled in her usual girlish manner. It was nice to hear her laugh, even if I couldn't. "Just open it," she said.

I tugged at the ribbon and the bow fell apart. Inside was a necklace with a large silver pendent in the shape of angel wings as long as my index finger. Immediately I wanted to roll my eyes. It was a reflex from being given or shown anything religious. I believed everyone was free to practice whatever religion they wanted, so long as they didn't push it on me. Cara knew this and even though she was a devout Christian and still went to church every Sunday, she never once tried to convert me. The necklace felt like a religious intervention.

"I know you don't believe in angels, but that's not why I got it," she jumped in when she saw the panicked look overtake my face. "I got it because it looks like your birthmark." Her fingertip pressed into the right side of my neck halfway between my ear and collar bone. "Danny had the same one in the exact same spot. I know you hate the word, but that's a miracle. You had a miracle in your life, even if it was only for a short time. I didn't want you to ever forget that."

Tears gathered in my eyes. "Thank you," I said in a shaky voice. "I love it."

Cara didn't hold back. She let her tears flow and sniffed into the collar of her shirt. "What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger. You're the strongest woman I know."

It was the perfect time. I had to tell her.

I reached over and opened the nightstand drawer. Inside was the crumpled piece of notebook paper I had scribbled my explanation onto. As I smoothed out the wrinkles, Cara straightened herself on the bed and wiped at her wet cheeks. She looked at me with a knitted brow and let out a breathy laugh of confusion.

"I have something important to tell you. I don't really know how to say it except to just spit it out and hope it makes sense." When I paused my eyes fluttered up to hers. Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth, I reminded myself. "I met someone, a neighbor of ours, the other day on my walk and he told me things about Danny's death."

Cara leaned forward. Her eyes grew to the size of quarters. "Oh my god, does he know who did it? Did he see something? Did he—"

"No, he didn't see anything. He just knew things about that night that I never told anyone, even you. Like that the thing I found in Danny's room wasn't a 'who' at all. It was like something I'd never seen before. He says it was a demon."

I left Cara in silence to let the words sink in. She straightened herself back up cautiously, never taking her eyes from mine. Her lips tugged downward. She didn't say a word, so I continued.

"Anyway, he says he works for some Chamber or something as someone who gets rid of these evil things, and he wants to take me to learn how to do it too. He said there's a chance I might even find the one who killed Danny."

Cara's brows pulled together and her eyes narrowed into furious slits as she stared me down. "Why didn't you tell me right away?"

"Well, I wanted to wait for the right time to tell you I was leaving and I also didn't want to just blurt it out so I took a few days to—"

She held up her hand and cut me off with a wave of her finger. "Not about you leaving, about Danny's killer being a demon?"

My mouth hung open. I was shocked. The whole time, I worried she would be mad I was leaving with some stranger. "Um, I wasn't really sure what I saw, I guess."

"And you didn't think I'd believe you if you told me?" She stood up, her poodle skirt flying around her calves in a flurry.

"Of course I didn't think you'd believe me! Even I don't believe it half the time. Demons? It's insane!"

She rushed back to the bed and sat down, her face within inches of mine. "The world is full of evil, Kamlyn, and no matter what I'll always believe you."

Her arms flew around my neck as she pulled me in for a strangling hug. I patted her on the back with one arm and balanced myself on the mattress with the other. Every muscle in my face tightened from her reaction. She had accepted the notion of demons so quickly. Was she just as insane as I was?

"So, when do you leave?" she asked as she pulled away.

I straightened my shirt and pushed my hair back behind my shoulders. "Tomorrow. I have to be at Union Station at noon so I should leave here around ten, just to make sure I'm not late with the transfer from the South Shore Line."

She nodded her head and wiped at her eyes with the tips of her middle fingers. "For how long?"

My shoulders shrugged up to my ears. That was the question I wanted answered most. Cara nodded her head and stared off into space. I had no idea what was going through her head. She blinked and her eyes returned to the present with a faint smile on her full lips.

"Well, get some sleep and we'll have breakfast in the morning before I take you."

I smiled back at her with my head lolled to the side, resting on my shoulder. "Thanks."

Her hands clutched to her chest over the small cross pendent her mother gave her when she was thirteen. She stood from the bed and turned off the light on her way out.

With a pause, she turned back around. "Just promise me something," she said in a soft and loving voice.

"Anything."

"When you start your hunt for the demon, I want to help."

I opened my mouth in protest, but she cut me off.

"Even if I can't be in the action with you, I want to help in some way. I want to know that when that thing is destroyed I played some part in it...because you will destroy it, Kammy."

I smiled in the faint light, hoping she could see the gratitude I tried to convey. She nodded her head once. The door shut behind her and enveloped me in darkness once again.

I laid back down on the cool pillow, but my body was restless. A crazy, strange, and amazing journey was ahead of me in the morning. I didn't know where it would take me or what would be at the other end of that train ride. All I knew was I had to go.

In the morning, my eyes shot open as if spring-loaded. The sun just barely peeked over the horizon and changed the sky from a deep navy blue to a beautiful mixture of pinks and oranges. I hurried out of bed, pulled on my sweater and slippers, and jogged down the stairs to the kitchen. Cara was already there with two steaming cups of coffee on the table and pancakes cooking on the stove.

"Good morning!" she said in a sing-song voice.

"Aw, you made me breakfast?" I sat down and smelled the sweet aroma of the pumpkin spice flavored coffee mixed with vanilla creamer. It was heaven to my nostrils.

"Your goodbye breakfast. Who knows when we'll get to do this again." For the briefest of seconds her eyebrows pulled together and her eyes fell down into a distant gaze. But she was quick to recover with a cheery smile as always. "Are you excited?"

"Yes, but I'm nervous too. I just hope I can make it through their training so I can get out there," I admitted.

Cara cocked her head to the side and shot me a sympathetic smile that said I was being crazy. I hoped she was right. "You'll be great. Trust me."

Trust me. I hated when people said that. Of course I trusted Cara, but not on this. She knew even less than I did about my training, if that was even possible. Panic settled into the depths of my stomach. It twisted and rumbled as I grit my teeth.

Luckily, I had an immediate distraction in the form of butter-slathered pancakes with warm, thick syrup. I had tried on many occasions, but could never cook as amazingly as Cara. She had a gift. All I was good for when it came to meals was picking up some fried chicken at the drive-thru.

"Eat up and then we'll head out, okay?" she said.

I dove right in with my fork, hoping the food would suppress my anxiety. When I finished, I realized all it had done was give me a stomach ache, and the coffee had given me the jitters. At least I had the car ride to the station and the train ride to Chicago to clear my head and calm my nerves.

The Dunes Park station was small and lonely, placed a few miles from the entrance to the state park. The business commuters had already crammed themselves into earlier trains. I was glad that my chances of having to share a bench seat with someone else were slim. I needed to be alone for this.

Cara parked by the entrance and got out the car with me. The November air was chilly with a biting breeze that wouldn't let up. Snow wasn't far off. I latched the first few buttons on my sweater and heaved the duffel bag onto my shoulder.

"Don't forget to start the truck every few days or it won't start when I get back," I reminded Cara for the third time that morning.

She didn't roll her eyes or heave an exasperated sigh. She simply smiled. "I will. And don't you forget what you're doing this for." Her arms pulled me in for a tight squeeze.

"I won't," I whispered into her soft hair. I inhaled her jasmine perfume, savoring the sweet scent for as long as I could.

In the distance, I heard the faint cry of the train's horn, signaling its approach to the short platform. We both pulled away from each other and craned our heads. Around a bend of tall trees I saw the silver engine car like a mythical creature coming to take me away to a far off land, never to return. I swallowed to wet my dry throat.

"You better hurry," Cara said with a small pat on my arm.

I grimaced and waved goodbye as I ran through the open doors of the one room station house to the platform on the other side. The South Shore Line was just approaching as I reached the tracks.

There was only one other person waiting there—a young woman in hip clothes and a large pageboy hat carrying a saddlebag across her chest. I imagined her life as an art student in downtown Chicago. Her dorm room was probably decorated with cool band posters and drawings she had gotten A's on in school. She seemed like the type of girl who was outgoing and had lots of friends to traipse around the city with. I wondered if I had gone to school for journalism if my life would be like that girl's—if I would look as bohemian as her and be surrounded by odd and interesting people. None of that mattered I told myself as I blinked away my wonderment. I would never have that life.

I waved again to Cara who stood in the doorway of the old brick building, a tissue in one hand and her other waving furiously above her head. More than anything, I would miss her. She was the only friend I had, and a damn good one at that. She was also the only connection I had to the normal world, because I was sure whatever world I was about to step into would be anything but normal.

The Train Ride

Going from northwest Indiana to Millennium Station in downtown Chicago took an hour and ten minutes with all the stops. I had the entire train car to myself. It was silent aside from the clacking of the wheels on the tracks. I got lost in my agony over worst-case scenarios, only to be yanked back by the blaring of the horn at every railway intersection.

By the time we reached the end of the line, my nerves were fried and my hands were shaking. I was even more clueless about what to expect than when I set out. But none of these fears or doubts mattered. All that mattered was that I avenge Danny's death. I knew it wouldn't bring him back, but it would give me peace of mind, which I desperately craved.

I took a cab from Millennium over to Union Station. With all the traffic it took over twenty minutes. I probably could have walked there in the same time. I reluctantly paid the driver with what little cash I had on me in crumpled fives and ones.

When I got out, I craned my neck upward to look at the towering building. Dozens of people were coming and going through the row of glass doors. Nobody glanced my way as I pushed through the revolving door and stepped onto the escalator. I was invisible to all of them—just the way I liked it.

Since I wasn't sure what train we were taking or where we would be going, I bought a donut and a coffee from the food court Dunkin Donuts and ate it at a table for two. I reached into my bag and blindly searched for the book I packed. It was Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I had already read it, but I thought it was an appropriate story for the situation. I, too, felt like I didn't know which way was up anymore, like I had fallen down the rabbit hole into a world that differed slightly from the one I lived in before.

My mind wandered into the twisted story. The words pulled me away from my worry and took me somewhere unreal and distracting. Ten pages in, a large hand came down hard on my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Don," I said with heaving breaths. "You scared me."

"Sorry 'bout that." He walked over to the chair across from mine and sat down.

I waited for him to say something, but he simply folded his arms and looked around at the bustling food court. My eyes went back to my book, but kept wandering over the pages to glance at the strange middle-aged man in front of me. He was a weird contrast of youthfulness and aging.

His body was long and muscular. Whatever training I was about to endure, it must consist of exhausting physical workouts. Even though I was thin, my muscles were still small and soft. The only hardness could be found in my calves from the occasional run around the neighborhood.

His clothes were not age discriminate. He neither dressed young nor old. He simply dressed like a man clad in a thick blue flannel shirt, dirty old jeans, and work boots. It was his face that made me question how old he really was. Deep wrinkles set in on his tanned forehead, I assumed from scowling. His eyebrows were dark, thick, and unkempt, just like his hair. The graying around the ears and in the short hairs of his beard stubble made me place him somewhere in his mid-forties, maybe early fifties. I couldn't be sure.

Before I knew what happened, our eyes locked onto each other's and my face burned a bright red. He cocked his head and pulled his brows together as if to question why I was staring at him. I hadn't realized I was.

"We better get going," he said roughly.

I stood up, put my book in my bag, slung my bag over my shoulder, and followed three paces behind him. There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I still didn't know where we stood—were we friends in the fight against evil together? Were we teacher and student where a certain level of respect should be shown at all times? Were we nothing at all but the transporter and the cargo? I decided it was best to keep my mouth shut until I figured it out.

We didn't stop at the window to purchase tickets. Don walked right past to the platform and boarded an Amtrak train headed for Denver, Colorado. I followed close on his heels. He handed the conductor two tickets.

"You didn't have to buy my ticket for me," I said. Really, he did. The money my parents had left me when they died was all but gone and I still hadn't found a job to support myself.

"This ride's on the Chamber," he said in short.

Don didn't stop walking until we were near the back of the train. It was the observation car. Windows reached floor to ceiling in long rows and another set curved with the ceiling above those. Individual plush swivel seats lined each side of the train with an aisle down the middle for walking. Almost every seat was taken except for two together in the back on the left. Don took the seat next to the wall and I sat in the one next to his.

We both had checked our bags except for the small messenger bag Don kept across his chest, even as he sat down. He crossed one leg over the other at the ankle and situated the bag to rest in his lap. His hands rested on top.

We must have just made the train, because within minutes it started to move forward away from the station and pick up speed once it was out in the clear, wide open. The city faded away behind us as we headed further into the countryside. Every time we passed a farm with horses grazing in the green pastures, a soft murmur from the other riders rose and carried through the car.

It wasn't until we crossed the state line into Iowa that Don spoke. By then, everyone had gotten over the thrill of being in a glass train car and had settled into their routine of boredom. Some read, some slumped in their chairs and stared out at the sparse Iowa scenery, others deeply discussed plans with their traveling companions, but all were oblivious to what anyone else did around them.

"I suppose you have some questions," Don said in a low voice.

He caught me off guard. An open discussion was the last thing I expected from him on this trip. From what I could tell in the few days I had known him, he was a man of very few words. Even if I got one-word answers to the dozens of questions I had, it would be better than nothing. I racked my brain to order them from most important to least important.

"Where are we going?"

"Denver," he said flatly.

I cocked my head and furrowed my brow. "I gathered that much. I mean once we're in Denver, where are we going?"

"Headquarters is outside a small mountain town. That's all you need to know right now about that."

Maybe getting my questions answered wasn't better than not knowing. I felt even more confused by the mysterious location and the use of the word "headquarters".

"From what I know so far, there's an organization of some sort, apparently at this headquarters in the mountains of Colorado, that train people to find evil beings and kill them. Am I right?"

Don chuckled to himself and rubbed at the stubble on his chin. "You could say that."

"Is that what you would say, though?"

His hand roamed his face and ended up on the back of his neck while he contemplated. "Well, as you already know, it's called the Chamber of Darkness, the one you'll be going to. There's a Chamber of Light, but you don't need to be concerned with that. All you need to worry about is your training."

I leaned forward in my chair. "Right, about that. Am I going to be learning how to—what—exorcize demons? Kill demons? Or am I going to be learning to fight other things as well?"

Don sighed and looked up at the curved ceiling windows. White fluffy clouds flew by in a blur as we sped along the track. "You'll learn many things, I promise."

I stared at him while I processed. I was going to count that as a question answered. "How does this Chamber work? Who pays for all this? Do they pay us to hunt? Where does the money come from? And how is it organized? Are there other jobs besides hunting? Who runs it?" Once I got a few out, there was no turning off the water spout of questions. I wanted to know everything.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down!" Don raised one hand and laughed. The other stayed firmly on the bag in his lap. "Let me see," he sighed. "The money is donated, mostly by the people we help, also by retired Chamber members. That money keeps everything operational. We do get paid. It's set up like the military. Each year you do well in your job, you earn a little more share from the pot. There are other jobs, but none that would be suited for you, so you don't have to worry about those. And as far as organization goes, your ranking system starts with the Head of the Chamber, the Vice-Head, the Department Head of Enforcement, the Divisional Head of Huntsmen, and then your instructors. Not a whole lot to remember. You're a smart girl. You'll be just fine."

He relaxed back into his chair and leaned his head against the headrest. His eyes trained on the passing field. I continued to stare at him with my mouth slightly agape. How was I supposed to remember all that? I desperately wanted to reach into my bag and take out the notebook and pen I packed, but I had foolishly checked it when we got on and only carried my book with me.

Out of the corner of his eye, Don looked at me with a small smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips. "Don't worry so much. You'll give yourself a heart attack. Just sit back, relax, enjoy the ride, and you'll learn everything you need to know when we get there."

He was right. I didn't know why I was in such a rush to abandon normality. Those eighteen hours on the train were my last in the world recognized by everyone else. I should have tuned everything out and watched it go by. I wasn't that easily satisfied, though.

"Can I ask you about your family? They're the reason you started hunting, aren't they?"

He said nothing at first. His dull eyes looked down and he picked at a loose thread on his bag. There was a deep sigh. "I had left for the weekend to go fishing with my buddy up in Michigan, but the entire ride I had a strange feeling. I kept calling my wife, but she wasn't answering the phone. I couldn't ignore it, so I turned around and drove back.

"When I got home, my wife was already dead in our room, face down on the floor. I tried, but I couldn't revive her," his voice was deep and slow. "That's when I heard my daughter scream from her room. I ran in and saw the thing just before it leapt from her window," he sighed and looked down at his hands. "It was too late. She was already gone.

"After that, I left home and searched for the thing that killed my family on my own. That's when the Chamber picked me up. I had caused a stir apparently when one of their Huntsmen started tracking something I was also after."

"Is that how they pick up a lot of new hunters? By chance like that?"

He adjusted himself in his chair to rest his face in the palm of his hand, supported by his elbow on the arm rest. "Not at all. All Huntsmen are descendants sponsored by their parents or grandparents. You will be the first non-descendant to set foot inside the headquarters in over a decade. Before that it'd been almost a century."

Air caught in my lungs. I covered my mouth with the crook of my arm as I coughed. My throat was dry and I couldn't swallow. "That's a lot of pressure," I recovered with a weak smile. "If they don't normally recruit non-descendants, then why are they letting you bring me there now?

"Our world is changing," he said as if it was common knowledge. "The creatures of Darkness are organizing for the first time, it seems, and the Chamber wants to make sure it has enough Huntsmen to deal with the problem when it gets worse."

Gets worse? I couldn't imagine things getting any worse than they already were. But on a whole, the majority of the world didn't seem to know about the things that lurked in the shadows, or they just chose not to believe in them. If the truth came out it could be bad for humanity as a whole.

"What do you mean organizing? Who's leading them?" I asked with genuine concern. After all, it was a big part of my future job.

"That, we don't know. But it's our job as Huntsmen to keep our eyes and ears open to find out."

I brushed my hair behind my shoulders and out of my face. To hide the tensing of my facial muscles, I turned my head away and rubbed my mouth with my hand. I hoped he thought I was deep in thought. In a way I was. So much was changing in such a short amount of time. It was difficult for me to process it all so quickly.

Why would the creatures of Darkness, as he put it, want to organize? What were they planning to do? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. My hand roamed down to the necklace Cara gave me the night before. I twisted the wings around and poked the sharp ends into my fingertip.

"Is that silver?" Don asked to my surprise. It was the first question he had asked me all day.

"Yeah. Sorry. Are we not allowed to wear jewelry? I wasn't sure," I babbled as I reached around and fiddled with the clasp to take it off.

"No, it's fine," he said quickly. He reached over and lifted the pendent off my neck and held it loosely in his fingers. "You should keep it with you."

This relieved my worries. Cara had been dead right about it being a bittersweet reminder of not only the miracle Danny was, but also of the amazing bond we shared in those five years. Every time I touched it, it was like I could feel him with me, smiling at me.

"Can I ask you one more question?" I leaned in close again.

Don's head lolled to the side as I tested his patience. His face urged me to get on with it so he could rest.

"What's in the bag?" My eyes motioned to his lap.

Any hint of amusement toward me disappeared in an instant. Every muscle tightened as he straightened himself up and clutched at the bag. "It's nothing."

My eyes widened, pleading him to tell me, begging him to trust me.

His tired, dull, gray eyes lingered on my curious face and finally he gave in, at least as far as he could. "Fine. It's just something another Huntsman found that I'm turning in to the Dark Artifacts Department."

I didn't think my eyes could expand any wider, but they did. He had piqued my interest. "Dark Artifacts Department? What's that? Sounds mysterious, and a little scary."

"That's exactly what it is. Full of objects so evil they shouldn't exist. When we find something like that we need to turn it in so no one else can use it." He paused and moved the bag to his side furthest from me. "That's all I can tell you about it, so don't ask."

I raised my hands in surrender. "No more questions, then."

"Good. Now, get some rest. You'll need it."

Just to please him, I angled my chair away from his and opened my book. My eyes scanned the pages, read the words, but I couldn't retain a single bit of it. My mind was on the Chamber and what my role was going to be in the elaborate underground organization that no one had ever heard of. I was going to see the world and change people's lives. I was going to be a part of something big, like I had always wanted. But as I sat on the train, with the open fields passing by, I had no idea just how big it would be.

After a while, the scenery all looked the same, like a background on a mechanical runner constantly replaying. I kicked my feet up and tried to fall asleep. The rocking of the train relaxed me, but it wasn't enough for me to drift off into a pleasant, dreamless sleep. My nerves kept me awake.

Since the awful night of my son's death, I awoke in the most violent ways—sometimes screaming at the top of my lungs, flailing my arms, striking at the air, and sometimes I just gasped in panic. I didn't want to scare the people on the train. So, my eyes remained closed for the entire rest of the way, but I didn't sleep for a single minute.

Headquarters

We arrived at the Union Station in Denver at six thirty in the morning. The temperature was colder than it had been in northwest Indiana, but that was to be expected for the middle of November in the mountains. I couldn't tell if Don had really been asleep or if he had been pretending like me. The minute the train pulled into the station he was on his feet and ready to depart. We picked up our checked bags and headed for the car rental kiosk.

The sun made its way over the tops of the giant mountains in the distant background. The sky was an inky shade of muddled blue and gray. Dark clouds hung close to the mountaintops. I hoped it wasn't an omen of the forthcoming future. If I didn't make it through the training as a Huntsman, I didn't know what I would do. Returning to Indiana to get a job waiting tables with Cara wasn't an option—not as long as the demon that took my son was still out there.

"Come on," Don called from the side of a dark green Jeep Wrangler.

Lost inside my head, I hadn't noticed he had paid for the car and pulled it around. I tossed my bag in the backseat and climbed into the passenger side. As we drove further into the mountains, my eyes felt heavy. I had been up for a full twenty-four hours. The last time I did that was when Danny had an ear infection when he was two.

After thirty minutes of driving around winding roads tucked away between the largest mountains I had ever seen, we pulled up to a rectangular concrete building. It had rows of windows on all four floors. The exterior was dark gray. It blended in with its bare surrounding so well I wouldn't have looked twice if we hadn't stopped outside it. There were other similar buildings sharing the parking lot. It looked like corporate offices.

Don parked the Jeep in the back of the empty lot and we walked the hundred yards to the entrance. There was only a few cars scattered about. The offices were apparently not open that early in the morning. It was only a few minutes past seven.

A strong wind picked up out of nowhere and blew my sweater open. I shivered and wrapped the thick wool tightly around my waist. If I had known where we were going, I would have brought a jacket. I wouldn't have worn my burgundy boat shoes without socks either. I had been hoping for a warmer destination, like Florida. No one would have ever guessed the Chamber of Darkness shared its secret location with Disney World—the perfect cover.

We walked through the glass door next to the revolving one. There were no lights on in the lobby and there was no one manning the front desk. I wondered if we had to wait for the place to open before we got this show on the road, and how long that would be.

"Do we just wait here, or—"

Before I could finish my thought, Don had walked over to the wall of elevators and pressed the down button. There was a small ding and the doors slid open to reveal an ordinary compartment.

"Oh, ok," I said under my breath and followed him in.

He reached inside the pocket of his dingy jeans and pulled out two small keys attached to a frail looped keychain. It reminded me of the ones used to open mailboxes at apartment complexes. Certainly not fancy enough to take us to the headquarters of the Chamber of Darkness. He put the silver key into the slot on the wall panel and the doors slid closed again.

Music played dimly through the one speaker in the ceiling. It was an upbeat light jazz tune with an annoying trumpet blaring out the melody. I turned my eyes up to look at where the sound crackled out from. It threw me off. I felt like something more ominous should have been playing, like Darth Vader's theme song from Star Wars. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I was sure it would not be filled with laughter and good times as the trumpet suggested.

Floor after floor, we sank lower beneath the main level of the building. I wondered if it was a trick, like the elevator simulated the movement of going down, but we weren't really. There was no way something could be that far below ground. We had passed at least ten floors and we were still going.

Finally, after another ding, the doors slid open. I stood rooted in the elevator as I looked out past Don's broad shoulders. It looked like we had transported into another office building—one designed by Tim Burton.

It seemed to go on forever, but as far as I could see there was only one way in and one way out. The floors were slick black square tiles shined and waxed to perfection. The tile continued up from the floor to cover the walls. When I looked a little closer I saw that the grout holding them in place was a luminous silver that reflected off the tile, bouncing light around the room.

Straight across from the elevator was a large circular desk with several people sitting and working furiously on thin, translucent monitors. They tapped at images and dragged them to new locations. I saw everything they did from the backs of the screens, but couldn't understand any of it.

Don strolled up to the woman closest to us. She was staring intently at her screen. Her thin lips moved silently as she read through the open files. Then, she touched the screen and dragged the file over where it disappeared. She was younger than I expected, close to my age I guessed, maybe a few years older. Her white-blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun on the back of her head. Not a single hair was out of place. In the middle of reading she reached up and lifted her rectangular black frame glasses to squint her eyes before returning them to her nose. She looked professional in her fitted black pantsuit.

"Ah, Mr. Vander," she said without looking up from the screen. "I take it your trip went well."

"Yep. Thanks for asking, Linette," he said upbeat as he patted his hands on the black and silver marbled counter rhythmically.

Her eyes turned upward to look over her glasses. They were a chilling shade of ice-blue that accentuated her flawless, ivory skin. If it wasn't for her bold plum lips and smoky eyes, she would have been lost in a haze of white. She tapped one more thing on the monitor and then stood up. The black heels she had on put her at least seven inches taller than me. Why she wasn't a supermodel, I had no idea, but I suddenly felt under-dressed.

"This way," she said coolly.

She walked ahead of us with her hips swinging back and forth. Each hallway ran back from the circular lobby, like the way children draw the rays of the sun. She chose one and we followed her in.

Once we ventured further, the hallway took several twists and turns. The place was like a labyrinth. I hoped that I wouldn't be expected to find my way out by myself, because there was no way I could. Every once in a while someone in a black suit, or even weirder, a cloak, would walk quickly past us with a clipboard or stack of papers in their hands as if they had somewhere important to be. My head was spinning in all directions to make sure I didn't miss a single thing.

The hall came to a dead end at a set of large, oak double doors. The wood had ornate carvings of devils and demons and creatures unknown. I took a breath and tightened my face. I was ready.

"You're the last to arrive," Linette said.

I had to strain myself to keep from rolling my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was make an entrance.

"Someone will be with the group shortly to take you to the weapon's locker and seamstress."

With that she turned and walked away.

"Okay," Don said as he reached a hand out and gripped the oversized vertical handle.

He didn't hesitate another second. The doors flung open to reveal a room the size of my old high school gymnasium, except there were no bleachers or basketball hoops. It was completely empty—no windows, no other doors, no tables or chairs. The floor and walls were all dark stone. It reminded me of a cave I went to once with my parents somewhere in Tennessee.

On the wall to the left of the doorway was the only decoration in the entire room. It was a banner that hung from the ceiling and reached halfway down to the floor. It was a shield on black cloth with a silver shotgun and sword crossed in the middle. If it represented what I would be learning as a Huntsman, then I was on the right track.

All eyes were on us as we entered the room. The doors shut behind with a loud bang that echoed throughout the open cavernous space. Some of the men and women were middle-aged, like Don, while others seemed even younger than I was. One girl looked like she had just turned eighteen, though it could have been the round softness of her face that gave that illusion.

We walked over to join everyone else. I suddenly and desperately wished Cara was there with me, just to have something familiar from my old life. As I reached for my neck to clutch the silver wings, a warmth spread through me.

"Hello, Don," a man said once we had reached the loose-knit circle of people. "Haven't seen you in a while."

"Reunions aren't really my thing," Don answered.

Obviously, it was someone Don had met before. He didn't seem to like the man very much.

"Is this what you've brought us?" the man said with a sneer. He nodded his head in my direction.

I furrowed my brow and jerked my head back in offense. This? Was I a "this" now? I wanted to tell whoever he was that he could go to hell, but instead narrowed my eyes and fixated directly on him. His dark eyes met mine and held my gaze. As he turned his head to look away, his thin lips curled up in disgust. He walked away from Don without another word.

"What the hell is his problem?" I asked.

"That's Ignatius Alexander. I trained with his younger brother. He's a firm believer in not allowing non-descendants into the Chamber."

I screwed up my face. "You mean, it's actually a big deal?"

"It's a big deal to a lot of people," he answered.

I wiped my perspiring hands on my jeans and folded my arms across my chest. Suddenly, I felt like I was on fire. The room must have been a hundred degrees.

"That's Ignatius's son," Don pointed to the young man standing at his father's side. "You'll want to watch out for him. He probably has the same beliefs as his father, and if they're anything alike, they won't make things easy for you."

The young Alexander looked over at me as I stared at him. He walked my way. The room quieted as he approached.

"I'm Ryker Alexander," he said holding out his hand.

I reluctantly grabbed it, squeezing as hard as I could to show I wasn't weak nor willing to be messed with. His thin, dark eyes tensed at my grip.

"And you are?" he asked, pulling his hand away from mine and shoving it into his tight jeans pocket.

"Kamlyn Paige."

He nodded his head casually. Apparently my name wasn't on everyone's black list yet.

"Did you hear?" he asked with his pouted lips turned down into a judgmental frown.

I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head.

"We've got a non-descendant in our group," he spat venomously.

His thick eyebrows lowered and seemed to cast a shadow over his already sunken eyes. I took in the features of his face as he glanced over the group.

"I wonder who it is," he said with his small, rounded chin raised.

He was exactly the type of boy I actively avoided when I was in school. Most likely he was the captain of some team, probably water polo or soccer. His body was slender with little muscle or fat, like a boy just beginning the transition into manhood. His shiny brown hair was styled in a messy wave at the front, shorter on the sides. It was a style I detested, mainly because a lot of the guys who picked on me in high school for being a loner had the exact same hair. There was a sharpness to his face that immediately rubbed me the wrong way.

"I'm the non-descendant," I said sharply.

Ryker turned back with his lips slightly parted, though still turned down in an ugly frown. His slender nose wrinkled.

"You?" he said as he took a step back.

I took a step forward. "Yeah. Me. So I'd watch who you open your mouth to in the future. It'll help you avoid the embarrassment."

He leaned in a little closer with his hands still tucked into his pockets. "The only one who should be embarrassed here is you," he hissed through his teeth like a snake ready to strike. His face pulled to the center as if a bad taste lingered in his mouth. "You won't last one week here. I'll make sure of that."

He turned and walked back over to his father, a man of equally sharp and heavy features, but with added wrinkles and a less pompous hairstyle. The two were the same height, so it was easy for Ryker to lean into his father's ear and whisper something. They both stared at me with hate burning in their eyes.

"What an asshole," a tall, slender guy with black hair, tan skin, and a cheeky smile said from my left.

"Really? I would have thought he was more of an ass-hat?"

I looked over to my right and saw the same guy, or at least it looked like the same guy. They each reached an arm in front of me and bumped their fists together. I stared in bewilderment.

"I'm Atticus," the one on my left said. "He's Achilles."

"And yes, our parents are insane."

"They must be, or at the very least extremely cruel."

I smiled despite myself.

"Don't let that ass, hole or hat, get to you," Achilles said, leaning into my shoulder. "He's just jealous there's someone prettier than him."

"Thanks," I said.

A part of me wanted to smile, but I couldn't. I wanted to focus solely on my training, even if it hadn't started yet. It was all I could see, like tunnel vision. I had to get through it, no matter how much trouble that Ryker Alexander thought he could cause for me.

A girl, the one I had pegged for youngest in the group, walked up to us with a meek wave. "Hi," she said.

There was a moment of awkward silence as Atticus and Achilles looked at each other from the corner of their eyes. I returned the greeting.

"Did I hear you right? You're the other non-descendant?" she asked quietly.

"You're a non-descendant? I thought I was the only one!" I exclaimed a little louder than intended. A few heads nearby turned and narrowed their eyes in judgement.

"Yeah, that's my godmother over there," she said, turning her head to look at a woman with black hair that matched her flowing cloak. She was talking with Don. "It's a long story, but I grew up with her. Neither of my parents were Huntsmen, though."

Her sweet green eyes looked into mine and she smiled.

"I'm Kamlyn," I offered.

"Holly," she said cheerfully.

I was surprised no one had cornered the girl to talk to her before and figured out she was a non-descendant. She stood out like a sore thumb amongst the drab group of uppity folks. Her hair was a flaming shade of ginger and fell to her lower back in tight, springy ringlets. A blanket of light freckles covered her warm skin, petite nose, and high cheeks.

"I have a feeling they'll pair us together," she said with a hint of relief in her girlish voice. "Us both being the outsiders and all."

"I wouldn't mind that, so long as I don't have to be partnered up with Sir Ryker Full of Himself over there."

The small group laughed together and the knots in my stomach released their hold. Atticus and Achilles went back to the man I assumed was their father, though he looked absolutely nothing like the exotic twins. He was short, round in the middle, and pale-faced with red bushy hair atop his head—a true Irishman if I ever saw one.

"Well, I'm sure I'll see you around," Holly said.

She waved as she walked away with a smile on her face, back to her godmother. I stood alone in the middle of the room for only a short moment before Don walked over. He bumped his shoulder lightly into mine.

"That Alexander kid give you any trouble?"

I smiled and gave a quick, breathy laugh. "I told him to shove it."

