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

Sometimes, their horses escaped. I knew of three people who had hit a cow or a horse, totaling their vehicles and nearly totaling their lives. Using my magical perception for the single most important reason ever, I made sure not to collide with any cows on the backroad that night. Damn them and their wily ways.
Xander didn’t seem too worried about the rain or the pot-holed back roads or the roaming livestock. For the first few minutes of the drive, he stared at his phone in silence. I knew he wasn’t scrolling through his Instagram feed, but rather confirming his suspicions about who had taken Mel.
After about five minutes of letting him research, I said, “You were chewing a couple theories before the interrogation. What do you think, now? Anything sticking?” I glanced at him, then glued my eyes to the wet world beyond the headlights.
“You shouldn’t have killed him,” Xander said.
I chuckled and shook my head, gripping the steering wheel. “Enough with the God Almighty act. I heard you curse earlier. You’re a filthy sinner, just like me.”
“I don’t think you should have killed him,” Xander said again. “You had your reasons, I know, but he still could have proven useful.”
“With what? I tapped him of all his information. He had nothing left to give.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t think we would know, until we knew.”
“Wow, you really have jumped off the deep end, haven’t you? I hope those theories you were working on are just as enlightening. Wait,” I said, turning the steering wheel in my grip. “I have a theory. And hear me out, okay? I think that as soon as we find out who kidnapped Mel, we’ll know who did it.”
Xander coughed to clear his throat. “I have an idea,” he said. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”
“I usually don’t,” I said, hitting my blinker like a real man and turning onto my gravel driveway.
I cut the headlights and put the car in park halfway up the drive. I’d be foolish not to anticipate more Ravens waiting at my house to finish what they had started in the parking garage. Hopefully, like earlier, the brutes hadn’t taken Xander’s presence into account, or the fact that I had rekindled my relationship with magic. They were in for a rude awakening if they hadn’t heard from Ms. Mother recently.
“What it it?” I asked, scanning the darkness that lay over my property, surrounding my trailer like a fog. The front porch light was off, which I never turned off—it was too fancy not to flaunt its stuff. “Your stupid idea?”
“My first theory isn’t my favorite, but it’s a possibility, and we shouldn’t rule it out just yet. Hephaestus imbued you with magic, and, as you know, any pact comes with conditions. Requirements that you must uphold. You abandoned your pact, along with your responsibilities, five years ago after you… stopped searching for Callie. The Nephil don’t take insolence well. He could have found you hidden out in this dump—”
“Easy,” I said, scanning for more abnormalities around the property. The darkness made it hard to see anything from this distance.
“He could have taken Mel as payment for the past few years.”
I shook my head. “I’m sure Hephaestus sensed my return after I accessed my power. And I’m sure that ogre will come knocking soon enough. But, no, this isn’t him. Callie died before I retired—in fact, her death derailed me from following Hephaestus’ instructions. I’m zeroed in on that beach-bum, Lost Boys looking vampire. He knew what I had inscribed within her wedding band. Mel is connected to that. To him and to the Mother.”
After a second, Xander said, “I agree.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you save us the time and lead with your second theory?”
He removed a celestial gun from its holster and popped out the magazine. He checked the ammunition, then clicked the magazine back in and holstered it. “Hephaestus… he’s something to keep in mind. Nephil are conniving. If he notices that you’re preoccupied with this, he might blindside you. Not only that, but most of your pact responsibilities included what type of work?”
I shook my head, not knowing where Xander was going. I kept peering into the darkness around my trailer. I didn’t see any movement, nothing unusual—other than the extinguished light. “Killing,” I answered.
“Killing the Cursed,” Xander clarified. “A Nephil is forbidden by the Nephilim Council to carry out the murder of another of its kind. It is punishable by death. That’s how a lot of the Egyptian Nephil died—internal conflict and violence.”
I snored and nodded off, then jerked awake and shook my head. “Sorry, but you are quite boring.”
“I’ve had a few run-ins with sorcerers and necromancers since M.I.S. recruited me. They’re cold and powerful magic wielders, but they don’t have the juice to control vampires. Look at this.” He handed me his glowing phone.
I grabbed it and glanced at the screen. An image appeared—a wheel with a star in the center. My heart rate accelerated. “What the hell is this? It’s the same symbol from that douche-rocket’s ring.”
Xander agreed. “Hecate’s symbol,” he said, taking back his phone and placing it in his pocket. “She’s a Nephil. The mother of vampires, some say. I’m not exactly sure what she’s capable of, as our records have a lot of conflicting results. But, Joey, I think she’s this Mother figure—the woman from the shadows.”
It took a second for me to process what Xander had said, and the information didn’t quite compute with clarity. I didn’t even think that Xander fully understood what he’d said. But the gist was clear enough, and that terrified me. If his theory proved correct, then the vampire from the garage probably hadn’t lied to me. I would never see Mel again.
“You really think a half-baked fallen angel murdered my wife and stole my child?” I asked as a wave of heat rushed over me.
“We’ll have to dissect the particulars later, but it’s my best guess. It explains why