Hunted: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Shadow Reapers Book 1) Read online

  Hunted

  Shadow Reapers, Volume 1

  Jack Knight

  Published by Jack Knight, 2020.

  While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  HUNTED

  First edition. September 26, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Jack Knight.

  ISBN: 978-1734453492

  Written by Jack Knight.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 1

  DON’T THINK ANYTHING, or you’re dead. Focus on her face. Don’t get caught.

  That had become my mantra. Something I thought every single time someone walked into the shop, because I had to. To even get in here, they had to be supernatural. If they were supernatural, they could figure out what I am. If anyone finds out, I’d be lucky to just be killed.

  Then, the girl, who was probably about sixteen years old with light brown hair that looked like it had never been washed before and clothes that looked at least as old as she was, walked past me and into an aisle.

  If she had noticed me, if she knew who I was, she would’ve bolted from the store, not continued to shop. Now, I just needed to stare around this place and not think a single thing.

  The problem was, when you’re trying not to think, it becomes even harder to not think. I didn’t have a choice though. I didn’t know what kind of magic user she was, and I knew some of them could read minds. Like, all the time. That wasn’t counting the ones that could do a spell so they could read minds for a little while.

  Fortunately, I had made it through that part of the training. I knew that they could only read surface thoughts, so I looked around the room I was in for the thousandth time, memorizing every detail again.

  I worked in a place called an apothecary, which translated to “place where all the mages get the shit for their spells”. So, most of the aisles in the center of the store were filled with bottles of crushed up plants and bunches of leaves and stuff. Around the outside walls, that’s where all the blood and animal pieces were. They were refrigerated, like the vegetable aisles at a grocery store, which made the sort of small shop a little cold all the time.

  That was why, as I sat behind the counter where people paid, I had a little space heater set up near the feet of the metal chair I was sitting on. It made my ass a little sweaty, but for the most part it was a pretty comfortable arrangement.

  You know, physically. Emotionally, this was the most draining thing I could have ever possibly done. Ignoring the fact that, just like every customer service job in the world, I was basically treated like absolute shit by seventy percent of the customers. There was also my particular worry that every supernatural person I saw was going to out me and turn me over to those bastards.

  Unfortunately, I had been raised the way I was. I was never supposed to exist. So, no high school diploma. No driver’s license. Hell, I didn’t even think I had a birth certificate. If I did, it was with the rest of the stuff I left behind when I ran away from—

  No! Fuck, Maddi, focus on the bottle of newt eyes!

  Why the fuck witches needed eye of newt so much I would never understand. Witches were the weirdest kind of magic users. They weren’t born with the ability to control the energy of the universe, so they needed crushed up plants and animal blood to do magic. Apparently, anyone was supposed to be able to learn it, but I had noticed a trend from the people that walked into the apothecary: witches needed to be absolutely obsessed with magic.

  It made sense, though. If you were born without magic, the only way to get it would be to obsess over it forever until you stumbled across a spell book or someone willing to teach you. Then, it was like any other skill. Practice that shit day in and day out until you get good at it.

  “Hey!”

  I jumped in surprise and my hand immediately went to the knife I kept on my belt. If I hadn’t been so focused on that bottle of eyeballs, I would’ve noticed the girl appear at the counter in front of me.

  “Hey,” I replied, trying to force my voice to sound pleasant. It wasn’t something I was good at, but the girl either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  She set down half a dozen bottles of a bunch of different crushed up things in small bottles and smiled at me as she said, “I love your hair!”

  God, this chick sounded like one of those people that was all sunshine and rainbows. The world was dark and cruel, nobody should be that fucking happy. I hated those assholes. It wasn’t fair the world hadn’t fucked them over, yet.

  “Thanks,” I replied, hoping the fact that I was totally mimicking her tone came off as sincere, not mocking.

  I started grabbing the bottles and scanning the little barcodes on the back while the girl stared at me with that stupid smile on her face.

  Yes, I get it, dark blue hair isn’t super common. That would be a problem for the whole “don’t ever get noticed by anyone” thing, but it had its purpose.

  Nobody would suspect I was one of them if I dyed my hair blue. It was a safety precaution. Also, I hated having blonde hair and blue eyes. The way people treated me, you’d think I was an airheaded valley girl.

  “So, do you like working here?” the girl asked.

  I scanned the last of the bottles she had placed in front of me and answered, “Yeah, it’s fine. Your total is forty-seven thirty-six.”

  The girl pulled out a credit card and I tapped the little machine she had to put the card’s chip into.

  Luckily, that would buy me a few seconds. I knew this girl was being nice, that meant I should be nice back. If I was rude, that would give someone else a reason to be a dick to customer service workers, and I did not need to contribute to that problem.