His mouth stretched as he tried to hold back his laughter. He nodded his head and looked over at the malicious father and son duo. "Good job, kid."

Suddenly, the door burst open, rendering everyone silent. They all turned and straightened up like soldiers at attention. I tried to mimic their movement, but utterly failed to blend in. The group simultaneously relaxed their stance when a young man entered the room.

Was he the Head of the Chamber of Darkness? If he was, I wasn't impressed. He was normal in stature and in build. There was nothing intimidating there. His dark, straight hair swept back from his tanned forehead with either gel or sweat. I couldn't tell. His thin, dark eyes looked bored as he slowly scanned the group and then returned his gaze to the clipboard in his hands. There was the faintest hint of a mustache on his upper bowed lip, or maybe it was dirt. Again, I couldn't tell.

He didn't dress like the other people I had seen so far either. Everyone else had an air of importance and money to them, even most of the young people. These were not families who had ever had to shut off their cable service because they couldn't afford it. They had never eaten Ramen noodles for a week straight just so they could buy real food for their children.

"My name is David Yu. I'll be your weapon's instructor for the six months you're here for training."

"Six months?!" I exclaimed.

I cleared my throat as everyone stared. David Yu looked up from his clipboard, snorted, and shook his head. I thought I heard him whisper "non-descendants" under his breath, but I was too far away to be certain. He continued on despite my interruption.

"You'll be assigned rooms. It's two to each one. Training hours are six at night to six in the morning. I advise you wake up early enough to eat breakfast," he said in an echoing, but rather flat voice, as if he had said the same words a hundred times before. "Since this is a larger training group than we're used to having we will be splitting you up into five groups of seven with one of your mentors taking on the role as group mentor. That is who you'll be going out on your practice hunts with, while your individual mentors will remain available to you for personal guidance when needed. Now, if you'll all follow me I can provide you with your uniforms before the initiation. You're to wear them for the remainder of your time here."

He didn't look up from his clipboard once before he turned and exited out through the double doors. I looked over at Holly and she shrugged her shoulders. Several others did this as well. Reluctantly, we all followed him out of the room and down the hall.

The Swearing in Ceremony

I stood alone in a dressing room with bright lights glaring down on me from the industrial ceiling with exposed beams. A wood-framed full-length mirror leaned against the back wall. I turned around and looked at myself from behind and then again from the front. I barely recognized myself in the training uniform.

The material was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was thick like leather, but tight and flexible like spandex. The black pants hugged my legs as if it were an extra layer of skin. They tucked into a pair of black combat boots. The black athletic cut tank top tucked into the pants and the jacket zipped all the way up like a turtleneck. I had to admit I looked pretty badass.

When I walked out to join the others, I had the clothes I arrived in bunched up in my arms.

"You can bring your old clothes to me along with any electronic devices," David Yu said from the center of the room. He had several large bags at his feet. "They won't work down here and when you're up there we don't want you tweeting to your friends about the totally rad vampire hunt you're on." It sounded like a joke, but there was once again no amusement in his voice.

A collective groan from the group rang out as they deposited their life's treasures into the bags. I held on to my mother's sweater for a moment longer. Even though it had been so long since she held it, I still brought it up to my face and took a large whiff hoping to catch her scent on it somewhere. When I looked up, David was staring at me with those dark, vague eyes of his. I quickly shoved the sweater, clothes, and cellphone into the bag.

"All right, let's head back to the hall for the swearing in ceremony."

Ryker Alexander shoved me aside with his boney elbow to be closest to David. I rubbed my arm and glared at the back of his head. The boys' uniforms weren't as tight as the girls. They got to wear black straight leg jeans as opposed to the stretchy fabric we had to wear. Their jacket also fit slightly looser. I wanted my jeans and baggy sweater back. The boots, I could get used to. They were comfortable and light in weight.

Back in the cavernous hall, the newly outfitted group stood around in a fidgeting clump. Everyone seemed nervous about the upcoming ceremony—everyone except Ryker. He stood at the forefront with his chest puffed out and his head held high. He bragged to anyone who would listen about how far back the Huntsman lineage went in his family and all their impressive accomplishment. Several people rolled their eyes and ignored his boasts while others hung on his every word.

Two young men in particular couldn't get enough of what he said, whether there was any truth to it or not. One was a squat boy with buzzed dirty blonde hair. He had done no athletic training to prepare himself. His round face made him look like an overgrown baby, but the muscles hidden under the layers of fat in his arms told me he was someone not to be messed with.

The other one was his polar opposite. The only thing they shared was the air of intimidation that hovered around them like an aura. He was tall, slender, and toned. His skin was as black as night with eyes to match. Dreaded hair gathered into a ponytail at the back of his head. He had his hands shoved into his pockets and his eyes trained on Ryker's mouth as it moved endlessly.

The double doors swung open and the group snapped to attentive silence—faces forward, shoulders squared, mouths shut. Even David Yu, who was off to the right, stood stiff like a soldier awaiting orders. I followed suit.

An older woman with brown skin and gray hair cut into a bob at her chin strut into the hall. Her black high heels clicked on the concrete like the ticking of a clock counting down to the end of normality. Even though her body wasn't what it might have been forty years ago, I could still see the definition in her calf muscles exposed below her deep purple business skirt.

Behind her followed a small, meek-looking middle-aged man with perfectly combed brown hair, frazzled eyes, and an odd, hurried walk. He clutched a stack of folders in his hands along with a clipboard resembling David's. I spotted a pin on the collar of his black robe in the shape of the Chamber's crest, emblazoned with the shotgun and sword crossed in the middle.

"Welcome fellow Chamber members and future Huntsmen," the woman said in a deep, warm, and friendly voice with her hands spread out. She then clasped them in front of her and continued with her speech. "I am Eleanor Buhari, Head of the Chamber of Darkness here in the United States. My father was the Head in Africa as was his father before him and his before him. I served as a Vice-Head for thirty years. Before that I was Head of the Department of Records. I started my career at the age of twenty-one, like most of you here, working as a clerk in the Powers and Abilities Registration Department. Anyone can make it to the top if they work hard enough."

She turned and presented the man behind her with a slight gesture of her delicate and manicured hand. "This is Casimir Rutherford. He is my Vice-Head and has been for seven years, and I can promise you his background is even more impressive than mine. With any luck on my part, he'll be with me for many more years."

There was a small twitch in the Vice-Head's left eye, like a nervous tick. He was a quiet, odd fellow, like the kids who were too smart for their own good. I wondered how he ever made his way up to Vice-Head. I had pictured the leadership of the Chamber to be strong and fearless. Casimir Rutherford, on the other hand, looked to be almost cowering in the shadow of Eleanor Buhari as he hunched over trying to contain the towering stack of papers and folders he carried.

"Most of you are very familiar with the rich heritage of our Chamber and the roles that Huntsmen play within it," she continued. "For some of you this is entirely new. But I want all of you to know that what you are about to swear into here is not to be taken lightly, whether you're a descendant or not.

"These are dark times and we foresee them only getting worse before they get better. We need each and every one of you to go into this whole-heartedly or not at all. If this sounds like it is not the job for you and you would like to leave, now would be your chance."

She paused and looked into every eye for a brief moment. When her deep-set eyes met mine, I thought I saw something in them, like she was trying to convey a message. There was a twinkle there. She must've already known who I was, being one of the only two non-descendants, but she wasn't glaring at me like the others had. There was no judgement or malcontent, but a secret understanding.

"Good," she said lightly when no one answered. She clapped her hands together and gave a spokeswoman worthy smile. Her perfectly white teeth were all the same in length, made to look even whiter by the plum lipstick she wore.

"Now, this is the first time in a long time we've welcomed non-descendants into the Chamber. I know that it was not a unanimous decision, but I feel it was one we had to make. Though some of you may not agree with me, I expect you all to accept it with grace and dignity. If I hear otherwise...there will be consequences." She accentuated her last words. Her jawline was stern and her eyes narrowed. In an instant, like the flip of a switch, her face relaxed and she was back to smiling. "I will call all of you individually to come forward so I can officially induct you into the Chamber of Darkness as Huntsmen initiates."

She held out her hand behind her without a word. The Vice-Head un-wedged the clipboard from between two folders and did a jig to prevent the rest from falling to the floor. He handed it over and took a few steps back to his place behind her.

"Right, we'll start with...Ryker Alexander," she called out.

The arrogant and well-groomed boy stepped out from the group and strutted his way up to her. He stopped in front with his chest out. It was obvious he felt he rightly deserved the position by birth alone. No one in that room had sacrificed what I did to be there.

"Do you swear to uphold our laws and regulations and never stray from the path of Lightness?"

"I swear," he projected for all to hear.

"Then by the power invested in me by the Chamber of Darkness, I hereby welcome you into the brotherhood of Huntsmen."

There was a dull roar of applause as she shook his hand. I patted my hands together, but my heart wasn't in it. Being trapped underground with Ryker for six months was not my idea of fun. All I could hope was that we wouldn't be put into the same training group and I would never have to see him.

"Atticus Magee," she called out next.

One of the twins stepped out and walked forward. His lips twitched upward in an involuntary smile, but he suppressed it. A serious moment called for the utmost of serious facial expressions, even for someone who couldn't be serious for two minutes at a time.

"Achilles Magee," she called after Atticus swore in.

They moved along quickly. Everyone who swore in lined up behind the Head. One after another, the crowd thinned around me. After fifteen minutes of reading off names, Holly and I were the only ones left standing with all the mentors behind us. The room was heavy with impatience and boredom. None of them wanted to stick around to watch two non-descendants be sworn in.

"Holly Everest," the Head called out.

I was all alone once Holly meekly made her way up to the front of the hall. My legs shook. I thought my knees would give out at any moment. They had better hurry and call my name before I passed out on Don's dirty boots. I couldn't tell if my body's response was from excitement or from being nervous. It was most likely a mixture of both.

"Kamlyn Paige," she finally said.

My name echoed throughout the great stone hall. My head spun as my feet moved forward. I could do it. All I had to do was go up there, stand still, say I swore, and take my place in line. That was it. I could do it.

I kept encouraging myself the entire way until I stood within a foot of the Head. She smiled at me warmly without showing her perfect teeth. Her face wrinkled around her eyes and mouth. With one quick nod, she started the swearing in process.

"Do you swear to uphold to our laws and regulations and never stray from the path of Lightness?"

"Yeah. Yes! I do. I mean, I swear," I stumbled.

I could feel all the blood in my body rushing up to my face as it burned with embarrassment. I swallowed and didn't blink once as she raised her hand to shake mine.

"Then by the power invested in me by the Chamber of Darkness, I hereby welcome you into the brotherhood of Huntsmen."

If I wasn't mistaken, there was an extra added sentiment in her voice when she spoke those last words. She had smiled at everyone, but there was something special about the look she gave me. I would like to say it put my worries to rest and the next six months were nothing but smooth sailing, but nothing is ever that easy. It did, however, give me a small boost of confidence to get through the first night quietly.

Once we were all in line, the Head stepped aside and held out her hand to display us to our mentors. They clapped wildly for the prodigies they had all worked so hard to prepare for that very moment. Don's hands remained folded across his chest. The corners of his thin lips turned up into a soft smile and he nodded his head. That was enough for me.

"Thank you all for this evening. I will let you proceed from here, Mr. Rutherford," Head Buhari said. She gave one last wave and walked out the double doors.

"Next on the agenda is your room, group, and class assignments. Once the groups are called out, any mentor to a member of that group can then volunteer to be the group mentor as well," he said robotically, digging again through his pile of papers.

He busily named off pairs of people who either smiled in acceptance or scowled in disapproval at who they had to be bunkmates with for the next twenty-four weeks. Inside, I was begging for mine to be Holly Everest. She was sweet, quiet, and a non-descendant like me. She also seemed to know more than I did about this new world I had been thrown into. I knew she would be willing to help get me up to speed before I was drummed out.

"Ryker Alexander, you'll be with Atticus Magee." This solicited a discernable groan from both parties.

"Achilles Magee, you'll be with Lance Anders." I looked around to see who the second name belonged to. The boy with the dreads hung his head as Ryker poked at him and laughed. Neither of the Magees were in a good position.

"Kamlyn Paige, you'll be with..."

My heart stopped. I held my breath. Please be Holly. Please be Holly.

"Holly Everest."

The cheerful redhead skipped over. "I'm so glad we're roommates!" she said with a smile so big I was afraid it would split her freckled cheeks in two.

"I am, too. Now, let's just hope we're as lucky with our group."

The two of us stood closely together as the Vice-Head rattled off the last of the roommates and fumbled for the list with the groups.

"The first group—" he said and read through the seven names.

They were no one I had heard of. I must have missed the names of at least twenty of the thirty five people during the ceremony.

"Group two will be Miss Everest, Miss Paige—"

My eyes widened as Vice-Head Rutherford spoke with a slow drawl.

"—Mr. Magee, Mr. Magee—"

I raised my head to look for the twins. They were doing the same and each thrust vivacious thumbs up over the heads of the surrounding people. I let out a sigh of relief as Holly laughed.

"—Mr. Anders, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Alexander."

Well, it was almost perfect. The four of us groaned together and let the smiles fade from our faces. Maybe Ryker and his two cronies wouldn't be so bad once we got into the training. I turned to look over my shoulder. Ryker stared daggers at me with his sunken, dark eyes. It was a look that promised me a living hell for the next six months.

I narrowed my eyes and matched him glare for glare. I would not allow him to get to me. My son was the reason I was doing all of this and there was no way some sniveling boy would stop me from having my revenge. I would do whatever I had to do to make sure he didn't get in my way.

"I volunteer to be group mentor," a gruff voice said from the back. Don's tattooed arm raised high in the air.

"Mr. Vander, you will be the mentor for group two, then." The Vice-Head scribbled on the papers inside a folder and then closed it and pulled out a few more.

He handed each of us our group class schedule. At six in the evening we met with someone named Rashne, no last name, for creatures and beings class. Aside from weapons training, it was the longest class we had in a day. Then, at nine we had physical training with David Yu. I assumed that meant we would lift weights or run in circles. At ten we took a break for lunch. After that, at eleven we had a technology class with Kyle Zander. I wasn't sure what that would entail, but it raised my curiosity. At midnight we had weapons and hand-to-hand combat training with David Yu. (Three weeks with 9mm pistol, three weeks with shotgun, three weeks with sword, and three weeks with katana.) It was the only time I hoped to be paired up with Ryker Alexander so that smug kid could get what he deserved. At three in the morning we met with a Maria Geovanni for Latin. Four o'clock was herbs and repellants class with Sasha Mayhem, whatever that was. At five, we had a research class with Lisa Malone. Six was dinner. From seven to eight in the morning there was a block period for us to meet with our mentors if they were available. If they weren't, it looked to be our only free time. Eight in the morning was our suggested time to go to bed. Any studying I wanted to do would have to come out of my sleep. At the bottom of the paper it said the schedule was only valid for the first twelve weeks. It didn't say what we would do after that.

Once all the groups were assigned and mentors had volunteered, the Vice-Head turned back to the weapon's instructor and said, "They're all yours, David." His lips flickered up into a hurried smile and then he rushed awkwardly out the doors.

I snapped out of my daze and waited to be released to our room. The fact that I hadn't slept in over a day had finally caught up to me. My limbs felt heavy as I stood on my aching feet.

"Okay, it's gonna be a long night, folks, so follow me and we'll assign you weapons and get you started on your first lesson."

I restrained my urge to groan. My feet dragged as I followed everyone out through the double doors. I looked back at Don one more time. His gray eyes met mine and wrinkled in the corners as he gave an encouraging smile.

Weapons Training

Ushered through many winding hallways, we finally ended up at a steel door with a keypad attached to the wall. David Yu blocked the pad with his body and entered an eight digit code. A loud clank followed. He pulled the door open and waved us through before he closed it again behind us.

The room was pitch black. Holly stood next to me, her shoulder touching mine. Rows of overhead florescent lights flickered on and shone down harshly. All along the thousand square foot room sat locked cages full of weaponry.

"This is the armory," David said in what I deemed his signature bored tone. "You'll be issued standard weapons, but you can always come back to add items to your arsenal."

In the center of the room were three rows of long wooden tables. Laid across them were various weapons—guns, knives, and swords, and a number of things I'd never seen before. David walked over to the first table, set the clipboard down, and picked up a small, black pistol. He ejected the magazine and looked inside, then popped it back into place and pulled the slide with a metallic click that raised the hairs on my arms.

"This is a standard Beretta M9. A semiautomatic pistol for those of you who don't know your guns. It's accurate and easy to handle." He placed the gun gently on the table and moved down the line to pick up the next weapon. It was a long knife with little finger holes on the black handle. "This is a Bowie knife with knuckle guards. You'll be receiving two of these. They're not only useful if caught in the elements to survive, but will also in more bloody ways, which I'll be showing you later on."

My eyes were perfectly rounded circles as I stared at the intimidating weaponry. David Yu handled each one with such ease, as if they were extensions of his own body. He never faltered in his movements as he picked them up, displayed them, did quick maneuvers, and placed them back down. My mouth was dry as images of me dropping my gun and accidentally shooting someone in the foot ran through my mind.

"These are specially made silver bullets. Silver is fatally damaging to a great deal of the creatures you'll be learning about here. And this is a shotgun shell filled with rock salt. They are especially useful when hunting spirits. These are iron bullets, also useful when hunting spirits."

My first facts to remember. I wished I had my notebook and pen to write everything down. I wasn't sure if we would be tested while we were there, but I was sure to fail if I had to remember it all with no notes to study.

As he moved down the line, he picked up a pistol grip shotgun, a medieval iron sword, a katana, several different crushed herbs, and gave us each our own cellphone. It was nothing fancy, just a plain silver flip phone with pre-loaded numbers on speed dial. The number one spot, he said, was for our individual mentors. Don was in my life, for better or for worse.

"Take a bag, pick up one of each item, and place them in your bag. Put your cloaks in there too since we will only use them when we go outdoors for practice hunts, which won't be for another twelve weeks. And make it quick. I want to get started so maybe I can see my bed before dawn," David grumbled.

I picked up one of the black duffel bags on the floor. Ryker was ahead of me. I watched him pick up and inspect each item as he loudly rattled off facts to impress his two new buddies.

"I had a Beretta just like this at home. My father and I have gone to the range every single Sunday since I was five. I can hit the center of a target with my eyes closed. It's all about confidence and knowing your weapon."

I snorted under my breath.

Ryker snapped his head to scowl at me. "Can't wait to see you in action," he forced through his teeth. "We'll be lucky if we make it out alive, I'm sure."

"Well, you will be," I spat back.

His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. "What did you say to me?"

I opened my mouth but David Yu rushed us out, cutting me off. "Let's go, people! I don't have all night to watch you 'oo' and 'ah' over your new toys."

Ryker stayed put to let the weight of his gaze sink in. My eyes glared back with as much intensity as I could muster. He would not get to me. I wouldn't let him. This was too important. It was bigger than him.

"Come on," Holly said as she tugged on my arm. "Forget about him." She shot him a scowl from over her shoulder as we followed the instructor out of the room.

The training room was similar to the hall from earlier—very similar in fact. I turned in a circle to see if I could spot any differences. I was almost certain we had gone a different way, but then again maybe we hadn't. Finding my way to my room from wherever we were was going to be tough. I hoped Holly had a good sense of direction.

"Who can tell me what a black dog is?" David asked as he tossed his clipboard aside casually. It skid across the floor and didn't stop until it hit the wall with an echoing crack.

He walked to the center of the room, unzipped his hooded sweatshirt, and tossed it aside too. His hands made a loud clap before he rubbed them together. It was the first time I saw anything that resembled a smile on his face.

"Anyone? Black dog. Come on."

Ryker stepped forward, his chin turned upward. "A black dog is a malevolent apparition," he said with confidence.

"Right, and how do you get rid of it?"

There was a heavy silence as everyone shuffled their feet and looked around the room. Even with Ryker's explanation, I still wasn't entirely sure I knew what a black dog was. Wasn't apparition just another word for ghost? First lesson in and I was already behind.

"Paige," the instructor called out.

His voice fell deaf on my ears. I knew what he said, but I in no way associated the word with me for some reason. Holly elbowed me in the ribs. I jolted out of my rambling thoughts and returned to the dimly lit room.

"Kamlyn Paige, front and center!" David called out as he turned his back and walked away.

He headed for a door on the opposite side. Everyone else turned to stare as I stood there dumbfounded. They all knew I was a non-descendant and that I knew nothing about the paranormal. The instructor had to know that as well. What was he expecting me to say in front of everyone, with their eyes burning holes into me as they stared?

I cautiously walked up to the front. Some of the initiates looked at me with judgmental faces. A few had twinkles of encouragement in their eyes as they watched, Holly among them. Why were there so many watching me? I thought we were split into groups of seven. All thirty five initiates were there to see me fail at my first attempt at being a Huntsman.

When a minute went by with me standing by myself in silence, the others got restless. One girl bit her nails absentmindedly while another rolled her eyes and sighed. Ryker whispered something to his two lackeys and they both snickered while pointing at me. Holly caught my eye and gave me two thumbs up with a cheesy grin.

Finally, David came back from the other room. He was holding a small black wooden box in the palm of his hand. I turned to him. My hands were involuntarily shaking.

"In this box," he said, "is a black dog. If I let it out, how are you going to stop it before it kills everyone in here?"

My heart raced. Was he serious? He couldn't be. There was no way he would put all our lives in danger to teach a lesson. I stood frozen while everyone looked on with wide, fearful eyes. It was quiet enough to hear the individual breath of each person. I swallowed, though my mouth was as dry as a desert.

"Excuse me?" I asked softly.

His dark, thin eyes stared back at me unblinkingly. His face relaxed, but it still contained an air of annoyance in the lines of his forehead and mouth. He gave one, slow blink before he sighed and spoke again.

"If I open this box, how will you stop it?"

I looked over my shoulder for any help I could get from the others. No one seemed to know what to do. If they did, they weren't talking.

"Um..."

"Go grab your bag," he said.

I scrunched my face, putting deep wrinkles into my forehead.

"Go. Grab. Your. Bag," he repeated slowly.

Well, I didn't last long. Not even the week Ryker had predicted. I walked back to Holly and she handed me my bag. Her expression was soft and her eyes conveyed how sorry she was to see me go. I walked back to David with my shoulders sunken low. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall in front of everyone.

"Take out your shotgun and load it."

I furrowed my brow and stood still, staring at his tanned and tired face like he was speaking in a foreign language. Half an hour ago was the first time I had ever held a gun in my life. He never showed us how to load them, only what the bullets looked like, and gave each of us a few boxes.

There was nothing left to do but improvise. What was the worst that could happen? The gun wouldn't fire and the black dog would eat me alive?

The gun was heavy in my hand. I fumbled for the box of shotgun shells and took out two. I tried to remember what David had done when he first showed us the gun to load it. As I turned it over in my hand I recognized the magazine loading port. There was a click as I opened it and shoved the shells inside in what I hoped was the correct way. Even though I wasn't sure what it did, I pumped the fore-end with an echoing click.

I looked up into the instructor's unflinching face for any approval on what I had just done. Sweat gathered at my hairline and on the back of my neck. A chill ran down my spine and raised the hairs on my arms. With a deep and calming breath, I prepared myself for what would be let out of that box.

David took two large steps back and lifted the lid. At first nothing happened. Then slowly, a thick, black fog lifted from inside and ran down to the floor like water in slow motion. It swirled around and gathered itself into the form of a giant dog. Its eyes were large, glowing, and level with mine. A rumbling growl emitted from deep within its throat. Razor-sharp, white teeth appeared as its lips curled back into a snarl. One massive paw moved forward and hit the ground with a dull thud. The figure was entirely solid in form.

I stumbled back and screamed. The shrill cry bounced off the walls of the room. I tried to raise my gun, but my hands were shaking too much to aim.

"What the hell is this, David?!"

I saw Don march up to the front of the room. When I looked back at the black dog, it was sitting neatly at David's side and had its tongue hanging out of its mouth. Its long, shaggy tail swished across the floor happily.

"Oh, lighten up, Vander. I was just having a bit of fun," David chuckled and reached up to pat the dog on the head, which was level with his shoulder.

"This isn't a game. You scared these poor kids half to death. And what if Kamlyn had shot it? Huh? What would you have done then?" Don fumed. His face turned a violent shade of red and a large vein bulged in his temple.

"For five years, not a single student has ever shot at Hairy Jack."

David continued to stroke the giant dog's head as he eyed Don playfully. It was obvious he thought Don was too uptight and he didn't care one bit what the old man thought about his teaching methods.

"I don't give a shit. I don't like it!" Don growled through his teeth.

"Well, with all due respect, Huntsman Vander, this is my class and you really don't have a right to say anything about the way I teach my initiates." David's face morphed all at once. A challenging scowl instantly replaced the playfulness displayed earlier. "And it's not my fault you brought in a non-descendant. She's won't be receiving any special treatment from me."

Don went to open his mouth, but snapped it shut again. He raised his finger and pointed it within inches of David's nose. Even from where I stood, back with the others, I could see his hand shaking with fury. He turned and stormed out of the room without another word.

The tension in David Yu deflated. His stance loosened and his face relaxed back to its previous playfulness. A small smile pulled at the corners of his bowed lips. He opened the box again. Hairy Jack hopped into the air and morphed into the slow swirling fog before disappearing inside. David shut the lid and placed the box on the ground.

No one dared to speak a word. We all waited in perfect silence for him to explain. He rubbed his hands together and gave his first full smile, teeth and all. But he wouldn't win me over with his charming grin. Not after what he said. I didn't expect special treatment, and I didn't want it. He had no idea who I was or what I had been through to find the Chamber of Darkness.

"As you heard, that was Hairy Jack. I found him when I was out helping someone on a hunt my first year as an instructor. I like to bring him out to show my initiates first because you should know that even though you're sent out there to hunt creatures of Darkness, not all things of Darkness are evil. Hairy Jack, here, is as harmless as they come and if I had killed him like they wanted me to, we would have missed out on some great times together." He spoke of the massive, scary apparition like it was a Jack Russell Terrier.

We continued to stare in silence. I could feel the heavy weight of fear lifting from the room. Shoulders relaxed, eyes deflated, and fists unclenched. After a while, I completely forgot about my nervousness. The crowd broke apart and David walked toward me again.

"Sorry to say, but you totally failed that one, Paige," he said as he firmly patted my shoulder. "Glad you did, though. I'd be lonely without my Hairy Jack."

"Next time you could try actually teaching," I said with bite.

Instead of getting mad, David simply threw his head back and laughed wholeheartedly. It was deep and melodic. He patted me on the shoulder again, more firmly this time. I wanted to wince at the strength of his hand, but I bit the inside of my cheek instead.

"That's all for today, boys and girls. I can hear my bed calling for me. Follow me and I'll show you to your rooms."

The class dispersed and walked a ways behind David in small cliques. "Way to suck, Paige," Ryker said as he pushed past me and Holly on his way to the front. Everyone around him laughed.

"I think you did great," Holly said loudly so everyone could hear. "Better than most of them would've done, I'm sure."

I let out a quick huff of dim laughter and thanked her for the support.

In the hallway I saw Don talking to the Head and Vice-Head. They stood huddled together. Don took the messenger bag from his shoulder and handed it to Eleanor Buhari.

"I'll be sure to catalog this right away," she said and walked off without another word.

"Thank you for turning it in," Casimir Rutherford said, giving Don a small clap on the back. "It would be a tragedy if something like that were to fall into the wrong hands."

"It certainly would," Don agreed.

Our group reached them just as they said their goodbyes and shook hands. I stopped and stared up at Don. His face was still a little red from his altercation with David.

"I know. I'm sorry I embarrassed you, but what he did wasn't right, Kamlyn, and—"

"I want to thank you," I interrupted.

His heavy brow pulled together as he stared down at me. "For what?"

"Well, it seems like I don't really have anyone on my side here, being a non-descendant. But it's good to know I have you, at least."

His rough, stubble-covered face softened and he smiled. "Always. I'm your mentor and I'm here for you."

"I better catch up before I lose them and can't find my room. Will I see you again soon?" I asked hopefully.

"You'll see plenty of me. Don't worry. Have a good night and rest up."

I took a step to follow the line of initiates, but turned back and threw my arms around Don's neck. I could feel his unease. He wasn't sure where to place his hands. They ended up hanging in the air over me for a moment before I felt a few soft pats.

"See you soon," I said and jogged to catch up to the others.

When Holly and I got to our room, our bags were already sitting on the beds and new pajamas were laid out. They looked more expensive than anything I owned at home. The material was black and silky to the touch. On the button-down shirt was the Chamber crest stitched in silver on the breast pocket. I quickly stripped off the uniform jacket and tight pants and threw them on the floor. Sliding into the pajamas felt like heaven.

Once I was comfortable, I took a moment to check out the room I would be living in for the next six months. It was larger than I had expected and much nicer. When they said we would be sharing a room, I thought it would be like a college dorm set up with cheap furniture and small closets. Instead, we each had our own Queen beds with plush down blankets and cool gel pillows.

Through an archway there was another room that could be considered the sitting room or study. There was a basic, but fancy-looking black shiny desk with a padded rolling chair, great for studying up on the supernatural. There was also a billowy black couch and large armchair. I knew instantly the armchair would be my spot. It was the perfect reading chair.

On the desk sat a blank pad of paper and a pen. I ripped off the first page and crudely drew a six month calendar. If I waited any longer, there was no telling if I would have the days right. David was the one who suggested us making calendars on our walk to the initiates' wing. It was the one useful thing to come out of his mouth the entire evening.

I walked back into the bedroom and looked at the clock on the shared nightstand between our two beds. It said five twenty-three. Was that in the morning or evening? It was hard to tell since we were underground with no widows to the outside world. Not that it mattered. My body felt exhausted. I would have no trouble falling asleep. But staying asleep was another matter entirely. I feared the dreams I might have.

Holly and I both climbed into bed at the same time. She said good night and turned out the light. Darkness encased the room. For once it didn't scare me. There was no feeling of things lurking in the corners, watching me—stalking me. I didn't worry something would happen to Holly while I slept. I felt complacent for the first time since Danny's death.

"So, what do you think about it all?" Holly's girlish voice asked quietly.

"I don't know," I said in a whisper. "It's all so strange still. I almost feel like I'm dreaming and I'm going to wake up back home."

"I know what you mean. I've heard about this stuff my whole life, but I've never seen any of it up close. That black dog was terrifying."

"It was reckless," I said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Silence settled over the room again. I heard the softness of Holly's breathing a few feet away.

"What do you think of the Chamber?" she asked so softly I almost didn't hear her.

I shrugged my shoulders and then remembered that she couldn't see me. "I'm not really sure yet. The Head seems nice. She doesn't seem too down about non-descendants. The Vice-Head seems a bit overworked, but I'm sure that's normal for someone in his position. The only other impression I have is from the other initiates." I paused and then turned over to face her from my bed. "Can I ask you for one small favor?"

I heard the swishing of sheets as Holly turned to me. "Sure, anything."

"Don't leave without me for class. If I get lost I don't want it to be alone."

She gave a muffled giggle into her pillow. "Whatever you say."

I smiled and rolled over to face the wall. My brain struggled to process all that had happened that day. The only thing I could see, though, was my son's perfect, smiling face. His baby-blue eyes looked into mine. I wanted to reach out and wrap my arms around him so badly that my heart ached inside my chest. I knew I was exactly where I needed to be.

The Mess Hall

There was a loud blaring that invaded my dreamless sleep like the honking of a car horn. Slowly, I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands. Holly reached over and smacked the top of the alarm clock. The room was silent again.

I considered rolling over and going back to sleep, forgetting for a moment where I was and that it was my first day of training. When that fact returned to me, I sat up and brushed my long hair from my face. Holly tossed and turned, stretching her arms high above her head.

"Come on," I urged as I got out of bed and went into the bathroom. "I want to make sure we have enough time to find our way to class. And I want to eat, too. That weapons guy didn't let us eat at all last night."

Holly rolled onto her stomach and grunted into her pillow. When she finally found the strength to sit up, her hair looked like a lion's mane. There was a small dab of drool in the corner of her mouth. She reminded me of a wild animal waking up from hibernation.

The bathroom resembled any other standard hotel accommodations. There was a tub with a shower head, a toilet, a sink, and a cabinet for towels. Under the sink was an assortment of shampoos, conditioners, and body washes. I assumed they were free for us to use, so I grabbed a few and took them into the shower with me.

The water was warm on my skin and released the tension that had built up in my muscles. I rolled my head around to stretch out my neck. There was a strong pinch. I raised my hand to rub it and realized it was right where my birthmark was.

When I finished, I left the door open for Holly to take over and sat on my bed in a white towel. I laid my uniform out before me and ran my fingers over the bizarre fabric. Then, I picked up my necklace from the nightstand and clasped it around my neck. My fingers spun the wings around aimlessly.

Once I dressed, I stood in front of the full-length mirror and studied myself like I had in the dressing room. In the low light of the bedroom the outfit didn't look as scandalous as it had before. True, it left little to the imagination of my form, but as I gave it a hard second look I realized that it was actually flattering to my figure. I looked the part of a Huntsman of the Chamber of Darkness, that was for sure. But could I do the job?

