Shadow Hunter

Book 1: Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill

by BR Kingsolver

Genres: Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

When my magic manifested at puberty, my parents sold me to the Illuminati. The Order of the Illuminati trained me as an assassin, spy, and thief. But when they sent me to steal a magical artifact that reveals Truth in all things, I discovered that I was working for the Dark and not the Light. The Illuminati trained me well, and paid the ultimate price for their deception.

Thousands of miles away, I landed a job in a quirky little bar. But the scattered remnants of the Order still strive for world domination, and no one leaves the Illuminati alive.

Contains mature themes.

Release date: April 7, 2019

Print pages: 276

Reader says this book is...: action-packed (1) unexpected twists (1) unputdownable (1)

Sample

Prologue

I was almost fourteen and had just started my menses when my parents sold me to the Illuminati.

My parents didn’t look at it that way, of course. What they saw was an adolescent girl bursting with power she couldn’t control and they couldn’t understand. The Masters promised they would train me, educate me, and raise me up through their hierarchy. Someday, they said, I might even reach the Council. Wealthy, revered, powerful.

As for me, I was buffeted by magic and emotions and feelings that I didn’t understand. Alternately exultant and terrified, I had no idea from one moment to the next whether I might be wracked with pain as I tried to contain more magic than I could hold, or suddenly find myself able to walk through walls and stop time, or lie helpless and weak in the aftermath of a magic attack that wracked my body and mind.

And so, for the next five years, I studied and trained—twenty hours a day—until my Masters judged me fit and safe to turn loose in the world. I trained in weapons, martial arts and magical arts, and built my body and stamina with athletic training. I also studied the theory of magic, history, art, philosophy, political science, and practical chemistry and physics. As a woman, I also studied the arts of flirting and seduction, for the Illuminati believed that all weapons should be mastered.

I joined the Hunters’ Guild, the organization within the Illuminati that protected us and fought against the evil in the world.

For that is what the Illuminati stood for. The shining Light that stood against encroaching Darkness. We held back the demons and Dark sorcerers. We hunted down the rogue vampires and werewolves and other creatures of the Dark. We sought out the sorcerers in their shadow worlds and purged them from our reality. We protected humankind from the nightmares that without us would crush all that was goodness and Light from the world.

Master Robyn and Mistress Chantelle honed me into a weapon that even the Illuminati had never seen before. They called me Scorpion because of my fast reflexes and deadly strikes. In the dance of death, I tested at the top of all my talents—first among all the Hunters who had ever come before me. And on my nineteenth birthday, they gave me my first assignment.

Two weeks later, five evil men who controlled immense power within the United States government were dead. The catastrophe they steered toward was averted. Humanity survived, never knowing how much of their freedom and happiness was due to the Illuminati watching over them.

I continued to train and hone my skills. I gained in power. The Guild sent me on missions alone that would normally be assigned to teams of five or more. I triumphed over the oldest and most powerful vampire in Austria, destroying his nest and scattering his children who survived. I fought a snow dragon to a standstill and sent it back to its cold northern lair to lick its wounds for another Age. I hunted down sorcerers and evil acolytes of the Dark forces and dispatched them.

* * *

Master Benedict, The Illuminator and head of the Council, called me to his office. I had been his apprentice since graduating from my training, and it was he who had raised my awareness and skill with my magic to new heights. He had also seen to my advanced training in the carnal arts, teaching me techniques that could be used for bewitchment, infiltration, and assassination beyond anything I could have imagined. I had no idea why such an exalted leader would reach out to a young, untried woman such as myself, but every day I counted myself fortunate.

“I have a special assignment for you,” Master Benedict said. “A man named William Strickland, an industrialist and a sorcerer deeply immersed in the Dark Arts, has created a powerful weapon. The only purpose for this weapon is to strike against us, for only we stand against him and his goal of world domination.”

My Master provided me with the information I would need to find Strickland and presented me with a plan for gaining access to him.

