The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series

by Deborah Wilde

  Kane didn’t react. Or greet him. But his eyes lingered on my twin.

  Sexual tension and simmering frustration, not a combo I ever wanted to experience again.

  “Good morning, Ace.” I poked Kane in the hip. He swatted my hand away.

  Ari swiped my coffee away, took a sip, grimaced, and shoved it back into my hands.

  I shook sloshing java off my fingers. “I was enjoying that.”

  “No, you weren’t. You get a new paintbrush?”

  “Nope. Wait here. I want to see something.” Making a big show of clutching my coffee to my chest, I retrieved the last of the Sweet Tooth from my bedroom and brought it back to the kitchen.

  I slapped the vial into Ari’s hand. “Check it out. It’s not pink anymore.” No more crystals either, just a fine white powder.

  “I see that.” He inspected it. “Looks like corn starch.”

  Kane slow-clapped him.

  I muscled in between them. “Quit being assholes. You guys have to keep each other alive in a couple days.” I dipped the tip of my pinky into the powder and licked my finger. “Corn starch it is. Whatever magic element was combined with it to make the Sweet Tooth is gone.”

  Kane held the vial up to the light. “If the magic has a short shelf life, that makes this stuff more valuable. Limited supply.”

  “He’s right. Oh, shut up,” Ari said at Kane’s gloat.

  “Gawd,” I muttered. I snagged a croissant from the bag on the counter and went in search of Rohan.

  He’d set up shop in the library and dragged the whiteboard upstairs from the conference room. On it he’d scrawled a list of demons with any type of toxin or hallucinogen. His cramped writing covered the board.

  Rohan was sprawled on one of the sofas grouped near the fireplace. Big chunks of the floor-to-ceiling bookcases were empty, with half-open books strewn over chairs, the long table that ran along the window, and the Persian carpet. “It’s the list that won’t quit,” he groused.

  He read my “Karma is like 69” T-shirt and laughed, resting his head back against the top of the sofa. “A joke for every occasion.”

  “I’m a regular walking comedienne,” I said waspishly. Snarky comments were the last thing I needed from him right now.

  “You are. You’re always ready to laugh shit off. I need that.”

  Oh. He wasn’t being sarcastic. I plopped down next to him, resting my head on his shoulder as I perused the database entry on his laptop. Lavellan: a poisonous water shrew.

  “Fun new development.” I told him about the evaporating magic. “Could that help knock some spawn off the list?”

  “Not sure. I doubt anyone did tests on how long any of these poisons last.”

  “Because they’d rather kill the demons producing the poison than study them.”

  “Even so.” Rohan settled a pillow behind his back. “How short is this shelf life? A day? A month?”

  I pulled the laptop over. “Let’s hope that Aida hasn’t skipped town.”

  “At least we know wreta demons aren’t responsible for Sweet Tooth.” Wretas needed to be present for their drug to be consumed. The user generally sucked the secretion straight off the demon, though they could just fling prismatic drops at you to get you hooked if so inclined. It was possible that the demons had found a way to anchor their secretion in corn starch, but Sweet Tooth didn’t behave the way the wreta’s hallucinatory bliss did. Wreta secretions were powerfully addictive–Christina couldn’t have done it a couple of times and walked away. She’d have been emaciated, sucked dry, seen her hair fall out, and also be most likely dead now.

  My fingers flew over the keyboard. Our lunch detritus ended up shoved to one end of the library table, and I took the occasional pull of the bottle of Coke at my elbow despite it having gone flat, warm, and gross about an hour ago.

  Our digging did yield a few notable facts about wretas: they tended to live in groups and if they didn’t secrete on a regular basis, they stank like a noxious sewer. This resulted in them living close to waste-producing industries.

  “Got something like that in Vancouver?” Rohan asked.

  “We do actually. There’s this slice of land down by the water on the east side. Houses both a chicken rendering plant and a waste reduction plant. When the wind blows the wrong way?” I plugged my nose. It smelled like Satan’s sweaty sneakers and death.

  I opened Google Maps.