I sighed and turned away from my reflection. There was no use in obsessing over things I didn't know. All I could do was go to the training, try my best, and if I failed then I failed. My top teeth sunk into my bottom lip. I really hoped I wouldn't fail.

"Okay, I'm ready to go," Holly said, stepping out of the bathroom in her uniform looking fresh and vibrant.

The slick black material contrasted with her curly red hair in an eye-catching way. It was almost impossible for me to look anywhere else. My eyes kept drifting over to her wild, large mane of hair and tall, skinny form.

"Do you think we should pull our hair back? If we're doing physical stuff we don't want it to get in the way," I said with another quick glance in the mirror.

"Good point. Do you know how to French braid?"

It was the friendship bonding moment little girls dreamed about. But trying to tame Holly's head of hair was more like a nightmare. Her curls had a mind of their own. No matter how hard I tugged and pulled to get them to stay in the braid, there was always an extra piece or two that fell out. I had to redo it at least four times, making us ten minutes late for breakfast.

"Forget about mine," I said. "I'll just put it in a ponytail."

I swept it up quickly and tied it off on the back of my head. It was loose and sloppy, but I didn't care. I had to get something in my stomach before it decided to revolt. We were halfway down the hall when it hit me—it was the first time since before Danny's death I had any kind of appetite. The thought made me want to smile and cry at the same time.

The mess hall wasn't far from the initiates' wing. It was set up cafeteria style, but somehow more depressing. With no windows, they resorted to decorating the place with seasonal paper cut outs of trees, reindeer, and Santa Claus. In all the craziness I had forgotten that Christmas was only a few short weeks away. It would be the first Christmas I wasn't with Cara since we were ten.

I pushed through the turnstile and grabbed a tray, fork, spoon, knife, and cup from the piles. As I slid down the line I craned my neck to get a good look at the limited choices. First up was something that looked like a big pile of pale mush, maybe oatmeal? I couldn't be sure, but either way I wasn't eating it. Next was something I could only guess to be a big tub of plain yogurt. Lastly, a giant bowl of assorted fruit. I grabbed two bananas, an orange, and a plate-full of strawberries before I filled my cup up with whole milk. I hoped it would fill my stomach until lunch.

Behind me, Holly filled her plate with everything she could get her hands on. She even took a large bowl of the mush. I wrinkled my nose when I got a whiff of it.

There were only six long tables set up in the middle of the hall. One was where the Chamber members sat. It wasn't off limits to initiates, but none dared to sit there and risk getting on an instructor's bad side. The other five tables were left to us. It seemed like the groups we split up into at the ceremony took over a single table each. Lucky for me, Ryker sat with his buddies elsewhere. Achilles and Atticus sat together, moving around their mush with their spoons.

"Good morning, ladies," Atticus said with a smile. "I trust you had a better night's sleep than we did."

"Oh, that's right. You're bunkmates with the devil himself. How was that?" Holly laughed as she set her tray down and took her seat. She dove right in to eating the colorless food on her tray.

"Please, he wishes he was the devil. He's just some snotty rich boy with good hair," Achilles said snidely.

I noticed several heads turned to look in our direction. They were doing their best to be discreet, except for Ryker and his friends, who bore their gazes into the back of my head like they were trying to set it on fire telepathically. I tried to ignore him, but the faint sound of them snickering sent a fire burning in my ears.

"How can you eat this stuff?" I turned my focus to Holly and her endless shoveling of food.

"It's good. You should try it. Plus, it's supposed to be good for our diet since we'll be doing highly physical activities. This is packed with calories and all the good stuff that'll keep us from burning out."

Achilles and Atticus looked at each other and then back at their bowls. They shrugged their shoulders and raised a spoonful to their mouths. Smiles slowly spread across their faces.

"Wow, this is actually good!" Atticus said.

"Smells like ass," Achilles chimed.

"But tastes delicious!" Atticus finished. "You should try a bit." He loaded his spoon up with another mound-full and shoved it at my face.

I backed away. "No thanks."

They laughed. "Oh, come on. Don't be such a chicken," Atticus said.

"When in Rome," Achilles urged.

Holly used the back of her hand to muffle the sound of her giggling.

I sighed and rolled my eyes up to the ceiling. "Fine. I'll do it." I took the spoon and hurled it into my mouth as quickly as I could and swallowed. The thick, creamy taste lingered on my tongue. It was sweet and fruity...it was delicious!

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "Now I wish I'd gotten a bowl."

Everyone laughed together. Atticus shoved his bowl toward me and insisted I take it while he shared with his brother.

Suddenly, there was a low, animalistic growl from behind, followed by the loud bark of a dog. I jumped in my seat and whipped my head around. Ryker and his two friends were rolling with laughter, slapping their knees and pointing.

"What's the matter, Paige? Scared?" Ryker roared with laughter. Once he finally gained control of himself, his face tightened back to its usual scowl. "Better grow some tougher skin, not that it'll matter. They never should have let non-descendants in. They'll realize that when they see how pathetic you are."

Holly, Atticus, and Achilles all jumped to their feet at the same time. Holly was closest to Ryker. She closed the gap and towered over him with a menacing glare. "If you don't back off, I'll make you sorry you were ever born," she hissed.

"Oh, honey," Ryker said, standing up slowly with a smirk. "I wasn't just talking to Paige. The same goes for you, non-descendant. Don't think I don't know about your mother, or should I say godmother?"

Before she could say anything he picked up his tray and nodded to his friends. They walked out of the mess hall together. Holly stood in front of their table, heaving furiously as her face turned a shade of red that matched her hair. I walked up to her and put my arm around her shoulder to guide her back to our table.

We finished our breakfast in silence. I fondled my necklace and ate the rest of the fruit on my plate. It seemed like I wasn't the only one infuriated by Ryker Alexander. As Holly's breathing returned to normal I looked over at her discreetly. A smiled tugged at the corners of my lips, but I willed it away. There was a warm feeling spreading through-out my heart as I thought about my three new friends standing up for me.

Creatures & Beings Class

The schedule said to report to room 1273 at six o'clock in the evening on our second day of training. The clock on the wall in the mess hall read five fifty-two. I had no idea how far the room was, but my stomach twisted from a dreadful feeling that told me we wouldn't make it. Holly, Atticus, Achilles, and I sped through the halls and followed the small plaques that pointed the direction to the various numbered rooms.

After several turns and three backtracks, I was sure class had already started. None of us wore a watch, but it felt like we had been walking for over seven minutes. The door was closed when we found the room. It was made of solid wood with no window for us to peer inside. There was no telling if the instructor was already talking or not. Either way, we had to go in.

Holly pushed the door open and every head turned to look. Ryker nudged his two buddies and they laughed quietly together. At least we knew we were in the right place. The instructor was nowhere to be found. The tension in my stomach released as I sat down on the foldable metal chair in the back row.

When the door swung open, everyone's heads turned again. Their jaws dropped. A strange man, like no one I had ever seen before, walked in. He had to duck his bald head to fit through the doorway. His muscular arms scraped the sides of the frame as he passed. He had a large body covered in black tribal ink that stood out like marker on a window. All he wore were black pants torn off at the knees. When he walked I swore I felt the floor shake.

His enormous size wasn't the only thing that made him stand out. It was his skin, which was a shade a blue I imagined electricity to look like—a mixture of cerulean and ice. But the longer I stared at him, wide-eyed, I noticed that it wasn't his skin at all that made him such an odd color. It was what was underneath. Blue smoke was all his body seemed to contain. It swirled slowly under his translucent skin like a crystal ball.

I couldn't look away. What was he? Where did he come from? Was he our instructor or was he another evil being thrown into the room as a test, like the black dog had been? The last thought made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I raised my hand to my necklace and twirled the wings between my fingers.

"My name is Rashne. As you can tell I am not like you—I am Djinn." He had a thick accent and an inhumanly deep voice. He spoke slowly to stress every word that rolled off his blue tongue. "I am your Creatures and Beings instructor."

He paused and stared. Most of us didn't dare move. We sat perfectly still in our cold metal chairs, waiting for his next words. The room was heavy with silence.

"Let us begin, then," he said as if satisfied with the mystified looks on our faces. "I would like you all to go around individually, stand up, and state your name, who your mentor is, and why you are here." He looked over at the boy in the first row, one of Ryker's loyal subjects.

The boy used his thick hands to push himself up off the chair. Turning slightly toward the rest of us, his face was a complete blank. "Um, I'm Gordon Scott. My mentor is Gordon Scott...not me, my father."

A few of us chuckled. He really was thick, in more ways than one. His rounded stomach shook at he laughed along, though judging by the vacant look on his face he had no clue why.

"And I'm here because I'm a descendant." He sat back down with a proud smile on his face as if he had just recited the Gettysburg Address from memory.

The next of Alexander's followers shot up from his chair. His arms hung long at his side and, if I wasn't mistaken, he was flexing them.

"Lance Anders. My father's Jamal Anders and I'm a descendant."

Holly snorted and leaned into me. "Oh, boy. Here we go," she whispered.

Ryker stood up, took a few steps toward the front, spun on his heel, and lifted his chin. "My name is Ryker Alexander. My father is Ignatius Alexander. You've probably heard of him from when he stopped the werewolf pack from terrorizing New York City in 1979. I'm a ninth generation descendant on my mother's side and a twelfth generation descendant on my father's side."

I was surprised he didn't take a bow afterward. My eyes rolled so hard I thought they would pop out of their sockets. He sat down with an air of entitlement, one leg crossed over the other and a smirk on his angular face. It made me want to jump out of my chair and punch him in the nose. He didn't lift so much as a finger or lose a ninety-year old grandma to earn his spot in the Chamber of Darkness. He probably never made a single sacrifice in his entire life.

When it was Holly's turn I smiled and looked up at her, but was slightly disappointed to hear her introduction was very similar to the others. The only difference was she said godmother instead of mother. My eyes fell as I shook my head.

And then it was my turn.

I took a breath, stood up, and saw everyone turn in their chairs to face me. "Hi, I'm Kamlyn Paige," I said with a forced smile. "My mentor is Don Vander. He's my neighbor back in Indiana." There was judgmental snickers and whispering. I pushed forward. If I wanted them to respect me and understand why I was there, then I needed to be blunt. "I want to be a Huntsman because a demon murdered my son two weeks ago and I'm going to kill it."

The room was as quiet as a morgue. They all stared with their mouths hanging open. Holly turned to me with a sad and sympathetic face. Finally, I had gotten through to them. They all knew the price I paid to receive my spot in the Chamber.

"So we're all just supposed to take it easy on you because your kid died?"

I didn't have to look to know who said it. There was no one else as heartless as Ryker Alexander. Any chance he had at redeeming himself disappeared with those words.

"You son of a—"

"Good, that was good. Thank you, Miss Paige," the instructor's baritone voice interrupted.

I sat back down in my chair harshly and folded my arms. My eyes locked on Ryker's. He was smiling callously. I clenched my jaw and tightened my fists. His words wouldn't be forgotten.

The Djinn instructor walked up to where Ryker sat and towered over him. His arms folded across his chest. It was immensely intimidating on his massive frame. His ice-blue irises swirled with impatience.

"If you ever talk to another one of my initiates like that again, I will have you banned from the Chamber for life," he growled.

The way Ryker sat slack in his chair with his arm draped over the back, I knew he hadn't taken the threat seriously. "Yeah right. They'd never allow it. I'm twelfth generation, remember? I'm untouchable."

Rashne bent down and rested his hands on his knees so that his face was level with Ryker's. His head was almost double in size. "I have been a member of the Chamber for almost six hundred years. Do not underestimate my leverage here, Mr. Alexander."

I couldn't see his face, but Ryker's posture stiffened and his head hung lower than usual. Inwardly, I was on my feet clapping and cheering. This was my favorite class by far and we hadn't even learned anything yet. Any instructor that wasn't in Ryker's pocket was okay in my book—even if he was tall, blue, and somewhat terrifying to look at.

"Listen up, all of you. This young woman here," he pointed at me as he spoke in a booming voice. "She is not relying on nepotism to get her through training. She is the only one in this room with a valid reason for joining the Chamber and becoming a Huntsman. And I am willing to bet she will come out above the rest of you in the end. You people," he sneered after his last word and paused. "You are going to have some hard lessons ahead of you. Mark my word."

It wasn't the most cheerful way to start a class, but I was still on his side—and apparently he was on mine. Once Rashne turned his back Holly jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow. She smiled at me with all her teeth. Her green eyes sparkled as she laughed quietly.

"Queen Kamlyn," Achilles whispered and did an over-the-top seated bow.

"Ruler of all the lowlifes," Atticus mocked.

I waved them off with a scowl as laughter danced on the tip of my tongue. "Oh, shut it," I barked in a whisper.

Ryker turned his head to see what all the laughing was about. We barely noticed as we whispered in our own exclusive group. All my worries about being behind everyone else in training lifted from my shoulders. Rashne's words had a great impact on my state of mind. It was the first time I hadn't felt lost since Danny left me.

"We will start with the most basic of beings and the ways to get rid of them. It goes by many names—spirit, ghost, apparition—but don't be fooled. They are all one and the same."

There was a loud puff of air from the front row. Ryker rolled his head back and pretended to snore. Rashne stopped and fixed the boy with a haunting glare. The muscles in his smoky arms rippled. Ryker and his two friends laughed as the rest of us looked on in anxious anticipation of another verbal thrashing.

"Do you think this is all a joke, Mr. Alexander, Mr. Scott, Mr. Anders?"

Ryker shrugged his shoulders while the other two sat rigid in their chairs.

"Ghosts are child's play. I've been banishing them since I was ten. We're wasting our time just because some of us are new to this. We shouldn't even be learning in the same class. It's ridiculous," Ryker ranted.

"Child's play as you say, Mr. Alexander, or not, there is always something new to learn, even in a subject one is thought to have mastered. Listen up and you may just learn something yourself.

"These are troubling times for everyone. Alliances are shifting from the Light over to the Darkness more than we like to admit. Incidences like the one Miss Kamlyn had to go through are increasing in the human world at an alarming rate. It is our job as the Chamber of Darkness to protect, but we are slowly being overpowered. It is life and death out there every day now for Huntsmen. You can never be too prepared for the job at hand."

He ignored Ryker's snarky comments for the rest of the few hours of class and continued on with his lesson about ghosts. Occasionally, I took in what he said, but mostly my mind was elsewhere. It wasn't a great way to start the first lesson of the day, but I couldn't control my wandering thoughts.

His ominous words filled my head and wouldn't leave. More unsuspecting mothers and fathers were losing their children as I sat there. More innocent children were having their lives stolen from them too early. It made my insides writhe. Determined now more than ever, I wanted to live up to Rashne's words and be the best damn Huntsman they had ever seen.

That night, Holly and I stayed up to study the material given to us by our Djinn instructor. There was an entire binder full of information on spirits—their history, their forms, their common vengeances, what they can do, what they can't do, how they can hurt people, and infinitely much more. There were endless ways of getting rid of them it seemed. It overwhelmed and intrigued me.

The two of us went through every bit of information over and over again until it seared itself into our brains. Holly quizzed me and then I quizzed her and then we started the process over again. It was maddening, but it worked.

"Okay, what is the difference between a ghost and a poltergeist?" Holly asked from her bed as I paced back and forth across the room.

"A ghost is a manifestation of a dead person who can't move on, and a poltergeist is a supernatural being which causes physical disturbances to people and objects," I answered confidently.

"And..."

I froze and ran my hands through my hair as I dug through the recesses of my memory. "And...and...oh! And a ghost is attached to a location while a poltergeist is normally attached to a specific person!"

Holly smiled. "That's right!"

"Yes!" I breathed out as I flopped down onto my bed.

"You've got this," she said, tossing the big black binder onto the floor. Her mouth pulled into a yawn as she stretched her hands above her head.

"Maybe we should go over it just one more time to make sure."

Holly cocked her head to the side and let her full hair flow onto the bedspread. Her normally large eyes were halfway closed, heavy with sleep. "It's noon. We have to be up in four hours," she groaned.

I glanced at the clock and inwardly debated with myself. "Maybe I'll just look it over one more time."

I couldn't stop. As much as I wanted to, something inside wouldn't let me. Once I learned these beings were real, I craved more knowledge about them.

"Whatever you say," Holly said and then laid down in her bed facing me.

"I have to work twice as hard as everyone else. You might not be a descendant, but your godmother raised you like one. I only learned that things like demons existed a few days ago. If I want a chance at becoming a Huntsman I have to catch up."

Holly simply grinned. "Ten more minutes of studying and you'll have surpassed every one of us."

I tried not to smile, but my lips fought the suppression.

Holly rolled away and covered her head with the blanket. I tucked myself into bed, propped the pillows up on the headboard, and settled in for at least another hour of studying.

Twenty minutes in, my eyesight blurred. It was hard to keep my lids from drooping shut. My head lolled to one side as I let my eyes close. Only for a quick second, I told myself.

The darkness shifted into the familiarity of my house back in Indiana. I saw the upstairs hallway and Danny's closed door. It was the dream. I tried to force myself to wake up, but it was no use. There was nothing left to do except let it play out as usual. My hand twitched at my side as I sank further inward.

I opened my son's door, but it wasn't his room inside. Instead, it was a large storage room with shelves that went all the way up the endless walls to a ceiling too far away to see. Each one was packed with items that resembled junk at a garage sale—a broken lamp, a doll with a cracked porcelain face, a teakettle with a faded floral design, an old rusted typewriter. There was a dim, yellow light coming from nowhere in particular. Standing in front of one shelf was a figure in a black robe with its hood up and back turned. Whoever it was, they had no idea I was there.

The figure slowly reached out a gloved hand toward a black goblet with dark creatures decorating the outside. Time slowed down as the hand inched closer. Before the person's fingers could grasp the stem, my eyes sprung open.

Someone had turned off the bedside lamp and placed the binder on the nightstand. Holly lay on her back with her arm flung over her face. Her lips were parted, releasing small snores with every breath.

I'd had bizarre dreams before, but this felt different somehow, like I was catching a small glimpse into someone else's future. There was nothing distinct in the dream that told me it wasn't the present—that someone wasn't in that cluttered room right then getting ready to snatch some useless goblet. I simply knew deep within my gut I had seen something that would inevitably happen. The question was how and why? And why did I have a dreadful feeling churning my insides?

Tossing and turning, I replayed the dream over and over again. The clock read two twenty-three. Each time I looked at it, the numbers went up and sleep grew more distant. I wasn't sure if I should tell someone what I saw. How would I explain it? And would they even care?

Suddenly, the blaring of the alarm interrupted my thoughts. I let it continue until Holly rolled over and turned it off with a groan. I hopped out of bed, eager to start my day and forget about the weird dream. There was no telling who the man was, where the room was located, or why it felt so menacing—all I knew was that I had to put it behind me and concentrate on my training. That was the only thing that could bring me my revenge.

The Gun Range

The first gun practice took place in a rather normal gun range. We each had our own cubicle with a table, a piece of paper with a human shaped target on it, and the Beretta 9mms issued the first day. On the wall was a small laminated list of rules. I glanced over them as I waited for class to start.

David showed us how to load our guns once. Then, he used the lever to bring a clip on a pulley to his table, hung the paper target on it, and pushed the lever forward to send it back down the range. He gave very little instruction as he demonstrated a perfect head and heart shot before flicking the safety back on and setting the gun on the table again, barrel pointed down the range.

"Don't put your finger on the trigger until you're absolutely sure you're ready to pull it," he said with an air of boredom. "Read the rules listed on the wall of your designated area and then you can start."

Shooting a gun for him seemed about as complicated and exciting as throwing a rock. Most likely, he had done it so many times in his twenty-six years it no longer gave him a rush. His face was calm and steady as he pulled the trigger. He didn't even blink at the recoil.

The others disappeared once I stepped into my own secluded area. I let out a long breath. It was the first time I had felt any sense of privacy in days. The overwhelming urge to cry bubbled up out of nowhere, but I pushed it back down to get to work.

I picked up my gun and let it rest in the palm of my hand, feeling the heavy weight of the metal. A surge of energy coursed through my body. I flicked the safety off and brought the gun up in front of me with both hands, just as David had done. The small sights lined up with the paper being's forehead.

As I looked down the range, my vision tunneled. The longer I stared, the closer the target seemed. With a deep breath in, I made sure my shot lined up. With a deep breath out, I pulled the trigger.

The gun recoiled back, but my steady arms kept it in place. I was the first to fire amongst the group. Even though I couldn't see any of their faces, I could only take their silence to mean they were looking down the line to see who shot and how well they did. I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. I had hit the target right in the center, a perfect head shot. But all at once, my face fell back to its stern look of misery. If only I had known how to do that when Danny was still alive.

David Yu walked up behind me with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, nodding his head. "Good job, Paige," he said with only the slightest hint of surprise behind it. "Very good. Looks like we underestimated you."

Pride warmed my insides. I was a natural! The others followed my lead and fired shots off at their own targets. A few hit the corner of the paper, chipping bits off at a time. Others landed inside the target's figure, but completely missed the bullseye. Only one other made it into the three round circles, though just barely. I took a step back to see who was in the cubicle next to me.

Of course, it was Ryker Alexander. According to him, he had been shooting guns since he was a wee tyke. He caught me peeking in at him. With a sneer, he turned his body to face me while his gun remained in his hand on the table, not as David had showed us but with the barrel facing outward.

"Beginner's luck," he said with bite. "Don't get used to it."

I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips. "Oh yeah?" My confidence swelled and I hoped that my skills didn't fail me. I turned, picked up my gun, flicked the safety, and fired another single shot. The bullet landed directly in the center of the dark red circle on the figure's chest—another bullseye!

I went through the protocol of setting my weapon down properly before I stepped back and looked at Ryker again with a cocky grin. "Was that beginner's luck too?"

His snide, entitled smirk faded as his heavy-set eyebrows pulled together.

"Don't think for one minute that just because I'm a woman and not a descendant of some tenth generation Huntsman that I am incapable of making it through training," I growled. "David was right. You've all underestimated me."

The room was silent as the others listened in on our private verbal battle. Even David stood as far away from the range as he could with his back against the wall, staring at us.

Just then, breaking the heavy silence, a shot fired off and a searing pain burst through my foot. I screamed out as I collapsed to the floor. Ryker stood over me, trying to hide the grin pulling at the corners of his lips.

Holly ran to my side. "You shot her in the foot!" she yelled as she kneeled down beside me. "You did that on purpose!"

He scoffed at her and rolled his eyes. "It was an accident," he said unconvincingly.

David Yu walked over slowly and looked down at the blood pouring out from the hole in the side of my boot. I held onto it so tightly I thought the bones would crush. It was the only thing that kept me from falling apart over the pain. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I did my best to stifle them down and keep a tight face.

"Come on, Paige," David said as he lifted me up by the arm. "Let's get you to the medical ward."

That was all he had to say about it. He didn't tell Ryker off for blatantly shooting me and he didn't freak out that one of his initiates gained a new hole in their body under his care. He simply walked off with me while I had my arm draped over his shoulder for support.

"Everyone else, set your weapons down and follow us out from the range. You can wait in the hallway," he said over his shoulder.

"People get shot in your class often I take it," I forced out in a somewhat steady voice as I hobbled along.

He shrugged his free shoulder. "It happens."

"You know he did that on purpose, right?" I couldn't help asking. Someone else besides me had to have seen the look in his eyes before he fired.

"Oh yeah, I know. Kid's been shooting guns for fifteen years. There's no way that was a mistake. You were exceptional at shooting and he was jealous."

My eyes widened as I stared into his tanned relaxed face. His black hair slicked back to show his forehead wrinkled with disconcertment.

"That's it? You're not going to do anything?" I blurted out bitterly.

"Even if I tried to get him kicked out of the class, his father has too much pull. He'd find a way to make it not happen. Hate to say it, but there's really nothing we can do here except take you to the ward and let you heal."

I couldn't believe it. Ryker was untouchable, even when he shot another initiate. The kid was a psychopath and everyone at the Chamber was in his pocket. The fact that David had called me exceptional wasn't lost on me, though.

"I wasn't that great. It was just beginner's luck."

He turned to look at me, his face just inches from mine. "I've been doing this long enough to know there's no such thing as beginner's luck, Paige. There's only talent and you've got it."

They were the first nice words he had spoken to me. It gave me hope to think I was changing his mind about the capabilities of non-descendants. My head swelled with confidence. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to apply weight to my bloodied foot.

Each time I took a step I had to hold a wince inside by squeezing my lips together tightly. Physically, I had never felt anything so excruciating in my life. But it still didn't touch the pain of losing my little boy. That knowledge was the only thing that kept me from passing out as we made the long walk to the medical ward.

David sat me down on a bed along the back wall. He closed the surrounding curtain halfway, even though I was the only one in there. I looked around for a nurse, but couldn't find one anywhere.

A snowy-white bird flew out from the back room and landed next to me on the pillow. I jumped and scooted away. A bird was the last thing I expected to find in the medical ward. David laughed. His smiled reached his eyes, which closed and wrinkled.

"Well, she's looking at you, so that's a good sign. Looks like you'll make it through the night, Paige."

I stared in silence, waiting for an explanation.

David sighed. "Oh, right. Non-descendant. This is Dahlia. She's a Caladrius, which is a special bird that can cure the sick and wounded."

I looked at the bird that curled up and rested its head on the fluffy pillow behind me. I had never been a huge fan of birds, but Dahlia was immediately different. She was cute and docile.

"How do they do it?"

"No one knows exactly. They just take the sickness and pain into them, fly away, and when they come back they're one hundred percent and so is the person. She'll sleep with you through the night and you should feel better in the morning. The nurse will come around to see if you need anything."

With that he pulled his lips into a tight, half-hearted smile and left the ward.

When Creatures and Beings class was over, Holly came to visit me. It was about six-thirty in the morning and I was still awake. Dahlia never left my side the entire time. She remained curled up in a ball, rested on my shoulder with her beak nuzzled into my neck.

"Who's your friend?" Holly laughed as she pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Her name is Dahlia. Apparently she's going to make me feel better."

Holly gasped and leaned in to get a closer look. "Ooo, she must be a Caladrius!" she exclaimed. "I've heard about them from my godmother. Her mentor owned one. They can be really handy in a pinch."

I smiled and pet a finger across the small bird's head. It gave a little coo, like the purr of a kitten, and nuzzled in closer. In the ten hours I had been there with her, the burning sensation in my foot had already dulled. The wound had stopped bleeding and both holes where the bullet penetrated and exited were smaller.

"She's been a big help so far. David said I'll be completely better by the time I wake up for class," I informed my friend.

"Good. Until then, you can look this over." She tossed a heavy binder into my lap. "It's everything you missed today with Rashne."

I rolled my eyes and groaned. "How is it possible to go over so much in only a few short hours?"

Holly shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "We went over some pretty crazy stuff today. I think you'll find it interesting."

"What was it?"

"Demons mostly," she said, her voice softening.

At that, I sat up straight and grasped the binder in my hands. My eyes were wide with anticipation. It was just the subject I had been hoping for. I wanted to learn everything there was to know about demons and how to find specific ones. If I could figure that out, I could find Danny's killer and have my sweet revenge. The thought sent a shiver down my spine—not one of fear, but of excitement.

"Thanks so much for bringing me this," I said with a smile.

"I know how much you love to study," she smiled back and relaxed in her chair.

I opened the binder to the first page and read through the introduction typed up on the stark white paper. Rashne sure liked to be organized. With everything I learned about him, I liked him more and more.

"You know, you don't have to stay with me and study. I know you're probably exhausted," I said to Holly as I situated myself further down into the bed and propped the binder up on my legs.

"That's okay," she said. "I want to stay here with you until you get better."

My gaze softened as I took in her smiling, freckled face. I was thankful to have her.

"If you insist," I said without protest.

Like the night before, we stayed up and quizzed each other on demon knowledge. It was fascinating. There was so much information in that binder that most humans had no clue about. Even if I asked Cara, someone who had heard about demons from the bible and church, she probably could've only told me a few sentences about them. In my hands I had at least a hundred pages on their traits, origins, hiding places, habits, and more.

Before long, Holly curled up in her chair, resembling a cat settled down for a long nap. I closed the binder and set it down on the bedside table. My foot had no more pain throbbing through it. I lifted it up to inspect. Small scars on either side was all that remained of the two bullet holes.

When I awoke at four in the afternoon, the bird had left my side and was nowhere to be found. Holly remained slumped over in the chair next to me. My foot felt completely better with only two small rough patches on the skin to show it hadn't been a horrible dream. It looked like it had happened years ago.

"Holly," I whispered as I leaned over and shook her shoulder. "Time to get up."

She groaned and rubbed at her eyes, her thick, curly hair smooshed against the side of her face. "What?" she said as she tried to force her eyes to open.

"My foot is completely healed. Let's go back to the room and get ready for breakfast."

I helped her out of the chair. Her legs were like noodles, limp and unwilling to take any weight for the first few steps.

"You're probably going to have to open your eyes to walk," I said with a sigh.

"Right. Walk," she mumbled as we left the ward.

There was no one there to check out with, so I just left. Once, when Holly and I were studying, an older woman came in and asked if either of us would like anything to eat or drink. We happily accepted as our stomachs growled. Other than that, I hadn't seen a single soul the entire time I was in there besides Holly and Dahlia.

I pulled Holly by the arm as I raced down the hallway to our room. Somehow, I was quickly learning my way around the complicated corridors. As we sped around a sharp turn, we stopped in our tracks. Foggy, blue mist the shape and size of a large human floated toward us. The closer it drew, the more it took on a solid form. It was Rashne. He stopped and towered over my small frame.

"I heard about what happened to you, Miss Kamlyn," he spoke in a deep, apologetic voice. "I hope this does not discourage you from training. Your intentions are honorable and you should not allow anyone to make you feel inadequate simply because you are different."

I smiled up at the blue Djinn. "If anything, it only makes me want to try harder."

"Good," he said with a simple grin. "That is what I wanted to hear."

He continued past me down the hall. The further he walked away, the less defined his form became until he was nothing more than an indistinguishable, human-sized clump of blue drifting smoke again.

"Well, that was weird," Holly commented.

I had almost forgotten she was there and what we were doing. "Yeah, it was," I said absently.

Every day I spent underground in the Chamber's headquarters, the weirder things seemed. Before the life-shattering incident with the demon in Danny's bedroom, and before the devastating car accidents that took my parents, life had been pretty normal. It had its moments, but nothing as strange as the things I saw in my few days with the Chamber of Darkness. The instructors taught their classes like we were students at college. It made me think about all the real students somewhere in the world above, stressing out over their biology notes for upcoming finals. They had no idea what pressure really was.

We made it to the cafeteria with five minutes to grab our food and shovel it in. I slopped the colorless mush into a bowl and poured a glass of milk in a hurry. Holly did the same and we both parked ourselves next to Atticus and Achilles. They were arguing vivaciously with each other.

"If you exorcise a demon, it goes back to Hell," Atticus said.

"No, dumbass. All it does is get it out of the person's body. There is no Hell to send it to. It just goes back out into the world."

"No, no, no, that's wrong!" Atticus cut in.

The two went on like that for an entire minute before they realized Holly and I had sat down. We looked at each other with small grins as we listened in. It was our only form of entertainment in the windowless mess hall.

Suddenly, the two brothers stopped and looked at us.

"Ah, the beautiful Miss Paige and Miss Everest have finally graced us with their presence," Achilles said with a coy smile.

"Are you two ever on time?" Atticus laughed.

I chewed the food in my mouth and held up my index finger. When I had swallowed enough, I answered. "Getting shot in the foot tends to slow you down."

They both pulled their mouths back in grimaces.

"That was brutal," Atticus said with his face twisted in disgust. "So much blood."

"That boy's lucky he's surrounded by trained Huntsmen and instructors or I would tear him apart for what he did," Achilles growled from across the table.

"That's sweet, but unnecessary. I can handle myself."

"Let's just hope he doesn't try anything funny from now on," Holly said through a mouthful of mush.

I didn't care if Ryker had anything else planned for me, or if he acted on impulse out of jealousy again. He couldn't put me through anything worse than I had already dealt with. He couldn't hurt me. I felt nothing, except the intense desire to get through training and destroy Danny's killer. It was the one thing that kept me going when the stress piled up on my shoulders, threatening to crush me. I would get through training whether that pompous, privileged prat liked it or not. There was nothing he could do to stop me.

The Mentor Meeting

As I suspected, weeks went by and Ryker never made another attempt to take me down or get me kicked out of training. No one punished him for what he did to my foot either. Since he claimed it was an accident, there was really nothing that could be done except a slap on the wrist for not following the rules of the gun range.

Every day when forced to group up with him in class, he stared at me with a smug, satisfied look on his face that said he had won. I would stare back, eyes narrowed and lips curled up into a sinister grin. Little did he know he hadn't won a thing. I would never go away.

We worked daily, three hours at a time, at the shooting range until David Yu was satisfied with our hit and miss ratios. Turned out, I was the best ranked with a thirty to one bullseye ratio. He said it was the best he had seen in all his years of instructing, and from someone who had never held a weapon before, no less.

"Now that you're all proficient enough at shooting, some more than others," David Yu added that last bit as he looked directly into my eyes. "We will be moving on to swords."