“Be extremely careful,” he said. “Strickland is powerful and canny. This dance will end with one of your deaths, and you must ensure that death is his. Once you have accomplished that, you must take possession of the weapon he has created and bring it back to me.”

He took a drink from the jeweled cup on his desk and seemed to study me over its rim. “Strickland also has a daughter who is just coming into her power. Bring her to me, also, if you can. But if you can’t, then you must kill her. He has already begun to train her in his Dark craft, and we cannot afford to let her grow to adulthood under any tutelage other than our own.”

Strickland’s financial empire had its headquarters in New York City, his chemical plants operated in Pennsylvania, and the man lived with his daughter in a mansion outside of Washington. I tracked him down and stalked him for weeks, learning his patterns, watching his movements, and searching for weaknesses.

His wife was dead, and other than servants, only his daughter and her nanny lived with him. Outside of his business, his only social contacts seemed to be a private gentlemen’s club, which I quickly discovered was a cabal of like-minded mages. But Strickland was the leader, the strongest sorcerer of them all.

I first attacked that cabal, eliminating them one by one. My sword took the head of one, and poison in a favorite drink silenced another. A third had a weakness for young women, and in bed one night, I stopped his heart. The last two were riding together the night their car suffered an unfortunate accident.

By the time Strickland turned on the light in his study one night and found me waiting for him, he was alone and isolated.

“Who the devil are you?” he asked, throwing a spell at me that my ward easily deflected.

“Your time is done,” I said. “The Illuminati have decreed an end to your Dark plans.”

He blinked at me, then threw back his head and laughed. “My Dark plans? Oh, that is rich. The foremost arcane organization plotting world domination is going to stop me?” He sneered at me. “You Hunters have assassinated thousands of legitimate world leaders in government, the churches, and industry. You target any mage or witch working with the Light. The Illuminati have amassed incredible wealth that serves no purpose but to increase the power of its leaders.”

Without warning, he hurled a bolt of energy at me. My ward absorbed it but was weakened. I leaped over the desk and swung my spelled sword. My adversary was much older than I was, and slower. He partially blocked the blow, but my backswing disemboweled him. He grimaced and clutched at his abdomen.

“The weapon,” I said. “You built a weapon to attack us. Tell me where it is, and I will spare your daughter.”

His eyes grew round, and he staggered back against the wall. “Leave her alone,” he said between clinched teeth.

“The weapon.”

He gave me a pained smile and shook his head. “Only the Illuminati would consider it a weapon.” He motioned with his chin toward a ball of crystal the size of my fist sitting on a small pillow on a shelf. “It shows truth. Look through it when a man speaks, and it shows his lies. Look at a spell or a book or a work of art to see how true it is. Watch an Illuminati ritual and see the blood and the Darkness hidden beneath the surface. Yes, take that to your masters, and they will destroy it. But in the process, it will destroy them.”

Strickland laughed then and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. I walked over to the shelf and picked up the crystal, then turned back toward him. When I held the ball up in front of me and looked through it at him, I saw that he was dying. I also saw that he was a wizard of the Light, and felt, though I couldn’t tell how, that everything he had told me was truth. Shaken, I tucked the ball in my pocket and turned to leave.

As I walked down the hallway, a young girl stepped out in front of me. Her long red hair looked as though it was blowing in a breeze, but I felt no wind. Her green eyes seemed to blaze.

“Are you the Scorpion?” she challenged me.

“Yes.”

She bit her lip, and when she spoke again, her voice trembled. “Have you already killed him? He said you would come, and you would kill him.”

“He may yet still live,” I said, “but he is dying.”

“And you have the crystal?”

“Yes.”

“Then you need this as well,” she said, holding out a book. Old and leather-bound, at least three or four inches thick, it must have been heavy from the way she struggled to hold it.

“What is it?”

“A book,” she said, with a brave grin. “You do know how to read, don’t you?”

I closed the distance between us. She faced me bravely, her eyes darting only once to my blade dripping her father’s life blood. I took the book in my other hand and discovered it was even heavier than it looked. I glanced down at it and almost dropped it.

