Witchhunter Box Set (Full Collection)
WITCHHUNTER
BOX SET COLLECTION
WITCHHUNTER
BOOKS 1-4
QUINN BLACKBIRD
Witchhunter Box Set
Book 1 Witchhunter
Book 2 Magnifier
Book 3 Embers
Book 4 Inferno
Copyright © 2022 by Quinn Blackbird
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission—this includes scanning and/or unauthorised distribution—except in case of brief quotations used in reviews and/or academic articles, in which case quotations are permitted.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, whether alive or dead, is purely coincidental. Names, characters, incidents, and places are all products of the author’s imagination.
Imprint: Independently published.
GLOSSARY, TERMS, PLACES & OTHER THINGS
Don’t be discouraged. This is for reference only. All will be explained in the series!
Ekos: The old land
Inka: The new land
Virkas: Witches involved and trained in espionage
Pendles: Witches trained and skilled in tracking from afar
Nurturers: Witches capable of healing others and the earth
Seras: Witches capable of image projection, altering perceived reality
Magnifiers: Rare witches who can draw on others’ power and enhance the power of those around them
The Shadow: The specialised training academy
!!.PLEASE READ.!!
This is the serial, made up of episodes—ideal for Kindle Unlimited readers (and comes with faster release).
For purchase-to-read, please check out the box sets. All my serials have box sets to make it easier for those who need to purchase.
!!.PLEASE READ.!!
WITCHHUNTER
THE CHANGE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
MAGNIFIER
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
EMBERS
INFERNO
WITCHHUNTER RELEASE SCHEDULE
WITCHHUNTER
BOOK ONE
THE CHANGE
I want to hurt people.
I want to kill, but hurt too. Maim, cut, torture.
It’s been this way for as far back as I can remember. When I was little, around five or six, it was mere revenge fantasies, always aimed towards boys. Men hurt women, boys hurt girls—pulled our hair, pushed us into mud pits.
I wanted to hurt them back. But I grew up a few years, saw the world as a whole, the bigger picture one could say. That’s when I realised I now wanted to hurt any man, regardless of what they have done (or haven’t done).
Once, I laid awake on my haybed in the draughty room at the back of the wooden home at the edge of the village’s main, muddy street. I could hear the grating sounds of teenage boys sling-shotting tree trunks. Rocks hitting solid wood. Laughter. Rocks hitting solid wood. Shouts. I would turn, scowling, punch the hay in frustration.
It went on like that for a long time.
I was trying to sleep early that evening before the sun had even set. I was tired. That’s all—that simple. I was tired.
Oh, but what I dreamt up for those boys while I tossed and turned on that haybed. All types of vile and twisted tortures that I would do with that slingshot alone.
Looking back, that’s when I can pinpoint the pinnacle of the Change. I was only eleven. Maybe ten, I don’t quite know.
I only know that this was the mark of my Change.
And it showed.
It showed enough that my parents began to notice—and they took no chances once they realised what was happening to me. Soon after, we were packed up and, when I came home from the markets, I was told that we were going on a trip.
We left behind the draughty, damp home and headed for the witch sanctuaries over the mountains.
I would never be safe anywhere else.
I had to be with my own people. Other witches. Or, the alternative, face a life ready to be hunted down and butchered like cattle for being who and what I am—all at the hands of the hunters.
I made it there. Across the mountains to the land of the witches, to Inka.
But the journey … that alone stole away any trace of this so-called ‘humanity’ from my darkening soul.
I’m not the way I am now because I am a witch. I am this way because of them—the hunters, and what they stole from me on that treacherous, long journey.
1
My fingernails cut deep into the cushioned seat that I’m perched on. The leather creaks under the pressure. Stiff and straight, my upper body is like a wooden post as it sways with the rocking of the carriage. I’m somewhere between a petrified statue and a shivering tower of nerves, ready to crumble.
Out of the sanctuary of my home, Inka, this is my third mission to Ekos. Third.
Somehow, my nerves are at their worst now than the last two missions. Perhaps that’s because in my first two missions, I was in a team of around a dozen witches (of course we couldn’t all travel this obviously together; that would only draw unwanted attention to us, so we walked apart, moved in groups of threes and fours, pretending never to know one another). Now, I feel a great hollowness in my sinking chest as I look at my partners this time—the two witches sitting opposite me. My sisters in witchhood. But not nearly enough in numbers to soothe my nerves.
Our mission is simple. Search and rescue. This is our duty as Virka witches—spies, if you will—to scour the old motherland, Ekos, for any wayward or stray witches, then return them to the new lands safely.
You see, not everyone was as closely watched by their parents as I was, leading them to fast notice the Change. And sometimes the Change isn’t all too obvious to the ordinary eye.
Other times, witches are just better sensed to know they must repress and hide the powers that they grow within them.
