Shadow Born: A Joseph Hunter Novel: Book 1 (Joseph Hunter Series) Read online

  I emptied my pockets—house key, wallet, and phone—into a bowl on the entry table, then stripped off my wet clothes and carried them to the laundry room, which the home designer had placed in the master bedroom. I tossed my shit-stained outfit into the washer, poured a little detergent in there, and turned the machine on. I opened the dryer-slash-dresser, hoping to find a pair of boxers. I found a towel.

  I wrapped it around my waist and entered the bathroom to assess the damage I had taken last night. You haven’t met Xander yet, but when you do, you’ll realize why I made a quick pitstop in front of the mirror. He’s a little like that Christian fundamentalist, judgmental aunt you always hated as a kid, except he doesn’t stamp your cheek with bright-red lipstick.

  After making sure any dried vomit and dog shit was washed off my face, I checked myself out. I had stubble clouding my jawline, and my light-brown hair stood on end in a thick, curly mess. My body, riddled with runic tattoos, still held a little definition from my mid-twenties. I flexed, forcing my abs to appear, and then I shot my reflection with finger pistols—I even made the sound effects. Pew, pew, pew.

  “Still got it,” I said, flashing a devilish smile.

  The living room was on the opposite side of the house. So, I had yet to see Xander, and he had yet to see me. The tension was all too much to handle. Would we fall in love again after all these years? Had he become fat and ugly with age? Throwing those thoughts aside, I headed into the kitchen, briefly stopping in the foyer to grab my phone from the entry bowl. The smell of fresh coffee Xander must have started drove me wild.

  First thing’s first, though.

  I found some rice, dumped it in a mixing bowl, and shoved my phone in there to dry. Then, I grabbed a Deadpool coffee mug from the upper cabinet.

  “You already help yourself to some coffee?” I asked, raising my voice to carry into the living room.

  “It just finished brewing,” he called back. “You mind pouring me some?”

  “I see nothing as changed,” I said, grabbing another mug—it had a red and blue Spider-Man design. I love comic book characters. Get over it. “You start something, and I always have to finish it. Also, there’s I enjoy more than serving coffee to the man who just broke into my house.”

  He coughed. “How’s your head after last night?”

  “You’re stalking me, now?” I poured the black gold into the mugs. “No means no, my friend. I’m not interested in you. Cream or sugar? I forget how you take it—other than hard.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Xander was naturally a bitter kind of guy. So, I poured a little sugar into his coffee, not really caring what his preferences were. I grabbed both our mugs and walked around the corner of the kitchen and into the living room.

  Xander sat in my recliner, left leg crossed over his right. After high school, he had received a full scholarship to play college football as a linebacker, but he chose a military career. Over the past decade, he hadn’t lost a step to time. He filled my chair the way busty cartoon characters had once filled my adolescent mind. Don’t be weirded out by that comment. Have you seen any animated television adaptions of comic books? Anyway, before things get too weird, Xander wore camouflage pants and a black shirt that might have torn if he moved too fast.

  He cocked his head, most likely curious about my disheveled appearance. “You look worse from up close,” he said. “Did you get even more tattoos? And when’s the last time you’ve shaved?” His face twisted. “Or showered?”

  I ignored him, handing him the coffee cup before sitting on the edge of the living room table a couple feet across from him. I didn’t bother to cross my legs, allowing my towel to open where it pleased, and I placed my mug on the wood and removed his dog tags from my neck. “These yours?”

  He leaned over and grabbed them, placing them back over his head and keeping his eyes above my nose. “Didn’t want to scare you,” he said. “Thought I’d give you a heads-up.”

  “Why not just wait in the car? Or better yet,” I said, picking up my mug and blowing on the steam, “why not drive me home last night, before I passed out in Derek’s yard? Or, best of all, just leave me alone?”

  Xander blew on his coffee and sipped, ignoring the questions and the sugar I had snuck in his drink.