  Still, people asking me questions made me nervous. It could be someone trying to figure out who I was, and I couldn’t risk that, no matter how nice this girl was. I needed to stay hidden, no matter what the cost.

  “Great, have a nice day,” the girl said as she collected her ingredients and practically skipped from the store.

  The girl would walk out that door into a regular Whole Foods store like she hadn’t just visited a shop for mages. Nobody would even notice her sudden appearance, because the shop’s owner had put such a good spell on the place. Then, she would be gone. I probably wouldn’t see her again until she had forgotten about me. San Francisco had a ton of apothecaries hidden all over the city, people rarely went to the same one twice in a row.

  My heart skipped a beat when the door opened again, right after the girl left. For a second, I thought she
had recognized me and come back, but it was just the store’s owner.

  Mr. O’Grady was a kind of short, balding man. His red hair had started fading in color and his gut was probably something that developed after he settled down and opened this shop a few years ago.

  He walked in, wound his way through the store and stopped in front of my little counter. The fact that he smiled the entire time annoyed me a little bit, but I couldn’t bring myself to dislike this guy. He was the only reason I was still alive.

  Well, he was a major part of it. The training I had drilled into me from the day I was born helped a lot, too.

  “H’lo, Maddi. Were we busy today?” Mr. O’Grady asked cherrily.

  I shook my heat and slouched down in my chair a bit, ignoring the heat of the seat that I could feel even through my shirt.

  “Not really,” I answered, relieved I didn’t have to force my face into a smile while I spoke for the first time that day. “That girl that just left was like the tenth customer today.”

  “Ah, that’s Mondays for ya,” Mr. O’Grady chuckled.

  How he could be in a good mood after finding out his store had made like five hundred dollars all day was beyond me. The rent on this place had to be steep. I knew the vampire he rented from, that guy was a major douchebag. He was the guy I got contracts from occasionally, I kind of felt bad for Mr. O’Grady.

  “Well, I’ll be in the back for a bit, but your shift is almost over,” Mr. O’Grady informed me with a smile.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wad of cash. He counted it out in front of me and set in down on the counter.

  “I’ll come back out in a bit and you can head home for the day, okay?”

  I grabbed the money off the counter and slid it into the pocket of my jeans, fighting the very strong urge to roll my eyes.

  Mr. O’Grady was a sweet old man, and I appreciated all the help he gave me so much, but dude seriously got on my nerves sometimes.

  I knew when my shift was over. I knew he’d take over for me. And, I knew I could leave when he did. Obviously, I couldn’t say any of that to his face, but I didn’t need to be told that everything would be exactly the same as it was every other time I worked.

  “Can’t wait,” I answered as he made his way around the counter.

  He headed past the wall of stuff we kept out of reach of the customers, the unicorn hairs and magical drugs and other stuff we had to record selling, and into the door that led to his office.

  I waited until the door closed behind him before I pulled the money out of my pocket and counted it, just in case. There was no way Mr. O’Grady was going to screw me over, but I had learned not to trust anyone, especially people who could do magic.

  The money was all there, six hundred dollars for the week. It would seem like a lot if I was working at Wal-Mart, but there was a significant amount of danger that came working in a place like this. There were some things in this shop, like the dragon scales, that were kept in the locked safe right behind my chair, that some people would try to take by force. Guarding those things came with a bit of extra pay.

  That was why I worked in a place where I could be caught at any moment. Not just the twenty dollars an hour, but the fact that I was paid in cash. The magical society kept paper trails, too. I couldn’t get a job anywhere that asked me to verify anything, so I was lucky I didn’t have to sell my body or anything. Mr. O’Grady knew I could take down anyone that tried to steal from him, so he allowed me to work here without ever asking for more than my name.

  The day should have gone by like usual, but seconds after Mr. O’Grady shut his office door, someone else walked into the shop. Someone that made my heart jump into my throat.

  He was just a normal guy. Short brown hair, normal brown eyes, a little more muscle than average, but nothing to scream about. The thing that scared me was he was wearing a short sleeve shirt, and I could see part of a tattoo on his bicep.

  I knew that tattoo, because I had one. It was a pentacle in a circle. I even counted the twelve smaller pentacles that led from the main one down toward his wrist, and knew he wasn’t a newbie. He might recognize me.

  “Hey, do you guys—” he started to ask as I jumped up from the chair.

  “Sorry,” I said, cutting him off, “someone will be with you in a second!”

  I dashed to Mr. O’Grady’s office door and threw myself inside before I slammed it shut behind me.

