I rearranged the pillows behind my back, sitting against my headboard with my legs stretched out, computer on my lap, scrolling through red carpet snaps and Instagram pics.
Drio had reached out to Samson’s posse long before Rohan agreed to do the theme song but they’d rebuffed all attempts to buddy up until learning of Drio’s own entourage pedigree, prompting Drio to dub them starfuckers. He could handle them just fine. It was the women that Samson kept company with who were of interest to me. I flipped between windows at the various stills frozen there.
Two things were abundantly clear. One, he was not picking his companions for their scintillating conversation, since he didn’t seem to let his dates speak. Every single one of them, from famous swimsuit models to porn stars, always clad in short, tight dresses, mutely let themselves be led around.
This led to the second revelation which was they all possessed a status that I lacked. Drio could tart me up all he wanted, but D-list strumpet wasn’t going to cut it. Sadly, there was no way to fabricate any kind of fame for me. Not at this late date.
I’d have to catch Samson’s interest another way.
It brought me back to that quote on Evelyn’s locket. After Googling it, I learned it was attributed to Marcel Proust, which didn’t help any. But the idea kept looping back through my head like a song on repeat. We love only what we do not wholly possess.
Samson worked in envy the way Michelangelo worked in marble. Was it possible to catch his interest through my utter disinterest? Not to make him love me, but to want me? Want to impress me? Physical type aside, he seemed to go for women who didn’t present any type of challenge. Hot arm-candy. Not to dismiss the intelligence of his dates, but chances were, when these women were with Samson, they kept pithy insights and witty repartee to a minimum. They knew their role, lesser lights revolving around Samson’s bright sun.
Only he was allowed to be the center of the universe with everyone–dates, posse, and general public–being pulled into his gravitational orbit. I expected overt evil from a demon, but Samson wasn’t forcing anyone to buy into what he was selling or do his bidding. Merely presenting himself as the de facto pinnacle to aspire to, then exploiting our all-too-mortal weaknesses for his own gain.
I pulled my blanket around my shoulders.
Right or wrong, people worshipped celebrities and would do anything to be like them. Knowing this, Samson was letting us do all the heavy lifting. Simply giving us a final nudge into the misery necessary to achieve whatever his big picture goal was. Shades of gray brilliance.
Though whether that made him a demon or a psychopath remained to be seen.
I stared at his grinning mug on my laptop. “If you’re getting everything you ever wanted, Samson, then how do I make you want me? How do I become your own personal challenge to conquer?”
Evelyn had been sexy. She’d been flat-out beautiful. Smart too, I’d bet. She had a Proust quote around her neck, not a pop lyric. Had her intelligence been a turn-off? That would rule out the sexy librarian look. I searched online but couldn’t find any photos of the two of them together to determine body language.
My stomach growled, interrupting my investigation. I stretched out my neck and shoulders deciding this was as good a time as any to take a break and headed downstairs into the kitchen to make dinner. Buttered toast and a glass of juice coming right up.
I drummed my fingers on the dark granite countertop waiting for the toast to pop. When it did, I flipped each piece over to examine them, before turning them back over once more.
“Whatever are you doing?” Rohan pulled a bag of pre-cut veggies out of the industrial-sized, stainless steel fridge in the wall of white cabinets.
“Checking for the right-side-up,” I said.
“On bread?”
I flipped the piece over for him in show-and-tell fashion. “When you slice bread, that results in a right-side-up and wrong-side-up. Like wood grains. It’s important to butter the toast on the correct side.”
“Or what? Solar eclipse? Tides out of whack?”
“General fuckery ensues. You can’t be eating upside-down bread, Snowflake.” I munched on my toast, watching as he chopped up garlic and ginger then fried them up in a pan. “How come you don’t just use your own blades to cut the stuff?”
“Because my blades are weapons, not cutlery.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry.” My stomach growled again. “That smells good.”
Rohan pulled out a bunch of dried spices from a cupboard. “It’ll taste good, too.”
