“Gossip and die,” I said into the phone.
“Hmph,” Leo said, and hung up.
I handed Drio back his phone. “And you.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
He jutted his chin out. “Che cosa?”
“Milked you dry, did she?”
He actually ducked his head, his cheeks flushing. His embarrassment was a rare and beautiful gift.
“Polysporin.” I handed him the tube I’d grabbed when I’d heard his phone ring. “For when love hurts.”
Cheered up immeasurably, I flew down the curved wooden staircase, the railings glowing with a high-gloss gleam and the scent of lemon polish.
Ro wasn’t in his room. His bathroom was still steamy and his damp towel lay crumpled on his counter. Maybe he was lying in a coma somewhere. Or suffering from battle-induced amnesia. Neither of which excused the lack of a present since all gift provisions should have been made by now, but would temper my judgment on his lack of proper birthday greetings.
No such luck. He wasn’t anywhere on the main floor and the downstairs offices were empty.
I poked my head in Rabbi Abrams’ office, hoping I was still persona grata to him. He hadn’t come in. No problem. I’d see him later at our birthday dinner.
Hopefully.
I stomped down the stairs into the basement with its wide, well-lit corridors, and slapped my hand against the scanner to open the iron door to the Vault. The light changed from red to green and I threw the door open. It bounced off the concrete blocks that made up the walls in the basement, leaving a black mark on the white paint.
Rohan wasn’t in the Vault either. I crossed the blue padded flooring and checked inside both the small iron room where we occasionally stashed demons and the weapons room. No sign of him.
I didn’t hear any music coming from the small room down the corridor that I’d turned into my tap studio, but it was the last place to check before I searched the grounds. Or got a shovel to start digging his grave.
Sparks crunched between the soles of my feet and the floor as I stalked toward the room. Even if he hadn’t gotten me a present, some guys just sucked at birthdays. It had no bearing on Ro’s feelings towards me. This wasn’t a test.
I stopped short of the doorway, anticipation prickling my chest, and stepped inside.
Empty.
I forced my slumping shoulders back, my chin up–
–And saw the shoe box with the fat yellow bow sitting on the lumpy sofa. I flung the lid off.
Ro had bought me custom-made, red leather tap shoes. There was purple leather at the toes and heels, like saddle shoes, and a red leather heart at the back of each shoe. Purple laces completed the look.
I clutched the heavy shoes to my chest and kissed the leather hearts, basking in how well Rohan knew me. He paid attention to the small stuff. I, on the other hand, wanted to have all his likes, dislikes, and idiosyncrasies downloaded into my brain already. Ro was nowhere near the open book I was, but I intended to carefully read his every page. I didn’t want him to ever feel like I was taking him for granted.
“Sparky?” Booted heels neared.
I gave each heart one more kiss.
Rohan came over to me. “Finally found them?”
I shook a shoe at him. “You are playing a dangerous game, son. Gift contact didn’t occur until an hour into Nava Day. One hour.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Is that a national or international holiday?”
I cuffed him upside the head. “It offends me that you have to ask.”
“You put two countdown apps on my phone in the assumption I’d forget your birthday. That insult to my honor could not go unchallenged,” he said. “Like them?”
I danced the shoes through the air. “They’re only the greatest gift ever.”
“They are.” Fine. He’d earned that smug grin. “Do they fit?”
“Don’t know yet.” Sitting down, I stretched out my leg and handed him the shoes. “How did you know my size?”
Rohan sat down beside me and slid the shoe onto my left foot. “I got a pair of worn out taps that your mom said still fit and sent them to the shoemaker.” He laced up the shoe. “How does it feel?”
I put on the second shoe, and stood up, testing my weight. They were heavier shoes than I’d had in a while but adjusting to the increased weight would give me sound advantages.
I kissed him with everything I had. Rohan cupped the back of my head, but I ducked his hold. “I have to test them more,” I said. “For quality assurance purposes.”
He sank onto the sofa, elbows braced on his knees, watching me. I’d never tire of the enrapt expression on his face while he watched me dance.
I broke the shoes in with a time step one of my instructors used to call the West Coast Bounce. Throwing on some dreamy ambient, I double timed my steps: open thirds, drawbacks, riffs, and a flurry of shuffles on my right foot.
“You look like you’re making two sounds but five come out. How you move your feet that fast is beyond me.”
I fought past my first impulse to joke it off. “This was basically my life for fifteen years.” I nodded in satisfaction at my balance on my toe stands. “These shoes? Their weight wouldn’t have worked if I was a Broadway tapper, but for rhythm tap?” I rapped a staccato percussion of heel stamps, taking in their deeper, warmer sound. “These have groove, and I’m a hoofer at heart.”
An instrumental version of the jazz classic “Sunny Side of the Street” shuffled onto my iPhone next. I smoothed out my steps, my improvisation as light as a feather.