Most of the initiates' eyes lit up as they whispered excitedly to each other. Even Holly looked at me with wide eyes and a goofy grin. I didn't understand what they were so happy about. It wasn't like we were learning these skills for sport. We would use them to kill. It wasn't something I could get excited over unless behind one of the closed doors David was holding Danny's killer hostage for me to slaughter.

I stared forward with intensity and awaited instructions. There was a lack of intimidation, like the first time I held a gun on the range. Now that I had accomplished something so easily, I was sure I could do it again with the sword. Maybe I would be a natural at it too. It sure would make things easier.

"You'll be using these swords here instead of the ones issued to you, so you don't damage the ones you'll be taking out on your hunts. Pick your partners, pick your swords, pick your armor, and we'll get to it," David said, holding his clipboard and checking something off.

Holly bounced on the balls of her feet as she skipped to where the swords leaned against the wall with their points downward in wooden boxes. She pulled one out and held it firmly in both hands. I could tell it wasn't her first time.

"I love sword fighting!" she exclaimed as she did a few quick maneuvers. The sword sliced through the air like a knife cutting soft butter. "Partners?"

"Like you have to ask." I reached in and grabbed a handle without looking.

The sword I grabbed was a dull silver without the ornate designs on the handle like Holly's. It looked worn-in, used by many initiates before me. The weight was heavier than I expected. The tip dropped to the floor with a small clank. It would take getting used to.

The room looked like a high school gymnasium with track lines painted on the rippled green floor. The ceiling had to be at least thirty feet high. Every movement we made echoed off the walls. We all gathered inside the track circle.

"Now make sure you're far enough away from everyone else. We wouldn't want any accidents today," David called out from the roll of mats he sat on. His hood was up and he had an earbud in one ear.

"Uh, don't we get some kind of special rubber tip so we don't stab each other?" Atticus asked, his dark brow furrowed.

"No, Mr. Magee, you do not." David hopped off his perch and strutted over to the track line. His eyes rolled as a sigh escaped his lips. "The point of this training isn't to only teach you technique. It's to teach you how to handle the adrenaline rush you feel at having a dangerous weapon in your hands, and to know exactly what it takes to inflict the damage you want done on your opponent." His face was stern, his dark eyes expressionless.

"So, we're supposed to stab each other?" Achilles looked at his brother and shrugged his shoulders with a smile. "Fine with me. I still owe you a good beating for breaking my Walk-Man when we were nine."

Most of the class snickered. Oddly enough, Ryker and I were the two who ignored the twins' banter to focus.

"The armor is to protect your heart. The helmet is to protect your head. I am certified to help you in any situation, keep you alive long enough to get you to the hospital ward. Once you're there, you are fine," he said in the same perfunctory tone a teacher would use to explain basic math.

I turned to Holly and adjusted the lightweight breast plate I wore over my jacket. It seemed impossible that something so thin could shield me. The helmet was too big and kept slipping down over the tops of my eyes.

"You have nothing to worry about," David said as he turned to walk back to his stack of mats. "I've only had two initiates die during sword training in the last five years."

My eyes popped wide open. I lifted the face shield up on my helmet and looked at Holly.

She raised her sword to point it at me. "If you stab me, I'll kill you," she said, her voice muffled.

Immediately, my mind took me somewhere else. I wondered if Danny's killer had said anything to him before he died. Did the demon threaten my son, say it would kill him? Or did Danny never even see it coming?

"Oh my god, Kamlyn, I'm so sorry," Holly said as she walked up and put her hand on my shoulder. "I wasn't even thinking."

I shook my head, took a step back, and lowered my face shield so I would be hidden. It was hard to keep the tears in that time. One slid out from each of my eyes and streaked down my cheeks. They got lost somewhere in my uniform jacket.

"It's fine," I said in as solid of a voice as I could manage. "Let's just do this. I'll try to be gentle."

"Okay, I know in a real battle there's no countdown or anything, but let's go on three," Holly said, her voice silky and gentle. "One...two...three!"

Before I had time to think what my first move would be, Holly charged me. She let out a wild cry from beneath her helmet and ran with her sword over her head. I raised my arms just in time for her to slam into me. Her sword hit mine. The loud clanking of metal echoed throughout the expansive room as everyone started their duals.

Holly was relentless in her attacks. She was the offense and I played the perpetual role of defending myself against her. She grunted and growled with every strike she threw my way.

My arms already hurt from the force of her blows and from holding up the heavy sword. I didn't know how much longer I would be able to hold her off. David had been right about one thing. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins at top speed, but it wasn't enough for me to deliver any kind of strike to Holly. I needed to catch my breath.

One after another, she came for me. If I hadn't seen her put her helmet on right before we started, I would never have guessed it was my roommate and friend under there. She was like a wild animal trying to tear me apart.

Did Danny feel any surge of fear before he died? Did he feel pain, or was it quick?

Suddenly, I lost my footing as she backed me into a corner and I fell. My sword skid across the floor and out of my reach. Holly pulled her sword back, ready to thrust it into my body at full force. I tried to stand up, but she had me pinned. I closed my eyes.

Instead of a stabbing pain, I felt a soft hand reach for mine. Holly pulled me up to my feet and brushed off my shoulders.

She laughed as she gave me a good slap on the back. "I think we found the thing you suck at."

I pulled my helmet off and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Luckily, it had mixed with my tears so no one could tell the difference. When I stopped to look around the room, I found everyone's eyes on me while David stomped his way over.

"What the hell was that?" he yelled from across the room.

I planted my feet and prepared for the verbal beat down he was about to give me. Surely, cowering in the corner while your opponent is in perfect slaughtering position is not an admirable way to go out. I should have torn off my armor and offered her my bare chest so she could cut my heart out.

"Everest!" he shouted to my surprise. "Why the hell did you stop? Why'd you help her up? Tell me, what were you thinking?"

Holly stood with her mouth agape. "I—I was just—"

"Just what?" he cut her off.

She jumped at the booming echo of his voice. Her face turned beat red as she fumbled with her sword. "I wasn't going to hurt her. She's my friend."

"No, she's not your friend. She's the enemy. She's evil. She is going to kill your family and everyone you love if you let her live. Do you understand me?"

I pursed my lips and bit down on them. He was obviously trying to make a point about how it was out in the real world, but he had gone too far. Holly's hands shook. Her eyes clouded with tears.

"You need to take her down and show no mercy!" David screamed and turned so he could make sure everyone heard him.

"I think she gets it," I said in a low, but steady voice.

He slowly turned to face me and then closed the gap between us. His combat boots squeaked on the rubber flooring. With dark, unflinching eyes and full lips that clenched tightly together, he gave me a glare that sent a shiver down my spine. I straightened my back and tightened my grip on my sword. His face was inches from mine. His warm breath beat against my forehead. Tension thickened in the small space between us. Neither he nor I wanted to back down. Time seemed to slow as we stared into each other's angered eyes.

Without a word he turned and walked back to where he had been sitting. He picked up his clipboard and scribbled furiously on it. "Everyone start running and don't stop until I tell you!" he called out. "And if you so much as think about taking your armor off I will send you to the hospital ward myself!"

I didn't hesitate in throwing down my sword and taking off around the track. Running had always cleared my head, made me feel far away from whatever was bothering me. It helped me to see things clearly when everything around me was a blur. My legs moved swiftly and carried me along with little effort. Everyone else joined in, but I paid no attention to them. Running was a solitary act, and I wanted to be alone.

The helmet bounced off the top of my head and clanked loudly in my ears with each step. The breastplate made my chest feel heavy. I couldn't take in a full breath. But none of that mattered. All I wanted to do was keep running until the anger inside me fizzled out like a flame. I passed each person once and kept going. Ryker tried to keep pace with me, but fell quickly behind as I strode forward and onward, not giving him a second thought.

I couldn't say how long we were in that gymnasium, running laps. There were no clocks and once I hit my runner's high, it all felt the same. My mind turned off and was in a peaceful state of nothingness that let me forget about everything. Sweat poured down my face and soaked my clothes by the time David yelled out for us to stop.

"We're done for the day. Put everything away and get out," he growled.

Everyone left without saying a word.

Once we were all in the hall and the door closed behind us, the group erupted into a roar of gossip about the strange lesson. David Yu had always been a tough instructor, but he had never behaved like that before. I couldn't help wondering if something else was weighing in on his mind.

"I don't get it. How can he get mad at us for not doing what he expects when he doesn't give us any instructions?" I said frustrated as we left.

"That's just how training works. They like to give you the tools and see what you can do with them before they show you the correct way. I guess you'd call it a baseline. That's the way it's always been done," Holly responded through panting breaths.

When I got back to my room there was a note slid under the front door. I unfolded it and saw harsh, wavy letters scribbled across the paper.

Mentor meeting today at 3 in my room #1826

Don V.

I let out a sigh of relief as I folded the note back up. I had been waiting for these elusive mentor meetings for weeks. Don disappeared after the swearing in ceremony and it made me worry I wouldn't see him again for a long time. He promised he would be around, but I hadn't seen hide nor hair of him since.

After a quick shower I changed into my uniform again and I walked the resident halls looking for Don's room. It was in another wing off of the ones the initiates stayed in. When I knocked on his door, there came a loud thud from inside, like someone had run into something heavy. And then came the sliding of a chain. Don opened the door a crack and peered out.

"Oh, good, it's you," he said and opened the door fully.

My face scrunched together as I stared up at him. "Of course it's me. Who else would it be?"

"What? No one. Come in," he barked.

The room looked nothing like the one I stayed in. For starters, there was only one bed, which meant Don had the room to himself. Mine also had an upscale hotel vibe, where Don's room had a just off the highway, cheap motel vibe, but that probably had more to do with his cleaning skills that anything else. There were papers everywhere, the bed was unmade, the trash can was full of food wrappers, and there was a half empty bottle of whiskey sitting on his nightstand.

"Sit anywhere," he said as he poured himself a drink.

I sat in a chair at the round table in the corner. He sat in the other chair, opposite from me. His hand never left the short glass.

"How do we start this?" I asked when the silence became unbearable. If I wanted to sit around and do nothing, I might as well have gone back to my room to get some extra studying in.

"Why don't you tell me about your training for the last eight weeks?" He brought the glass to his lips and sipped at the pale brown liquid inside.

I yearned for a drink myself, but I wasn't sure if it was okay to ask for one. There were no rules for drinking during training. Don saw me eyeing his glass and smiled.

"You want one?" He didn't wait for me to answer, but stood up and poured me half a glass.

I sipped at it, letting the whiskey burn my throat as it traveled down to my stomach and eased the tension in my shoulders.

"Well, I like Creatures and Beings class. It's a lot of stuff to memorize, but it's fascinating. All the things out there I never knew about...it's insane."

Don nodded his head as he continually drank.

"And I like Rashne. He seems to be on my side as far as the whole non-descendant thing goes."

"Makes sense," Don said. "It was a big deal when they brought him in. The first creature of Darkness to work for the Light and be a Chamber member. I'm guessing he knows very well what it's like to be the man on the outside with everyone rooting for him to fail."

"So not all Djinns are on our side?" I asked as I raised my glass to my lips.

Don snorted. "Hardly. They are disgusting, foul, dangerous creatures."

It was hard to believe. I nodded and took another sip. It went straight to my head and spun it around a couple times. I had to push the glass away and give myself a break. It had been a while since my last drink.

"David Yu is nothing like Rashne. I don't get him at all. One day he's saying snide remarks about me being a non-descendant, then the next he's congratulating me on being such a good shot, then he's getting in my face about defending my friend during sword training—"

"He got in your face?" Don interrupted, straightening himself up in his chair. He swayed slightly.

"Well, kind of. It wasn't anything too bad. He was yelling at Holly and I basically told him to back off and he stared me down for a while. That's all. Nothing I can't handle."

After scrutinizing me, Don settled back into his chair and took another large gulp from his glass, draining it dry. He got up and went to the nightstand to pour himself another one.

"So everything's been pretty normal, then?" he asked from the bedside, his back turned to me.

"Yeah, pretty quiet. Oh, Ryker shot me in the foot the first day at the gun range," I added, nonchalant. It had been almost two months since the incident and the recovery had been so short I had almost forgotten about it completely.

Don whirled around, spilling some of his drink onto the carpet. "He did what!?" he yelled.

"I healed in a day, though," I said to put his mind at ease. "That Caladrius comes in handy, huh?"

He blinked absent-mindedly, as if he forgot where he was for a moment. Looking down at the drink in his hand, he turned back and filled it up again.

"They're nice to have with you if you can find one." He sat back down in the chair across from me, his heavy eyebrows raised in question. "Anything else I should know about? Did Ryker cut off your arm or stab you in the neck or anything?"

I let out a husky laugh. "No, nothing so extreme. He's left me alone since then."

Don raised his drink to his thin lips and paused again before taking a sip. "That's good."

I racked my brain to think of anything else that had gone on. As far as mentoring went, the meeting wasn't proving to be useful. Instead, I felt like I was reporting to my father about how I had done in school. The thought made me miss my dad, my mom, and then Danny, as everything ultimately came back around to.

I scratched at the back of my neck and tried to force my mind elsewhere. It landed on the dream I had about the hooded figure trying to take the goblet from the cluttered room.

"There is one thing," I said cautiously, still unsure if I should mention it at all.

My fingers reached for my drink across the table. I raised the glass and felt the burn in my throat again. Eventually, it numbed over. Numbness was a feeling I constantly strived to achieve.

"What is it?" Don asked as he leaned forward in his chair.

"I had this dream. I thought it was the dream I always have about the night my son died." My voice wavered and I felt my throat tighten. "But when I went through his door I was in a large room with shelves full of, I don't know, it looked like junk.

"There was a man inside the room. He was wearing a cloak like the one everyone wears here, like the ones issued to us, and he was reaching for something. It was a goblet of some sort, black with these gaudy, scary designs all over it. I woke up just before he grabbed it."

Don's eyes were large orbs staring right into mine. "Did you get a look at who it was?"

I shook my head. "His back was turned to me the whole time."

"And you're sure that's what you saw?" he pressed, leaning in closer.

I cocked my head and furrowed my brow. "Yes...why?"

Don let out a sigh and threw himself back in his chair. He tipped his glass and let every drop slide down his throat before slamming it upside down. There was a haze in his grayish eyes and a new slack to his shoulders.

"Nothin'," he said with a slight slur.

He was drunk. It was my chance to find out what was really going on—if my dream was important or not. Judging by Don's reaction, it was.

"Please, you can tell me." I looked at him with soft, pleading eyes.

He leaned his head back for a moment and then let it roll forward again. "Remember that item I told you I had to bring here when we were on the train, the one I had in my bag?"

I nodded my head vigorously, urging him to continue.

"It was the goblet, the one you saw in your dream. And that room, it's here in headquarters. The Dark Artifacts room, remember? I told you about it." He spoke slowly, like he was trying extra hard not to stumble over his words in his drunken stupor.

I had forgotten all about that part of our conversation on the train. "Why would someone want to take it?"

"It's a powerful and dark item. If used the right way, it can open a portal that will allow not just one, but all demons out from their world and into ours." His deep, rough voice was grave. "There are more demons than there are humans. So, that goblet falling into the wrong hands could be a very bad thing for all of us."

I sat there and let his words sink in. More demons than humans. I couldn't imagine what that looked like. Don had told me it was a demon who killed Danny. If there was a demon for every person, they could wipe out mankind from existence.

"Who would want to do that? It has to be someone in headquarters, right?"

Don shrugged his limp shoulders. His eyes were half closed. "Most likely. It's almost impossible to break into this place."

There was a traitor in the Chamber of Darkness. That still didn't explain why I had the dream, though. How was all of it connected to me? What did I have to do with any of it?

I opened my mouth to ask Don the questions that clouded my head, but stopped. He lay slumped in the chair with his mouth hanging slightly open and his head rested on his shoulder. The mentor meeting was over and I had more questions than answers.

As I stood up to leave, I stopped and stared down at the man who had opened my eyes to this world and brought me one step closer to my revenge. I knelt down and moved his arm over my shoulder. It was a struggle, but I got him to stand up. His weight was enormous and my knees almost buckled as I walked him across the room. With a hard shove, he fell onto the bed. His eyes never opened.

"Good night, Don," I whispered and kissed him on the forehead.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I hovered over him. His slow, heavy breathing triggered something inside me. It reminded me of the last time I tucked Danny in and kissed him good night—the last time I ever saw my son alive.

I straightened up and wiped my face with the back of my hands. Pitying myself wouldn't get me anywhere. It wouldn't get me my revenge. And I had to have my revenge.

The Redcaps

Endless nightmares about my son filled my nights for weeks. Fits of wakefulness kept me from getting any rest. When the alarm went off, I stayed in bed to see if I could catch a few minutes of peaceful sleep, but I wasn't so lucky. I got up and started my day, though my body was exhausted and my mind even more so.

The mess hall was buzzing with excitement when I finally made my way there. As I dragged my feet through the food line, I remembered why everyone was so eager to start their day—it was the first day of practice hunts. We had been training with weapons and learning about different creatures and beings of the Darkness for twelve weeks already. Being stuck underground without seeing the light, or moonlight even, for that long put everyone on edge. Though the air in headquarters wasn't stale I still desired to suck in the crisp, fresh air from outside. My body responded to the excitement and perked up at the prospect of what I might see when we ventured out into the real world again.

"I hope we get to hunt a werewolf!" Atticus said, gnashing his teeth and raising his hands like giant claws. He threw his head back and gave a howling laugh.

"Yeah, right!" Achilles burst out. "You wouldn't last two seconds against a werewolf, and I'd rather not have to cut up raw meat for you once a month."

"I hope it's something rare," Holly said with a gleam in her eyes and her mouth full of fresh peaches. "Like a hag."

"The answer to your prayers," Atticus laughed. "Here comes one now."

I slumped down into my seat next to Holly. My hair was loosely pulled up into a crooked ponytail with stray pieces hanging down around my face and neck. I hadn't bothered to apply any makeup to hide the bags under my eyes or the rough patches on my lips where I had been biting them. My jacket was only zipped halfway, revealing the tank top underneath. One of the laces on my boots was untied.

"Rough night, darling?" Achilles asked from across the table.

"Just woke up late."

"She had nightmares all night again," Holly chimed in.

I glowered at her and she shut her mouth. I didn't want anyone to know I had other things on my mind. If my group didn't think I was ready to go out on the practice hunt they might not trust my judgement. I had to get my head in the game. The hunts were what we had been training for.

My eyes wandered around the depressing mess hall, with its fluorescent lighting and stark white walls. There were little cut-out paper hearts taped up haphazardly meant to brighten the place and lift spirits. All it did was mark the passing of time for me, telling me I was that much closer to graduating from training and becoming a full-fledged Huntsman of the Chamber of Darkness.

"I see you've noticed the beautiful decorations cupid has hung for us," Atticus chuckled as he nudged his brother in the ribs. "Do you have a sweetheart for this Valentine's Day, Miss Paige?"

I snorted and kept my eyes down on the cream-colored tray holding my scraps of food. "Good one. I'm just glad to be getting out of this place for a few hours with you guys and Don."

"Oh," Holly said gravely. "Didn't he tell you?"

My brow furrowed as I glanced from her to the twins and back. Achilles's face turned down to stare at his food. I shook my head.

"No. What?"

"Don was called away on business, I guess, so Rashne is going to be taking us out tonight."

I pursed my lips and threw my fork onto my tray with a crash. "Great."

The others stared at me in silence. When I finally looked up, they averted their gaze to anywhere else in the bustling room. I rolled my eyes, picked up my fork again, and stabbed at the remains of my food.

Everyone else seemed to meet with their mentors on a regular basis. Most days Don was nowhere to be found. Ever since I told him about my dream it was like he was avoiding me. Oh well. We were halfway through our training—only twelve more weeks to go and then I would be on my own again, just the way I liked it.

After we ate, the group met in the entrance room by the elevator that would take us up to ground level. The twins couldn't keep their mouths shut as they bantered back and forth over what creature they would most like to see. Holly listened to them excitedly as she paced back and forth like a caged animal dying to be let out. Ryker bounced on the balls of his feet as he whispered encouraging words to himself. Lance Anders stood with his hands clasped in front of him, subtly flexing his dark muscles. Gordon Scott seemed oblivious as he turned in circles with his head craned upward, I assumed lost in thought.

I looked at all of them with narrowed eyes and disinterest. Of course I wanted to go outside, but my heart wasn't in it. It probably had something to do with the awful dreams I'd been having. They wouldn't leave my head, even after I was awake. Not only the ones about Danny, but also the ones about whoever was trying to break into the Dark Artifacts room.

Distracted, everyone jumped when Rashne appeared out of nowhere and smacked his large hands together in a booming clap. "Good evening, group," he said in his deep, rumbling voice. "I know you are all eager to get up there and start your first hunt, so without further delay—"

The doors to the elevator opened with a ding, as if it had been waiting for his cue. Rashne held out his arms to lead us inside. We filed in one after another and the doors slid silently closed. The space was big enough that we didn't have to cram ourselves together. I was grateful. All I wanted was to be left alone, but I tried my best to hide that fact from the others.

Unfortunately, Ryker was intuitive. As the elevator rose, he glared at me. "What's your deal, Paige? You scared?" he sneered and let out a hearty chuckle.

His two friends snickered behind him.

"Mr. Alexander," Rashne said without turning to look at him.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

That elicited hushed giggles from everyone in the elevator. Even I felt a smile creep across my hardened face. Maybe hunting with Rashne wouldn't be so bad.

Once the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened, we stared across the lobby out through the expansive windows. The night sky was a velvety black. Thick gray clouds obscured the face of the moon and the twinkling stars, leaving an ominous blanket of darkness over everything. It looked like a vast unforgiving sea just outside the doors. We all hesitated slightly as Rashne moved forward to usher us out into the world again. It was a moment I wished I could have shared with Don.

The cold air hit my face and immediately pulled me out of my funk. I inhaled a deep breath and let it sting in my lungs as I held it there. The fresh oxygen rushed to my head and made me feel dizzy on my feet, like I would float away if I took one more breath.

"Follow me," Rashne said as he headed out across the parking lot. The subtle blue glow from his body helped to guide the way. "There is a trail up ahead that leads into the mountains. We will follow it to a small dwelling inside a cave where you will start your first hunt. Normally, you would have to do the research on your own to locate a creature, but since this is your first time I have taken care of that small detail for you."

He didn't tell us what exactly we would be hunting. That was part of the fun—not knowing what we would be up against, I guessed. I took deep breaths as we trudged up the trail. Silently, I ran through all the lessons taught to us over the last twelve weeks. Whatever we hunted, it was most likely going to be some creature or humanoid since we were tracking it to an outside location hidden in the mountains. That was an unlikely place for a ghost or demon to be taking shelter in.

We walked uphill for over half an hour. The balls of my feet were sore from the incline. My calves burned with each step. Filling my ears was the sound of the group's heavy breathing as they tried to keep up with Rashne's giant steps. He didn't seem to feel any discomfort from the long journey he made in his bare feet.

The snow deepened by the inches the further we made our way up. Some of it seeped in through the top of my loosely laced boots and froze part of my feet. Luckily, the cloak I was wearing trapped the heat in and kept my body temperature from plummeting.

Rashne stopped and pointed at a small opening at the base of a steep cliff. "That is where you will be going," he said.

Heads turned to look at each other as we all waited for him to continue and explain what it was we would find once we went inside.

"You can come back out only once you have killed all the redcaps that have been terrorizing and killing innocent people in the town."

My eyes grew wide. Holly's mouth dropped open as she stared at our instructor in disbelief. Ryker let out a nervous laugh and then a defiant snort.

"Redcaps? You can't be serious!" he said with his hands on his hips. "There's no way we can take on a group of redcaps. We'll be bludgeoned to death in there. No human can outrun them!"

"Then, I guess you'll have to figure something else out besides running away from it, Mr. Ryker," Rashne said simply and then turned to walk away from the mouth of the cave.

"That's it?" Ryker yelled after him. "You're not coming with us?"

The giant Djinn raised one of his swirling blue hands in a wave as he headed out into the woods and disappeared from sight.

Ryker let his jaw hang open as he gave another nervous laugh. He eyed everyone in undeniable doubt. "We can't go in there," he said, the panic rising in his voice. "Those things will rip us apart and use our blood to dye their stupid little hats!"

I stared into the dark, silent cave as he tried to convince the group to leave. Holly was the only one who stood firmly at my side.

"What do you think, Kammy?" she asked with one hand on my shoulder and the other rested on the pistol holstered at her hip.

I sighed, took out my gun, and let it rest against my thigh. "I think we go in and kill the redcaps."

It wasn't fair for me to push these kids who were younger than me by a few years into something they didn't feel ready for. I, on the other hand, had nothing to lose. Either I would kill the redcaps inside and come out a step further in my training, or they would rip me apart and I would be put out of my misery.

"I'll go in first," I said.

I raised my gun in both hands and held it out in front of me as I stealthily walked into the cave. Darkness encased me. I couldn't see an inch in front of my nose. "Can someone give me some light?" I whispered behind me.

With a quick flash, the cave lit up. Holly stood close with a small flashlight held at the top of her pistol. Her hardened face told me she was with me one hundred percent. Ryker walked all the way in the back, hiding behind the tall frame of Lance and the wide frame of Gordon.

The cave was narrow, but the ceiling raised higher the further inward we went. The pathways never moved in a straight line, but in sharp twists and turns. A few times we had to decide between two directions, hoping we had chosen the one that led to the redcaps. I also hoped we would be able to find our way out, a job I entrusted with Achilles. He was the only one in the group that excelled at map reading, which I hoped translated into having a good sense of direction.

Muffled shuffling echoed toward us. I stopped dead in my tracks. Holly bumped into my back and then steadied herself as we listened carefully. I turned to catch a glimpse of the others, their faces shadowed in the darkness. There was no turning back now. They would have to be ready. By the dull sound making its way toward us, I knew we had found the redcaps and I knew we would have to kill them before they killed anyone else, including us.

A high-pitched laugh bounced off the cavernous walls and echoed into my ears, filling my entire body with dread. The sound of many shuffling feet grew in volume, like the hum of a swarm of bees approaching. They were getting closer—and they knew we were in their home. Holly kept the dim light trained forward as we waited for the beings to step into the yellow glow. Only then could we make our move. It was possibly suicide either way, but would be definite suicide to attack in the dark.

"The second we see them we need to strike," I whispered as quietly as I could over my shoulder. "Holly, you keep the light on them. Achilles, Atticus, you two hang back with your swords. Lance, Gordon, you guys charge with your knives after I do. Help if it looks like they're overpowering me. Ryker, you're our best shot. You try to take them down with your gun, but be careful not to hit any of us." I narrowed my eyes and gave him an untrusting scowl. Giving him the job of shooting in such a small space might not be wise, but it was the only plan we had. "I'll run at them with my knife first."

Everyone nodded and readied their weapons as the echo of maniacal laughter and the thudding of heavy feet drew closer with each dragging second. And then all at once the cave fell silent, no more laughing, no more footsteps running toward us, no more breathing from the group. I kept my eyes forward, searching for any sign of the small, deadly beings. I saw nothing but endless, empty blackness before me.

And then, flying from the shadows leapt a small human-like creature in rags and a red hat. Time slowed as I watched his red glowing eyes rush through the air right for me. My breath skipped as I saw its talon-like clawed hands and large, point-sharpened teeth. In its left hand was a scythe, ready to slice through my flesh, straight through to my racing heart. There was no time to be afraid.

I charged forward with my silver Bowie knife gripped tightly in my fingers. There was only a split second to decide my move. Instead of trying to stab it and risk getting the long, curved end of its scythe caught in my chest, I threw my arm across my neck and behind my shoulder. When the gap between us closed, I straightened my arm, swinging my fist through the air to strike the redcap across its abdomen. It dropped its weapon and fell to the ground, rolling across the dirt.

There wasn't any time to revel in the sight of the still, ugly thing. Its decrepit face was motionless, red eyes open but no longer glowing. Its blood-soaked cap lay on the ground next to it, no longer secure on its head. It was dead. That's when I remembered the most important part of our brief lesson on these beings; they couldn't survive without the constant fresh, wet blood from their caps upon their heads.

Two more ran at us from the shadows. One whacked me in the shin with the blunt end of its scythe, while the other threw his aside and started to climb my body. Its nine inch long claws dug deep into the tender flesh on my legs. I let out a cry as it tore through to the bone.

The twins ran forward with their longswords raised to take on the last three that came out of hiding while Holly attempted to pull the one attached to my leg. The harder she tugged, the deeper its talons sank into the meat of my muscle. I cried out as I pushed it away in vain.

Not knowing what else to do, Holly sat down on the floor and put her feet up against the wall, using leverage to tear the thing away. Her face twisted with effort and she grunted like a wild animal from the force. Finally, she fell back when the redcap's grip broke free. Pieces of my flesh went with them as a river of blood ran down my right leg.

I heaved through the burning pain. I couldn't help wondering if we would make it out alive. The redcaps attacked relentlessly. The twins, Lance, and Gordon were all taking on two at a time. We had to help or they would be overtaken and brutally murdered in this God forsaken dank cave.

Holly sat up and reached out a hand for me to help her up. But before our fingers could interlock, one of the small man-like creatures came up behind her and whacked her across the back of the head with the blunt end of its scythe handle. She fell back onto the dirt floor with a hallow thud. Bright blood ran down the side of her face and pooled on the ground around her, mixing with her already red hair to dye it a deep scarlet. The thing laughed, showing off its ragged, sharp, blood-stained teeth. Fire rushed up through me. My jaw clenched together in a blind fury until I thought my teeth would crack.

Screaming, I ran for it in a rage. I plunged my knife down through the top of its head before it ever stopped laughing. It froze where it stood, mouth still split open in a psychotic smile. Its red eyes glistened with wetness until the glow behind them faded and finally went out. Black blood oozed from the wound and ran down from beneath its bloodied hat. When I yanked my knife out, the thing crumpled to the ground in a heap. It didn't get back up. I stared into its hideous face, which resembled an old man with its deep lines and white bushy eyebrows and beard.

Suddenly, the piercing cry from someone else in the group broke my trance. Four redcaps surrounded Atticus and Achilles. The clawed humanoids slapped the handles of their scythes as they closed in, blood dripping from their stained mouths as they grinned in anticipation. Why wasn't Ryker shooting? Where was he? Lance and Gordon tried to help, but their hands were full with three other redcaps.

I ran past the twins at the edge of the yellow glow that shone from the flashlight on the ground by Holly's still hand. "You all get Holly out of here! Find Rashne! I'll distract them!" I shouted as I bounced on my feet and waved my hands in the air. I wanted to cry out in pain. My ravaged leg felt ready to collapse under my own weight, but I had to push forward. "Hey, you! Yeah, you! Come on, ugly. Come and get me!"

"Kamlyn, no!" Achilles yelled after me, but it was too late.

I took off into the darkness, blind to the pain with the redcaps now at my heels. Somehow, I was able to stay a few lengths ahead of them, directing my way through the blackened cave by pure instinct. I didn't know where I was going or if I would ever make it out alive, but at least I was able to give the others a chance to reach safety.

Behind me there was the stomping of heavy boots and the scraping of claws screeching along the cavernous walls. I ran as fast as my body would carry me. The adrenaline that pumped through my veins diminished the agony of my ragged, wounded leg. I knew once I stopped the injury would be unbearable, but I couldn't think about that. I had to keep going. There had to be another way out and I was determined to find it.

The longer I ran, the more distance grew between me and the malevolent creatures. I knew that was impossible. No human could outrun a redcaps. They were one of the fastest beings, moving in the blink of a second. But somehow I was faster. Maybe the group had wounded them in the initial attack and they weren't able to keep up. They had to be in worse shape than I was to be moving so slowly. Their insane, high-pitched laughter faded behind me. The sound of their heavy feet were distant echoes.

My eyes caught the quick flicker of light ahead of me. My heart skipped when a small opening in the wall came into view ahead. Sweat poured down my face, stinging my already tired eyes as they adjusted to the world outside. The contraction of my lungs felt like a knife stabbing me with every breath, but I didn't stop. My legs kept going as fast as they could as I burst through the opening.

The woods surrounding me were dense and the moon was still nowhere to be found between the shadows of their bare branches. I slowed my gate as I jumped over fallen twigs and small bushes. I wanted to get as far away from that death cave as possible. With a quick glance over my shoulder, I realized that the coast was clear behind me. No one was chasing me, at least for the moment.

With my head still turned over my shoulder, my body slammed into something solid and knocked me to the ground. I sat there dazed, assuming I had run head-first into a tree. Suddenly, I was yanked to my feet by a glowing blue hand.

"I was just coming to search for you, Miss Kamlyn," Rashne said in a calm voice.

I, however, was not feeling calm. The moment my eyes landed on his, the anger rose inside me again, as well as the burning pain in my right leg.

"What the hell was that? How could you send us in there alone like that? We almost died!" I yelled at him, standing on my tip-toes, though it didn't seem to make a difference against his massive frame.

"But you did not die, did you?" was all he said with a small grin on his otherwise solid, tattooed face.

I glared up at him with fire in my eyes. What was I supposed to say to that? I shook my head as my words failed me. Behind him, I saw Ryker standing next to Achilles and Atticus, each supporting Holly with their arms. She was hung there, limp and unconscious, between them.