He handled the chopping knife with ease and I drank in his relaxed stance with just a frisson of danger in how fast he used the blade. Stubble scruffed along his jaw, and the shadows on his face shifted as he took a sip of wine. It was a good look for him. The look of a guy cooking his date dinner. Satisfying her before he satisfied her.
I dropped my toast on the plate, its taste suddenly lacking. Picking up the wine bottle, I grabbed an empty juice glass and sloshed the liquid in.
Rohan closed his eyes briefly in pain.
“Do we have any photos of Evelyn and Samson together?” The spicy wine hit my palette and went down real smooth. All righty. Liquid dinner it was.
“Yeah. In the red folder in the library. Why?”
“Evelyn possessed a different beauty than the women Samson surrounded himself with, but she’d also been a part of his life for longer than anyone else we could find. I want to know if her feelings were reciprocated, let alone if my love theory is even correct.”
“What we have won’t help you. They’re mostly set photos documenting them working together.”
“Damn. Still, I’ll check them out.” I poured more wine. “Drio might have a point about not talking. Or rather, not appearing too smart in front of Samson.”
“That’s a safe assumption.” Rohan plated the veggies, going back to the fridge for one final item.
“Cilantro? It doesn’t need it,” I said through a forkful of stir fry.
Rohan lunged for me, wrestling the fork away. “Make your own dinner.”
“But yours is so–” I squealed. “No tickling!” Of course that just amped him up further. Silly boy didn’t realize that I’d had years of practice suppressing my laughter in such situations, thanks to Ari’s merciless tickle torture. Half-bent over, I bit down on my lip, grateful that Rohan attacked from behind and couldn’t see my strained expression. “Doesn’t even affect me.”
“You’re a dirty liar,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my neck.
I dropped the square ceramic plate on the counter. “More a dirty exaggerator.” I tried–and failed–to suppress the shiver that racked my body at the touch of his lips under my ear. I turned in his arms, smoothing the pulse beating in his throat with my finger. Feeling the smooth, soft patch right under the rasp of his jaw-line stubble, like a secret that only I knew. “Wanna really exert yourself over me?”
He pressed his forehead against mine. “I have to go to the studio. Put in some song time.”
“It’s okay.” I patted his cheek as he released me. “Will you be working late?”
“Probably.” His regret was genuine.
I picked up my wine, heading for the library and the photos of Evelyn when Rohan pressed the plate of stir fry into my hands. “Eat, Lolita.”
I smiled, then gasped. Lolita. That was it. I raced off with my food, the pieces of my plan falling into place.
Chapter 4
Best teacher I’ve ever had, but make one dumb mistake and she’ll eviscerate you, wrote a commenter on ratemyprofessor.com. I scrolled through the other comments for Dr. Gelman and found similar sentiments. Her academic page at Ben Gurion University in Be’er-Sheva, Israel was populated with lists and lists of her articles on climate change, and her photo showed a woman in her mid-sixties with leathery olive skin, white streaking her black hair, and a no-nonsense expression.
I liked her already.
The rest of my day included last-min
ute trips to the mall and my parents’ place to raid my closet for some Samson-attracting clothes, memorizing the list of demons and their various known traits to the best of my ability, then obsessively checking to see if the scientist had replied to my meeting request.
She hadn’t, so I decided to call Leo. My bestie answered the phone sounding more subdued than usual.
“Oh, no. Did your date with the soulful poet go badly?”
Leo gagged. “He had more estrogen than my last girlfriend. I can’t be around guys who make me lactate.”
“Sorry, pumpkin. Better luck next time.”
“There’s got to be a group of hot guys who are smart and funny.”
“There is.” I sorted through my underwear, putting the pairs coming with me into a pile. “They’re all sleeping with other guys.”
Leo sighed. “I should have been born a gay man.”
“Yeah, but then I’d never have a shot with you.”
“I like that you dream big. Okay,” she said, sounding more cheerful, “gotta go play Switzerland and help broker a transaction between two clients.” I didn’t bother asking for details, even though I itched to go crash that party. Leo worked part-time as a P.I. with demon clientele. She used much of the info she gathered for good, being an informant to the Brotherhood, much like the Brotherhood used its David Security International front to gain access to high-powered players and secrets that otherwise might elude us.