The book was black leather trimmed in gold. The title, in the secret language of the Illuminati, said, “The History of the Illuminati.”

“Read it,” she said. “He said—my father said—that you must read it.” She gave me a grin that was so malevolent I took a step back. “They will kill you when you take it to them, whether you read it or not. I hope you’re stupid enough to believe their lies.”

She whirled and walked through the wall. I leaped after her, but the wall was solid, and I could find no hidden latch or door, and following blindly would be folly.

* * *

Completely unsettled, I took the book and the crystal to my hotel. I opened the book to find it was written by hand in the language of the Illuminati. The first entry was dated in 1308 AD. It told of the formation of a secret Order, attracting many mages in various countries. They used the Order to connect and communicate with each other, to share knowledge and to provide strength for mutual protection.

Above all, the Order was formed to protect its members against the Church and European royalty. Phillip the Fair of France had recently destroyed the Knights Templar, arresting its members and seizing its treasure. In particular, the Order’s members were concerned about the Inquisition, which had executed many witches and mages.

Turning to the back of the book, to the last entry, I recognized the familiar neat handwriting of Master Benedict, the Illuminator. The date was three years before I acquired the book. Satisfied as to its authenticity, I sat back and began to read it from the beginning. Within the first twenty-five pages, a sense of dread began to form in my mind.

By the time I finished the book, including the few notations about me, my training, and Benedict’s plans for me, I had raged many times. In the end, I felt numb and empty. Not only had I been duped, I was complicit. Rather than being a force for the Light, I had advanced the reach of the Dark.

* * *

The City of the Illuminati sat on top of a small mountain in a forest in the northern part of the United States. Only one road led to it, and no one except those deeply immersed in the lore of the Illuminati knew it was there.

A month after I killed William Strickland, I walked into Master Benedict’s office and placed the small crystal ball on his desk.

“This is the weapon Strickland created,” I said. “It sees through mendacity, and only truth can be seen if you look through it. The ultimate lie detector spell. If I look through it at a person who is not healthy, it shows his disease. It discloses the lies of politicians, clergy, and used-car salesmen. If I use it to read a book, it tells me what is fact and what is fiction. A very, very dangerous weapon.”

Without another word, I turned and walked out of his office. I continued out of the palace at the center of the City, through the streets, and out the gate in the outer wall. All I took with me was a small backpack with water, some food, some money, and a large black-and-gold book. My weapons I left at the gate, for I had no desire to continue the life I had led. The path of the Illuminati was mine no longer.

I walked for an hour, and then the earthquake started. I turned and looked back at the shining City of the Illuminati on the top of the mountain behind me. The light fluctuated and the City shook. A haze passed over the sun, turning it red. The rumbling grew in volume until it sounded like a freight train only a few feet away.

I stood, stunned, staring at the City, unable to move.

The City exploding caught me off guard, and a minute later the shock wave knocked me off my feet. The City was on fire. It burned for hours, well into the night, but never spread past the outer wall. The City sat at the junction of two major ley lines, and those rivers of magic fueled the flames. I watched it, my emotions a confused jumble.

Many of the people who died that night had been kind to me. Yes, they had lied to me and manipulated me, but I couldn’t help but feel that some of them had loved me in their own way. I grieved for the thousands of souls consumed in those flames. Everyone I knew was dead. But I also grieved for my own soul, shattered beyond any hope of redemption, or at least that’s how I felt at the time.

In the morning, there was no trace of the City. I climbed back up the mountain and found nothing to indicate it had ever existed. Not a brick, not even a speck of ash. The only home I could remember, the place where I grew up, was gone. The mountain looked as though it had never been touched. The road I had traveled the day before was also gone. A game trail going in the same direction as the road was the only break in the virgin forest. I realized I was alone in the world, and a wave of emptiness and regret washed through me.

I knew my blackened soul should have perished with all the others, but I was too much of a coward. I wanted to live, but I didn’t know why, or what I would do. I didn’t know where to go, but only that I had to get far away from that place. There were still Illuminati loose in the world. If they ever found me, ever found out what I had done, they would hunt me down and slaughter me. And if anyone ever suspected I had the book, nowhere would be safe for me.