  Rohan peered over my shoulder. “Look for places with lots of bamboo planted.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re excellent for filtering out formaldehyde, which is a byproduct the wreta produce. And they grow tall, allowing for privacy.”

  It was extremely slow going but we eventually narrowed down the possibilities to a handful of places. It took a bit of finagling to get the equipment we needed without Ms. Clara here to facilitate everything for us, but she worked her magic from Jerusalem.

  The first address we went to had been demolished since its Google Maps images had been taken and the second was home to a sweet old Italian man who shared large juicy cherries right off his tree with us.

  The third house had freshly-painted cream trim and stained-glass windows. We drove around back. The man wearing thick garden gloves to protect himself from the salt boxes he was stuffing into the trash aroused our suspicions; the crescent-shaped birthmark on his cheek confirmed them. The wreta didn’t pay any attention to the white van with the pest control logo on the side that slowly cruised by.

  We added gloves and face masks with respiratory filters to our yellow chemical suits, piled out of the van and entered through the back gate.

  The demon was crouched chanting on the lawn next to a salt circle that ran the perimeter of the fence and continued around the side of the house. He paused at our approach. Big mistake.

  “Where’s Aida?” Rohan growled, stabbing the wreta’s shoulder with his finger blades. The blades should have cut through the protective gloves. But that was a part of Rohan’s magic: all of the knives without any of the clothing loss. Much to my dismay.

  The demon froze. His body ran slick with his secretion, drops slashing everywhere. We would have been tripping balls if not for these handy dandy protective chemical suits.

  When his drug failed to take us out, he burst into a flurry of fists and kicks, wrenching himself loose. I tackled the wreta, but he fought hard, demanding we let him finish the ward. It took both of us to pin him in place.

  I elbowed the demon in the face. “Aida. Where is she?”

  This just set him off again, thrashing and going on about the stupid ward and how it was coming.

  “What’s coming?” I said.

  The wreta’s panic escalated into full-blown hysteria. He grabbed Rohan’s hand, using Ro’s index finger blade to slice his own wrist open. Rohan rolled the demon sideways before any blood could hit the salt line and set the ward.

  We didn’t know what the ward was meant to do, and we couldn’t be caught in unknown magic, but part of me was certain we’d regret our decision to leave the property exposed.

  Rohan leaned his weight on the demon. “Where’s Candyman?”

  “Answer him.” I kicked away part of the salt ward line.

  The wreta stared helplessly at it, then grabbed Ro’s finger and rammed it into his eyeball. His kill spot. He disappeared, dead, leaving only an oily puddle that seeped into the dirt.

  Rohan punched the ground, his expression a feral snarl.

  “‘Choose death’ isn’t a popular slogan in the demon lexicon.” I nervously scanned the backyard. “What the fuck is coming?”

  Rohan put a finger to his lips and motioned to the back porch. We crept up the stairs and I eased open the kitchen door.

  A scuffed navy backpack filled with cash sat on the kitchen counter next to a cell phone with no security code on it. Gotta love demon arrogance. There was no one listed in the contacts, and no data plan to check the browser history, but we found a text chain about some kind of drop in two days
’ time, along with a time and place. I tried calling that number but it was disconnected.

  I tossed the phone into the backpack and tiptoed down the hallway, grateful that the shag carpet muffled the tread of our heavy work boots. I hit the living room doorway and recoiled, the reek of hot copper and rotting meat thick even through my respiratory filter.

  I’d stopped so suddenly that Rohan slammed into my back and I had to grab the doorframe to stop myself from stumbling inside the room.

  The floor was slick with blood. Demon viscera glistened under the LED overhead lamp.

  Two wreta sat there, unmoving. Or well, one sat there, oblivious to the puddle of piss at his feet. The other one had been ripped apart like a chicken carcass and what was left of the five and a half foot demon was being funneled into a giant gaping maw.

  The demon eating the wreta had an amorphous blobby body with skin like an oil spill, and a smaller egg-shaped head that brushed the nine-foot-ceiling. The head was featureless except for that mouth which took up most of the real estate, a massive pit sucking back its victim.