So, not everyone makes it out. Not everyone makes it to the land of the witches.
But this mission is simple. Mundane when you put it like that: Search and Rescue.
The threats on the other hand …
Well, that’s what has my fingernails tucked so deeply into the carriage cushioned seat that they threaten to snap off with just a tad bit more pressure.
‘Ordinaries’—those born without powers or magic, those normal people that roam the lands who have no real connection to the earth—are a small threat, but one that should not be underestimated. I’ve seen lynch mobs in my earlier years—years spent growing up in Ekos, tucked away in a witch-hating village.
I’ve seen terrible things in my youth.
But the ordinaries don’t hold a candle to the true threat that we face with each mission—actually, the threat we face each time we leave our new lands, Inka, and breach the mountain range that separates us...
The hunters.
A shudder seizes my spine at the thought of them.
We don’t expect to encounter any in this small village we’re headed for; one of a few villages that our pendulum-trained witches added to our mission’s map. There are witches here, or even just one, but there should be no hunters. Should…
The trouble with that is that the hunters are mostly untraceable to us and our Pendles (witches who specialise in tracki
ng from afar, usually with the aid of maps and cave crystals). We get our information from double agents—ordinaries who work for the General of Ekos. It’s those sources who tell us where to avoid, where to search, where to hide.
But the problem is, hunters only work half of the year. They take two seasons off to do regular things. Tend to their families, return home … whatever else it is they do when their lives take a mundane turn. And they pretend to be like the humans when they are as different to them as we are.
So there’s always that chance—that flickering flame of danger barely seen in the darkness—that hunters might live here, or simply just be passing through on their way home. Just because their bi-yearly mission is up, doesn’t mean they cease to exist.
I shouldn’t worry myself.
I shouldn’t worry about the hunters … I should only be prepared for them, just in case.
Shaking my head, I throw all scares of hunters from my mind. I’m building up my fear of them in my bones, fretting myself over a mere slight possibility, when really my focus should be on the mission—and the fact that the earth beneath the carriage wheels has suddenly softened into something I think to be packed dirt. A path, maybe. A path leading right into the heart of the village.
Ok. It’s time to get my mind right.
Releasing a whooshing sigh, I unhook my nails from the upholstery then stretch out my fingers. The bones creak, the knuckles crack some, but the noise is drowned out by the great big yawn that Iris releases across from me.
My eyes land on her—her usually stunning face mangled mid-yawn, arms stretched above her head but bent to accommodate the low carriage roof, her plain brown dress and beige corset. The drab shade of the mud-brown dress matches her pulled-back hair, but even still, as she drops her arms and relaxes her face, she’s still one of the prettiest Virka witches I know.
That’s why she’s dressed as a lowly maid. No handmaiden or widow cover for her on this mission, or any for that matter. She’s a mere maid meant to serve my pretend-handmaiden, Oleander, who is crammed between Iris and the dusty old window, wearing a sour twist to her mouth that vaguely reminds me of a cat’s bottom. She doesn’t need to be dressed up or down. She simply looks as she does. Ordinary.
Hmm, I’m really hooked on that word, aren’t I?
I guess what I mean is she looks like she was meant to be just a regular person, but somehow managed to evolve into a witch. By a general rule, we’re … well, pretty. Daughters of the lands. Maidens of nature.
Or as the people of Ekos like to call us (among many things) seductresses. Absolute nonsense, of course.
What would I want with any common man staggering through the rough village streets of Ekos? The mere thought of such a pairing has my mouth twisting with a tinge of disgust. No, that isn’t for me.
Back in Inka, there are of course plenty of human men to go around. Many witches marry them, some just for the sole purpose to reproduce—birth a daughter, and that’s one more witch in the world.
But what would I want with an everyday man, devoid of anything that would make him special, magical?
Nothing. They offer no value to me. Against hunters, they are useless. Against witches, they are inconsequential.
Besides, I’ve dedicated my life to being a Virka witch, all in pursuit of one cause. Not to save witches trapped in Ekos, no. Though that would be a nobler cause.
My motivation, my goal in life, my purpose for living is for something much darker, selfish and brutal. Revenge.
I want revenge against the hunters.
I want them all to suffer as the witches do in Ekos. I want them extinct. Preferably in the most brutal, suffering way possible.
But those desires are not for this mission. I am much too young in my career to fancy myself a hunter assassin. It takes decades to reach that point of expertise, and even then, one must be a natural born witch of violence and strength. Takes a lot more than training to bring down hunters on the daily.
Well, we all have to have dreams, don’t we? Otherwise, what’s the point?
I know we’ve breached the border of the village finally when I hear it—
“OI!” Ugh, the sound of wretched children. “GET BACK ‘ERE!”
At the grating sound, I cringe, my face twisting, and I recoil back into the plush seat. Oh, is there anything worse than the call of children? That awful screeching sound of their wrangled voices?