For the book contained the secrets of the Illuminati—all of them. Their rituals, their spells, the locations of their treasure. Someone could reconstitute their evil using that book. I had tried to burn it, and it wouldn’t burn. I could bury it, but if anyone found it and could read it, then the Illuminati might rise again. I couldn’t let that happen.

I turned down the game trail and followed it for three days until I came to a little-used road. I followed that road for another three days before I came to a small town.

A bus came through that evening, and I took it going west.

 

Chapter 1

The bus dropped me off a little before midnight, and the station was almost deserted. A single ticket window had a light, but no one was behind the counter. Two or three people slept in chairs. It was impossible to tell whether they were waiting for a bus or were homeless and wanting a little warmth. I pulled a city map from a stand and turned toward the exit.

There wasn’t a person in sight on the street. Yellow streetlights reflected off the wet pavement, but no lights showed in the windows of the surrounding buildings.

I studied the map. The two most notable features were the ocean on the west and the river bisecting the city into northern and southern portions, with a dozen bridges spanning the divide. To the north, the city was bounded by foothills that I knew turned into tall, white-topped mountains, but I couldn’t see that in the dark. The bus station was in the southwestern part of the city, in a warehouse district.

According to the map, a two-block walk should take me to a main street running from east to west, and I hoped there would be some cheap hotels somewhere around there. It was probably too much to wish for, but I thought it also would be nice if the area had an all-night diner. It had been a long time since breakfast.

I had traveled over three thousand miles in less than two weeks, ending up two thousand miles from where I started. When I left the City of the Illuminati, I was dressed in Hunter’s garb—skintight, all-black ballistic cloth. The first city I arrived in, I bought a suitcase and some other clothing at a thrift shop before taking another bus out of town.

I had done my best to obscure my trail, going west to Kansas City, then south to Dallas, then northwest to Westport. No one knew where I was, and no one had any reason to connect me to that part of the country, let alone to Westport. I knew no one there, and I had never been there before.

During my trip across the country, I had constantly looked over my shoulder, afraid that someone would recognize me. My guilt weighed heavily, not only for my treachery against the Illuminati but also for all the murders I had committed. Before I read the book, those had never bothered me, but now faces haunted my sleep.

Normally, I paid attention to my surroundings, but bone-tired and relieved to finally reach my destination, I didn’t realize I had company before he grabbed me. With one hand over my mouth and his other arm around my chest, he dragged me backward into an alley. His face loomed over me, his fangs barely visible in the gloom as he lowered his face toward mine.

His expression changed to one of shock as he flew across the alley and slammed against a wall. The bricks cracked, as did his bones, and his body slumped in a heap in the filthy muck on the pavement.

I was acutely aware that he could identify me if he ever saw me again. That thought sent a wave of panic through me. If even a rumor of my magical skill reached the Illuminati, it might trigger their curiosity. I pointed at the vampire’s head and said a Word. His skull soundlessly exploded.

Clutching my handbag, I picked up the small suitcase I dropped when he grabbed me and hurried away. I cast a protective shield around myself, then ventured out of the alley, hoping that no one had seen me kill the vampire. I hurried away, my stomach turning flip-flops from the adrenaline roaring through my system. Even though I was the only person on the street, it felt as though a thousand eyes were watching me.

The map turned out to be accurate, and the street I sought was far more alive than I had hoped—a couple of motels, a movie theater, a sex shop, half a dozen bars, and lots of bright lights. A couple of the bars were obviously strip joints, but even those looked fairly clean and not too sleazy. There were people out on the street, and not all of them appeared to be hookers or their customers. For a red-light district, it was one of the nicest and most respectable I thought I’d ever seen. I still wasn’t inclined to try the nearest motel that advertised rooms by the hour.