  The hungry demon turned, revealing a single, perfectly formed right human arm and hand. Its nails were painted bright red. It popped the wreta’s head in, its throat convulsing, and swallowed the head whole into its body that was expanding to accommodate the meal.

  I’d always thought No Face from Spirited Away wasn’t that scary a villain, but this demon was making me reconsider that stance.

  Next, the demon grabbed a wreta thigh, like one would a Chickeny Delight drumstick, and feverishly crammed it into its mouth.

  We should have let the wreta set the damn ward. I pulled a crackling ball of magic into my palm and Rohan pushed past me, his feet squelching on the bloody tile, but the demon was faster. Slurping down another wreta foot, the demon disappeared.

  The remaining wreta slumped over as if released from a trance. He was hyperventilating, repeating the same word over and over again.

  Oshk.

  Since that was all we could get out of the wreta, we killed him. There were no other demons in the house.

  The stench and violence of the kill was pressing in on me, an almost physical presence lingering in the room. I grabbed the backpack and shouldered out the back door. The second I was outside, I ripped off my facial gear, breathing deeply. I itched to rip off my work boots too, because they stank from the blood coating them. Grisly bits were stuck to the soles.

  “We have to clean up in there,” Ro said.

  Damn. I’d managed to avoid clean-up duty so far and it figured it’d be a bloodbath that broke my lucky streak. I had no problem pulling my weight, so long as I didn’t puke and make things worse.

  He’d brought cleaning supplies along in case we’d needed to scour off any wreta secretions. We didn’t want any humans who eventually came around to check out the residents’ disappearance getting hurt. Unlike Sweet Tooth, the wreta’s hallucinogens lasted indefinitely.

  It took liberal amounts of sodium peroxide mix to remove all the bloodstains. Everything from the mops to our chemical suits would have to be burned.

  “What’s an oshk?” I scrubbed at a stubborn patch of something dark on the wall, unconvinced my thick rubber gloves were enough of a barrier between me and the goo. Clean up duty was exactly as awful as I’d anticipated. “That thing that ate the demons?”

  Rohan placed a fresh bucket of water on the floor. “No clue. But if something that scares demons is in town? Something that had them all hiding last night?”

  “Fuuuuuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter 6

  If the library had been a disaster before, it was ten times worse after our pointless search for any information on the oshk.

  In theory, I was now recording all the serial numbers of the cash so Orwell, the Brotherhood intel department so nicknamed by Kane, could track its source. In practice, I was keeping a wary eye on Rohan and his string of Hindi-English cursing that had risen from a mutter to a couple of stages away from a roar.

  I ruffled the bills. “Did you know that there are one hundred hundred dollar bills in each bundle?”

  No response.

  “I’ve got a cool half a mill here.” I shook the backpack. “I’m thinking a quick Google search on countries with no extradition treaty, book a flight, and we’re living large on a beach with umbrella drinks by happy hour tomorrow.”

  Holding this much cash was so surreal that it almost lost all meaning. Not gonna lie, I was tempted to rip open the bundles and roll naked on them, but considering we’d commandeered the cash from a demon home, refrained.

  Rohan flung a book on the table; it bounced and crashed to the floor.

  “Okay,” I said, retrieving the book–and the laptop for good measure–and placing them on the far end of the table, “you’re done.”

  Rohan turned glittering eyes on me, clearly wanting someone to fight with.

  I spread my hands. “We’re in a holding pattern and getting mad at your people isn’t going to change that.”

  Expression thunderous, he left the room.

  I zipped up the backpack, setting my list of serial numbers on top, and leaned back in my chair, my chest tight. Work, relationship, saving the world–for Rohan and I, it was all tangled up. We even lived at Demon Club. There was no space for us to breathe.

  My ex, Cole, had recently told me that when my snapped Achilles had destroyed my tap dance dreams, he’d had no idea how to comfort me. He hadn’t felt like I was in the relationship. I didn’t think that about Ro, but the fear of watching someone I cared about revert into bad behaviors and shut me out was all too real these days.