"And you!" I turned my attention to the one who left us when we needed him most. "Where the hell did you go? You were supposed to shoot them if it looked like we needed help!"

Ryker stared at me, his lips moving but no sound coming out. He was shaken from the incident, that much was obvious. I knew I wouldn't get any answers out of him. Instead, I stomped over to where the twins had Holly and shoved Atticus out of the way so I could help my roommate back to the hospital ward with Achilles. We left Rashne, Ryker, Lance, Gordon, and Atticus behind us in bewilderment.

I fumed the entire hike back, limping myself with each step I took, taking in sharp hissing breaths. I wanted to unload my anger on Achilles, but refrained. It wasn't him who I was truly angry with. It was that Djinn. How could he have done that? Was it possible he was hoping none of us would come out of there alive? I snuck a peek over my shoulder to see the instructor following us with the others close behind him.

His face was stern and unflinching as he stomped his massive bare feet into the snow-covered, frozen ground. The smoke beneath his blue skin seemed to swirl with more intensity than usual. His ice-blue eyes never left the back of my head, making the hairs on my neck stand on end. It was a different side of Rashne, and I didn't like it one bit. I finally understood what Don had said about the Djinn. In that moment, I believed he really was a creature of Darkness.

The Dream

When we arrived back at headquarters Rashne called me into his office for a private discussion. The hospital ward should have been my first stop with how badly my leg throbbed, but the bleeding had slowed considerably once I pulled my belt tight around my thigh like a tourniquet, and I was curious about what he could possibly have to say. I let Atticus take Holly from me and followed the Djinn in silence.

There was nothing in the small room but an empty desk, a few foldable metal chairs, and bare walls. We sat across from each other, staring intently. He tented his fingers and examined me. Each time he applied pressure to his fingertips, the smoke underneath rippled outward, like when a stone breaking through placid water.

"I didn't do anything wrong," I blurted out before he could speak. "You tossed us to those redcaps unprepared. We're all alive because of me."

He placed his arms on each side of the chair and straightened himself up to his amazing height. Even seated, he towered over me.

"How did you escape, Miss Kamlyn?" he asked with obvious admiration, but there was an underlying accusatory tone I couldn't ignore. "No human is that fast."

I shrugged my shoulders and sat back in my chair. Honestly, what could I say? Even I didn't know how I did it. My legs kept moving me forward until I reached the outside world again. That was all there was to it. Adrenaline was the only answer for how I could do that in the condition my leg was in and not feel it. I sure felt it then as I saw uncomfortably on the hard chair. It alternately throbbed and burned as I shifted my weight.

"I don't know," I mumbled. "I just...ran."

Though he didn't have any eyebrows to raise on his tattooed face, his forehead wrinkled as his piercing eyes widened. He nodded his large head slowly as he inspected me further. What he was searching for, I had no idea. Then, his eyes narrowed as if he were unsure of something. I wanted to look away, but forced myself to hold his gaze.

"You will be a formidable Huntsman, Miss Kamlyn, there is no doubt about that."

Butterflies erupted in my stomach. The sensation spread throughout my entire body, tingling all the way to the tips of my fingers. Something wasn't right. His words sounded like a compliment, but the tone was challenging.

I reached my hand up and rubbed at the side of my neck. After a few seconds, I realized it was the exact spot the birthmark I shared with Danny was. I held my hand there and let the warmth of my skin spread through my hand as if Danny himself were holding me. For a moment, I forgot why I was sitting in the instructor's office.

I didn't have anything left to say to him. Instead, I stared ahead in silence, waiting for the conversation to be over. Exhaustion from the hunt overtook my body. I still had to stop by the hospital ward to check on Holly and see if they could do anything about the punctures and gashes in my leg. It was funny how the pain seemed to fade from me so quickly. Of course, I still felt it, but it was dulled more than it should have been so soon after. I guessed that compared to the loss of a child, every other pain in the world probably seemed insignificant.

"I will take care of the redcaps myself since you and your group failed to do so. If there is nothing else you have to say concerning this evening, you are free to go," he said with a wave of his hand.

It was unfortunate, the way his personality had morphed so suddenly. I couldn't think of anything I had done to set off this change in his behavior. He had once been on my side. Our conversations always had an air of being from one outsider to another. I thought he understood my struggles and what I was there for, but it seemed the tables had turned and he no longer felt that connection with me anymore.

When I got to the hospital ward Holly was already in a gown and tucked into bed. Dahlia lay on the pillow with her head nuzzled behind Holly's ear, using her brilliant red curls as a soft nest. I touched my friend's forehead softly with the back of my hand. She was out cold, but her flesh still warm to the touch. A tightness in my chest I didn't know was there suddenly released its grip on my heart.

A nurse came out from the back room, interrupting my solitude and relief. "I thought I heard someone," she said.

She was an older, plump woman. Her brown wavy hair was pulled up into a tight bun on the top of her head. The uniform they supplied her with reminded me of an old-fashioned candy striper. She wore a white apron tied around her round waist. Her white shoes were flat and sensible. She didn't smile at me—she just looked at me with questioning eyes.

"She's my roommate," I said, pulling my hand from Holly's face. "Also, I wanted to see if you could do anything about the cuts on my leg."

The woman stood with her hands on her wide hips as she tapped a foot on the pristine, white tile floor. She sighed and rolled her eyes before she said, "All right, let's have a look, then."

I set myself down in the armchair next to Holly's bed and worked carefully at untying my boot and rolling up the leg of my pants. It was difficult, considering how tight they were. With each tug it scraped against the raw flesh of my wounds, making me take sharp breaths in.

The nurse gasped at my exposed leg. "My word, child! How are you not writhing in agony?"

For the second time that night, I shrugged my shoulders and sat back in my chair. I didn't want to see what had shocked the woman, so I avoided looking down at all costs. My eyes drifted to the ceiling where fluorescent lights brightened every corner of the room. Again, I reached for the part of my neck containing the wing-shaped birthmark. My skin there was hot to the touch, like it had been seared with iron from the fire.

The nurse ran to the back room and came out with supplies tucked in her apron and the crook of her arms. She set everything down on a cart and wheeled it over.

"What happened, dear?" she asked as she grabbed a bottle of something and applied it to a white rag.

"Redcap attack."

She placed the rag flat onto my leg so it covered the entire wounded area. I winced as it stung like a thousand hornets attacking. Tears welled up in my eyes. I widened them so none would spill out.

"My, my, my, that's just awful," she clucked her tongue. "You're lucky to be alive, dear."

I unclenched my jaw and gave a slight nod. "So I've been told."

"You were with your friend, here, when they hit her, I take it?" She took the rag off my leg and applied more cleaning solution before she dabbed at the wounds.

My muscles tightened and I raised in my seat to get away from the pain. I dug my nails into the arm of the chair and held my breath. She stopped for a second so I could answer.

"Yeah, I had the others help her out while I distracted them."

I wasn't trying to brag. I didn't think of myself as a hero for what I had done. In fact, most would call what I did stupid. I had risked my life for someone I barely knew, who I would probably never see again once we graduated from training. If I had died, the thing that killed Danny would live on and continue to kill innocent people. But something inside me wouldn't let me turn my back on Holly. She needed me. Just like Danny had needed me. I stopped someone in my life from being killed, and that alone was worth it.

"You're a brave young woman," the nurse said. She looked up from my leg and into my eyes with the loving softness of a mother cleaning the wounds of her own child. "You need to stay here for the night. Dahlia might not get to you since your friend's injuries are critical, but I can check on you and make sure you haven't contracted an infection. Those redcaps can be nasty little buggers."

I tried to stand up, but the pain of my ravaged leg hit me hard. Without meaning to, I looked down and immediately felt a dizziness in my head. I took couldn't stop the gasp that escaped my lips. From my thigh down to my ankle there were deep, jagged gashes, each at least six inches long. Flesh hung loosely from the edges of the tears. All the blood drained from my face.

The nurse saw me and took my arm to help me to the bed. "I'm going to give you something to help you sleep," she said as she hurried over to the tray and back. She handed me two large white pills and a small cup of water. "I'll stitch you up while you're asleep. I promise, you won't feel a thing, dear."

The thought of somebody sewing me back together made my stomach do trapeze backflips. It gave a lurch and I covered my mouth with my hands, but thankfully nothing came up. I tossed the pills into my mouth and threw back what little water I had.

It only took about five minutes for the pills to affect me. My head felt as light as a cloud and all the muscles in my body relaxed. My neck felt like soft clay as it swayed back and forth. When my vision blurred, I decided it was time to lie down. I didn't think I could fall asleep knowing what would happen once I did, but the second my head hit the pillow I was out.

For most of the night I didn't dream a thing. My mind was a peaceful blank slate where I could hide from all the horrors of my life. There were no mysterious hooded figures, no dead bodies, no redcaps trying to tear me apart—there was nothing and it was just what I needed.

Slowly the blackness of my empty mind warped itself into the shape of a door. It wasn't a door I had ever seen before. It certainly wasn't the door to Danny's bedroom, where most of my repetitive nightmares started. This door was made of a plain dark wood and had a shiny gold doorknob. Next to it was a high-tech keypad like the one outside the armory. But I didn't have to enter a code. The door opened all on its own.

It was the Dark Artifacts room. I knew it in my gut. There were endless shelves that reached higher than I could see, the ceiling somewhere hidden high in the shadows. And there before me was the man I saw before. He was wearing the same black cloak with the hood up and black gloves on his hands. Instead of standing in the doorway like I had before, I moved forward and approached the man from behind.

Just as he was about to reach his hand out to grab ahold of the goblet, I gripped his shoulder and turned him around. I awoke with a start before I ever saw his face. The man's presence lingered around me in the dimness of the hospital ward. I searched the room, but there was no one there.

I sat up and tried to catch my breath. Sweat clung to my forehead and neck. When the sheets of the bed moved, they rustled against my leg and made me grimace. I pulled them aside and glared down against my better judgement. It looked like something out of a horror movie. Thick black thread stitched each gash together. The skin around each stitch was red and swollen beyond belief. It took everything I had not to gag.

"Are you okay?" a soft voice said from the bed next to me.

Holly was sitting up. She had a fresh white bandage around her head and Dahlia was nowhere to be found. The fact that Holly was awake was a good sign. It momentarily distracted me from my mangled leg. The nurse must have given me something strong for the pain, because there was a small red dot on my arm where a needle had stuck me, and even though my leg looked gruesome I felt little to no pain.

"Uh, yeah," I stumbled over my words as I gathered my thoughts. "Just a bad dream."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I thought about her offer for a few seconds and decided that yes, I did want to talk about it. I had told Don about the dream the first time, and even though I received an explanation of what the goblet was capable of, that was it. He didn't offer me any clue to who might want to take it or what we should do to stop him. In fact, I hadn't heard a word from him since that night. It was time to open up to someone else and take things into my own hands.

"Yeah, I do," I said and turned on the bed to face her.

There was a dim light coming from the back room. It was just enough to make out the lines of her face and her brilliant green eyes. She scooted to the edge of her bed and propped herself up on one hand as she leaned forward and listened intently.

"I've had the dream before. I told Don, but he doesn't seem to want to do anything about it. In the dream I go into a room that's here in headquarters—the Dark Artifacts room."

Holly gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth. "I've heard about that room!" she exclaimed. "That's where the Chamber holds the most evil of things that the Huntsmen find. It's said to be the most dangerous room in the whole entire world. Sorry, go on."

"Anyway, so once I'm inside the room I see a cloaked man and he's trying to reach this big black goblet."

She leaned in closer. I could see her eyes rounded into globes. She urged me on with a nod of her head.

"That's it. I always wake up after that. I mean, tonight I grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, but I woke up before I could see his face."

She sat back in bed. "It's probably just a dream. Maybe you're stressed out and it's making you dream really weird and meaningless stuff."

"It doesn't feel like a dream," I pressed on. "It's more like a glimpse into the future. I don't know how to explain, but it's just a feeling I have. If he hasn't taken the goblet already, he's going to."

"What does this goblet even do?" she shrugged her shoulders and ran her fingers over her thick curls.

"Don brought it in when we came here. He said it has the power to unleash every demon in existence into our world."

Holly straightened her back as her jaw dropped. "Shut up! That's...that's—"

"It would be the worst catastrophe this world has ever seen. It would be the extinction of mankind," I interrupted her stuttering.

She shook her head slowly as if she were in a trance. "What makes you think he hasn't already taken it? I mean, if what you're saying is true and you've seen him in there more than once, then don't you think he'd have it already?"

I shrugged my shoulders. There really was no way to tell if he had taken the goblet yet or not. "I don't know, but if he hasn't then I have to stop him from getting it. And if he has it, then I need to get it back."

Holly let out a harsh, short laugh. "How are you going to do that? You don't even know who he is or where to find him. You should just tell Head Buhari and she'll take care of it."

That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I thought Holly would have been all for a private adventure together to save the world. Instead, she was telling me to pass it off to someone else. I couldn't do that. This was my responsibility. Now that I knew about it, I had to stop it from happening. I couldn't stop Danny from dying, but I sure as hell was going to stop this.

"I can't sit back and do nothing."

"What about your training? If you don't pass, then you won't be able to go after your son's killer and this will all have been for nothing," she said, stabbing me in the heart.

I knew she hadn't meant to cause me pain, so I didn't lash out at her for it. In truth, she was right. I couldn't do anything else to screw up my chance of becoming a Huntsman. It was my only way to get my revenge.

"Tell the Head and she will have it figured out in no time. There's only a handful of people who have access to that room, anyway."

"I guess you're right," I said softly.

The response satisfied Holly. She smiled and lay her head back down on her pillow. I did the same, but my eyes remained open. Guilt gnawed at me for lying to Holly, but I had to. I couldn't take the chance of her stopping me from retrieving the goblet before it fell into the wrong hands.

The Shtriga

I stayed in the hospital ward another night so my leg could be healed by Dahlia. Her powers were amazing. If only the rest of the world knew of what she could do. She took all my pain and endured it throughout the entire night. I didn't know where she disappeared to or what she did to rid herself of the pain, but she always came back in perfect health, ready to help another hurt friend.

Unfortunately, the damage to my leg was so extensive that she couldn't prevent it from permanent disfiguration. Long, lumpy white scars ran every which way to forever remind me of the failure of my first hunt. It was added to a long list of failures that weighed on me. I was not in a good mood when I left, to say the least.

My group ate in a hurry before we met in the lobby for our second hunt. To let us heal from any damage and to gather our minds from whatever horror we faced, the Chamber gave us a day or two off in between each excursion. In that time, we could stay in the hospital ward, work on our physical fitness, practice our weapon skills on our own, or study the material from our classes. Latin proved to be a difficult subject. I never had the gift of language, even when I attempted freshman Spanish in high school. Technology was more interesting that I thought it would be. I was eager to learn more about the devices we could use to alert us to certain evil presences. But I spent the entire time in the hospital ward, hoping it wouldn't become a habit since I wanted to improve my sword wielding, among other things.

David Yu met the seven of us by the elevator doors. I couldn't stop my eyes from rolling. It would be an interesting night. I was mad that Don hadn't contacted me in so long, but I still yearned for him to be the one to take us out. Anything would have been better than David, I thought.

"All right, kids! Cloaks on, hoods up, let's head out," he said as he clapped his hands together.

Ryker didn't budge from where he stood as the others did as they were told. "Hold up. We're not going anywhere this time until you tell us what it is we're up against."

For once, I agreed with him. I at least wanted the time it took to get there to figure out a plan of attack. They would not send us in blind again.

David stopped, looked up at the ceiling, and gave a loud sigh. "Enough with the dramatics, Alexander. We're going after a Shtriga, so unwad your underwear."

This seemed to satisfy Ryker. He followed David into the elevator without another word.

As we rode it up, I racked my brain for all I knew about Shtrigas. They were a type of vampire...or were they witches? Either way, they drank the blood of their victims while they slept. This didn't kill the person right away, but it poisoned the blood left in them. If the Shtriga didn't cure them, the person weakened and died within twenty-four hours from the attack.

The elevator dinged once when we reached the top floor and the doors slid opened soundlessly. This time the expansive windows in the lobby weren't as impressive. I didn't see the outside as somewhere holding fresh air and freedom anymore. All it meant was pain and possible death. It meant putting my friends in danger again.

"The Shtriga is expected to hit a house in the small town closest to us. She's been going in a straight line down the same road every night," David explained as we walked. "Now, how do you stop a Shtriga?"

Finally, some good old-fashioned preparation. He quizzed us before the hunt took place, correcting us when we were wrong in our answers, which was what should have happened the first time we went out.

"You shoot it with an iron round dipped in holy water while it's feeding," Ryker said before anyone else had the chance.

"Yup, this is an easy one, guys. Get in quietly, shoot it, and get out."

The walk to Nederland wasn't too strenuous. It was only two and a half miles away and an almost straight shot down CO-132 to CO-119. In the middle of the night the two-lane roads were deserted.

We walked along the side near the tree line, hidden from sight in case anyone drove past unexpectedly. Surely, eight figures in hooded black cloaks would raise suspicions, especially since three people had been attacked in the area in the last three nights.

Trucks had plowed the snow earlier, but where we walked still had at least six inches piled up. I had remembered to tie my boots tighter so no moisture could seep in like on the last hunt. The snow was fresh and crunched under our feet as we trudged forward.

We only saw two cars in the forty-five minutes it took to make our way from the forested mountains surrounding headquarters to the outskirts of the quiet, little town of Nederland. The welcome sign read,

NEDERLAND

WELCOMES YOU

ELEVATION 8,236

POPULATION 1,959

AREA 7,500

When we finally turned onto West Spruce Road, the unfortunate stretch that had fallen prey to the vampire witch, there wasn't a single sound to be heard—no late night birds chirping, no breeze to rustle the branches of the pines, no voices coming from nearby houses or cars driving by. It was dead silent.

The homes were all similarly colored with an orange-ish stained wood siding. Some were one-story and others were two. None had garages, but a few had shanty-like carports erected in their dirt driveways.

"This is it," David said, stopping in front of a run-down house. "Get it done."

He hung back while the seven of us climbed the steps to the porch before attempting to break in without making a sound. Lance pulled out his multi-tool and set to work on the lock. In under a minute we heard a small click and the door creaked opened.

"You have to show me how to do that," Holly whispered excitedly.

Lance stood up and looked down at her with a crooked smile, but didn't say anything.

I went in first with Ryker trailing closely behind me. He hadn't said a word about his last failed attempt to hunt with the group and he hadn't reassured us he would have our backs this time. That's why Holly, Atticus, Achilles, and I came up with a plan on our own before we ever set out for the evening. No matter what we faced, the four of us knew we'd have each other's backs.

When I reached the closed door to the bedroom I stopped and turned to my group. "I'll go in and shoot the Shtriga. Holly is on light duty again. Achilles and Atticus are back up—"

"What about me?" Ryker demanded in a whisper.

I faced him sternly. "You can be back up too, obviously."

He shook his head and pushed me out of the way to stand next to the door. "Nu-uh, no way. I want to be the one to go in first and shoot it."

I attempted to shove him aside while he planted his feet firmly on the noisy wooden floor. "I don't think so. Last time you bailed on us. You can't be trusted." I kept my voice as low as possible, but put a good amount of bite behind the words.

"All the more reason I should be the first to go in this time!" he said too loudly.

Before anyone knew what happened, the door sprang open and a set of leathery, gray hands wrenched me into the darkness of the bedroom. The clutch on my shoulders threatened to shatter my collar bone. The Shtriga pulled my head to the side and sank its jagged teeth into the tender part of my neck where it met the shoulder. Immediately, a burning sensation spread from the wound throughout my body. I could feel the disease making its way through my veins, like lava through my veins singing every nerve, already starting its process of killing me from the inside.

Screams from the hallway erupted as the group argued about what to do. Their voices sounded far away. My vision blurred and narrowed so it looked like they were at the far end of a long stretch of tunnel. I felt myself fading away as the blood drained from my body.

I couldn't see the Shtriga as it stood behind me, but its stench filled my nostrils. It made me want to reach up and plug my nose, but my arms were too weak to move. All I saw was the ceiling fan motionless above me.

"We have to save her!" Holly screeched as she pulled out her gun and aimed.

"No!" Achilles intervened and knocked the gun out of the way. "None of us are a good enough shot. We could hit Kamlyn!"

"I can do it," Ryker said, but the group immediately shot him down.

"I'll get David!" Holly said.

Her footsteps pattered on the hard floor, but she didn't make it far.

The loud blast of a gun echoed through the cabin and shook the walls. For a moment, I thought I was dead. My body felt weightless, like I was floating through the air. When I hit the ground with a painful thud, I knew I was still alive.

The Shtriga's forceful grip released from my body and her teeth were no longer stuck in the side of my neck. I sank to the floor with a thud. My head lolled to the side as I lay there to see David Yu standing in the doorway.

"What the hell?" I heard a deep, unfamiliar voice shout from behind. The man we saved had woken up in chaos.

"Oh, thank god!" Holly breathed out as she rushed to my side, ignoring the fuming man in the bedroom. "We need to get her back to the ward!"

"You better get the hell outta here! I'm calling the police!"

David pushed the others out of the way and slipped his hands underneath my body. With ease, he lifted me up and carried me in his arms from the cabin. I let my head rest against his shoulder as I watched the stars in the sky twinkle.

Everyone in the group followed behind us, talking in hushed whispers. I still felt weak, my head spinning, but there were questions I needed answered.

"What about the guy?" I asked weakly.

David didn't look at me. He stared ahead as he continued to walk at a brisk pace. "He wasn't bit. He'll be fine."

"Am I going to die?"

His dark, thin eyes looked down, his mouth a straight line. He didn't answer. He only stared and then turned his gaze back to the road.

The cold February air stung my cheeks, but did nothing to revive me from my daze. My lids grew heavier. Then, suddenly, the world around me faded away until I slipped into nothingness.

I awoke in a daze in the hospital ward. The nurse was running around from one storage cabinet to another, yelling to herself. "I know it's here somewhere!" she sounded panicked. "I know we have some left!"

My eyelids parted just enough for me to see what was going on around my bed. Holly stood in the corner by the chair, tears streaming down her red face. Achilles and Atticus were huddled together by her, their expressions dark and full of dread. Even Gordon Scott had tears in his eyes as he looked on at the chaos that consumed the ward. Lance stood next to him, his thick lips pulled down into a painful frown, sweat gathered on his forehead. David was helping the nurse to search for whatever it was she was looking for.

I moved my head enough to glance at the spot on the pillow where Dahlia usually lay, but she wasn't there. Instead, the petite white bird was sitting at the foot of the bed. She craned her neck to stare as far away from me as possible. Panic rose through my chest, making it impossible to breathe.

"Why won't she look at me?" I cried out.

David and the nurse stopped for a moment and stared. Holly turned and buried her face into Lance's shoulder as she sobbed. Achilles rubbed at the back of his neck as his eyes glossed over.

"Why won't she look at me?!" I cried out again.

David walked over as the nurse continued to search, knocking glass bottles and vials down with her shaky hands. He placed a hand gently on my shoulder. The weight of it was almost unbearable. My face scrunched together as I winced.

"We're doing all we can, Paige," he said softly. "But a Shtriga bite can only be cured by the saliva of a Shtriga."

My eyes welled up as I stared at his grave face. "What does that mean?"

"It means Dahlia can't help you...and if we don't find the vial containing the saliva...you'll die soon from the bite."

My eyes widened and my jaw clenched. It wasn't so much the fear of death that sent my nerves firing. It was everyone standing over me, crying, not ready to say their goodbyes as I withered away that choked me up. I never got to say goodbye to my son. One minute he was there and the next he was gone. And what about his killer? I still had to stop it from hurting others! Suddenly, panic overtook me and I tried to sit up, eyes as wide as the full moon.

"We'll find that vial, Paige, and you'll be fine," David said with mustered confidence followed by a sniff. "Don't worry."

He left my side to search another cabinet on the other end of the room. I craned my neck to look at Dahlia again. The little bird, whom I thought had grown especially close to me in all my visits to the ward, wouldn't turn her head to look at me for one second. I called out her name and tried to make a kissing sound to grab her attention. Nothing worked. She kept her head awkwardly turned away to glare at the entrance.

As I lay in the bed staring up at the bright white ceiling, I couldn't help wondering what dying felt like. Will it hurt or will I slip away without feeling a thing? Had it hurt Danny or was he dead before he knew what happened? Would someone eventually destroy the thing that killed my son or would it live on forever without me to take my revenge?

I tried to sit up again, but my head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. It wouldn't budge an inch. Instead, I looked at Holly and called out to her to come to my side. She wiped the tears from her face and rushed over. Once she was beside my bed, she took my hand in hers and squeezed it tight.

"I need you to do something for me." My voice was strained and weak. The disease was taking me quick. "If I don't make it, I need you to find Danny's killer and stop it."

Holly shook her head as the floodgates opened. "No, you're not going to die," she sobbed.

"If I do," I pressed. "Please. Do it."

She closed her eyes and finally nodded her head. "Okay, I will."

In all the craziness I hadn't noticed, but someone who should have been there was not.

"Where's Ryker?"

Holly let out a satisfied snort. "He's meeting with Vice-Head Rutherford now. Hopefully the little jerk gets what he deserves and is out of here by morning."

The feelings that bubbled up inside me weren't ones of happiness or excitement, as I thought I would have felt at hearing the news of no longer having to deal with Ryker Alexander. There was only guilt. Because of both our actions that night, a young man might lose his dream of being a Huntsman—the one thing in the world he wanted more than anything. The one thing this world needed more of.

I thought about being denied the chance to take my revenge, the one thing I wanted. It tore me up inside to think someone I knew might go through the agony of unaccomplished desires. One more Huntsman in the world meant so many more lives saved. They couldn't kick him out.

"I found it!" David's voice cried out.

He ran over and popped the cork off the top of a tiny glass vial. Inside was a thick, clear liquid.

"You need to drink this," he said, shoving it toward my lips. "Don't think about it, just do it."

I wrinkled my nose and took the vial containing the Shtriga's saliva in my hand. It smelled like wet, rancid meat. I pictured worms and maggots ravaging a rotting animal carcass. Holding my breath, I tossed the vial back and let the thick liquid slide down my throat. Instantly, I wanted to gag. The taste was worse than the smell. But I clamped my mouth shut and forced it to stay down.

My eyes fell on Dahlia, still sitting by my feet. Her tiny feathered head stirred as she cocked it to the side. She stood up on her golden leathered talons as she moved in a circle. When her black eyes landed on mine I felt a warmth spread through my heart. She hopped up the woolen blanket and settled herself in by my shoulder. I let my head rest against her back. Her soft white feathers brushed against my warmed cheek.

The Vice-Head

I stayed in the hospital for the next day and night while everyone went to class and practiced training with the katana sword. Still weak from the loss of blood, I was out from the time I swallowed that awful Shtriga's saliva in the early morning until midnight.

My body was heavy with exhaustion. My eyelids fluttered as I forced them to open. From the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow. It was Don sprawled out on the chair next to my bed. It felt like a dream. I looked around to make sure I was in the real world and not still stuck somewhere inside my subconscious. But it was really him there, asleep with his mouth slightly parted and his hardened face in desperate need of a shave.

I cleared my throat and he shot up like a Jack in the Box.

"You're up," he said, his voice gruff and groggy.

He rubbed at his face and shook his head a few times to get rid of any lingering sleepiness. After one giant yawn he perked up, sat on the edge of his seat, and looked at me intently.

"How are you feeling?"

I tried to sit up, but it was a painful process. I couldn't put to words the amount of exhaustion my body felt. It ran deep into my bones. When I finally wrangled myself up onto the propped pillow, I swayed before I could see straight again.

"I've been better," I said. Don nodded his head and patted the back of my hand with his. "I've also been worse, so all in all I'd say I'm okay."

Without explanation or warning, Don slumped over so his head rested on my hand in his. His shoulders moved up and down as he wept silently into the bedsheets. I had never seen a man cry before. I wasn't sure what to say, so I didn't say anything at all.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there," he said with a sniff. "I should have been there."

"It's not your fault. I should have known better," I protested.

He lifted his head and wiped the tears from his face, avoiding eye contact all the while.

"Not to sound accusatory or anything, but where were you?" I couldn't help asking.

It was something I had been wondering for almost the entire twelve weeks of training. Holly met with her godmother at least three times a week. Achilles and Atticus's father met with them every other day. Mr. Ignatius Alexander, the royal highness himself, met with Ryker every single day after training. Same with Lance and Gordon's parents. And yet I'd only had one mentor meeting with Don in all my time there.

"I had business to take care of."

I kept my eyes trained on his so he could feel the weight of my curiosity. He owed me an explanation this time. I didn't blame him, but he should have been there for the mentor meetings at the very least. Why had he volunteered for the position of group mentor if he was never going to be able to take us out hunting?

"Is that all you have to say? It was business?" I tried to hide the annoyance in my voice, but some of it slipped through.

He looked at me with glossy gray eyes. There were dark circles around them that made his face look gaunt and tired. I didn't doubt he had business to take care of. I just wished, for once, he'd let me in.

"Kamlyn, I wish I could tell you, but I can't. But I did have some time to drop by the house for some things. Here," he said and handed me an envelope with nothing written on it.

My brow furrowed as my head cocked to the side. "What's this?"

"Just open it," he said as he stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow," he assured me before I could ask. He walked out the door and left me in solitude to read the mysterious letter.

Once I opened it, I knew immediately who it was from by the girlish handwriting.

Dear Kammy,

I miss you so much. I just had to get that out before anything else. Being in this house without you is not the same. I wish you could be here or I could be wherever you are. I hope that your training is going well.

I got worried when you didn't call. No one told me you'd be gone this long. I didn't know how to reach you to find out if you were okay. There were some pretty dark days for me during the last few months, but then Don showed up at the door unexpectedly. I have to say, I've never been so happy to see a strange man at my door before. I actually hugged him!

He said that you are doing well and that you should be back home sometime in May. I don't know the exact date, but I'm still counting the days! He said that you'd had some setbacks, mainly due to one annoying kid who won't let up. I just want to tell you that no matter what happens I'm proud of you, and I know Danny would be too. What you're doing for him is incredibly brave and noble and I know he was very proud to have you as his mother, just as I am proud to call you my best friend.

Don is hovering over me while I write this so I better get going. Please be safe and return home soon!

Cara Bellamy

XOXO

Had he gone all the way to Indiana just to bring me back a letter from Cara? A lump caught in my throat. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry. There was no telling what he had been up to while he was away, but I suspected he had done this just for me and I was grateful.

I reread the letter a couple times with nothing more than the dim lamp on my nightstand to light the paper. It read like the notes we used to pass back and forth to each other during high school. Life was funny, the way some people changed so drastically while others stayed their same perfect selves. I hoped Cara never changed—never went through the things I went through to make me who I was now.

When I finally regained most of my strength and left the hospital ward, I didn't get far before someone found me in the hallway.

"Kamlyn Paige?" a young man I had never seen before asked.

I looked up at him and his slicked back white-blonde hair. "Uh, yeah?"

"Vice-Head Rutherford would like to see you in his office."

How long had he been standing outside the door waiting for me to come out? And what did the Vice-Head want with me? I remembered how the others said Ryker had seen him about possibly being kicked out. Was there any chance I could be kicked out for being injured too many times or for arguing with Ryker too much? The thought made my stomach curl up into a tight ball with the weight of a heavy rock.

I followed the man through various hallways until we ended up in front of a wide, black door with a silver plaque nailed to it. A heavy weight settled in on my chest as I stared at the name etched into it.

"Go ahead," the blonde man said before he turned on the heel of his boot and walked away.

With a deep breath, I knocked on the door three times. A muffled voice told me to come in.

The office wasn't anything like I expected from the grandeur of the doorway. It was slightly larger than a walk-in closet. On the desk sat endless stacks of folders and papers in a jumbled mess. The wall of filing cabinets looked to be in disarray, as if someone had broken in and rifled through them quickly. There were three chairs in the room and each one was covered in wadded up, discarded papers and notes.

"Mr. Rutherford, sir?" I said meekly, stuck in the doorway. "Should I come back another time?"

The disheveled man was bent over the waste basket, rifling through it with fury. Even though his face was contorted from stress, the part in his brown hair remained perfectly straight.

"What? Oh, Miss Paige. No, no, come on in." He straightened his tie and sat down in the seat behind his desk. He motioned for me to do the same.

I looked down at one of the chairs and then back at him.

"It's okay, just toss those on the floor," he said.

I did just that and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. My ankle bounced up and down as I struggled to sit still. He was being nice enough, but that didn't mean I wouldn't be kicked out. All I could do was hold my breath and wait for him to say it.

"I suppose you know why you're here," he started with his hands folded on his desk.

"In all honesty, no, sir."

He chuckled oddly, like the hissing of a snake. "Oh my, I must have given you quite a scare then, asking you to come down here!"

He continued to laugh even though I didn't. Odd, what some people found funny. I waited patiently for it to pass.

"Right," he collected himself and moved on. "Halfway through training we like to meet with the initiates and evaluate how they're doing and what their thoughts are—what they like about the training, what they don't like, assess any problems they might be having."

He stared at me with dark eyes and a plastered smile.

"Well, I'm doing fine, I guess," I started off hesitantly. "I like the training and the instructors. I've learned a lot. There's been a few accidents along the way, but nothing I can't handle—"

"Good!" he burst out with a loud clap of his hands. "That's what I like to hear!"

