Two

Five Months Later

 

The vision always started the same way: a dark Hollywood cemetery. Bitter cold. Fog. Rain. Cracks of lightning and booming thunder. Quaking ground and torrential wind. She cried for help, but no one could hear her. Then, a shadow of a woman stood before her. She grabbed her by the throat, threw her against a tombstone, and crushed her skull in the process.

The vision came again this morning and Iris wondered where it came from. Was it a witch casting a spell? Some horrible daydream she couldn’t shake? Or just a side effect of being a Hunter in the field?

“And that’s why you shouldn’t be a Hunter,” her brother Knox said, jolting her back to reality. Whatever “reasons” he was listing, Iris didn’t catch a single one. Between today’s creepy vision, and the natural stress that came with being a Hunter, Iris had gotten very good at drowning Knox out. He made a habit of trying to convince her to get out of the field and get back into school. He meant well, he really did. But Iris had made her decision and her overprotective brother wasn’t going to change her mind.

The two of them were standing on a remote rooftop in Hollywood, drenched in black leather and blending into the darkness like a pair of ninjas.

It was a dry October evening and a creamy wedge of moon hung in the sky, bathing the city in a pale light whenever it managed to peek through the passing clouds. It could have even been considered a beautiful night, if there wasn’t an ancient evil lurking in the nearby shadows. Five months ago, she brought her father the body of a dead witch. He couldn’t lie to her anymore, although he did try. But Iris wouldn’t have it. She gave him an ultimatum: kill me or let me on the team.

“You know,” her brother continued. “You could always just wait till you graduate from high school, and by then, who knows? You may not even want to be a Hunter anymore—”

“Knox!” she interrupted with a firm tone. “It’s been five freaking months,” she said with a sigh. “Can’t we be done with the ‘brotherly love’ crap? I’m in the field. It’s not changing.”

Iris appreciated her brother’s concern, but it was too late. From now on she would spend her days hunting witches, not on the cheer squad.

“Fine,” he huffed, slumping his shoulders. “Let’s get to it, then.”

Iris flashed a menacing grin and got into position. Like a hungry lioness stalking its prey, she was itching for a kill, and tonight, she wanted to make the Hunters proud.

She was lying prone, preparing to take her final test: the sniper rifle. The thought of this weapon always made her giddy. It was so powerful but also completely undetectable.

The best part? The Hunter’s rifle couldn’t kill a human, but for a witch, it was the deadliest of poison. The strangest thing about her test tonight was that she had already completed the sniper training course. Twice actually. Yet her father insisted she train again before being allowed to hunt on her own.

She settled in behind her rifle with an ear-to-ear grin, steadied her breath and waited. Her brother Knox stood beside her and kept a watchful eye for any movement.

“Iris, we’ve gone over this, you need to relax your shoulders,” Knox ordered in a quiet but firm tone, lowering his binoculars. “And make sure you’re ready to fire on my command.”

“I think I’ve got it,” Iris snapped in a low whisper. It’s not as if she didn’t know what to do. “You do know this isn’t my first time behind a sniper, right?”

“Yes. But we just have to be sure.”

“Sure of what? No one else had to do the training twice.”

“I know. But Dad said you have to do it again because you’re a—”

“Let me guess … a girl?” This was a common side effect of being the first female to carry the witch-hunting gene—always having to prove herself. And frankly, Iris was getting a little sick of it.

“Hey, I don’t like it, okay?” Knox assured her. “But it’s Dad’s orders.”

“Well, last I checked, Dad left you in charge when he up and went to Wales—”

“On business,” Knox interrupted. “And you know he calls constantly to check in. So for now, what he says still goes.”

Iris was thrilled when her father left for Wales and put Knox in charge. Not that she didn’t miss her father, because she did. But Iris and her brother had always been in sync and she was hoping things in the witch-hunting world would change for the better with Knox as their fearless leader. But they hadn’t, at least not yet anyway.

Iris let out an exasperated sigh and flicked off the safety with an audible click. She steadied her frustrations, taking in a deep whiff of California air filled with exhaust, honeysuckle, and sea salt.

Knox grinned and returned to his binoculars. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked with a playful tone, peering into the city’s darkness.

“Knox, I swear to God, if you don’t leave me alone—”

“You’ll what?”

Iris growled but maintained her position, catching her brother crack a smile out of the corner of her eye. She was used to Knox being a dick and she had learned he didn’t mean a thing by it. Behind his tough-as-nails persona and intimidating brawn, there was a big soft teddy bear waiting to come out and shower people with hugs and kisses. He just preferred to keep his fluffy side in chains and let the devil on his shoulder reign free.

Pretty much every woman at the Bently Fortress made a point to constantly remind Knox he looked like a Spanish god, or a Thor-meets-Bond remix. And because he spoke with actions and not words, he was mysterious too. Girls literally fell at his feet. It was disgusting. But despite the constant bumps to his ego, Knox was completely levelheaded and constantly knew what to do.

Iris always thought she looked like Knox in a girl-suit. Her dark wavy hair fell past her shoulders and her coffee-colored eyes burned with fiery intensity. They both had a smattering of freckles atop their creamy pecan skin and their athletic physiques were perfect for intimidating people, something Iris liked to do whenever she had the chance.

She peered through the lens of her thermal scope. Anything with a high heat signature showed up white against the flickering green background. The hotter the object, the more intensely it glowed. But there was still no sign of their mark. Iris was starting to feel uneasy.

“It’s been over half an hour.” Knox checked his watch. “Maybe our intel was bad.”

Iris, still lying on her stomach with her rifle pressed firmly against her shoulder, looked up with a snarl. “Well, Dex said she’d be here and his intel is never wrong, so …” She paused. “She’ll be here.”

Another minute passed and Iris wondered if she was on the right rooftop. She desperately hoped she was. Her stomach wrapped itself in knots and her heart thrummed like a well-tuned racecar engine.

“I’m not so sure about that, kiddo,” Knox said, still scanning the streets below with his binoculars. “But for your sake, I hope she is. I don’t want to have to tell Dad we didn’t get her.”

Iris agreed. The last thing she wanted to do was to be forced to go through the grueling training course again.

“Hey, guys,” a voice crackled in their inner ear coms. It was their cousin Dex, who was also a Hunter, and a good one at that. Like Knox, Dex was tall, dark, and terrifying. Definitely someone you don’t want to mess with.

“Dex. Hey,” Iris quickly replied. “Please tell me our intel wasn’t bad.”

“Well,” Dex started, “it wasn’t bad per se. But it was planted there for us to find. It looks like we may have ourselves a mole.”

“What?” Iris jumped to her feet. “Are you serious?”

“That’s not even the worst part,” Dex said, his voice slightly unsteady. His voice was never unsteady. Iris swallowed hard.

“Dex, just tell us what’s going on already,” Knox demanded.

“Well … a huge celebrity was murdered this afternoon. And I mean huge. We’re talking a twenty-two-year-old Oscar winner here. And it looks like it was the work of the witches.”

Iris’s body went numb. The ground beneath her was spinning. “No. That can’t be right,” Iris said, almost pleadingly. “We had protection details in place all day.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you,” Dex said. He paused. Iris could hear him breathing heavily through the com. The anticipation set her nerves on fire.

“Iris.” He paused again and took a long breath. “She was killed on your watch.”