The screeching call is quickly followed by that high-pitched chime of laughter and the nearing thumps of boots pounding down on the dirt path we ride.
Good riddance little demons.
I truly hope that none of the witches we might find are children. Then we would have to put up with them and their whining for the two-month trip back to Inka. A personal nightmare of mine.
The only child I’ve ever liked was, well… me—when I was a child, of course. But then I reached Inka and it all moved so fast. I was whisked off to the orphanage first, then moved to The Shadow (the base of our training institute and spy quarters) before the last of the snow had melted. I was a child then, and so were so many others around me, but we didn’t behave as such. If we had … Well, it would have been the cane for us, or even worse—the dungeons for two nights.
Anyways, suppose that’s why I’m not such a grand fan of children. Haven’t been around any long enough to warm up to them. Besides, I’ve been told I’m frosty even for a Virka, icy like the mountains that separate our divided lands.
That frosty coating of mine helps with my cover as the carriage finally rolls to a gradual stop, and the noise of children pitches so high up in the air that I’m certain it must reach the clouds in the grey sky.
We must be at the inn. I don’t need to compose myself or shield my nerves—I simply let a natural cloak of disinterest drape over me as I gently fold my slender hands on my lap.
My sisters opposite me ready themselves to be seen by the villagers.
My lashes hang low over my sharp green eyes as my gaze slides to the door on my left. It is yanked open not a moment later, and with the sudden jerk of the door, a rush of icy wind blasts the inside of the carriage. The breeze rustles a loose brown curl that touches my cheek.
I don’t cringe back from the cold—none of us do, not with the weather we’re so used to when passing through the mountains.
Our hired coachman stands in the cold wind, his cheeks pink from the ride, and his weathered top-hat perched at an angle. Stiffly, he bends into a forced bow aimed my way. Of course he thinks me a middle-class widow, travelling the lands to visit family in my time of grief. I even wear the colour to match the process of widowship; a plain black dress with few embellishments to dazzle.
Our cover is grave enough that no one should pry.
As the widow, the one with the money and status, it is me who reaches out a gloved hand to the coachman, not my sisters. They stay put, waiting for my departure from the carriage before they can follow me.
The coachman’s leather glove creaks against my lacy one as he helps me out of the carriage. The thin soles of my boots thud on the packed dirt path we are parked on, and I keep my hand rested on his palm as I lift my weary, distant gaze up to what stands opposite me. An plain inn meant for plain people.
The face of the inn is like so many others I have seen in my previous two missions. Dull grey bricks looming up to a thatched roof, and iron bars to shield the windows. Three stone steps lead up to the porch that separates me from the open wooden door to the inn.
Only one man occupies the porch.
I notice his pint of ale first, resting neatly on the banister encasing the porch. Then my gaze slips to his bare, rough hands—and I fleetingly wonder who is bold enough to brace this weather without gloves. But he keeps his fingers busy, rolling a bright green apple in one hand, wielding a sharp dagger in the other. Expertly, he cuts himself a slice and lifts it to his pink mouth—an action I follow closely as a wave of dread starts to sway in my gut.
As I wander my stare up
wards, from his leather-wrapped torso, along the weapons’ strap that crosses his chest, to the strong shape of his jawline, fear crawls up my insides like ice-spiders released.
My eyes make the final lift—and they latch onto a stare that’s already pinned on me. Beneath a tousled mop of coal-black hair, two amber eyes, like those of a mountain wolf’s, gleam at me, so alive that I can barely pinpoint a single emotion this man is feeling, or a mere thought that he might be entertaining. And yet, one of my trained skills is reading people.
This man, I cannot read.
And to the witches, he is no man at all.
I am staring into the eyes of a hunter.
2
My head sharply jerks to the side. My narrowed green eyes snap to my fellow witches inside the carriage, spelling trouble.
Iris and Oleander are crouched now, pushed up from their seat, but not yet standing. They read the warning that flashes in my eyes.
“Tend to the horses,” I demand of them, my voice cooler than the frosty breeze whistling over me. “I wish to be alone.”
Iris’s gaze shifts over my shoulder, as though she’ll see the reason for our sudden change of plans planted somewhere behind me. But the hunter is hidden out of sight, the carriage door shielding him from the gazes of the other witches.
I am the only one exposed to him in this moment.
And it must remain that way.
My sisters know. They understand. And slowly, they both start to sink back onto their seat, tension balling up their stiff muscles and clenching their jaws.
Still, all the while, I feel the hunter’s amber eyes heating my cheek like fierce flames aimed right at me. His interest in me coils my belly into a tangled ball of ribbons, slithering and rolling around.
I loosen a tight breath, steadying myself before I shut the carriage door on the worried eyes of my sisters.
I am not sacrificing myself for them (well, at least I hope not).