I tossed my empty suitcase onto my bed. “Good luck and watch your back. I’m off to Prague tomorrow morning.”
“That oughta be interesting.”
“You have no idea.” I filled her in on my hope that I’d soon have a way to get Ari inducted as Rasha. “Can you stay in touch with him while I’m gone? Maybe go out together?”
“Of course.” I heard her car door slam. “So long as dickhead doesn’t accompany us.”
I tried a couple of combinations on the built-in lock before I got the sequence right and the suitcase fell open. “Dickhead is Ari’s personal bodyguard right now so please be nice.”
Kane and Leo had met while the Nava-guarding Rasha boys were suffering from demon-compelled memory loss about my existence. Had we any Men in Black memory-erasing tech, they’d have used it on Leo. But occasionally people did find out about us and it’s not like the Brotherhood made them disappear. I didn’t think. If they learned about Leo’s half-goblin status though? They’d dust her in a heartbeat. It would be my death warrant, too.
Rohan was the one Rasha who knew the truth about Leo, and he was leaving her alone. For that, I’d be forever grateful.
“Gotta book,” she said. “Schmugs.”
“Schmugs,” I replied. My chest got warm and gooey at her matter-of-fact usage of our good-bye, shortened from “Hugs, schmugs.” Having Leo back in my life meant everything to me.
Packing took no time at all. I propped my suitcase by the door, casting around for something to distract me, too restless to sleep right now. Grabbing my phone, I scrolled through my music, then set it in my blue and silver bedside speaker dock. After my Achilles tendon snapped in high school on the verge of achieving my dream of tapping professionally, I’d quit dancing. Cold turkey, locked down that part of myself. It had taken becoming Rasha, and more specifically talking with Rohan about his own creative experiences to realize how miserable I’d been without tap in my life.
Kneeling on my fluffy area rug, I rummaged under my bed for the tap shoes that Rohan had brought over from my parents’ house as a surprise. A gesture that I didn’t want to examine too closely. Sliding my feet in, the worn soles fitting me like a second skin, I hit play. I could have chosen anything to dance to; old swing, modern jazz, pop, even salsa music worked, but right now I wanted Rohan.
Phrasing.
Snowflake’s raspy growl filled the room, singing the lyrics of his first hit, “Toccata and Fugue.” A stream of consciousness love song, it never failed to fill me with a wild recklessness, an electric flow dancing over my skin that had nothing to do with my newly acquired magic. I tried to stay in the present and not the memory of Rohan singing these lyrics to me in a park late at night a few weeks ago.
The girl with the lightning eyes and the boy with demons in his soul.
As freaked as I’d been at those lyrics, Rohan had practically swallowed his tongue before the second chorus. That didn’t seem to stop me from obsessively listening to the song every time I danced these days, however.
Kicking the rug out of the way, I tapped a percussive counterpart rhythm, my heel stamps, open thirds, and five-count riffs landing with gunfire precision on the hardwood floor. A siren’s call, the melody swayed through my body, making my blood sing.
I danced until I was too tired to worry about the outcomes of all the balls in motion right now, and then I passed out, laying my head as close as possible to the speakers, with Rohan’s voice on repeat, a quiet lullaby to send me into dreamland.
Not even a tendril of light slithered through my blinds when I awoke Wednesday morning. I cracked an eye to look at my alarm clock. 5AM. I flipped over, pulling the covers over my head, but sleep was elusive. Truth be told, I was wound tight, caught between nerves and exhilaration for the trip.
Slipping on a robe and socks, I padded into the kitchen for the first of several coffees. I filled my cup, adding copious amounts of milk and sugar.
Rohan was on his way out, airport bound for his earlier flight. He snapped his suitcase zipper into its built-in lock. “You ready? Got your passport? Your Nikki wardrobe?”
Would he go double-check Drio? Oh wait, I knew that answer.