  I sighed after a moment of quiet. “What happened to the afro? I liked it.” I took a gulp from my mug, burning my tongue. Sometimes you had mornings where the coffee tasted like warm honey, and sometimes you had mornings where you woke up covered in dog shit and the coffee burned your tongue.

  “Thought I would try something new. You’re not a fan?” he asked, rubbing his shiny, bald head.

  “It fits you,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know, clean-shaven. That’s your brand, my friend. Nothing wrong with it, just who you are. The afro betrayed your core.”

  “I think… that you drink too much. Booze is clouding your logic and philosophies.” He held up his mug. “Cheers to old times.”

  I chuckled, not lifting my mug. “Fuck old times,” I said.

  “You’re still wearing your wedding ring, though. Seven years later.”

  After a second, I cleared my throat. “You have a phone I can borrow? I need to make a call.”

  “Yours didn’t hold up to the sprinkler damage? That’s bad advertising. They said that model was waterproof, didn’t they? You should get a refund, or at least a new one for free.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered, getting pretty annoyed about his detailed intel on my whereabouts and actions and belongings. “We’ll get back to that. For now, can I borrow it?”

  Xander tossed me his cell phone.

  I nodded my gratitude. “Give me a second,” I said, walking back into the kitchen—not that moving rooms muted my conversation with the thin walls and small space, but sometimes the idea of privacy goes a long way. I dialed my boss’s number, which I had memorized because I dialed it all the time. My tardiness was not unusual.

  The line rang three times before his gruff, soured voice answered. “Perkins, here.”

  “Tony,” I said, throwing a chuckle into my voice. “It’s Joseph.” A pit grew in my stomach. “Sorry, I… erm… I’m late. I woke up sick this morning.”

  “Hunter?” he asked. “That you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Well, holy shit,” he said. “You woke up sick, huh?”

  “I did.” My headache still lingered, but the nausea had faded. The coffee had already kicked in, detoxifying my system and churning my stomach. I had a million lies I could have told him, but lies had never fit me too well.

  “You still sick?”

  “Think I’ll be sick all day,” I said, cringing. Perkins was a good man who had tolerated my shit for way too long, and he would continue to tolerate my shit for way longer because I had helped him in a big way a few years back. I hated abusing him, but I also hated waking up hungover every morning. Did that stop me from drinking? Balls no. “Probably be sick tomorrow, too, if I’m being honest.”

  A pregnant silence ensued. “Listen, Hunter. You’re a good worker when you’re here, but I can’t keep allowing these absences.” He sighed through the phone. “Next time you get sick, schedule it a week in advance. These buildings don’t demo themselves.”

  “Thanks.” He wished me the best, and we hung up, and I returned to Xander.

  His coffee mug sat on the table in front of the recliner, but he stood near the back of the room, holding a picture of Callie and me. It was the only one I had left of us. We stood in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. Her dark hair tangled across her face as she smiled at the camera. I squinted into the sun and held her tight to me.

  “How did you find me?” I asked.

  After two years of searching for Callie’s killer, I had decided to give up and move outside of Sacramento, closer to Mel. I would never introduce myself to her, never allow anyone to see us together, but I could watch her from a distance. I could p
rotect her. I couldn’t allow the people who stole Callie from me to steal my daughter, too.

  “I didn’t tell anyone I left,” I said. “Never once used my magic or brought out my guns. She took Derek’s last name.” I scratched at my nose. “How did you find me?”

  Xander set the photograph back on the mantle and turned to face me. “Seven years ago to the day,” he said.

  “No games. Just tell me,” I said. “If you found me, they could have found me, too. They could have found her.”

  He shook his head. “Mostly luck. I never stopped looking for you. Never stopped looking for Callie’s killer.” He glared at me as he spoke, insinuating that I had given up. “I’m not blaming you for leaving. I’m really not. But I have resources, Joe. I have connections, now. I tapped into them, followed a few hunches. That’s it. I know you. Or did you forget we killed together for a few years? I followed my gut, man—followed a trail no one else could follow… because I know you.”