I jumped in my seat a little, but tried to play it off like I was only readjusting myself.

"We have high hopes for you, Miss Paige. You show great potential. And as far as your little 'accidents' go," he used air quotes around the word, "you shouldn't be having any more of those."

I narrowed my eyes as I thought about what he said. Sure, Ryker had been a pain in my ass the entire time, but I didn't want him kicked out. I didn't want to ruin his life.

"Oh, please, you don't have to send Ryker home just because he slipped up a few times around me. They really were accidents. He didn't mean anything by them," I rambled.

Mr. Rutherford waved his bony hands in front of his face. "Not another word, Miss Paige. It's already been taken care of."

I covered my mouth with my hand and closed my eyes. With a deep breath, I tried to steady myself to continue on with the conversation.

"Are you all right, Miss Paige?" he asked politely from across the desk.

"Sure, yeah, yes," I stammered. "Thank you. I'm fine. I just hate to see someone leave, even if we weren't all that close."

"We all do, but that's the way these things go. An entire group never makes it through training together. Some people can hack it and others can't. But you shouldn't feel bad about that one bit. Mr. Alexander knows what he did. We have a strict three strike policy here and he was unfortunate enough to hit that third one the other night."

I nodded my head as if I understood, but deep inside I trembled. What strike was I on? How long until they made me leave too? He said they had high hopes for me. Did that mean I was doing well, or they had expected me to do better?

Of all the people not to make it through, I couldn't believe Ryker Alexander was the one to go home—the twelfth generation Huntsman with more confidence than I had ever seen in a twenty-one year old before. But I had to admit that he made some horrible mistakes that cost me and Holly a great deal of pain along the way. He abandoned us once and left us for dead, gave us away the second time, and I was almost one hundred percent positive he shot me in the foot on purpose. I didn't want to believe it, but that look in his eyes never left me. He was pleased to see me writhing in pain on the floor. Why couldn't I be pleased that he was in just as much pain now?

"Is there anything you'd like to bring up about training? Any other problems you might have? Or anything weird that's going on?"

My thoughts immediately went to the dreams I had and how Don and Holly weren't doing a thing to help me. I wanted to tell Mr. Rutherford about what I saw—that someone was trying to steal the demon goblet from the Dark Artifacts room, but something stopped me. Going around telling people I was having weird prophetic dreams might not be the best idea. I had my suspicions about who could be the one trying to steal it, but really it could be anyone. It was best to keep my mouth shut until I knew more.

"No, there's nothing else."

He smiled grandly and clapped his hands together again. "All right, then. Off to class with you." He stood up and held out his hand to shake mine. His grip was hard, but professional.

There was only fifteen minutes left before Creatures and Beings class started for the evening, but I wanted to make a run back to my room to change my clothes. I had been in the same ones for days and I desperately needed a shower as well. If I hurried, I would make it in time. I wouldn't want to get a strike on my record, if showing up late even counted as one.

I ran through the initiate's wing, but stopped when I saw one of the doors propped open. Ryker was inside packing his bags. He looked up at me and scowled.

"What do you want?" he spat.

I shook my head. There was nothing I could say to make him feel better about what happened. I knew it was entirely his own fault he had to leave the Chamber of Darkness, but there was still a gnawing guilt inside me.

"I'm sorry this happened."

He scoffed and shoved more clothes into his bag. "Nobody's buying it, Paige. You got exactly what you wanted."

"I never wanted you to get kicked out," I protested, taking a few steps into his room. "I just wanted you to leave me alone and let me do my job."

He stopped and stared. The muscles in his defined jaw pulsated as he clenched his teeth together. His thick brow settled atop his dark eyes.

"Like I said, you got what you wanted."

I let out a huff. The conversation was not going as I hoped. "At least you still have your family to go home to," I offered. And I genuinely meant it. I would trade places with him any day if it meant I could be with my family again; my mom, my dad, my son.

He cocked his head to look at me. The lines in his face displayed the deep anger he harbored inside. He snorted.

"Home? Family? I don't have either anymore! Once my father found out I wasn't going to finish my training, he told me not to come home, that I was no longer his son and I should find somewhere else to live because I wasn't welcome at the home of Alexander anymore."

My lips parted as my jaw fell open. How could a father say such a thing to his own son? It made my blood boil and my nerves fire off with white hot hatred. Didn't his father know how lucky he was to have his son? No matter what happened in life, he should cherish the fact that he can still wrap his arms around Ryker whenever he wanted. Instead, he cast him off like garbage because he didn't have it in him to be a Huntsman.

"I'm so sorry," I said, my voice a little raspy. "That's awful. But maybe now you can go out on your own and figure out what you want to do with your life, instead of what your father wants you to do. You never really wanted to be a Huntsman, did you?"

He averted his eyes to the bed where his bag sat. Wetness gathered in the corners as he stared into nothingness. With a quick sniff, he hardened his face again.

"Please, just go."

I gave a weak smile and nodded. "Good luck, Ryker."

"You too, Paige," I heard him say softly once I was out the door.

The Exorcism

Weeks passed into March. Everything went smoothly following Ryker Alexander's departure. Every now and then I caught myself wondering where he ended up and what he was doing with himself. No one else seemed bothered by his absence, not even his two friends. Holly, Atticus, and Achilles were over the moon about the fact he was no longer a part of our hunting group. We were down a man, but we did better than ever without him. There wasn't a single hunt that went unaccomplished, not the poltergeist or the restless spirit haunting the hotel a few towns over. For the first time since I showed up at the Chamber of Darkness seventeen weeks ago, I felt like I belonged there.

Since we were in the final two months of training, the focus shifted from practice to evaluation. This set everyone on edge. If we failed even a single test it meant the end of our career. We would have to turn in our uniforms and weapons, sign contracts to never speak of the Chamber, and go back to our lives as if nothing happened. The thought made my shoulders tense up and my heart race. I had to finish training.

The first test was to be evaluated by Rashne. He revealed what the test entailed only twenty-four hours prior. Most complained about the short time frame to prepare, but I was happy he told us at all. We had to exorcise a demon from a living person's body while everyone watched. I spent the entire day before the test studying Latin, the Rite of Exorcism, and demonology.

The group of now thirty-three Huntsman initiates gathered in the cavernous hall where we first swore our allegiance. A man tied to a wooden chair sat limp in the center of the grand room. The demon's looming presence made the place feel dank and foreboding. My eyes flickered to the far corner where I thought I saw another figure cloaked in black with long skeletal hands, but no one was there. A weight pressed down on my chest. I had an overwhelming feeling that someone in the room was going to die.

Rashne stood near the possessed man, holding a clipboard that looked like a toy in his massive blue hands. "Kamlyn Paige, you will attempt to exorcise the demon from this man first. If you will please step up."

Of course I would be the first to go. I heaved a heavy breath and walked up to meet the Djinn instructor and the sad, pathetic man in the chair. I couldn't see much of him with his head turned down as far as it was. Matted brown, shoulder-length hair hung low in his face.

"Whenever you are ready, Miss Kamlyn," Rashne said politely.

I stared up into his swirling blue face. It showed no signs of the harshness I had seen the night we hunted the redcaps. Was it possible I misconstrued his reaction as anger toward me when really it might have been for Ryker? He was the one who abandoned us after all, something I was sure Rashne did not value in a Huntsman.

I let the incident go, though I still held onto my suspicions. After all, the person in my dream had been wearing gloves, maybe to prevent anyone from seeing his blue hands. Also, Rashne was a Djinn, a species of supernatural beings that were not well known for their friendliness. Sure, Rashne could be the exception to his kind, but then again he might not.

The closer I got to the man in the chair, the more the sulfuric scent of rotten eggs filled my nostrils. It was the same one from Danny's room the night of his murder. Immediately, panic overcame me. My throat and chest tightened up, making it hard to breathe. I heaved short intakes of air as I tried to steady myself. It didn't work. I closed my eyes and let the image of my son's smiling face fill me up and slow the beating of my racing heart.

"Miss Kamlyn?" Rashne asked in his deep voice.

I opened my eyes. The man in the chair had finally raised his head. His bottomless, black eyes fixated on mine. There was a low rumble emanating from the depths of his throat. The joker smile plastered on his bruised and beaten face made my stomach clench with fear.

"You're right to feel scared, you know?" a raspy, unnatural voice slithered out from his cracked, pale lips.

I couldn't break my gaze from his. He had me. I knew I shouldn't have, but I kept listening. Something inside said he wasn't going to spew a trail of lies that lead nowhere, as demons were known to do. What he had to say would be useful. It could even be something about Danny's killer. Only a demon would know where to find its brethren, after all. I waited for it to continue.

"You have a traitor in the Chamber. It's only a matter of time before he gets his hands on the Goblet of Demons and unleashes all of us on your lowly world. We will take over mankind and destroy each and every one of—"

A burst of blue light filled the room. The man's head slumped forward again. He didn't move. I turned to see Rashne, his hands out in front of him, heaving great breaths as blue flames retreated back into his hands. He straightened himself up to his full, towering height.

"Why'd you do that?" I shouted.

"The test is over for today. Everyone out," Rashne commanded. "Everyone except you, Miss Kamlyn."

My face fell. I was as good as gone. He motioned with his finger for me to follow him out of the room. The other initiates stood around and watched as I walked behind the giant Djinn. I'm sure most of them thought it would be the last time they would see me. Holly's eyes fell with sadness.

As the Djinn and I walked through the narrow winding halls, I couldn't stop thinking about what the demon had said. His inhuman voice filled me until I couldn't hear anything else. Rashne banished the demon before it could name the traitor. Had he intended to do that, or was he trying to protect me from being sucked into the demon's lies? They hadn't felt like lies. Intuition told me it had only spoke the truth.

We stopped in front of a familiar office. Rashne nodded his head toward the large black door and then turned and walked away without a word. I knocked and heard a familiar, erratic voice call from inside.

"Miss Paige, we meet again," Mr. Rutherford said in a cheery yet frazzled voice. "Please, have a seat."

His office wasn't in the same scattered disarray it had been in the last time I was there—at least the chairs were cleared. The desk, however, was still covered in the same stacks of papers and folders as before.

I couldn't take not knowing what would happen to me. Was I staying? Was I going? Had I failed my first evaluation? I had to know immediately or my heart would burst. My patience lingered somewhere outside the door.

"Sir, am I being kicked out?" I asked eagerly while sitting on the edge of my seat.

He gave a small, nervous laugh as he looked up from the drawer he searched through. "You really have a fear of being asked to leave this place, don't you?"

With all seriousness I said, "Yes, I do."

His smile faded as his face fell. He nodded his head with a vacant expression. Long fingers tented at his mouth. Then, he pointed at me and said, "I can tell you really want this. Some kids, they come through here because it's a family tradition. They feel like they have to. But not you. You want this more than anything because it's simply what you want."

What I wanted was to roll my eyes, but I stopped myself. The chitchat was intolerable. "With all due respect, can we just get to the point? Sorry, I don't mean to be blunt, it's just that I obviously failed the first test and we were told if we fail even one, then we're out."

Casimir Rutherford straightened himself up in his chair and adjusted his necktie. He cleared his throat. "I'll let you in on a little secret." He leaned slightly over the desk. "It's a lie. We just say that so the initiates will try their absolute best. Fear brings out something special in a person, don't you agree, Miss Paige?"

The use of the word "fear" brought back the first words the demon spoke to me. He said that I was right to be afraid. And I was. There were so many things I was afraid of—losing someone else I loved, Danny's killer never being brought to justice, getting kicked out of the Chamber, and whoever the traitor was getting their hands on the Goblet of Demons and ending the world as we knew it.

I nodded in agreement to his revelations about fear. "I still don't understand why I was brought here, sir."

"The demon seemed to have touched a nerve in you when it spoke. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. What did it say, exactly?"

"How do you know about—?"

"News travels fast in the Chamber."

I still wasn't ready to open up to anyone else about the traitor. I shrugged my shoulders and lied through my teeth. "Just some stuff about my son." I hoped Rashne wouldn't reveal to him what the demon had actually said. It was a chance I was willing to take.

"Ah," he said and looked down. "Well, if you're sure you are all right, then you are free to go. I hope you have better luck in the future, Miss Paige."

"Thank you," I spoke in a hurry as I rushed out.

"Oh, Miss Paige!" he called as I was about to shut the door. "You don't have to worry about crossing paths with that demon again. Rashne didn't just banish it. He killed it. It will never spew its hateful lies to anyone else. I hope that brings some comfort to you."

I forced a weak smile and shut the door behind me. We had never learned about killing demons, only banishing them. Djinns were powerful beings, so maybe they had abilities mere humans did not possess. It was possible.

The questions kept piling up in me until I couldn't take it anymore. I had to unload on someone. I raced back to my room hoping to find Holly there. When I burst in she was sitting at the desk looking over her notes. She twirled a pen through her curls until it got tangled.

"Hey!" I said and she jumped, ripping the pen from her hair. "Can we talk?"

"Of course," she said as she rubbed her head. "What about?"

"The test."

She threw her notes down and sighed. "Oh, thank God! It was killing me not knowing what that was all about."

"You heard what the demon said, right?"

She squinted her eyes and shook her head. Her red, springy curls moved across her shoulders. "It was kind of hard to hear from where I was standing."

I sat down in the chair across from hers. I couldn't keep my legs from bouncing up and down. The weight from my hands on my knees did little to suppress it.

"It said that I was right. That we do have a traitor in the Chamber and they are trying to get ahold of this Goblet of Demons," I said all in one breath.

Holly only stared with her face cupped in her hand and her elbow rested on the wooden table. "Not this again. You know demons do nothing but lie, right? They get into your head and toy with your emotions and fears."

"Yeah, I know all that, but this one wasn't."

She rolled her eyes and sat up straight. "And how do you know that?"

I smacked my hand down on the table. My nerves couldn't take it anymore. I closed my eyes for a second to compose myself.

"Call it intuition," I said calmly.

Her eyes were wide as she stared at me like I should have been in a straight jacket. "Okay...let's say that..."

"We have to do something about it."

She ruffled her hair with her fingers as she avoided eye contact. Her other hand reached for the pen on the table and twirled it around aimlessly.

"I don't know. I said it before—I think you should give up on all this and focus on your training. If something's going on, Head Buhari will take care of it. She's the best at all this. That's why she's in charge."

"But I think I know who it is!" I exclaimed, bouncing in my seat.

Her green eyes widened. Her red eyebrows raised up in anticipation.

"It's Rashne."

She threw her head back and gave a high, girlish laugh. "The Creatures and Beings instructor? The one who's been with the Chamber for hundreds of years? I think you're losing it, Kamlyn."

I sat back in the chair and let my body slump down. No one believed me. How was I supposed to stop Rashne from taking the goblet and unleashing hell on earth by myself? I had have to figure that out later. It had to be done whether I had anyone to help me or not.

"Yeah, maybe you're right," I said, distant. "I must be going crazy."

The Werewolf

The day after I failed my first attempt to exorcise a demon, the entire class got another chance at it. We all passed without incident and Rashne only killed the demons once we finished. There were no more messages from any of them about the traitor. I was both happy and disappointed.

The entire month of March was a blur. As the days went by I spent any spare time I had figuring out how to take down Rashne before he got his big blue hands on the Goblet of Demons. I was a woman obsessed. My thoughts drifted in the middle of conversations and classes. The desire to stop him even invaded my dreams. Everyone around me seemed to notice I wasn't all there. Holly tried to ignore the fact that when she talked my eyes were always staring off somewhere far into the distance.

I walked into the last lesson of the day with Holly and the twins behind me. We all sat together and I spaced off as they talked about what the next test might entail. All I had to do was get through three hours of Rashne droning on about mermaids and I was free to seclude myself and plot his downfall.

Our group went out the night before on a hunt for a witch, which meant we had the night off. I looked forward to brainstorming alone in my room. Don wanted to have a mentor meeting, but I planned on blowing it off. He had done it before, so I didn't think it would be a big deal if I did just this once.

But the night had other plans.

Rashne rushed into the room. "Everyone retrieve your weapons and meet by the elevators. We have an emergency situation that requires all hands." He spoke in a hurry.

The room erupted in excited conversation. Everyone did as they were told. We gathered in the front lobby within ten minutes to wait for whoever would take us out. It surprised me when I saw both David Yu and Rashne walking side by side. In all the time I had been there, I couldn't remember ever seeing them together.

David spoke up before his feet stopped moving. Rashne looked down at him with ice-blue narrowed eyes.

"Listen up, kids. We've got a rogue werewolf situation. It was spotted in a nearby town tonight and has already killed one person and wounded another. This is a dangerous one. I need you all focused and ready. Anything you'd like to add, Rashne?"

David turned his head to look up at the blue Djinn. His lips pursed and his thin eyes narrowed to the point of being closed. There was obviously something going on between the two of them that we weren't aware of. Maybe David knew about the goblet and had his sights zeroed in on Rashne as well.

The Djinn didn't answer. He stared straight ahead. His bulging muscles tightened and released beneath his black tank top.

"All right, let's move out then!"

It took three trips in the elevator to get all thirty-five people up to the main level. David rode each time to make sure no one tried to sneak off to duck out of the dangerous hunt. Apparently, previous initiates had tried.

The world differed from the last time I saw it. The snow was all but melted and the cool air no longer stung my cheeks. Behind the tall pine trees, the full yellow moon shone brightly, lighting up the night sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight.

In the parking lot, three large black vans sat running, their tailpipes emitting white clouds into the chilly air.

"Cloaks on, hoods up, and let's roll," David said with enthusiasm.

I could tell by the twinkle in his eyes that he truly enjoyed the thrill of the hunt. Walking that fine line between life and death was something that got his heart pumping. He smacked the side of the first van to signal the driver to close the door after everyone was in. He shook his hands out at his sides and bounced on the balls of his feet. The air he heaved through his bowed lips came out in white puffs.

Holly, Atticus, Achilles, Ryker's former cronies, and I all squeezed into the van driven by the hyped up weapons instructor. I immediately buckled the seat belt across my lap on the long bench seat. He cranked the volume up on the radio. I cringed as the aggressive music beat against my ear drums.

"Let's do this!" he shouted before slamming his foot on the gas pedal. The tires squealed as he turned out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

Thankfully, it only took about ten minutes to get to the town of Pinecliffe. When my feet stepped out onto the pavement, my knees wobbled as if ready to give out. I had never felt car sick before, but my head was dizzy and my stomach was empty and twisted from his driving.

Without a word, David and Rashne took off down the road lined with dark and quiet houses. We followed closely behind with Holly and me at the front. Thirty-one initiates walked quickly behind us to simultaneously catch up and fall behind.

A howl echoed through the darkness. It sent goosebumps down my arms in a wave. I whipped out my gun from the holster on my hip. As we ran, I ejected the magazine to make sure I had preloaded it with silver bullets as instructed. I had checked at least six times before we left, but I wanted to be one hundred percent sure. Someone's life would depend on it.

We passed a dark carport and out of the corner of my eye I saw the shadowed figure of Death. It was the same one I had seen in the classroom when Rashne killed the demon—the same one I thought I had imagined in my room the night Danny died, outside the window when my parents died. By now, I was positive he only showed his white skeletal face when someone near me was marked for death. But before my eyes could focus, the figure vanished.

My heart raced as I picked up speed to run alongside David. There was a sickening feeling deep within my stomach that told me more than one would die. It couldn't be Holly. I had to protect her and everyone else in the group. I had to stop the werewolf before it killed again.

Another howl pierced the night. It was closer than before. So close I heard it growl afterwards. I could smell its hot rancid breath filling the air around me. Before I knew it, the werewolf jumped down off a nearby roof to land a few feet before us. I could have sworn the ground shook when its massive hind paws met the rough pavement with a thud. Its long, furry fingers with claws the size of knives braced the creature before it straightened up to its full, terrifying height.

It had the head of a large wolf, with teeth as long as my fingers, pointed like the tip of an icepick. Its long ears perked up with alertness. Drool dripped from its peeled back, black lips as it growled. With a calculated step, it moved its muscular leg forward, its sharp toenails scraping along the road. The ruffled tail behind it shrank close to its body.

It wrenched its jaw wide open and roared with a vengeful fury. My eyes squeezed shut on instinct as I turned away from it. Hot spit flecked my cool cheeks, its teeth a mere seven feet in front of me.

David aimed his gun at the creature's heart, but there was no time to pull the trigger. With a quick swipe of its large hand, the beast knocked it out of David's grip. It landed in a nearby bush.

On my other side, Rashne's hands lit up a bright blue. Flames grew with an angry intensity. I could almost hear the electricity hum inside him. The werewolf charged forward with both hands out and shoved the Djinn. He flew through the air and landed on his back a few yards away.

"Shoot it, Kamlyn!" Holly's voice rang out over the rumbling growls.

The werewolf had chased after Rashne. It pinned him down with ease. Drool dripped from its teeth and onto the Djinn's chest as he struggled to push the half-man-half-wolf away.

I fired off a shot, but the beast anticipated my move. With great speed it jumped from the ground up to another rooftop and took off on all fours. Its claws scraped at the tin roofs, causing residents to turn on their lights and come outside. There was no time to explain to them what was happening.

"After it!" Holly shouted.

Most of the initiates followed her. A few hung back, standing nervously in the middle of the road with their guns shaking in their hands. Once David found his pistol, he took off after everyone else. Holly and I were at the forefront, as it always seemed we were. As my arms pumped furiously, I wondered why we were the two crazy enough to put ourselves right in the path of danger while everyone else avoided it.

The werewolf leapt from one roof in an attempt to land on another across the street. Its long, muscular body stretched out over us as it flew through the air. Holly moved quickly to aim her gun upward as it positioned itself over our heads. One of her silver bullets caught the beast in the leg.

It fell from the air with a whimper and rolled along the rough pavement. There was a moment of silence as it lay on the ground. For a brief second, I thought it might be dead. But then the muscles in its arms twitched and it pushed itself up to stand fully erect, teeth bared and eyes burning a bright yellow.

Holly shot again, but missed completely. It charged her on all fours with a speed no human could match. Its shoulder rammed into me and threw me aside, causing me to lose hold of my gun. I didn't see where it slid off to. I looked around madly as the werewolf lunged forward.

A fury of multiple swipes from the creature's long claws knocked Holly to the ground. When it landed on top of her, it sank its nails into her upper arm and ripped away in a hooked motion. Bits of flesh hung from its paw. Then, it let out a shrieking howl at the night sky as it brought its bloodied claws to its mouth and chewed at the bits of skin and muscle it'd torn away.

I had to act fast. There was no telling how long the werewolf would be distracted by the taste of fresh blood. There was also no telling how long Holly would last. The ragged figure of Death popped into my mind again. I wouldn't let her die tonight.

I reached up for my necklace and ripped it away from my body. The chain broke as I clenched the pointed wings like a dagger. I set my sights for the harried creature's heart. With a warrior cry, I raised my arm and thrust the sharpened ends of the silver pendent into the beast's chest.

Its thick body jarred from the impact. It let out one last faded howl as black blood spurted from the hole. It fell limply onto its back.

Slowly, its large body transformed before my eyes. The thick coat of hair retreated into the pores. Its long snout shortened, its jagged teeth shrank, and its sharpened nails sank into human fingers.

It was no longer a monster that lay at my feet with a deep hole in its chest. It was a naked woman. Her blond hair spread out beneath her head on the cold pavement. A pool of bright red blood formed from the river that ran over her breasts and down her side. Death had been right. A woman was dead and I had killed her. But there wasn't any time for me to process what that meant. Holly needed me.

I ran to kneel by her side. She was still conscious and moaning through gritted teeth. There were several long, deep gashes down the right side of her face. The claws had narrowly missed her eye and nose, leaving them intact while the skin of her cheek hung loosely from the bone. The slashes made to her arm gushed thick blood onto the blacktop. There wasn't a lot of time. I had to get her to the hospital ward immediately. I didn't want to think about what would happen if I didn't.

"It's okay," I said to her, unable to hide the panic in my voice.

I had never seen wounds so deep before. I didn't know if she would be okay, but I couldn't let her know that. She had to believe she was going to survive if she wanted to have any chance of making it. David ran up and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the badly wounded girl.

"Geeze," he said as he covered his mouth with his hand. He ran it over his face and through his black hair as he spun around in a circle. His eyes avoided looking at the blood and dangling flesh. "We need to get her back now. Rashne and the others will handle Gordon Scott."

"What happened to Gordon?" I asked frailly. I didn't want to know the answer.

David stopped with his hands on his hips. He looked at me through his thin lashes. "He's dead. The thing tore his heart out from his chest and ate it...right in front of everyone. There was nothing we could do. It all happened so fast."

I could tell by the panicked look in his eyes that I was losing him.

"We need to get Holly out of here," I reminded him.

We both carefully slid our hands under her body. The second we lifted she gave a terrible cry that echoed through the dark streets. People were standing in their driveways, staring at the horror taking place before them.

"We just have to do it," David said quickly. "One. Two. Three!"

Together, we lifted Holly up to her feet. She howled and cursed loudly with every inch we moved her. David hooked both his hands under her arms and told me to lift her feet.

"Is she going to turn?" I asked once we laid her down in the back of the van.

I held her head in my lap as David jumped into the front seat. He took off, his tires squealing on the slick road.

"No, we killed the werewolf that bit her, so she should be fine."

He didn't sound as sure as I would have liked him to be.

Six long hours of blood transfusions and endless stitching, and the ward had finally calmed down. Dahlia curled up next to Holly's wounded side. The nurse gave Holly powerful painkillers. She said she would be out for at least two days. I planned on staying by her side the entire time.

The heavy black threads that ran across my friend's cheek in four long, neat rows sent my stomach plummeting. She would carry those scars with her for the rest of her life. Tears welled up in my tired eyes and fell. I flicked them away with my finger, unable to look away from her horrific, swollen wounds.

When Holly eventually woke up, she would barely be able to recognize herself. She might not have contracted the werewolf virus, or whatever caused a human to Turn, but she went through an entirely different transformation—a gruesome one that would compete in haunting my dreams for the rest of my life.

The Records Room

Holly spent two weeks in the hospital ward recovering from the injuries she sustained from the werewolf attack. Each day she looked a little better, but it was clear she would carry the scars of that night forever. This seemed to bother me more than it did her. She insisted her new face made her look even more like a badass Huntsman. All I could do was laugh along and agree. Her face truly was intimidating.

The brutal loss of Gordon Scott hit everyone hard. Initiates and instructors walked around with somber faces. They went through the motions of the day, but in their minds they couldn't get the image of him sprawled out on the pavement, his chest cavity ripped open to reveal a hole where his heart should have been. The look on his round, terrified face is what will haunt me for all my days—he saw the attack coming. His heart had left his body while it was still beating.

David Yu took the death especially hard. He had never lost an initiate on a hunt before. This made me wonder if he had ever really lost one in training either, or if that was something he had said just to intimidate us. For weeks afterwards he kept mostly to himself, his face long with sorrow and regret. I knew what he was feeling. We both thought we should have been able to save Gordon Scott, to save everyone. The guilt of all those lost to me tormented me in my sleep, and the number of them kept climbing higher and higher.

The day before Holly returned to our room, I paid the Records Room a visit. Ever since I had found out what the Goblet of Demons could be used for, I craved more information about it—anything that would give me a clue as to who was really behind stealing it. As far as I could tell, they hadn't gotten their hands on it yet.

I had my suspicions surrounding Rashne, but I didn't want to accuse him without being completely sure it was him. After all, he hadn't shown any malicious signs or weird behavior since the night of the redcap hunt. That didn't rule him out, but it certainly put doubt in my mind. The Records Room was just the place to sort out the details of my suspicions.

I didn't think I could go any further underground, but as I followed the signs I traveled several narrow staircases downward. At the end of the last one was a simple wooden door with a small window in it. On the glass it said "Records Room, managed by Barnaby Phillips". Quietly, I opened the door a crack and peeked my head inside.

There was already someone there, talking to the pale man behind the desk. I blinked rapidly and did a double-take to get a better look at the department head. His entire body, clothes and all, were void of any color, leaving him enveloped in an eerie gray pallet. His eyes shone a bright silver where black pupils should have been.

Barnaby Phillips was a ghost.

At every turn, the Chamber surprised me with who they entrusted with their heavy, dark secrets.

I could only see the man standing in front of the desk from the back, but immediately I knew who it was from his hooded cloak and gloved hands. My heart skipped a beat. It was exactly who I had been looking for all along. My mind raced with questions on how to proceed. It was my first, and possibly only chance, to stop him before he unleashed countless demons into the world. I stayed stuck halfway through the door, leaning forward to hear their conversation.

"I need the records for every portal location run by the Chamber," the cloaked man's somewhat familiar voice said.

I couldn't put a face to it. All I knew was that I had heard it before. It wasn't as deep as I had expected, and the man wasn't as tall as I thought he would be either. My suspicions of Rashne were becoming more unfounded the longer I stood there. But then who was it?

"I'm sorry, but those records can only be accessed by the Head of the Chamber herself," Barnaby Phillips answered, his voice hollow and bored.

"Yes, she is the one who told me to come and retrieve them for her," the man spat back with annoyance.

Barnaby stared at the cloaked man with empty silver eyes. His face was unflinching. "I'm sorry, Mr.—" he started to say, but a loud bang cut him off.

The mysterious man slammed his gloved hands down on the hard wooden surface of the desk. "I order you to give me those records immediately or I'll have you banished from the Chamber and destroyed by our Huntsmen!" His frazzled voice echoed throughout the large, dimly lit room.

I took a deep breath in as his voice dissipated into the stuffy air of the basement. He turned halfway to look at me, his face mostly covered by the hood of his cloak. The only thing I could tell for sure was that he wasn't a Djinn. His lips pursed together to make a straight line. Other than that, there was nothing I could use to identify him.

He whirled around and took off further into the room, his cloak flowing behind him as he fled. Without thinking, I burst in after him.

"Miss, you have to sign in," I heard Barnaby calling after me half-heartedly.

I was already too far gone. The traitor wouldn't be allowed to escape this time. I would catch him no matter what and bring him to the Head Buhari myself.

The room's ceiling went upward for what seemed like miles with shelving just as tall. The tops disappeared into the shadows, folders and records piling high into the nothingness. Lights were sparsely attached to the shelving at ten feet and no higher. They cast a dim orange circle of light onto the concrete floor, just enough for me to see the traitor ahead.

The man ran with great speed. It was impossible to catch up. This surprised me since I was the fastest in training and had outrun the redcaps. I thought I could easily gain on the traitor and take him down, but he grew smaller as he ran farther ahead of me.

He jutted around a corner to disappear behind another row of shelves. When I caught up, I found the area empty and quiet. The traitor was nowhere in sight.

Heaving heavy breaths, I looked both ways. Nothing. I had lost him. My face fell as I thought about how close I had been to catching him. How was he faster than me?

"Miss Paige? What are you doing here?" a familiar, frazzled voice said from behind.

Vice-Head Rutherford was standing with a bewildered look on his pale face. His navy blue tie was loosened at the neck and his white button-down shirt was wrinkled and partially untucked. In his hands he carried a large stack of folder and files.

I didn't answer, but scrutinized him with my narrowed eyes.

He let out a small chuckle and looked down at himself. "Sorry for my appearance. I've been up all night gathering files for Head Buhari."

My shoulders relaxed a little. I unclenched my jaw and let my face return to normal. "That's okay, sir. I was just...trying to do a little extra research for class."

"Ah," he said with a smile. "This is a great place for that. Quiet for studying. It's the perfect place if you don't want to be found. No one ever really comes down here. I come when I need solitude to work. If you want to find books on creatures of the Darkness you might want to head over to aisle 10809."

I made the corners of my lips turn upward, though inside I wanted to scream about letting the traitor get away.

"You didn't happen to see anyone else down here, did you?" I asked.

It was worth a shot.

"No I haven't."

My face fell. I stared at the floor with my hands pressed firmly into my hips.

"Just David. He walked by me in a hurry about a minute ago."

My eyes widened as I looked up. The traitor was David Yu? If I hurried I could still catch him myself to bring him to Head Buhari. Vice-Head Rutherford had once said the Chamber expected great things from me. Maybe this was it.

"Thanks, sir."

I turned and headed in the opposite direction. If I stayed any longer he might ask more questions. I walked up and down several aisles before I stopped and rolled my eyes. It was no use. David had gotten away. At least I knew what I was up against. I rushed back to the hospital ward to visit with Holly in her last hours there.

My roommate was sitting up in bed talking with Lance Anders. He had been there to visit her every day since she was admitted. It was nice to see him on our side with Ryker no longer there to poison his mind. She threw her head back and laughed at one of his jokes.

"Kamlyn!" she exclaimed when I walked in.

There were no more IVs hooked up to her arms. She had recovered as fully as she ever would and didn't seem to be in any more pain. The white lines that ran down the right side of her cheek distorted her face slightly, but it didn't affect the impact of her smile. It was still as contagious as ever.

"Glad to see you're feeling better," I said as I pulled up a spare chair and sat next to Lance.

"Extremely."

"Good, because I have loads to tell you." I placed a hand on Lance's chair. "You can hear this, too. I might need all the help I can get." I said to him in a low voice.

"Uh-oh," Holly groaned and rolled her eyes.