I slammed my cup down, liquid sloshing onto the counter. “Pass. Port. Is what? For big shiny bird in sky?”
Rohan’s lips compressed into a thin line. “This isn’t a joke. Get focused on this assignment and your role in it.”
“Don’t worry,” I sneered. “I’ll be the picture of adoration.”
“Yeah, I’m already feeling the love.”
I curled my fingers around the mug, the heat from the coffee seeping through the ceramic. Fucking, fleeing, and fighting, oh my. I’d rather have lions, tigers, and bears.
“Have a good flight.” That was the second time in as many weeks that I’d uttered that phrase to cut off a loaded conversation with Rohan.
I brushed past him, taking the coffee with me.
The next few hours dragged by. Drio and I were supposed to ride to the airport in style, but since it became apparent there was no way Drio, me, and our luggage would fit into Kane’s Porsche, I called Ari and we all crammed into our dad’s Prius instead. I made small talk with my brother in the front seat and tried not to think about how much I regretted drinking that third cup.
This good-bye was far easier than the one my twin and I had said when I’d moved into the chapter house. Still, when we unloaded our luggage in the passenger zone at the Vancouver International Airport, I hugged my brother hard.
“Don’t be stupid there.” Ari’s blue-gray eyes, the only feature my blond twin and I shared, were filled with concern.
“It’s not my plan, but you never know.”
“I’m serious. Nothing you’re doing,” he gave me a pointed look indicating he was speaking about Gelman and getting himself Rasha’d up, “is worth you being hurt. Things get hairy, you step away. And by step, I mean run.”
I punched him in the arm. “Take your own advice, you hypocrite.”
A bleak expression flashed over his face before he rubbed his jaw. “I’m dealing best I can.”
My heart shredded into a million pieces at how lost he was. I’d tried yelling, begging, crying–nothing I’d said had stopped Ari. So I’d find Gelman and get the idiot inducted. “Get killed, leave me an only child, and I will find a way to reanimate you, visit humiliation galore upon your zombified corpse, and then kill you again.”
That got me a shadow of a grin. I’d take it. One more giant hug for Ari, a smacked kiss on the cheek from Kane, and then it was down to D
rio and me wheeling our suitcases into the airport. Being stuck with someone who despised me for the next twelve or so hours as my sole travel companion? Good times.
“I have a very important role for you for the flight over,” Drio said as we approached the ticket counter.
Sweet! I cocked my fingers at him like a gun. “You got it. What?”
“Mute.” Light glinted off the skull ring on his middle finger, the glamour on his Rasha ring fittingly emblematic of his assholery.
“Look at my face.” I waved my hand around it. “Now put all your admittedly limited powers of deduction to the test and tell me if it says ‘sass me.’”
Drio bared his teeth at me, while the airport employee was given our passports with a charming grin that had her touching her hair, flustered.
Even then, I might have tried making conversation with him, because I got bored on flights, but upon checking in, I learned that being Rasha meant traveling business class. Time to milk every perk out of this ticket.
I started in the business class passenger lounge in the airport, an enormous rectangle of a room divided into eating and lounging, with one wall of floor-to-ceiling windows providing a view onto the runways. First stop? The booze, of course. It was free and on tap. I liberally doctored an espresso with Bailey’s because even I wasn’t going to guzzle vodka before 10AM.
On the job.
Then I pretty much skipped the espresso and kept topping up the Irish cream. I found some ice and a splash of milk, and bam! Daily calcium content dealt with. Two plates of waffles, bacon, and sausage for iron helped soak it all up. I finished with a glass of orange juice to keep the scurvy away. All in all, a damn healthy meal.
Belly full, stack of magazines in hand, I moved over to the reading and relaxation area. I wriggled my butt against my comfy chair. This was seriously heaven. I surreptitiously checked out my fellow travelers waiting for their flights to be announced. When it came to being chosen, demon hunters had nothing on the people in this place. Those economy schmucks waiting downstairs in the airport departure areas, stuck sitting on molded plastic with second-rate food-court choices were cattle.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 32