  Mr. O’Grady looked up from a few papers on the small wooden desk he had crammed into the tiny office. He looked surprised for a second, and then he seemed to understand. He nodded and tapped on the wall behind him, which seemed to melt away, revealing a short hallway that ended in a door.

  “Looks like your shift is over a little early, huh?” Mr. O’Grady asked with a chuckle.

  “Sorry, sir. And, thanks,” I apologized as I dashed toward the exit.

  I had to get out. There was no way that guy was alone. There had to be at least one more outside.

  Everyone knew Hunters always moved in pairs. That was, if there weren’t any more of them.

  Chapter 2

  RUNNING UP A HILL IN San Francisco is absolute torture. I ran a mile every day to stay in shape, but never uphill.

  I just pushed through it though, even when I was panting so hard I could feel my lungs burning. The fact that the chick with blue hair was sprinting through the streets was starting to call attention, but I didn’t care. None of them would know who I was, humans didn’t know anything about the Hunters.

  Well, most humans.

  Finally, the ground leveled out and I figured I was far enough away from the apothecary that I could slow down. I could feel sweat cementing my hair to my forehead and dripping down my back. It took me at least five more blocks before I could breathe normally again, but I didn’t see anything suspicious and I didn’t hear anyone running after me.

  It was starting to feel like I had overreacted a bit, running was probably more noticeable than someone leaving the counter right when a customer showed up.

  Still, Hunters were never alone. It was a rule. Everyone got a partner the day they got the Hunter’s Mark. The guy had the pentacle tattoo, so he had to have a partner. There was at least one other Hunter there who may have seen me, assuming they weren’t out as a group.

  Once I could breathe, I kept glancing over my shoulder. There were a significant number of people out today, despite the fact that it was Monday morning. My hair made me a little easier to spot in a crowd, but that was why I chose San Francisco. I could stand out and blend in at the same time. I must have passed at least two other girls with blue hair since I left the apothecary.

  I just couldn’t stop wondering why there was a Hunter in San Francisco. They stayed in the Sanctum unless they were on a mission. They used to, at least. Things may have changed in the past year.

  Deep breath, Maddi. Forget it.

  When I turned a corner and walked into the courtyard of my apartment complex, I forced myself not to look over my shoulder to see if I was being followed. If I hadn’t spotted anyone yet, I doubted anyone was going to try to grab me before I could get into my home.

  Trying to keep calm didn’t stop me from sprinting up three flights of stairs, just in case. I also walked a little faster than necessary past the apartments between the staircase and my door. I was almost to my apartment when something scared me so badly I drew the knife from my belt and spun around, shifting into my battle stance.

  Someone had said my name.

  “Geez, chill.”

  “Fuck you, William!” I seethed as I stood up straight.

  My neighbor, a short, thin man wearing a jean jacket and grey sweatpants, was leaning against the wall between his door and mine. His shoulder length, greasy black hair covered half his face, but I could still see his blood red eyes and the half smoked cigarette he had in the corner of his mouth.

  He took a pull on his cigarette before he removed it from his mouth. “That’s not very neig
hborly of you. Back in my day, we were kind to people.”

  I pointed my knife at William’s chest and gave the most sarcastic smile I could muster. “Back in your day, people got around on horses.”

  William was a vampire. It was rare for him to try to talk to me in daylight. Every time it happened, it was for the same reason, and I wasn’t in the mood for it this time. Not when I knew Hunters were in the city.

  Actually, after thinking about it, I realized it was way earlier than William had ever spoken to me before. I glanced behind him and saw that the shadow that he was standing in didn’t reach all the way to his door. He had walked through sunlight to talk to me. I didn’t know a lot about vampires, but I knew even a couple of feet of sunlight had to have been excruciating for him.

  “That is true, so many things have changed,” William answered nonchalantly.

  I had to admit, I was curious. There was no way I could accept, but I kind of wanted to know what was worth burning himself for.

  “What do you want, Leech?” I snapped.

  I lowered my knife, but kept it firmly in my grip. He knew as well as I did that the blade was lined with wood and etched with magical symbols. He wouldn’t try anything if he knew he’d be a more severe type of dead with just a flick of my wrist.

  “Hey,” William said, feigning offense, “that’s racist.”

  “I’m leaving,” I sighed as I turned toward my door again.

  I had never been stupid enough to invite William into my apartment, so as soon as I passed through the door, he wouldn’t be able to bother me anymore.

  “Okay, hey, hold up,” William said quickly.

  I had made it to my door, which was thankfully bathed in sunlight. The wall William was hiding behind didn’t go around the entire building. He couldn’t touch me, now, so I felt safe sliding my knife back into its sheath and setting my hand on my doorknob.

  “What?” I asked without looking up at him.

  “I’ve got a contract for you,” he said, lowering his voice a little.