I ignored her and continued on. Once I told her what had just happened, she would have no more doubts about there being a traitor in the Chamber. She would have to believe me.

"I went down to the Records Room to see if I could find anything on the Goblet of Demons."

Lance's brow sat atop his almond-shaped, dark eyes. He leaned forward in his chair and his muscular arms tightened. I could tell he was already hooked.

"When I got there, the traitor was at the desk asking for some portal records or something."

"How do you know it was him?" Holly asked.

"Black hooded cloak, gloved hands, gut feeling that made me want to tackle him and rip his throat out."

"Ah, well, with proof like that..." she said in a condescending tone.

"Anyway, he saw me and took off immediately. I lost him in all the shelves and files. But then I ran into Vice-Head Rutherford. He said David had just been down there and he left in a hurry. The traitor is our Weapons instructor!"

Holly's face constricted as she stared at me hard. "Maybe you should talk to Don about it again. Tell him what you saw. It's too dangerous to go after him by yourself. If he could lose you, then he could be capable of more. He is planning to take over the world with demons after all and we know how good of a shot he is."

She was right. I was too inexperienced to kid myself into thinking I could do it alone. I needed professional help. I needed a real Huntsman. In a few hours I had a mentor meeting with Don. If he was actually there, I would tell him everything. And this time I would explain before he opened his bottle of whiskey.

The Gift

When I knocked on Don's door he opened it immediately. His hair stood on end as if he had ran his hands through it a hundred times in the last hour. It looked as if he hadn't shaved in weeks, the gray in his stubble was more prominent than ever before. The lines in his forehead looked deeper, darker, and made him appear more worried than I'd ever seen him before.

"Come in, come in," he said in a hurry.

"What's going on with you?" I asked as he placed his hand on my back and shoved me inside the room.

He locked the door behind us.

"Been helping the Chamber investigate some things. It's been...a challenge. I haven't slept in a few days."

We made our way over to the table in the corner and sat down across from each other. Don rubbed his calloused hand across his forehead and then over his hair. He let out a loaded sigh. His blue eyes were bloodshot and drooping.

Neither of us said anything for a while. I sat there, letting the silence press down on me as I gathered my thoughts. I couldn't wait forever. I had to tell him. After a few minutes, I dove in. There was no way to beat around the bush. Don had to know what was going on, even if his plate was already full.

"I need to tell you what happened today...with the traitor trying to steal the goblet," I said, choosing my words and proceeding cautiously.

Don's eyes stared at empty space on the table. His head nodded slightly but continuously. "That's exactly what I've been investigating."

"You have?" Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded.

All along I thought I was the only one who knew what was going on, the only one willing to do something about it. Finding out I wasn't alone should have settled my nerves, but instead there was a burning in my chest.

"I didn't want you getting involved," he said as if he were far off in another world. His dull eyes stared absently. "But it's clear you already are."

"Yes, I am," I barked. "I saw the traitor earlier today in the Records Room. He got away from me, but I saw who it was. It's David, the Weapons instructor."

Don's eyes snapped up to look into mine. They weren't mad or scared. They weren't even surprised. Instead, they seemed to droop a little and glisten with the beginnings of tears. "I won't ask you to leave this alone. I know you won't. All I can ask is that you please be careful," he said, almost begged.

I didn't know what to think. Don was behaving strangely.

"I have to meet with Rashne," he said standing up. When he saw my rounded eyes looking up at him he shrugged his shoulders and grimaced. "Sorry, Kammy. I'll see you soon. I promise. Until then, stay out of trouble and out of the hospital ward, okay?"

I nodded my head, but I didn't get up from my seat. Unexpectedly, he bent over and kissed me lightly on the forehead. It wasn't anything that made me feel uncomfortable, like an advance, but was more like a beloved uncle or brother saying goodbye. When he left the room he closed the door behind him and deep silence enveloped his unkempt room. It smelled heavily of his scent—tobacco and a manly musk. My eyes closed as I breathed it in.

Everything would change from then on out. I felt it in my bones. When I opened my eyes, Death was standing in the corner of the room across from me. I had seen the figure so many times in the months since Danny's death I didn't even flinch at the sight of it anymore. Instead, I stared as its dark, hollow sockets focused solely on me.

It didn't move or make a sound. Neither did I. My head told me I should be afraid, but another part of my body, a more irrational yet trusting part, told me there was nothing to fear—that the figure was there as a warning and not to harm me. Death had come to tell me we would not all make it through the night alive.

The fact that someone would die didn't bother me. If I had any control over the matter, I knew exactly who would perish—David Yu. He would break into the Dark Artifacts room to steal the Goblet of Demons, just as my dreams had shown me. And I would be the one to stop him. That was just the way it had to be.

A knock on the door made me turn my head. When I looked back at the corner, Death had disappeared. I got up and cracked the door open to find an older woman in a black robe standing outside. She had long raven hair pulled up into a tight bun. The lines in her face were deep, but her eyes still retained their youthful green sparkle.

"Don said I could find you in his room," she spoke in a deep, womanly voice. "I'm Ramona, Holly's godmother."

I opened the door and invited her in. She reluctantly shook her head and stayed rooted in the hallway. With her lips pulled back into a sad smile she took out a tiny, purple velour bag from beneath her cloak.

"I wanted to give you this for saving my Holly."

She held out the bag and I took it in my hand. It was heavier than I thought it would be. My eyes met hers questioningly.

"It's a special concoction of mine to add to your arsenal, charmed to produce a thick smoky cloud to hide you, but won't obstruct your breathing. It can be extremely useful when in need of a quick getaway."

"I can see why," I said softly, staring at the purple bag with wonder. "I'm sorry, you said charm? I thought only witches used charms."

Ramona's smile was coy. Her emerald eyes glinted with a secret deep within her. "We are not only one thing in this world, Miss Paige, and we are not always what we seem, even to ourselves. One can be a Huntsman of Darkness and a being of Light."

She paused, letting the words sink in. I didn't know what she was trying to tell me. Was she a witch? But witches weren't beings of Light. They were mostly evil, making deals with demons for their own personal gain. There was little good when it came to witches. But then what did she mean?

"Use it wisely," she said, nodding to the bag still clutched at my chest.

With that, she turned and retreated down the hall. Her body seemed to glide while her dark cloak trailed behind her. She gave the double doors a shove and exited through them, back into a hallway off the main lobby.

She left me dumbstruck in the doorway. Her gift would be immensely helpful in taking down the traitor. Had she known that was what I intended to do later that evening? There was no way she could have. I hadn't even told Holly my plan yet. But that was my next move. I couldn't take on David alone.

I raced out of the resident's wing and back to my room. Holly was leaning up against a wall of pillows on her bed with a book in her lap. She looked up and smiled when I came in.

"Wondered where you'd gone off to," she said cheerfully.

I was glad to see that her injuries weren't causing her anymore discomfort. It had been a difficult and excruciating few weeks of recovery for her. But the scars it left behind didn't bring her down one bit. She treasured them, like a memory she wanted to hold onto till the end of her days.

"I was with Don, and then your godmother came to see me."

Her back stiffened and she set her book face-down over her leg to save her spot. "Really? What'd she want?" If I wasn't mistaken, there was a look of worry in her eyes.

I walked over and sat on the edge of her bed. "She just wanted to thank me for getting you to safety that night."

Holly leaned back against her pillows with a sigh. A look of relief washed over her face. She was an odd girl, but I loved her almost like a little sister.

"I can never thank you enough for what you did, Kammy."

I smiled whole-heartedly as I stared down at my folded hands. "I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you. My heart can't stand to lose anyone else I care about."

She didn't respond. She didn't have to. Her glistening eyes said it all. She crawled out from under the covers and wrapped her arm around my neck. I threw an arm around her back and we squeezed each other tightly. Danny's face clouded my mind along with the pain I suffered from losing him. After a minute, I sniffed and released my hold.

"I know you've been through a lot," I said. "But I need to ask you for a favor."

"Anything," she said without hesitation.

"David is going to steal the goblet from the Dark Artifacts room tonight. I want to go in there and stop him."

This time there was no eye rolling, no protesting, and no demand for explanations. I didn't know if it was because she felt she owed me or if she had heard rumors from others in the Chamber about it, but she nodded her head and said, "I'm with you one hundred percent."

Just then, the room went dark. Red emergency lights came on a few seconds later as an alarm blared through the overhead speakers. We ran out into the hall to find all the other initiates standing in their doorways with looks of bewilderment on their faces.

"Headquarters is on lockdown," a voice boomed from the PA system. "Remain where you are until further notice."

The message repeated itself three times. Holly had her hands cupped over her ears as she stared up at the emergency lights above.

A dull roar erupted from everyone else in the hallway. A few walked over to the double doors and yanked on them only to find them locked. There was an armed guard standing on the other side in front of the glass window, a large gun clutched in both his hands.

"I wonder what happened," Holly said as she watched the door refuse to open.

The armed guard didn't turn around to face them. He stood with his back against the door and his automatic weapon at the ready. Whatever was going on, it was serious.

"It's too late," I said, more to myself than Holly. "David got ahold of the goblet. That's what this is about. We need to go now and catch him before he gets away!"

"How is he going to get away? Everything's locked down. Look, there's armed guards at every door," she said, pointing down the hall.

I ran to the door and pounded on the glass to get the guard's attention. "Hey!" I shouted. His head turned slightly, but he still wouldn't face me. It didn't matter. I knew he was listening. "Hey! I need to see Head Buhari immediately. I know who's behind this."

The guard's jaw muscles twitched. He turned his head to the side before he spoke. "The Head is currently away on business. You will have to wait until she returns and when we are no longer on lockdown. Remain in your rooms until then," he shouted through the thick glass.

"What are we going to do? We can't just sit here and wait for the demons to be unleashed!" I shouted to Holly as I kicked the door.

She stood behind me, wringing her hands and looking around nervously. Then, she walked up beside me and stared at the lock on the door. "I think I can get us out of here," she said just below the blaring of the alarm.

"Really? How?"

She gave a crooked grin. The same twinkle I had seen in Ramona's eyes glinted in hers. She turned toward the door and knelt down so her face was flush with the lock.

"What are you doing?" a voice called from behind us. "You're going to get in trouble. You'll be thrown out of here. I can't let you do this."

Achilles stood firmly with his hands balled into fists at his sides. His face tightened into a formidable glower that said we had to go through him to get out those doors.

It was something I hadn't anticipated. I thought we could slip out somehow unseen, or that everyone would be too panicked over the emergency lockdown to notice us leaving. But our own loyal friend had seen what we were about to do and made the decision to stand in our way. Why couldn't he see we were doing this for his own good and the good of everyone else in the building, in the world even?

"We have to do this," I tried to explain. "We have to stop the traitor before he releases something awful that could destroy our entire world."

His face was unflinching. "The Chamber will take care of it. We were told to stay here until then, and that's what we're all going to do."

I looked over my shoulder at Holly, who was still kneeling in front of the door. "Get the door open," I whispered to her as best I could with the blaring alarm.

She nodded and turned back to the lock. I faced Achilles and raised my hand that still clutched the purple bag Ramona gave me earlier. "You're right. We'll stay," I said taking a step away from the door and toward him.

The tension in his shoulders released slightly as he let his hands unclench. The worry in his dark eyes faded away, no longer shadowed by his thick brow. He swallowed and tried to give a reassuring smile. "I'm just looking out for you, Kamlyn," he said, pleadingly. "I don't want to see you kicked out of here. I care about you."

"I know," I said with a smile. "Thank you."

There was a metal clank from behind me as the lock mechanism shot from the door and landed on the hard floor. "I got it!" Holly shouted.

With everyone distracted, I reached into the bag and threw a handful of powder onto ground. A thick, odorless cloud rose from the place of impact and filled the hallway instantly. Achilles stared me directly in the eyes until he faded from sight completely. A look of betrayal spread across his tanned face.

I couldn't see a thing, but neither could anyone else. The guard's voice rang out with a loud warning. Holly and I followed his echo to make our way past and out into the hallway. We didn't stop until the panicked voices faded into the distance behind us.

"That was amazing!" Holly said once we were in the clear, no longer blinded by the dark smoke.

I panted as adrenaline rushed through me. "How'd you bust out that lock?"

She shrugged her shoulders and smiled. "Just a talent of mine, I guess."

I remembered when she had asked Lance to show her how he picked the lock when we hunted the Shtriga. My eyes narrowed and a smile danced on the edge of my lips. But there was no time to go over the details of what just happened. We had to find David before he escaped. But where would he have gone after taking the goblet? There had to be somewhere he would hide out until the heat was off, somewhere no one would think to look for him. Headquarters was an endless labyrinth. I didn't know how we would be able to search every nook and cranny before he disappeared.

I quickly went over in my head everything that had happened since I found out about the goblet. My suspicions of Rashne, the dreams, the injuries I had sustained, the injuries my friends endured because of me, the times I thought I would be thrown out, the incident in the Records Room...suddenly it hit me. I knew exactly where to go.

The Traitor

I ran through the halls with Holly at my heels. There had been no time to explain where we were going. I had to get there as fast as I could before David Yu released the demons on our world. If that happened, it would be a disaster of epic proportions. No human would survive the invasion.

Down the stairs I ran at top speed. I didn't stop until I stood in front of the entrance to the Records Room. Instead of peeking through the window as I had before, I threw the door open and burst in with nothing but my pistol to defend myself. The room was no longer lit by the dim haze of the shelving lamps. Everything basked in the eerie red glow of the emergency lights.

I walked slowly up to the front desk, my eyes focused in horror on the ghostly department head. Barnaby Phillips hung in the air, immobile, his head slumped forward and his arms spread out like a cross. In all my readings about ghosts, I had never heard of anything like what I saw. It sent a shiver down my spine as if someone placed a block of ice directly onto it. Holly covered her mouth with her hands once she reached my side.

"David did this?" she asked softly.

Down in the basement there were no speakers to carry the sounds of the alarms. The contrasting silence made me feel as if I had gone temporarily deaf. This only added to the foreboding aura emanating from the mysterious sight in front of me.

A thud echoed through the room. It bounced off the shelving, distorting its starting point. It sounded like a heavy book hitting the concrete flooring.

"You go that way," I whispered to Holly, pointing at the far right end of the room. "I'll go this way. We'll meet in the middle. If you run into anyone, holler for me right away. Got it?"

She nodded her head fiercely, sending her long red curls bouncing around her scarred face. There wasn't a hint of fear in her large green eyes. With her jaw clenched and her brow furrowed, she was ready to do whatever it took to prevent a demon overthrow of humanity.

I ran swiftly down the left end of the concrete basement. The air was heavy with cool moisture from the pipes that ran far overhead. The occasional knocking of rushing water sent my nerves firing. My head whipped around each time. Besides that, it was quieter than a tomb. There were no feet shuffling, no whispers behind the shelving, no growling from the oncoming demons. It was dead silent.

The image of Death flashed in my mind as I rounded the first shelf. I prayed, something I never did, that David or I would be the one to depart the world that night—so long as it wasn't Holly.

I aimed my pistol down the first aisle, but it was empty. Several rows went like that, with nothing to show for it except the cramps in my index finger from stiffly holding it over the trigger guard. The closer I got to the middle aisle, the more I doubted my gut. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Records Room wasn't where David would release the demons.

I rounded the last corner, ready to shoot. Holly was at the other end with her pistol raised toward me. In the center, hunched over the floor, was a figure in a black hooded cloak. In front of him sat the ornate black goblet known as the Goblet of Demons. My eyes widened. My heart raced. I tried to take in a breath, but it got caught in my chest and I gave a soft cough.

The figure's head whipped around to look me straight in the eyes. He raised from the ground slowly, his long cloak covering him like an impenetrable black cloud. White, ungloved hands raised up to the hood and pushed it back. My mouth fell open.

"Mr. Rutherford? Sir?" Holly's voice called meekly down the aisle.

My eyes narrowed as I set my sights for the middle of his forehead. With his hands still raised, a slow spreading smile took over his face. He was no longer frazzled and anxious, overwhelmed by his work. There was a new air about him, one that brought me little comfort.

"Miss Paige," he said in an unusual voice that slithered off the tip of his tongue. "You just couldn't leave this alone, could you?"

I said nothing. My eyes bore into his as I waited for him to explain why he would want to end all of mankind, including himself. A cold chill settled in as water rushed through the pipes, knocking at every turn. The dim red lights shone down in three circles—one on me, one on Holly, and one on Casimir Rutherford, the traitor.

"You would have died no matter what, but at least this way I get to see your nosey, little self possessed by a demon and brought down right before my very eyes. I have to say, it will be quite satisfying to witness." He curled his lips maniacally as he shrieked with laughter. "I have to ask though...how did you know where I would be?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat, but never removed the pistol from the clear shot I had. "I remembered that you told me the Records Room was a great place to go when you didn't want to be found."

He clapped his hands together as he continued to chuckle. "Well done, Paige, well done. It only took you five and a half months to figure it out. Better late than never, I guess. Or in your case, it would have been better if you never figured it out at all. I'm going to make sure your death is painful...just like your son's was."

I fired off a shot, but he ducked out of the way just in time. My face burned with red-hot fury. One after another, I fired at him, not willing to stop until he was dead.

Holly dove away from my flying bullets. Casimir jumped up onto the nearest wrought iron shelf and climbed it like a human spider, disappearing into the shadows of the ceiling in a matter of seconds.

I craned my neck to search the darkness above the red lights, but I couldn't see a thing. What was he? How was he able to move like that? I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer. The sight of him scuttling up the shelving like a crab made the hairs on my arms stand on end.

Holly rushed to my side from behind. "Where the hell did he go?" she asked, out of breath.

"I don't know, but we better figure it out before he drops on us."

I walked slowly with my gun pointed above my head. Holly did the same. This time we stuck close to each other. We had to if we wanted to both come out of that Records Room alive. How long would it be before the rest of the Chamber came down there searching for the traitor? Or were we on our own the rest of the way?

My mind raced as I searched. How did Casimir know about my son? How could he possibly know what my son felt? Or was the Vice-Head tormenting me before he unleashed a terrible demon to take over my body, killing me from the inside out? I had to figure out what his connection to my son was.

"Look out!" Holly screamed.

Casimir leapt from the highest shelf. As he floated through the air with his cloak trailing behind him, Holly shoved me out of the way. He landed on top of her with a sickening snap. Holly held her leg close to her chest as blood ran out from the bottom of her pants. A piece of jagged white bone had ripped through the slick black material. She didn't scream, but she writhed silently on the cold, hard ground.

Before he had time to right himself, I jumped onto Casimir's wiry body and pinned him down. My arm pressed firmly across his throat. With the barrel of my pistol against his forehead, I growled through my clenched teeth, "Tell me what you know about my son!"

His laugh echoed through the aisles, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. The rage inside me bubbled until I couldn't contain it any longer. I struck my pistol across his jaw. Blood stained his white teeth as he continued to laugh.

"Tell me about my son!" The words shot forth from me with a ferocity I didn't know I had, like the roar of a lioness.

His shoulders twitched, but the bloodied smile never left his face. "I. Know. Everything," he said, impregnating each word with its own ominous meaning.

"Did you send the demon to my house to kill him?" Tears threatened to spill over the brims of my eyes. I swallowed hard, trying to force them to retreat.

"Oh, this is bigger than you and I, Miss Paige. Much bigger."

No more games. I wanted answers and I wanted them straight. Another sharp blow to the face might loosen his jaw. The force wrenched his mouth sideways. He spat blood onto the gray floor and coughed into his shoulder before facing me again.

"You're strong, I'll give you that. But not strong enough to stop what's about to happen to your world. If I don't do it, another one like me will. You can't stop it."

"Another one like you? What does that mean?" My face scrunched together as I pressed harder down onto his throat.

He squirmed and hacked into the air, droplets of blood spurting out with each burst. I had to get him to talk. If he knew anything about my son's death that could point me in the right direction, I had to get him to tell me what it was.

I moved my gun to his kneecap and pulled the trigger. Casimir howled at the dark ceiling above, his body squirming underneath mine. There was no way I would let him get away this time. I was so close—close to stopping the demons from being released and close to figuring out who my son's killer was. I could feel it.

"Who killed my son!?"

Casimir leaned his head back down to the cool ground as he heaved great breaths through his thin lips. "You did. The moment you had him he was marked for death."

None of it made any sense. Why would anyone mark my son? We were just an ordinary family.

"Tell me what you are and why you wanted to release the demons."

He stared through me unblinkingly. "I am a Viscor— ancient, near-immortal being—and we will end humanity to make this world our own."

My brow sat heavy over my eyes. "Why do you need our world?"

His gaze never strayed. "Because ours, along with most of our race, was destroyed. We need to rebuild and repopulate."

I took in a deep breath through my lips. "Why did you need the location maps for all the portals?"

"That," he said weakly, "is all part of the plan to unite the Darkness to snuff out the Light."

I stared off as his words sank in. The cloaked figure of Death appeared next to the shelf, just behind Holly who was still clutching her broken leg. I had little time if I wanted answers. I placed the gun to his other knee.

"Tell me who killed my son or I'll shoot you again," I threatened with a growl.

He threw his head from side to side in protest. "Wait, wait, wait, no! Please don't. I'll tell you." Suddenly, he breathed out slowly through his nose and locked his dark eyes onto mine.

I felt my entire body tense up. My arm moved away from his throat without me telling it to. Somehow my mind wasn't being allowed to control my body as usual. Casimir slipped out from under me, the gunshot wound in his knee already healed. Dried blood circled the bullet hole in his slacks, but there was not so much as a scratch on the flesh underneath. It was impossible.

"You'll believe anything you're told if it has to do with your son, won't you, Miss Paige? It's your one weakness and it's the one that will get you killed."

He turned and took off down the aisle. The minute his eyes broke contact with mine, my body was free from its paralysis. I fell forward onto my knees. Every muscle ached deeply.

As he retreated, growing smaller the further he ran, I felt a perilous sinking in my stomach. He knew nothing more about Danny's death than I did. He was right. It was my weakness and it caused me to let him get away again.

Just as he was about to round the corner and disappear, Holly threw herself forward and grabbed him by the ankles. He stumbled and hit his jaw on the cold concrete with a smack. I quickly got to my feet and ran to him.

"Good job!" I exclaimed as I ran past Holly.

This time I would not let him distract me with lies. I would not let my feelings get in the way and destroy the world. This was bigger than me. I pointed the gun at his head.

Blood gushed from his mouth and ran down his face. When he smiled it oozed out from between his teeth, the ones that were left at least. "No gun can kill me, Miss Paige. You've lost."

I fired three shots consecutively into the center of his forehead. It whipped him flat on his back where he lay completely still. Just as a wave of relief washed over me, his fingers twitched, and then his arm raised. He sat up straight and wiped the blood from his unwounded forehead.

"Nice try," he said, wiping the blood from his hands on his cloak. "Now it's my turn."

With a swift movement, he hooked me in my right temple with his fist and knocked me to the ground.

When I came to I was lying on the floor. Holly was nowhere to be found, but there was a smeared trail of blood leading out of the aisle and around the corner. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again as a sharp pain ran through my head. Casimir hunched over the goblet once more with a large, leather-bound book opened in front of him.

His lips moved quickly, but I couldn't make out the words he said. There was only a slight hissing as he read line after line. The goblet shook violently on its base. I pushed myself up off the ground and limped over to where he sat.

He stopped reading, but didn't turn his head to look at me. "It's no use, Miss Paige. I already told you. You can't kill me."

"Maybe not," I said, reaching into my jacket pocket. "But I can do this."

I pulled out the broken silver necklace still attached to the winged pendent and threw it into the goblet. A white light burst upward, and then everything went black.

The Trip Home

I sat up clutching my chest, heaving long, deep breaths. As I looked around I slowly realized that I was in the hospital ward. Head Buhari stood over my bed with a soft smile on her darkened, withered face. The bright purple of her suit and the smoothness of her white hair contrasted in my mind with the chaos from before.

"Good morning, Miss Paige," she said in a deep, cool voice. "We're glad to have you back."

I pushed myself up to sit against the pillows. "What happened?"

She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed and crossed her legs at the ankles. Her soft hand lay on top of mine. "We found Miss Everest banging on the door outside the Records Room, trying to get in. When we opened the door we found the place blackened and blown away, paper everywhere, shelves knocked over—a real mess.

"Through the wreckage we located you and Mr. Rutherford. You were in critical condition, but Mr. Rutherford did not make it. Apparently, he had been the one to steal from the Dark Artifacts room. He was also the one who lead me away on the pretense of business. I should have seen right through him. He had been such a loyal member of the Chamber for so many decades that I never questioned him, never thought he could do what he did."

She paused and removed her hand from mine. Her high cheekbones seemed to press against her eyes and lift them up as she smiled. I couldn't believe it. I had stopped Casimir from unleashing the demons.

"You did a wonderful job, Kamlyn. You followed your instincts when no one else believed you. Casimir had everyone fooled, but not you. You saved a lot of lives by tossing that silver into the goblet. The true heart of a Huntsman lies within you."

Her words touched me and warmed my insides. But worry quickly crept up in me and took over as I shifted on the bed.

"What happened to the goblet?" I asked.

Casimir had said there were others like him and if that were true, they would be after it once word of what happened got out.

"No need to worry. We destroyed what little was left. No one can ever use it again."

Her smooth voice put me at ease. I sank back down into the pillows and let out a sigh. She patted my leg and stood from the bed with her hands clasped in front of her.

"How's Barnaby?" I asked.

A soft smile spread across her face. "He's doing just fine. Thanks for asking."

It was my turn to smile. I had finally saved everyone.

"Now, how about you get dressed and come down to the Ceremony Hall? Everyone is waiting." She lowered her head to look at me through her long, black lashes.

She walked away, leaving me alone in the hospital ward with nothing but confusion clouding my head. I couldn't control the smile that swept across my face. My first real solo hunt ended exactly as I had intended it to. The traitor was dead, the goblet was destroyed, and everyone survived—well, everyone except Casimir. There was no guilt whatsoever over what I had done to him. He deserved every bit of what he got.

As I got dressed in the bathroom I examined my face in the mirror. The spot where Casimir had struck me across the side of my head showed no signs of trauma. There were no cuts, bruises, or marks. I assumed I had Dahlia, the Caladrius, to thank for that one. She was probably off somewhere, lying low while she discarded my pain from her snowy white body.

My uniform had seen better days. The fabric was torn and stained with blood from various creatures. It was the true uniform of a Huntsman of Darkness. There was no ponytail holder around my wrist to sweep my hair up into. Instead, I pushed my long brown waves behind my shoulders to rest against my back.

Normally, the thought of everyone waiting for me in the Ceremony Hall would have sent butterflies fluttering through my stomach, but I was oddly calm. It was the end of my training. Soon, my journey to find Danny's killer would begin. This filled me with a sense of peace I had been lacking in my life.

_____

The halls were empty as I made my way to where they waited. There was not a single soul at the lobby desk or in any of the classrooms I passed. Their doors sat open, but the rooms were dark and silent. Behind the giant wooden doors to the hall, there was no indication that anyone else sat inside. I couldn't hear a thing as I stood with my feet firmly on the ground.

One deep breath and I shoved them open.

Hundreds of people were inside the room. They all stood for me and applauded. My breath caught in my chest as my eyes widened. It was an incredible sight.

I walked down the center aisle to where the Head of the Chamber of Darkness waited by a podium. Every eye followed me, some with tears in them. I spotted Holly standing by the twins. They cheered the loudest as they waved their arms and hollered from the front row.

Head Buhari reached out and grasped my hand in hers to shake. Her voice boomed over the din of the cheering crowd.

"I would like to begin the ceremony with a very special and talented young lady who overcame all obstacles thrown her way and ended up saving not only this Chamber, but the world itself. Kamlyn Ann Paige, would you please step over here?" She held out her hand to her other side to place me at the very center of the crowd. "I would like to be the first to congratulate you on becoming a member of the Chamber of Darkness and an official Huntsman."

Applause erupted again and filled the hall. The Head raised her hand to pin the silver crest of the Chamber of Darkness to the collar of my jacket. I looked out at the sea of people, their proud faces touching my heart and reminding me that I was still alive—there were still people around worth fighting the Darkness for. Danny was gone, but I was still there to make sure no other mother went through what I did. I would save as many people as I could on my way to getting my revenge.

Don's face stood out among the rest. His mouth was a straight line, but his eyes turned upward to reveal the smile hidden underneath. He clapped his hands together strongly as he watched me with pride etched into the lines of his face.

I ran over to him and threw my arms around his neck. The soft pressure of his hands at my back filled me with warmth. He was the sole reason I ever came to know this place. He gave me the possibility of avenging my son's death. I loved him deeper than I could ever say aloud. When we parted and he looked into my eyes, I knew he felt the same.

We formed an unbreakable bond over the last six months since he found me crumpled on the grass in front of his house. He helped me in so many ways, I could never convey just how much I appreciated all he had done for me.

"What do you say we go home?" he said as he threw his arm around my shoulder.

"Really?" I asked, looking around at the other initiates receiving their pins.

"Yeah, there's no need to stick around. Go pack your stuff and we'll get out of here." He pulled me in toward his body for another squeeze.

"Sounds perfect," I sighed. "I just have to say goodbye to a few people."

He nodded his head and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I'll be waiting for you in the lobby."

I walked over to Holly, Atticus, Achilles, and Lance who were all grinning excitedly over the new addition to their uniforms. Holly threw her arms around me and hugged tightly.

"We did it!" she exclaimed as she bounced on her feet.

"You deserve it," I said as I pulled away. I held both her hands in mine. "You really do. You're a great Huntsman."

"Aw, stop it. I'm gonna cry."

"You better grow some tougher skin, Paige." We both laughed together, remembering the words Ryker Alexander had spoken months ago.

"My savior!" Atticus cried out as he ducked down to hug me around my waist. He picked me up and twirled me around.

"Okay, okay, put me down," I laughed.

"Whatever you command, my queen." He placed his palms together and bowed low to the ground.

I pulled him up by his collar with a heavy sigh. "Knock it off before I punch you."

We all laughed together. A quick pinch of sadness hit me. It was probably the last time the five of us would ever be together like this. Achilles came up and took my hand in his.

"I hope you know what an amazing woman you are, Kamlyn Paige."

My cheeks flushed red. I smiled up at him awkwardly as his hand tightened around mine.

"I'm going to miss you," he said as his brown eyes glistened.

"I'm going to miss you, too. All of you." I hugged each of them again. "I hope to see you around soon."

I left the hall for the last time. The urge to look over my shoulder overwhelmed me, but I kept my eyes forward. If I saw them watching me leave there would be no stopping the tears.

I went straight to my room and threw everything I had into my duffel bag. With the extra binders of information, I had to shove it in good to get the zipper to close. I took off my uniform, folded it up, and placed it in the bag. I wanted to return home the way I left, with my mother's oversized, hand-knit sweater over my heart. I took it out of the plastic bag I had placed it in my first night there.

As I emerged from the hallway that opened into the lobby, I realized that headquarters wasn't that scary and confusing of a place after all. In fact, it was one of the few places in the world that made sense anymore. Don smiled as he leaned against the wall next to the elevator.

"You ready?" he asked as he took my bag from my shoulder and threw it over his.

I nodded and stepped in with him when the doors opened. The climb up to the surface passed quickly. Before I knew it, the sun was shining on my face through the tall windows of the main floor lobby. I raised my hand to shield my eyes. It was the first time I had seen sunlight in six months.

Outside, the world looked different than I had left it. The clouds were still white and moved slowly across the blue sky. The pine trees still swayed in the slight cool breeze. But it wasn't the same. It was no longer a world that had been around for millions of years, immortal and indestructible. It was now a world that had narrowly escaped its end—a world that knew it could not go on forever while both the Light and Darkness inhabited it.

"Are you excited to see Cara again, be back in your own home above ground?"

I climbed into the passenger seat of the rented Toyota Camry. My eyes gazed out the window for a moment before I turned to look at Don—my mentor, friend, and family.

"I am, but I think I want to get started hunting as soon as possible," I said, more certain than ever. "There's still something out there I need to take care of."

Don patted my leg and then started the car. It felt weird to be going back to Indiana after my time spent in headquarters with the Chamber of Darkness. The people I met and the things I learned would carry with me forever. But all I could do now was move forward, find Danny's killer, and bring the demon to justice. I wouldn't rest until I did.
Preview the next novel in the series

EARTH ANGEL (book 2)

The Sleepless Night

It was a typical day in northwest Indiana. The sun shone brightly and the air was crisp with the smell of fall. I walked my son, Danny, to the park down the street from our house. He ran straight for the swing set and hopped on the seat.

"Higher, Mommy, higher!" Danny shouted between giggles.

His curly blonde hair flowed back and forth with each push and his cheeks turned rosy red from the cool breeze. The angelic sound of his laughter touched my heart and warmed it. I had never been happier than I was in that moment, something I said daily about the time spent with my son.

Without warning, Danny planted his feet firmly down, dragging his new shoes through the dirt. Time slowed to a crawl as I watched the dust creep up and engulf him. It dispersed like an ominous rolling fog. The energetic five-year-old burst forth quickly as he ran for something new to play on.

I listened to the sound of the dry leaves crunching beneath my feet as I walked the outer edge of the playground, waiting to see what he picked next. Instead of running over to the slide, like any other kid would have done, he ran to me and hugged me tightly around the waist.