  If we didn’t live up to Rohan’s relationship expectations or I became the fallout in the implosion of his feelings around the Brotherhood, his pattern would be he’d dump me without another look back and waltz into whatever new identity he crafted for himself. There would be no fighting for us or working through things. We’d be us and then we wouldn’t be anything.

  I exhaled, hard. There might not be a way out of the pressure cooker we lived in, but maybe there was a way to alleviate some steam. I pulled out my phone and started researching my brilliant idea, leaning my elbows on the library table. This was supposed to be our honeymoon phase and honeymoon it we would.

  “Sorry.” Rohan reappeared in the doorway, sounding genuinely contrite.

  “That’s– juggling.” I squinted at the four red balls in his hands.

  “Yeah. One of our roadies got me into it as a stress relief.”

  “I can see how hot and cold running tour sex wouldn’t have the same appeal.” That earned me the ghost of a grin. “All those nights in the Vault. You’ve been juggling?”

  “No. I’ve been beating the shit out of the bag.” He switched up his moves, catching the balls underhand. “But I figured that if yelling wasn’t going to help, then storming off wasn’t either.”

  “Progress.” I crossed the room and settled into one of the leather club chairs, my legs tucked underneath me. “You’ve unleashed a lot of talents on me in the past few days, Snowflake.” I ticked the items off on my fingers. “Dancing, skateboarding, juggling.”

  “The dancing I learned to help with my stage presence, the skateboarding was from growing up in L.A., and we had a lot of downtime on tour. I’m also the undisputed champion of Crazy Eights.”

  “A true renaissance man. Or was that renaissance nerd?”

  He threw a ball up, spinning to catch it behind his back. The tension in his body eased a fraction. “Admit it, you’re impressed.”

  “I am.” I bounced a ball of electricity in my hand, then divided them into two.

  “Cute.”

  “You think?” The two balls became four, and I let them swivel on their own around my head while I scanned the page on my phone. This would do nicely. A couple of clicks and some expedited shipping and things were put into motion.

  Ro laughed, the happiness I’d hoped for back in his eyes. “You’re a total
shit. What are you looking at? Why the smug grin?”

  I put the phone away and powered off my magic. “My other boyfriend wants to hook-up.”

  “Great. I’ll call mine. Girlfriend,” he clarified, rolling his eyes at my crestfallen expression. “You’re so predictable.”

  “You said it. Lots of downtime, a bus full of horny guys. Do the math.”

  “That’s not–” His phone buzzed. Ro caught all of the balls one-handed, pulling the phone from his pocket. He scratched his jaw, reading the text, his expression cautiously optimistic. “Pretty up, Sparky. We’re going out.”

  “Pretty is a step down for me, buddy. Wow. You really blew a compliment opportunity. Your other girlfriend can keep you.”

  “Don’t want her,” he said, grabbing me in a headlock to kiss the top of my head.

  “Ack.” I elbowed my way free. “What kind of pretty does the situation demand?”

  “Mahmud’s in town.” Mahmud was the Rasha who’d recruited Rohan for the Askuchar job. Rohan quickly typed a response. “Told him to meet us at Lotus.”

  Last time Rohan and I had eaten at Lotus, we’d had an incredible meal and a disaster of a conversation. The knives had come out on both sides. Whatever could I look forward to this time? Mahmud was Rohan’s friend, not just a fellow hunter. Had he told Mahmud he was dating me? Or had he left it out, since this was a professional meeting and not a personal one? What kind of look would even be appropriate for this dinner: badass girlfriend or hot comrade-in-arms?

  Fuck appropriate. I jumped to my feet and snapped out a salute. “Prettying up, sir!”

  “Hey.” He swung me back toward him, his eyes serious on mine. “I’m not going to break us, okay?” He stroked his thumb over my hand, radiating sincerity and the depth of his affection for me. This mattered so much to him. I mattered so much to him.

  Rohan was an all-or-nothing kind of guy and getting the full weight of his absolute attention and care made me feel like I could reach for the stars. I was living the cheesiest of clichés where he was the first person I wanted to see in the morning and the last person I wanted to talk to at night. Rohan wasn’t my other half. I was a twin. I knew what other halves felt like.