  I collapsed into the recliner and reached across to the table, exchanging his phone for my coffee. “Nothing has changed,” I told him. “Not a damn thing. Answer is still no and it always will be.”

  Xander sat on the sofa. “How’s Mel?”

  “You already know.” I sipped more coffee. “Convenient, don’t you think?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Seventh year to the day Callie’s been gone. That’s when you show up. When you find me?” I shook my head. “You forget, Xander, I used to do this shit for a living, too. Some things are hard to unlearn. How long have you known? How long have you followed me?”

  He blew on his coffee and sipped. “Six months,” he said. “You’re getting sloppy. You didn’t notice our tails?”

  I gritted my teeth. I hadn’t noticed, which made me uneasy. What else had I missed over the past few months? What dangers lurked that I had fallen complacent to? I fought a strong urge to call another ride share and head back to Derek’s house to sit around the corner and watch for danger.

  “That’s not it,” Xander said. “You’ve become predictable. You get home from work, shower, then drive over and park your car at the corner to watch Derek’s house and drink until you pass out. Every night, man. You’ve fallen into a routine that has exposed Mel.”

  I knew what he said was true, but I had ignored it, had shoved it back into my being. I couldn’t allow anything to happen to Mel, and that fear had driven me to sloppiness. I swallowed, and my face heated—not from the hangover, but from embarrassment. “You here to lecture me?” I asked, transmuting my embarrassment to anger the way Midas turned anything he touched to gold. “It’s been five years, man. You can’t just show up out of nowhere to punish me.”

  Xander wiped his nose, then licked his lips. “I’m not here for that. You punish yourself enough as it is. I’m worried about you, Joe. You’re working a real job, like a real adult, calling your boss to apologize for missing a day. And part of me is proud of you for that. But what happened to finding Callie’s killer? To protecting Mel?”

  He’d been dancing around the button, having finally just pressed it.

  I roared up and threw my coffee mug against the far wall, where it shattered. Black liquid dripped down the white paint like mascara tears. “What the fuck do you think happened? They found Callie through me, through my magic! I was out with Mel, that’s the only reason we survived.” I laughed. “Everything I do is for her, to protect her! You think I’d be working demolition if I didn’t have to? You think I’d have given up on finding Callie’s killers? On using my magic? No, never. But I did it for Mel, so that my trail would go cold on those searching for me.” I panted for a second, allowing my anger to settle. “I’m retired from that life, Xander. No more guns. No more magic.”

  Let’s pause right there for a second so I can explain a few things in a huge information dump.

  When I was at the ripe, barely-legal age of eighteen, a special military academy, Militus University, recruited me. With no other future other than prison in sight, I accepted the opportunity. There, I met Xander and Callie, and we learned about our innate abilities to use magic.

  You see, at one point in our violent history, some humans could access magic willy-nilly. With the advancement of technology, magic fell obsolete. However, within a small percentage of the population, the dormant magic will awaken—usually during a stressful event in a person’s life. Spent magic leaves an aura that can be traced.There are more universities apart from Militus, and they all have recruiters that spend their lives searching for auras of spent, unpracticed magic. Unlearned magic is not only extremely dangerous physically, but addicting and can corrupt the user, driving them insane. Magic users make up a high percentage of the mentally ill and homeless populations around the world, even if they had attended a university.

  The universities are created for Nephil—the offspring of fallen angels and humans. Most gods in any pantheon are Nephil. Zeus, a Nephil. Ra, a Nephil. Each Nephil keeps an eye on their respective universities for a person of great talent. If recognized, the Nephil will offer that person a pact in exchange for services. You see, the Nephil can’t directly interfere with the events in this world. So, to counteract that, they have Acolytes—those they have made pacts with—and Cursed—those who wish to follow them forever and do their bidding. The Acolytes have access to the Nephil’s unlimited well of power, so they don’t have to draw on their own, lesser life force to use magic.