The sex shop, strip bars and hookers were all to my right. To my left, the bars looked more like regular establishments with a mixed-gender clientele. I could see skyscrapers in the distance, maybe a couple of miles away, and I knew from my map that beyond downtown was the harbor. I took a deep breath and walked left.

The bars definitely started looking more respectable the farther I walked, including a couple of nightclubs with valet parking. After a while, the sign for another hotel appeared. I didn’t see any restaurants still open, but as I crossed the street to the hotel, I saw a sign on a place a few buildings down a side alley. Rosie O’Grady’s Bar and Grill. Hoping their kitchen was still open, I walked on past the Huntsman Hotel and pushed on the door. As I did so, I saw a small hand-lettered sign that read, “Bartender wanted. Inquire within.”

A tingle passed through me as I stepped over the threshold, but before I could react, I was inside. I found myself in a typical Irish pub with subdued lighting, dark wood, exposed beams, a long bar backed by an impressive array of bottles, and a limited set of taps. The place was larger than it looked on the outside, with at least fifty tables in the main room. About half of the tables were occupied, and off in one corner, several people were throwing darts. Near the dart players, a couple of guys were shooting pool on one of the two tables. Past the pool tables, a smaller room had a flat-screen TV hanging on the wall. The smell of food made my mouth water.

The bartender waved at me. “Seat yourself,” he said. He was a large man, bald on top, with mutton-chop sideburns, wearing a white shirt and an unbuttoned dark vest showing a prodigious stomach. He looked like he had stepped out of Central Casting.

Making my way to a table by the wall, I sat down and a waitress appeared. She was in her late forties, medium height, and a bit overweight, with dark blonde hair falling out of a bun.

“What will ye have?” she asked in an Irish accent, slapping a menu down in front of me.

I glanced at the menu and saw the beer list in one corner. Less than a dozen choices, and all of them Irish.

“A Smithwick’s, please.”

“I think we still have some of the salmon that’s on special,” she said, and turned away to head for the bar.

I looked around. It was after midnight, and several people were eating. The food looked good. When she came back with my beer and a glass of water, I asked, “Are you still serving the full menu?”

“Aye. We don’t close the kitchen.”

“What’s closing time here?”

“The law says two o’clock for places that sell liquor. We don’t pay any attention to that since our clientele doesn’t pay any attention to normal hours.”

I remembered the tingle I felt when I walked through the door. “The Guinness stew, please,” I said.

She shook her head. “Ye really don’t want it. He’d be scraping the bottom of the pot this time of night, and the fresh batch isn’t ready yet. Do ye like salmon? I’ll give it to ye for the price of the stew.”

She really wanted me to order the salmon. “Yes, please. Thank you.” I would have eaten the scrapings, or the menu, if that was all they had.

She grabbed the menu before I could try it, though, and took off in the direction of the kitchen. I gratefully sipped my beer, leaned back in my chair, and felt some of the tension drain out of my shoulders and back.

The special turned out to be a poached salmon filet with tarragon sauce, accompanied by fingerling potatoes, stewed apples, and asparagus. It smelled wonderful, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last had such a meal.

The waitress sat it on the table, and asked, “Can I get ye anything else right now? Another beer?”

“No, I’m fine. I saw a posting for a bartender when I came in.”

She glanced down at my suitcase.

“New in town?”

“Straight off the bus. Would you recommend that hotel on the corner?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, but I wouldn’t warn ye against it. This time of night, it’s probably better than searching for something else. I’ll send Sam over when ye finish eating.”

I took my time, savoring every bite. What kind of hole-in-the-wall pub served a gourmet meal in the middle of the night? I also studied my fellow customers. They were an eclectic lot, and some were dressed rather eccentrically. Capes and cloaks were long out of style, but some people always affected out-of-date fashions. The crowd in Rosie O’Grady’s seemed to be trying to revive them.

A couple of the women knocking down a pitcher of dark beer looked like hippie earth mamas, while the women at the table next to them would have been at home in an Edwardian drama. Across the room sat two couples who were obviously stuck in the punk seventies. A man wearing an expensive business suit sat with a short, pink-haired woman in a low-cut blouse and a miniskirt who was reading his cards. A guy who looked like a biker appeared to be having an earnest conversation with a clean-cut man wearing black plastic-rimmed glasses and a tweed jacket with elbow patches.

