Prologue
Elizabeth
You’re not guaranteed to die if you go into the woods that border the village, but the chance of it certainly increases. You’re not safe inside the village these days, either. Honestly, if you live in Oakenridge, you must accept that your life expectancy may be short.
It wasn’t like that a year ago. Last summer, we were like any other village in the Northern Terrace—just a quaint community based around a sawmill, with a nearby mine, where an occasional vein of silver could be found if you were diligent enough to keep digging. Oakenridge was a friendly sort of place. It was welcoming to newcomers, with people who took care of their neighbors, all watched over by Colonel Delane, a kindly gentleman who lived atop the hill at the northern end of the village.
The colonel died a year ago today, when the oak brush was bright red and yellow aspen leaves littered the ground. He was one of the first.
His manor still stands against the backdrop of the granite cliff. It’s now a sad, empty place, housing only his daughter and a handful of the staff members who haven’t abandoned her.
Sadly, she’s going to die tonight as well, leaving the grand house without an owner.
I know this because I’m she, and judging from the shadow creeping across my room, one of the monsters has gotten into the house…
Chapter One
Benjamin
A stack of papers drops onto my desk with a heavy thud, making my inkwell rattle. I look up at the hunter in front of me, unimpressed.
“The paperwork you requested,” Atticus says dryly. “All thirty-seven pages of it.”
I push the disheveled pile to the side, looking back down at my ledger. “Did you make sure to sign and initial page seven, fifteen, and twenty-eight?”
The hunter mutters a curse as he walks away, likely headed to the dining hall, where he’ll spend the evening regaling any and all who will listen to his extraordinary exploits.
Does he care that the blade he forgot to fortify before fighting the gargoyle will cost two hundred eighty kevlings to replace?
No.
Did it cross his mind when he mindlessly charged into the fray that the antibiotic tonic he would have to consume contains rare tundra crocus stamens, and is worth more than liquid gold?
Of course not.
“Hunters,” I mutter under my breath, continuing to tally up his expenses.
Around me, the guildhall is quiet. Most everyone has left for the day or gone to dinner. But the doors to the training room are open, letting out the sound of a few stragglers. We have a batch of recruits learning the ropes. They’re eager to please now, but after they have a few dozen missions under their belts, they’ll be as obnoxious as Atticus.
“Night, Benjamin,” one of them says as he walks past my office, rubbing his shoulder like he hurt it during practice.
Nodding to him, I calculate the numbers two more times just to make sure they’re correct.
“You have that look again.” Arthur pauses in my doorway on his way out. “What’s the damage?”
Sitting back in my seat, I cross my arms. “Eight hundred thirty-seven kevlings.”
“And how much did the job pay?”
“Five hundred fifty.”
Arthur winces.
“We’re not running a charity,” I remind him. “You need to raise our rates.”
“We already charge more than Haverdell. If we go higher, we’ll price ourselves out of the market.”
“Julian’s hunters are liars, cheats, and hacks,” I argue. “We’re the best in the business. Surely that counts for something?”
“I’m not raising our rates,” Arthur says firmly.
“Fine,” I snap. “Then tell your hunters to stop being careless with guild-issued equipment. They seem to think money grows on trees.”
“Surely you don’t expect them to add up their expenses while they’re fighting?” Arthur says, frustrated. “Honestly, Benjamin.”
“I don’t see why they can’t.”
He rolls his eyes. “You haven’t been in the field in years. You don’t remember what it’s like.”
“I know it’s not that hard to collect your crossbow bolts from a corpse, and it only takes half a minute to fortify a blade before you go into a gargoyle-infested cave. Do you have any idea how quickly those small things add up?”
Arthur closes his eyes, massaging his temples as though the conversation is giving him a headache. “You want our hunters to reuse crossbow bolts?”
“It’s not that much to ask,” I argue. “With the amount we go through, that alone would save the guild a thousand kevlings a month.”
Arthur shakes his head, turning to walk away. “If you think you could do a better job, why don’t you take an assignment?”
It’s a rhetorical question, but I mutter, “I should.”
Arthur stops and looks back, peering at me with the strangest look on his face.
“You know.” He walks to my desk, tapping the wood. “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had.”
Rolling my eyes, I flip through Atticus’s expense report. “Lazy git didn’t initial page fifteen. Did I tell him? Yes, I did. Did I tell him the page number? I did that too.”
“You’re talking to yourself again.”
I continue to mutter as I slip a piece of paper between the pages, marking it so Atticus might actually find the empty spot when I tell him to take care of it tomorrow.
“You’re certified like all the others,” Arthur goes on, prattling on about who-knows-what. “If I remember right, you graduated at the top of your training class. Remind me how you ended up as the guild’s executive director.”
“You placed me in the position when you discovered I’m the only guild member who can count to ten without using his fingers.”
“When’s the last time you went outside?”
“I walk to and from the guildhall every day.” I wave him away with my hand. “Speaking of that, I’d like to get home before midnight, and I have things to finish.”
Arthur crosses his arms, nodding to himself as he studies me. “We received a new job today.”
Setting aside Atticus’s mission report, I pick up Douglas’s request for new boots. Distracted, I say, “All right.”
“Vampires in Oakenridge.”
“Up by Wrenvale?”
“That’s right.”
I pull my eyes from the form. “Is this a request from a paying customer?”