  To really make it easy to understand, the Nephil each choose one person a year and pretty much make them a super hero if that person agrees to do some shady shit.

  At nineteen, I received a pact from the Nephil, Hephaestus. Hephaestus allowed me access to his power in exchange for my services. Well, since moving out of Sacramento, I had stopped using my magic and I had stopped reporting to him. Abandoning the conditions of a pact equaled death. So, not only did I avoid using my old fire-hands to hide from Callie’s killers, but to hide from my big, bad Nephil patron who was no doubt looking for me, as well.

  And… we’re back.

  Xander sat silenced for a minute, legs crossed and eyes fixed on me. He was never one to look away, no matter how long a stare. After drinking from his coffee mug, he asked, “Can you still access it? The magic? Or has it gone?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried in five years.”

  “Hephaestus know where you’re at?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  “And your guns?”

  I coughed. “Buried from the world.”

  Xander nodded. “You can recoup them?”

  “Why are you here?” I asked, glaring at him. “If it’s not to scold me, then why are you in my house?”

  “I found a lead,” he said, as simply as stating that the sun shined.

  My heart accelerated with that development. “To them?” I asked, sitting back down on the table and leaning forward with my elbows propped on my thighs.

  “To Callie’s murderers,” Xander confirmed. “It’s nothing substantial, but it’s an actual lead.”

  My throat constricted. For two years after her murder, I had done nothing but terrorize the streets of Sacramento, searching for something that would point me toward her killers. I’d found nothing. Xander had helped too, using his position and resources to find answers—but he hadn’t found anything either. After two years, I had retired from my search and moved outside of Sacramento, closer to the Delta, to protect Mel.

  “How?”

  “A vampire. We brought her in for questioning about some young men that have gone missing over the past few years. She’s suspected of kidnapping them, holding them prisoner as food. When one dies, she repeats the process with a new one.”

  “A single vampire didn’t kill my wife,” I said, shaking my head. “You know that.”

  Callie had possessed too much power for a lone vampire to murder her. She hadn’t received a pact from Militus University, but she had impressed the Nephil who overlooked tha
t school. They referred her to Demeter, and she had imbued Callie with her power through a pact. My wife could not only alter her own appearance and heal herself and others, but she had the ability to conjure thorns and vines, to wield them like weapons—and she did so with terrifying efficiency, as if Demeter herself fought through her.

  “No,” Xander said. “A single vampire didn’t.” He cleared his throat. “But to this day, I show all my detained suspects a picture of your wife. When the vampire saw Callie, she reacted strangely—unlike anyone else ever has. Since the start of the interrogation had started, she hadn’t stopped flapping her mouth. But at the sight of Callie, she shut up quick.”

  I chewed on my lip. “Why?”

  Xander shrugged. “Looked scared to me. She stopped answering questions, clamming right up. Said she would only talk to you. That’s all I have. That’s the lead.”

  “Where is she now? Did you kill her?”

  He shook his head and smirked. “Thought the timing a little strange. I mean, this gal was a little too easy to capture after years of eluding us. Then we arrest her the day before the seventh anniversary of Callie’s…” Xander coughed, covering his lips with a fist.

  “Death,” I finished for him. “You can say it.”

  “Yeah, well… I thought I’d let you know, give you a chance to talk to her. I’m not asking you to join the organization, Joe. Just providing you an opportunity to gather some information.”

  “How are you holding her?”

  Xander finished his coffee in one go. “You’ll have to wait and find out.”

  I covered my face with my hands and thought about it. What would I accomplish by paying the vampire a visit? Maybe she had a lead, but to where? Another dead end? To the actual killer? What then? Callie wasn’t coming back. But like Xander had so kindly mentioned, I had become sloppy. My presence at Derek’s house may have endangered Mel, and if this lead allowed me to find Callie’s killers, then I could possibly eliminate that danger from her forever.