"I love you, mommy," he said in his small, sweet voice.

I closed my eyes as happiness spread through me like the warm rays of the sun.

"I love you too, sweetie."

When I opened my eyes I saw a woman walking through the trees that surrounded the park. Her long black hair flowed behind her fluidly as if she were gliding underwater. She disappeared behind one tree only to reappear again from behind another several feet away. It was unearthly and unnatural. The sight of her sent a shiver down my spine.

I squeezed Danny closer. Fear took over my body. The way she moved couldn't be explained. But something deep inside me said she was dangerous and I had to protect my son from her at all cost.

She held onto the trunk of a small tree and spun around it carelessly. Her pale lips parted as she gave into laughter. She didn't even notice we were there, watching her. Then, all at once, her body snapped rigid and her eyes locked onto us.

"Danny," she called out. Her voice echoed through the bare branches of the old trees. "Danny..."

My son pulled away from my arms. I tightened my grip, but it didn't help. He slipped away before my eyes.

"No!" I cried out as I pulled him closer. "You can't have him!"

The woman danced among the trees again, throwing her head back in laughter. I clutched at my son with all my strength and buried my face in his soft hair. When I looked up she was gone. The pressure of Danny's body against mine softened until I hugged nothing but empty air. My arms fell against my side as tears rolled down my cheeks.

The ringing of my cell phone jerked me out of the nightmare and back to reality. I reluctantly opened my eyes. The cracks in the brown motel ceiling formed a mocking grin as I stared, letting my vision adjust slowly. I picked up my phone from the bedside table and looked at the bright screen through squinted eyes. The familiar face of my best friend glared back at me.

"Hey, Kammy," Cara Bellamy said, her voice too loud and cheerful for the early morning. "Your lead is over on old Kettle Road. When you go around the big bend heading toward Roosevelt Lake there should be a two-story house with a wraparound porch. That's where Mrs. Baker lives."

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, trying to wake myself up enough to remember what she said. The open blinds revealed the sun hiding behind a blanket of gray clouds. It was a typical day in the state of Washington. I yawned quietly while Cara threw more information at me at top speed.

"Her husband died yesterday. The police say he drowned, but that's not true at all. They found him in the living room—no water in sight. Something's definitely going on there."

I tried to take an interest in what she said, but the dream about Danny lingered vividly, enough that I could still smell him.

"Yeah, sure. I'll get right on it," I said, closing my eyes again.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my thumb and index finger. The beginnings of a migraine stabbed at my temples.

"Hey, are you okay? You sound..." Cara's voice trailed off.

She didn't have to finish her sentence. I knew exactly what she meant.

"I'm fine, really. I just had a dream is all."

Cara didn't say a word. I knew her well enough to know she was thinking carefully before she spoke again. We had been best friends since the first grade. She was with me every step of the way after my parents died in a car accident and when I needed help taking care of Danny after he was born. I don't know how I would have gotten through any of it if it wasn't for Cara and her unfailing positivity.

I pictured her twirling her long, honey-colored hair around her finger in between sips of coffee as she sat at the old wooden table in our kitchen. She never knew what to say when the subject of Danny came up, which was fine with me because I never wanted to talk about it. After what happened, I felt like no one could understand my pain, and that included Cara.

"I think you'd be more upset if you didn't get to spend time with him in your dreams," she said after a while.

Even though it pained me, the more I thought about it the more I knew she was right. Some days all I wanted to do was stay in bed just to spend more time with him. Today, of all days, I wanted nothing more than to shut my eyes and be taken away from the horrible world of pain and regret I lived in. It was the one-year anniversary of my son's gruesome death—one year since I looked into the face of pure evil and vowed my revenge on the demon hag.

When my neighbor, Don Vander, told me there was a way to kill it, I was immediately on board. He took me to the headquarters of an underground society called the Chamber of Darkness where I trained for six months to become a Huntsman. The title is impressive, but the lifestyle lacked glamor.

I left the only home I ever knew to travel the country at the Chamber's will. They call with a case and I go running after it in my late father's restored 1969 Chevy pickup truck. We get paid, but only enough to keep me in cheap motels and gas station burritos. But none of that matters. I would do anything if it meant one day I would stare into the eyes of my son's killer and watch the life extinguish from them.

Cara was heartbroken over Danny's death. She was like a second mother to him and she loved him more than anything. When she found out a demon was behind his murder she made me promise to include her in my quest to bring it to justice.

There was no way she could quit her job and come on the road with me. The Chamber of Darkness had strict rules about training their Huntsmen. They brought anyone they discovered hunting on their own to headquarters to decide if they were eligible to train or not. In fact, that was how Don Vander became a Huntsman—going out on his own to catch the demon that killed his wife and daughter a decade ago.

But Cara didn't have it in her to become a Huntsman. I knew it and she knew it. So, I used her as my personal research assistant. When the Chamber messaged me about a case I relayed the information over to Cara and she searched the internet, books, and public records for anything that might help me destroy whatever I was after. She made my job a whole lot easier. I killed twice as many supernatural beings as the Huntsmen who had been in my training group thanks to her. In the six months since I graduated and went out on my own, I had killed over fifty dangerous creatures of Darkness and saved just as many lives, if not more.

I thanked Cara for her help with the case and said I would call her when I got back from Mrs. Baker's house. But instead of starting my day, I stayed in bed and closed my eyes again. I only wanted to clear my head, but my exhausted body had other plans. Before I knew what happened I was back in Indiana one year ago. I was aware I was dreaming, but I couldn't wake up, no matter how hard I fought it.

The high-pitched sound of Danny's scream filled my ears. The demon's rancid smell made my stomach churn. My body tossed back and forth on the bed as black, empty eyes locked onto mine, its yellow, snake-like pupils never moving. Its tangled black hair circulated around its head as it gnashed its rotten teeth. When it jumped through the open window next to my son's bed I shot up from my pillow clutching at my chest.

My eyes wandered around the small motel room as I tried to catch my breath. It was time to get out of bed. The best way to get past the dream was to start a long day of distractions. I picked up my phone again and looked at the time. It was already noon. With a sigh, I got up and trudged my way to the bathroom.

My mind wanted to run wild with the images I saw in my sleep, but I forced myself to focus on my reflection. My once bright-blue eyes were now dull and gray. My skin no longer had a warm glow to it. And my long brown hair was frizzy with uncontrollable waves. I splashed my face with cold water and started my morning routine. Slowly, I lined my eyes and slathered my lips in tinted Chapstick. Five minutes and I was ready to go. I turned away from the mirror and headed out.

There was a limited amount of time left since I had slept in, so I picked up a pre-packaged burger and cherry pie from the gas station before heading to Mrs. Baker's house. It was the third day in a row when I ate nothing but beef and French fries. My stomach rebelled against its fast food diet best it could, but it was all I could afford.

My old truck roared loudly as I drove down the winding old Kettle Road. I took a bite of my burger and looked out the driver's side window. The surroundings were breathtaking. Washington was a beautiful state with its picturesque mountains and enormous pines. The weather was dismal which gave the overly green, wooded area passing by me an eerie storybook quality. The vibrant moss-covered trees seemed hauntingly unreal. It would have been peaceful if I wasn't hunting.

Turning around the bend in the road, I spotted the large house Cara had described earlier. Since I started hunting the supernatural, I learned a lot about people. Their stories never left us. Sometimes they lingered long after their bodies were buried. That was exactly what we suspected happened here. Someone lingered in the Baker household.

When I arrived, I rang the doorbell and a plump, older woman with graying hair answered. Her puffy eyes were red-rimmed and tear-soaked.

"Hi, Mrs. Baker. I'm Kamlyn Paige. I just moved in down the road," I lied with ease. "I wanted to come by and introduce myself and to express my condolences." I offered her the cherry pie.

"Oh, nice to meet you, dear, and thank you," she said as she sniffed and stepped aside. "Please, come in."

As we made our way to the kitchen I stopped to admire the old photographs on the wall. Family history had become a fascination of mine since my parents passed away. For weeks after their death, I spent sleepless nights looking through old photo albums from when they were younger.

Mrs. Baker took note of my interest and narrated a few of them for me. There hung a faded black-and-white photograph of a man standing by a flowing river. He held a large fish upside down with his thumb tucked into his suspenders. A wide grin spread across his face.

"That was Michael's father. He helped build the Grand Coulee Dam in the 1940's," the woman said with pride.

"That's fascinating."

I followed her to the kitchen where we sat down on stools placed around a wooden island. She went to a drawer and pulled out a long, sharp knife. Reflex made my insides flinch. She set the knife down on the marbled counter along with two small plates.

As I cut into the juicy pie, I asked Mrs. Baker about her husband. She seemed relieved someone wanted to hear what he was like when he was alive instead of only wanting to know about his death. For an hour, we laughed over old stories. I ate three pieces of pie and when I finished red cherry filling stained my plate.

Afterward, we both stared down in silence, consumed in our own thoughts. I had to move things along. There wasn't much time before night fell and the real hunt began. The clock on the wall read three thirty-five. I had to bring up Michael's death. But my questions didn't seem to surprise Mrs. Baker.

"I don't know what happened," she admitted, taking out a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbing at her thin eyes. "I was in the kitchen preparing dinner when I heard him gasping for air. By the time I got to the living room he was on the floor...dead."

She lowered her head to stare back at her first piece of the partially eaten pie.

"I'm so sorry to hear that. Was it a heart attack?"

I hoped the painful subject wouldn't cause her to have a breakdown. After Danny's death, I kept myself hidden in the house so I could cry hysterically in peace. The overwhelming pain of losing a loved one is unbearable.

"It wasn't a heart attack. The police don't know what happened. They said he drowned, but they couldn't find the source. I mean, he was in the living room for Christ's sake. I just don't understand."

Her wrinkled, warm face contorted into fierce concentration. The inconclusiveness of his death held Mrs. Baker together. Her brain was too busy fitting the pieces of the puzzle together to focus on the pain of losing her husband of forty years. For her sake, I hoped she never found out what killed him. The knowledge would be a burden she would have to carry around with her forever.

Tears overflowed her vacant brown eyes. When she excused herself to use the bathroom upstairs, I walked into the living room to take a look around.

Her home had a definite outdoor theme to it. Wood covered every possible surface in sight. A giant deer head glared down at me from above the old box television. The shining marbles that sat in the dead animal's eye sockets creeped me out, but that was it. I felt no indication of a presence in the house.

Just to be sure, I reached into the pocket of my cropped black leather jacket and pulled out a small EMF reader. As I walked around the room, the meter's needle remained on zero. Whatever killed her husband wasn't there anymore.

When I heard Mrs. Baker coming down the stairs, I shoved the reader back into my jacket. A nonchalant smile overtook the look of confusion on my face.

"Thank you for inviting me into your home, Mrs. Baker, and again I'm so sorry for your loss," I said with my eyes turned down sympathetically.

She led me to the front door and gave me a pat on the shoulder. "Thank you, dear. It felt good to talk about all the good times I had with my sweet Michael."

As I climbed into the truck, doubt crept inside me and spread throughout my mind. There had been no signs that an angry spirit had invaded her home—no EMF signal, nothing left behind, nothing out of place. Everything seemed normal.

I headed back to the motel and called Cara once I was in my quiet room again.

"I'm not sure this is what we thought it was," I jumped right in as I opened a bag of chips and popped them into my mouth.

I told her everything Mrs. Baker talked about, right down to the personal details of their steamy love affair in the 1970's that eventually led to their marriage, hoping Cara would pick up on something I missed. Research was her gift and the crazy thing was she enjoyed it. And I was all too happy to hand it over to her.

"Nothing you've told me hints to anything new," she said.

Her girlish voice sounded absent, as if she were far away in her own world. It was the first case to stump her. I almost heard the gears of her brain clicking at they turned endlessly.

"Tonight I'll go down to Roosevelt Lake and check it out, see if I can find anything out of the ordinary there," I interjected to interrupt her obsessing.

"Good idea. I'll dig deeper here, maybe contact the Kettle Falls library again." Through the phone, I heard the soft tapping of fingers on the keyboard as she searched away on her laptop. We said our goodbyes and I headed out.

I walked around the town before dinner and talked to the locals. It couldn't hurt to see if they knew anything. But as friendly as the people of the small town were, no one had any helpful information. Everyone's story matched Mrs. Baker's. It confused them all. I continued to walk around, talking to anyone who was kind enough to spare a minute, while the constant drizzle dampened my long, heavy hair.

I stopped in a small sporting goods store and bought a navy blue windbreaker with an oversized hood. There was no way I could afford to get sick now. I headed back out into the mist fully prepared.

Night fell quickly. I stopped in a local diner for some food. Everyone seemed to know each other and were welcoming to people traveling through. The sense of community was foreign to me. I had been on my own for so many months, I forgot what it felt like to have people close. A younger man, about my age, sat in the booth across from me as I took a sip of water.

"Hey, stranger. Passing through?" he asked, upbeat.

His clothes were slightly dirty and his face hung with exhaustion from a full day of work, but he managed to give me a crooked grin. His hazel eyes glinted under the bright diner lights.

"Yeah, just taking a road trip," I said as I turned my eyes back to the menu.

"John Weston," he said.

I didn't bother looking up. "Nice to meet you."

"And you are?"

This guy was determined. I set the menu down on the table and looked him in the eye.

"I'm Kamlyn...Paige."

He smiled back and nodded his head several times before speaking again. "So...are you alone?"

He looked around the diner for another stranger who could possibly be my companion. It was either flirting or genuine curiosity. Honestly, I didn't care either way. Rule number one of the job was don't get attached, because once I destroyed the monster I would disappear without a goodbye. That was just the way it had to be.

"I'm alone, but getting ready to head out soon."

The waitress set a plate down in front of me and I took a bite, savoring the juicy flavor. Rarely did I get the chance to sit down and eat food that wasn't fresh off the assembly line.

"Meatloaf's good, huh?" John asked, smiling all the while. "I live next door to this place and I eat here almost every night. Can't get enough of it."

I lowered my gaze to the table, feeling slightly uncomfortable having a stranger watch me eat. Thankfully, John was a perceptive guy.

"I'll leave you to your meal, then. It was nice to meet you." His gaze lingered on me and his mouth parted like there was more he wanted to say. Instead, he closed his mouth and gave me another crooked grin.

"Good to meet you too, John," I responded.

He stood up and walked back to his own table where he ate alone. From what I could tell, he seemed perfectly happy with his life. It didn't look like he had anyone to share it with, but he didn't look lonely either. I envied that.

I paid my tab and left the small diner without another thought of John and walked back to the motel to pick up my truck. It seemed farther than I remembered since the rain had picked up. Small pellets of water hit my face as I kept my eyes trained down on the muddy ground. Once I reached the parking lot, I got right into my truck and left for Roosevelt Lake.

As I pulled up to the lakefront I turned off my lights. The deafening silence after I killed the engine consumed me, as if all the life in the woods had taken a deep breath and held it. I opened my door and hopped out of the cab before walking around to the back.

The floor of the bed lifted to reveal a shallow hidden compartment full of weaponry I had received during training. I grabbed the Beretta 9mm, loaded it with a round of iron bullets, and put a canvas pouch of salt in my coat pocket. I started to leave, but turned back and grabbed a flashlight. As brave as I liked to think I was, I wasn't about to wander into the woods alone in the dark.

With the autumn leaves crunching beneath my feet, I headed toward the lake bridges. Everything was quiet and peaceful—nothing unusual as far as I could see. I heard the rain hitting the tops of the trees, but the dense greenery prevented water from ever reaching me. The night was chilly and with the clouds dispersing the moon shone on the water, giving the area a magical glow.

I thought about the people in town and how simple their lives seemed and wondered if I could ever settle in one place again to live a normal life. I knew that wouldn't be possible until I found the demon that killed Danny. Even afterward, I would always be a Huntsman. I couldn't turn my back on everyone who needed help fighting against the Darkness, not after what it took from me.

The woods were quiet. I continued to walk, but nothing happened. But just when I thought it might be time to head back to the truck, I heard the soft sound of a woman crying. I walked over to the base of the bridge with the gun in my hand. I was well aware that the woman crying could be someone from town out on a walk to clear her mind, but I wasn't taking any chances.

Standing on the bank facing the river was a young woman. She had long, flowing black hair and beautifully bronzed skin. The temperature was in the low fifties, but she had on nothing more than a simple brown sleeveless dress. Her feet were bare and covered in dirt. I knew right away this was no ordinary woman from town. I crept over to her as she continued to stare into the lake, weeping.

"Hello?" I said cautiously.

She turned to face me, sending her long raven hair over one shoulder. I stared into her tear-filled eyes. Her irises were pitch-black, but her pupils shone an eerie, glowing silver.

"My whole family...gone," she whispered as tears streamed down her cheeks.

When I lifted my flashlight to shine it onto her face, there was no one there.

As many times as that had happened to me, it always caught me off guard. I lowered my gun and stared at the empty space where she'd been. With nothing more I could do, I turned around and trudged my way back to the truck.

As I drove back to the motel I saw a whirl of red and blue lights parked in front of someone's house. I leaned over and stashed my gun under the passenger seat before pulling up to a run-down house across the street from the ambulance and squad cars. A crowd gathered in the driveway. This piqued my interest. It was possible that whatever happened had something to do with my case.

I rolled down the window and called out to no one in particular when a familiar face stepped forward.

"Well, hello there," John Weston responded.

I gave a half-smile and after a moment of awkward silence, his face fell with sadness.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"Apparently, old man Jones drowned in his bathtub."

He looked down at the ground and kicked at the gravel as he spoke. I told him how sorry I was, assuming Mr. Jones was someone everyone in the town knew well.

"He was like a father to me. My dad passed when I was young and, being my dad's best friend, old man Jones helped raise me," John said with a long face.

I looked into his eyes, which were full of pain, and told him again how sorry I was for his loss. Death was the hardest part of what I did. Everywhere I went, it seemed to follow. He thanked me, resting his hands on the car door where I had the window rolled down. He stared into my eyes and bit his bottom lip, which was a nervous habit of mine as well.

I had heard enough. Cara was right. We were dealing with a spirit. I said my goodbyes and turned the truck around to continue back to the hotel.

When I walked through the door, the first thing I did was flop down onto the bed. The day seemed longer than usual, even though I had gotten a late start. I grabbed a towel and dried my hair lazily. Somehow, the mist had made its way into my hood through all the chaos, drenching my entire head.

At that moment, I was glad I was low-maintenance when it came to my appearance. Blow-drying it and then piling on products sounded excruciating. I could barely keep my eyes open. I had no clue what time it was, but I knew it was late. Calling Cara would have to wait until morning. I crawled into the hard motel bed and took two sleeping pills for a peaceful, dreamless slumber.

The Vengeful Spirit

When morning came, I stretched my arms and jumped out of bed. If I did dream, I couldn't remember a thing, something I was happy about. Already, the day was off to a better start.

I threw on a pair of worn-out jeans and a t-shirt before venturing out to find food. There were closer places to eat at, but I returned to the diner from the night before. It was the only decent meal around as far as I knew, and I was a creature of habit. I ate a steaming plate of biscuits and gravy while thinking about what John Weston had said about Mr. Jones.

Normally, the incident would have been an open-and-close case of an old man having a stroke and drowning in his tub. A clear-cut answer was never the real answer in my line of work, though. There was more to it than what was there in front of me. I could feel it. I was on the right track. I shoved the last bite of biscuits and gravy into my mouth before walking up to the counter to pay.

Back at the motel, I decided it was time to call Cara. I felt guilty for waiting so long to tell her about what I had seen at the lake. She loved to hear she was right. And I knew she could help me figure out who the young woman was.

"Well, you were right. It's a haunting."

"I knew it!" She yelled into the phone. "Why didn't you call me last night to tell me this?"

I could hear in her voice that she had been up all night trying to figure out how she could have been wrong. She sounded elated, but knowing her so well I heard an entire night's worth of stress and no sleep underneath the excitement. I told her about my encounter in the woods and that we had another victim.

"Then we're looking for a link between Mr. Baker, Mr. Jones, and a young Native American woman who died. I'll do some research and get back to you."

Her excitement wasn't insensitivity to Mr. Jones's death, but more of a reaction to her love of research. She hung up without waiting for a goodbye.

I rarely had time to myself since I started this new job. Not sure what to do while I waited for Cara to call back, I turned on the television and caught the beginning of a newly released chick flick. I popped a bag of popcorn into the microwave and made myself comfortable on the bed.

It felt like forever since I sat down and watched a movie all the way through. At the end, when I was about to find out if the lovers were truly meant to be together or not, my phone rang. I turned off the television and walked over to the small desk where it sat. Cara jumped in without saying so much as a hello.

"I found some very interesting information."

Her voice was calm and collected, no longer bouncing melodically with enthusiasm. That was how I knew the mystery was over. Instead of being excited and ready to go, Cara was quiet and peaceful at the conclusion of the puzzle. She told me the story of our young ghost woman.

"In the early 1900's, there was a Native American reservation in the old town of Kettle Falls where a young woman named Adoette lived with her family and tribe."

I heard her flip through the pages of her research and could tell right away it would be a lengthy story. I settled back on the bed and put the phone on speaker as I tried to toss bits of popcorn into the air and catch them in my mouth. When you lived in cheap motels, constantly traveling, you found simple ways to amuse yourself. I caught every single piece on the first try.

"The Columbia River ran through the middle of the reservation and supplied the tribe's main source of food, which was salmon. In 1940, city planners had already started construction on the Grand Coulee Dam, but decided they would need to flood the town of Kettle Falls in the process."

"But there's still a town of Kettle Falls..." I said in confusion.

I could practically hear Cara rolling her eyes at my naïve response. She continued as if she hadn't heard me.

"All the citizens agreed that building the dam and moving the town closer to the railroads would be better for its up-and-coming industries. So there's still a town, just a newer version of it.

"The reservation, however, was dead set against the move. Building a dam would cut off their necessary supply of salmon and destroy their homes. Some of the younger tribe members, including Adoette, traveled to neighboring towns to see if they could find support to stop the building of the dam."

I thought about the young woman I saw by the bridge. Her tears made sense. I knew how the story ended.

"They planned their journey with enough time to return before flooding began, but the city planners grew impatient and decided to start early. The elders of the reservation stubbornly refused to leave their homes and were given two choices—stay or leave, but, either way, the dam would be built."

It was a tragedy. How could they let those innocent people die like that? I remembered reading somewhere that drowning was the worst possible way to die. The feeling of suffocation was supposed to be unbearable. I shuddered at the thought.

"When Adoette and the others returned, they found their reservation was gone, replaced by water. Their homes and families had been washed away with everything they had ever known. Having to start new, Adoette built a small cabin in the woods next to her former home, which is now Roosevelt Lake, and remained there alone."

There is a hole in the story, I thought as I stood up from the bed and paced the room. Why would Adoette's ghost take revenge now, after seventy years?

"Do you know who the city planners were?" Cara asked. "Three men by the names of Richard Baker, Daniel Jones, and Jonathan Weston. Richard Baker was the man you saw in the old picture at the Bakers' home and Daniel Jones was the man who died last night."

The pieces were starting to fall into place. I still wasn't sure why the spirit had returned so late for her revenge, but I was sure about one thing, and that was how to get rid of her. I stopped pacing the room and stared at a dark stain on the carpet, looking past it rather than at it. My mouth fell open as I realized I had more to do than find Adoette, and I had to hurry.

"John Weston is the name of the guy who sat with me in the diner yesterday," I said more to myself than to Cara.

Without hesitation, I hung up the phone and rushed to the truck.

Speeding down the dark and winding road, I hoped I would get to John in time. I screeched to a halt in front of the only house next to the diner, an old ranch with a gravel driveway and leaning carport. My legs pumped desperately as I ran to the front door with my gun in my hand.

When I burst into the unlocked home, John Weston stood in the kitchen with his hands raised in defense. The young woman I saw at the lake stood across from him. It was only a second that she looked at me before she turned her focus back to him. She placed a hand on his chest.

John gasped for air as water poured from his mouth. The young woman turned her head slowly to look at me again with her hand planted firmly over his lungs. Her piercing silver eyes were filled with rage and pure hatred. She smiled and cocked her head to the side like a coyote spotting new prey to rip apart.

On instinct, I fired an iron round straight through her head, causing her to disappear and John to fall to his knees. He coughed up water and tried to catch his breath. His hands rested in a puddle at his feet.

"What the hell was that?" he gasped as I helped him up.

"I don't have time to explain. She'll be back soon."

I grabbed a box of salt from one of the shelves and shoved it at him.

"Take this, form a circle around yourself, and don't move. You'll be safe in there."

I ran from the house leaving John behind, most likely in fear and confusion.

I drove as fast as my beat-up truck could go to where I first saw Adoette's spirit. Cara had said her house was somewhere near the lake. It was possible her remains were still in the cabin, undiscovered.

The moment I came to a squealing stop I jumped out and grabbed a can of lighter fluid from the compartment under the bed. I ran to the lake's edge near the bridges and stopped, heaving heavy breaths of cold air. There had to be a clue to which direction I should go. I spun around, searching desperately. If I didn't find Adoette's remains soon, John would die. He couldn't stay protected in the salt circle forever.

A small dirt trail leading back into the woods caught my eye. I hadn't seen it before. My gut told me this was the trail that would lead me to the remains. I could see exactly what the cabin looked like in my mind as I headed into the darkness of the woods. My legs moved furiously, propelling me forward.

After what seemed like miles of running, I came upon a small, one-room log cabin. The moss-covered trees, overtaken with the green parasites, camouflaged it well. If I hadn't been intentionally looking for it I might have run right past it.

I walked up to a window to take a look inside. It was bare. There was a fireplace in one corner for cooking, some old pots for storage, and a cot against the wall across from me—lying motionless on the cot was an old woman. I flashed the light across her face to see if she was sleeping, but she lay there still and unresponsive. It was the body of Adoette.

I walked over to the warped, rotted door and pushed it open slowly. Dirt covered the ground instead of floorboards. Damp like the outside forest, it gave slightly when I stepped on it.

"Hello?" I said, trying one last time to see if the woman was still alive, but she was silent.

I nudged her a couple times as a final attempt, but there was no doubt about it. The woman was dead. I used the rest of my lighter fluid and the entire pouch of salt to cover her body.

Normally when I burned remains, they were bones or an object owned by the deceased. I had never burned one that was still intact before. It made me feel uneasy. This woman couldn't have died more than a few days ago, which explained why her spirit returned to seek revenge then. It saddened me to think that she would never receive a proper burial. There would be no tombstone for loved ones to visit and mourn. There would be nothing left behind to prove she even existed. But as unnerved as I was, I knew it had to be done. John's life depended on it.

Just as I lit the match to throw it onto the old woman's corpse, the door creaked open behind me. I spun around to see young Adoette's ghost standing there, rage pouring from her unearthly silver eyes. A faint growling sound came from deep within her as she huffed through her nose. We stared at each other, sizing the other up to see who would make the first move.

Without warning, she let out an ear-splitting cry and rushed forward. I scraped the match across the box and dropped it. Orange and red flames engulfed the body before me. Adoette's spirit stopped in her tracks and stared, her face stricken with fear.

As she looked down at her flaming body on the cot, she let out a horrifying scream and burst into flames as well. Heat engulfed the room. I shielded my eyes from the bright light. Just as quickly as the spirit caught fire, she was gone.

I ran from the cabin before the only exit went up in flames. A blaze of fire swallowed up the tiny home as I hurried back to the truck where I pulled out my phone and dialed 911.

"Yes, hello. I want to report a fire in the woods next to Roosevelt Lake."

The woman on the other end asked for my name, but I hung up. I couldn't link myself to what happened. It was always the antisocial stranger passing through who was the first to be questioned, and in my case their suspicions would be correct. I needed to disappear, just as Adoette had done, never to be seen again by the people of Kettle Falls.

When I got back to the motel, I gathered my belongings to leave town as soon as possible. While tossing my toiletry kit into my black duffel bag I heard a rhythmic knocking at the door. My stomach sank. How could the police have figured me out so fast? I cracked it open, but left the chain latched.

"Hello there, mystery woman," John said, giving me a cocky grin as he leaned against the doorframe.

Two hours ago, water spewed from his mouth as he sat hunched over on the kitchen floor. Now, he wore a dark green button-down shirt left open to show the fitted t-shirt he wore underneath. His jeans were clean and hugged his body. Instead of wearing the worn-out ball cap from the diner, his short brown hair was styled with mousse. He had put effort into his appearance to come see me.

"You caught me. Did you get all dressed up just to stalk me in the middle of the night?" I said, smiling back as I undid the chain and stepped aside to invite him in.

I took a deep breath as he walked past to sit on the windowsill. He smelled of rugged, outdoorsy cologne. I remembered from biology class that scent triggered memories better than any of our other senses, and right then I was taken back to high school with Rob, my son's father.

Suddenly, I was aware of how frumpy I looked. My long hair needed brushing. I was positive I felt twigs stuck in it as I ran my fingers through, trying to smooth out the tangles. I had on a plain t-shirt and my favorite jeans, and while they showed off my figure, the rips and fading were anything but intentional.

"So, what the hell happened?" he asked, still smiling at me as he folded his arms.

I was glad he wasn't mad at me for trying to skip town without explaining. Something told me this wasn't the first time someone had done that to him. We didn't know each other, but something in his eyes made it hard for me to go back to his house and see him again, like I wouldn't just be saying goodbye to him but to any possibility of having a normal life with someone altogether.

I threw a wrinkled t-shirt into my bag. "How did you know when to leave the circle?"

"Well, one minute she was sitting across from me, dangerously close and smiling like a madwoman, and then the next she was gone. Shortly after she left the lights came back on. I figured if she came back the lights flickering again would tip me off."

I was impressed by how well he was handling the situation. Most people were complete basket cases after their first ghost encounter.

"You did good, John," I said, glancing into his eyes quickly before looking away. "I've been doing this for quite a while and normally when I try to explain the paranormal to people they look at me like I'm crazy, no matter what horror they just witnessed."

John gazed at me, continuing to give me his crooked grin.

"So, you're like some badass ghost hunter?"

"Uh, sure. Something like that," I chuckled.

No one had ever described my job so perfectly before. I looked at him, unable to stop myself from blushing as I smiled. He was different from the other victims I had helped in the past six months. He knew about my job and didn't run away screaming.

"I guess I really came to say thanks," he said, looking into my eyes as he stood up from the windowsill. He walked over and reached for my hand. "Do you think I could take you to dinner before you go?"

I pulled my hand away. His gaze fell to the floor. I couldn't invite anyone else into my messy life, and I couldn't give up the hunt for my son's killer.

"I have to find someone who took something very special from me," I said with certainty.

His hazel eyes pleaded for an explanation. I sighed. I had only said it aloud once before, during training, and the words had stabbed at me like a thousand knives.

"A demon killed my son, and I have to find it and kill it."

He didn't laugh or back away in fear. His eyes didn't bug out of his head to stare at me like I was crazy. Instead, his full lips pulled back into a pained smile.

"I knew there was something special about you the minute we met. You'll always have evil to hunt and people to save because that's what you do...you save lives."

He leaned in and gave me a small, soft kiss on my cheek. I closed my eyes and savored the moment. It would be a long time before I had another one like that. It made me do something I never do.

"Here's my number, in case you ever piss off another spirit. Don't hesitate to call," I smiled as I tore off a piece of paper from the pad on the nightstand and scribbled on it.

He took it in his hands and stared down at it. "How do I know this isn't fake?"

"I guess you'll just have to trust me."

A smile spread across his lips. "Goodbye, Kamlyn Paige," he said as he turned to leave the room.

It was the first time I was sorry to leave somewhere in a long time. I gave a deep sigh as I grabbed my bag and closed the motel door behind me. John pulled out of the parking lot in his beat up old car and drove out of sight.

After I returned the room key to the front desk I tossed my duffel bag onto the passenger seat of my truck and climbed in. As the engine roared to life I picked up my phone and checked the texts. There were no new messages. I decided to drive wherever the roads took me while I waited for the Chamber to message with my next job. It would be the closest thing I had to a vacation, and after all everyone deserves a break once in a while.
Dear Readers,

Please let me know what you thought of Broken Angel by leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews are so important and help an author tremendously! I really appreciate you taking the time to share with others what you thought of my books. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I also wanted to take the time to go a little deeper into the supernatural with you. Stories about the unknown are fun and have always been a favorite of mine. I love scary movies about werewolves, zombies, ghosts, and more. But being a Christian, I only believe in what the Bible tells me. We do fight supernatural battles, but not like how Kamlyn or any of her friends do. Demons are real, the devil is real, and on the lighter side, angels are real too. Though I have my characters face off with a lot of spirits, vengeful or not, I personally do not believe they are actually real. The Bible tells us when we die we either go straight to heaven or hell and await judgement there. Based on scripture, ghosts cannot be a part of our world. But they sure are fun to imagine! I do, however, believe demons like to mess with people's minds to get them questioning God and His Word, and they like to impersonate people passed to do this. My verdict on zombies and werewolves? I've never met one, but the jury's still out!

Thanks again for reading my beloved series. I hope you enjoyed it and will continue on with Kamlyn as she races to save humanity.

Alex Apostol

Learn more about Alex Apostol at writeralexapostol.com