“The girl’s father died last year.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I want you to take care of it.”
“If you charge less than three hundred, it won’t even cover the expense of sending someone all the way up—” I stop, narrowing my eyes. “What?”
“You still train, don’t you? Are you decent with a crossbow?”
“I’m better than decent, but I can’t take a mission.”
“Why?” Arthur demands.
“This place would fall apart without me.” I sit back in my seat, cringing as I imagine the mess I’d come back to. “No one can do my job.”
“You’ll be gone a week at the most.”
“It takes a week just to travel up there.”
“It’s a day and a half by train.”
I drum my fingers on the desk. “There’s no one to fill in for me.”
“Catriona can do it,” Arthur says as the hunter passes by the door.
She pauses, assessing the situation. Warily, she steps inside my office and asks, “Catriona can do what?”
At first glance, a person might assume Cat’s too pretty to be a hunter, but she’s one of our best. Right now, she wears her strawberry blonde hair in a braid that hangs down her back. A few strands escaped while she was training the recruits, and now they frame her face. Thanks to her soft brown eyes, the dusting of freckles across her nose, and her dusky pink lips, the new hunters always assume she’ll be a pushover.
She sent two of the soft boys to the infirmary on their first day of training just a few months ago.
“You can fill in for Benjamin while he does a job,” Arthur says.
Cat’s eyebrows fly up. “Benjamin doesn’t take jobs.”
“He’s taking this one.”
Her gaze moves to me, and she furrows her brow. “Can you shoot?”
The way she says it makes me rather indignant. Sharply, I answer, “Yes, thank you. The question is whether you can do my job.”
She glances at my desk. “You just approve requests and keep up with the account ledger, right? Do some scheduling, fill out some reports, sweet-talk the authorities when needed. It doesn’t look that hard.”
They think it’s that simple to keep this place running, do they?
“Fine,” I snap. “I’ll take the job.”
Arthur looks pleased. “You will?”
“And I’ll stay within the budget.”
“We don’t have a budget for this one.” The six-foot-three, fifty-seven-year-old hunter looks sheepish as he rubs the bridge of his nose.
I growl, “I knew it—you took another charity case.”
“It’s good marketing,” he argues. “And the girl’s father was one of my closest friends.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine—fine. It’s better to send me than someone who will cost the guild more.”
“What type of monsters will he be dealing with?” Cat asks Arthur.
“Vampires.”
The pretty hunter frowns. “You’re sending him after vampires his first time out?”
“He’s just clearing a few out of the woods. He’ll be fine.”
She shoots me a worried look. “Don’t we have a garden gnome infestation Benjamin could deal with first?”
“Garden gnomes put Hubert in the infirmary for eight weeks,” Arthur reminds her.
“I’m fine,” I say, growing exasperated. “I finished my training like everyone else.”
“But how many years ago?” Cat asks.
“Don’t you have a weapon request in here?” I point to the stack of papers I just started going through. “Do you want me to approve your new twin blades or not?”
She smirks, stepping up to my desk. “I’ll just approve them myself when you’re gone.”
“Cat has a point,” Arthur says. “It’s been at least five years since you were in the field.”
Six. I joined the guild when I was seventeen, trained for six months, and then apprenticed for another eighteen months. Throughout those first two years, I put out fires in the office for Arthur because his system was in shambles. He appointed me as his secretary when I was only nineteen and then executive director when I was twenty-three. Now I’m twenty-five.
“Maybe I should send someone with you,” Arthur goes on. “Since Atticus just finished a job, I could ask him—”
“I’ll quit, I swear,” I warn.
“Touchy,” Cat laughs quietly.
When I shoot her a look, a mischievous grin steals across her face.
“Then take Cat.” Arthur jerks his chin toward the hunter.
“I thought Cat was filling in here?” she says.
I rub my temples. “Don’t talk about yourself in the third person.”
“Besides,” she continues, ignoring me. “I still have a gaggle of trainees.”
Arthur snaps his fingers, and then he points at me. “I’ve got it—you’ll take Greg.”
“Absolutely not,” I deadpan.
“What’s wrong with Greg?” Cat demands, which is no surprise. She has a soft spot for him and always gets defensive on his behalf—even when he lit half a village on fire two years ago. The damages completely wiped out our operating account.
“Greg and I don’t get along well,” I remind Arthur.
“That’s because you’re both so stubborn.”
“It’s because he racks up more expenses than any of your hunters.”
“You’ll be all right,” Arthur answers, preparing to dismiss me. “You two will leave in the morning.”
He’s made up his mind.
“Come on,” Cat says once Arthur’s gone, jerking her head toward the training doors. “Let’s see how well you shoot.”
“Aren’t you finished for the day?”
She comes around my desk and grabs my arm, dragging me with her. “What’s a few more hours?”
For such a slender woman, she’s bizarrely strong.
“I have paperwork,” I remind her.
“It’ll be there when you get back.”
“Cat…”
She slaps my arm. “Stop whining—I won’t break you.”
As we enter the training room, a recruit limps past us, giving Cat an extra wide berth.
“What, exactly, do you do to these boys?” I ask her quietly.
The hunter laughs. “Nothing most of them can’t handle.”
“Most?”
“Don’t worry about it.” She graces me with a wicked grin. “You’ll be fine.”
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Shari L. Tapscott 