That tingle when I entered the pub made me wonder what kind of place I had wandered into.

I pushed the empty plate away from me and took a pull on my beer. No sooner did I set the glass on the table than the bartender dropped into the seat opposite me. He was even larger close up. With him seated across from me, I had to look up to see his face.

“Jenny said you enquired about the job,” he said. “Do you have any experience?”

“Yes, but I’m afraid I can’t supply you with any references.”

He nodded, looking at my suitcase and appraising my clothing. “I don’t ask many questions,” he said. “I don’t need to know why you’re here, but I do need to know one thing. Is the law looking for you?”

“No.”

“Understand something. If you work for me and I ever find out you’ve lied to me, I’ll kill you.”

Well, that was blunt enough. I believed him. “Then I might have to leave some questions unanswered,” I replied, “assuming those questions are ever asked. I won’t steal from you, and I won’t lie about anything to do with my job.”

“If you can’t answer a question, we’ll figure out where to go from there. Don’t ever lie to me. And anything that happens in this establishment stays here. You don’t discuss my business or my customers outside.”

“Understood.”

“Come mix some drinks for me,” he said and stood up.

I followed him behind the bar, hung my coat on a hook he indicated, and rolled up my sleeves. He handed me an apron and I put it on. I was a little above average height for a woman, but I barely came up to Sam’s chest.

“Look around, see how things are laid out,” he said.

I did. Garnishes, syrups, bitters, liqueurs, glasses. Something about the arrangement of the bottles in the well bothered me, and without thinking, I straightened them out, then realized what I had done.  

I shot the bartender a look, but he only nodded and said, “Make me an old fashioned.”

Half a dozen drinks later, he said, “I’ve seen enough. You can handle the basics without thinking, and that’s all I’m looking for.” He motioned to a battered recipe book in a corner by a cooler. “If it gets more exotic than that, the customer better know how it’s made. I’m Sam O’Grady, and I own the place. I need someone to work Thursday through Sunday evenings, five until two, plus I may call you in occasionally. Fifteen bucks an hour, no time and a half. All tips go into a pot to split with the entire crew at shift’s end. When can you start?”

“Is this a pretty standard crowd?” I asked.

“For this time on a weekday? Yes. Dinnertime is busier. Dawn until eight o’clock is busy. Lunch is busy. Weekends are busier.”

“Do you have bouncers?” I asked. Sam was large enough to toss a drunk elephant out on its ear, but if I had a problem, I wanted some help.

His brow furrowed as he looked down at me. “You need a bouncer?” Reaching under the counter, he pulled out a sawed-off baseball bat. “Someone needs bouncing, bounce them with this.”

He shoved it in my hand, and I almost dropped it when I felt the surge of magic from it. I realized he was watching me closely, and I was sure my expression gave me away.

“Like I said, I don’t ask too many questions. But you found the door and managed to walk through it, so I don’t think I have to explain what this is,” he said, taking the bat from me. “You have a beef with a customer, everyone who works here will back you up, and probably most of the regulars. Where are you staying tonight?”

“I planned on going to the hotel next door.”

Sam nodded and handed me a business card. “Tomorrow, go see this lady and tell her you’re my new bartender. Come in at four to take care of the paperwork.”

I didn’t recognize the address, of course, but it read, “Springfield Apartments, Eleanor Radzinski, Leasing Manager.”

“What’s your name?”

I thought furiously, then decided to use a name I hadn’t used in a very long time, one that, to my knowledge, no one was looking for. I even had legitimate ID for it buried somewhere in my purse. “Erin McLane. I didn’t say I’d take the job.”

He simply stared at me with a raised eyebrow.

I gave him a half-smile. “I’ll take the job. Thank you.”

For the first time, he smiled. “Welcome aboard, Ms. McLane.”