“Nava.” I stopped mid-pullback at the serious tone in his voice. “I told Drio we wanted to talk to him.”
As far as the wrong people knowing went, Drio was pretty damn wrong. “Did you.”
I sat down on the couch, unlacing my shoe with a sharp jerk that only made a knot.
Rohan took my foot and unraveled the laces. “You greenlit Mahmud knowing, and Drio’s good at getting information.”
“Torture will do that. I also wouldn’t put it past him to kill any Rasha he thinks are on the wrong side of this.”
Like me.
“Drio’s on our side. He wouldn’t kill you.” Rohan considered it. “Maim, maybe. Maiming, he definitely would do. But I hear having all your body parts is highly overrated.”
I got my second shoe off without mishap. “It’s not funny. Drio hates demons. He lives for the Brotherhood. Best friend or not, you can’t predict how he’ll react.”
“I can. Drio lives for killing demons,” Rohan said. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Are you going to tell me what the deal is between you two?” Rohan shook his head. “Stubborn. What if you pulled back on investigating this from the Brotherhood angle? Let me try and step things up with the witches.”
“Like that’s safer?” He squeezed my hands. “I’ll be careful.”
“Promise?”
Rohan pressed his mouth below my earlobe, his whispered “I promise,” making me shiver.
I sighed. “Let’s get this over with.” Twenty-one had been my best birthday ever. Too bad I wouldn’t live to see twenty-two.
Chapter 8
Drio stood at the kitchen counter applying Crazy Glue to a machete grip as Rohan warmed up with the Sweet Tooth case. Drio was framed by the window, the trees outside bent almost double and rain lashing the glass. When he heard what had happened to Naomi, his hands tightened on the handle so hard that he cracked it again.
I slipped the box of Kosher salt out of the cupboard. If Drio was mad about the drugs, a quick ward might be in my best interests when we got to the actual topic needing to be raised, since The Flash over there was holding a literal machete.
“You think this oshk is looking for Candyman as well?” Drio said.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Rohan said. “The wreta might have known.” He shrugged.
“We need to stop that shit hitting the streets. Addictions never end well.” There was an uncharacterist
ic edge to Drio’s voice.
“Never with demon drugs, but humans can beat addictions. If they get treatment in time…” I trailed off at the look of disdain Drio leveled at me.
He turned to Ro. “You want my help?”
“Nava?” Seated at the table, Rohan twisted around to look up at me.
I shifted from side-to-side.
Drio smirked. “You look uncomfortable. I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Tone down the delight,” I said. “This is um, really, really not to be shared.”
He sanded the handle. Its wicked blade glinted in the harsh kitchen light. “You know,” he said, “it’s unhealthy to keep things inside.”
I swallowed, standing behind Ro with my hands on his shoulder for support. Drio didn’t like having enemies. Between the torture, the flashstepping, and the fact he was a little murder machine capable of striking fast and dismembering painfully slow, he was a formidable ally.
But that was only if he took my side. We’d been through a lot together. We’d survived Prague and nearly hooked up, sure, but I didn’t kid myself for a moment that I couldn’t see the coldness creeping into Drio’s eyes.
“Tough,” I said, rolling the die. “Some secrets are meant to be a poison in your soul. So sit back and enjoy the rest of your truncated life. Welcome to Knowledge Club.”
I kept the Kosher salt close and Ro half in front of me as a handy shield for the entire sordid tale. I may not have been convinced that I could set a ward faster than Drio could move, but Drio wouldn’t hurt Ro to get to me.
Given how Drio had reacted when he’d learned the Brotherhood had its first female Rasha, I didn’t think he’d be particularly fond of witches. Especially ones that were binding demons with blood magic.
Silent fury rolled off his tense frame, so I wasn’t wrong. But he was as incensed about the possibility of the Brotherhood being on the wrong side of the fight as Rohan had been.
I edged that much farther behind Ro.
“You know I could kill you before you laid down a single grain of salt or hid fully behind him, yes?” he said, twisting the machete to examine the handle.
Eep. I jutted my chin up. “Good thing I decided to trust you then.”
Rohan crossed his arms. “Drio, come on. Put the machete down.”
“I knew something was going down in Prague. Why didn’t you tell me then?” He leveled a glare at me.
“Our mission with Samson–”
“You didn’t trust me.”
I looked away.
“When did you decide to trust me?”
“Ten minutes ago,” I mumbled.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He tossed the machete onto the counter with a clatter, making Ro and me flinch, and marched off.
Rohan pinched the bridge of his nose. “That went well.”
I hurried to catch up to Drio and tugged on his sleeve. “I’m sorry.”
Drio’s strides grew longer, forcing me to jog up the stairs behind him.
“You’re honestly only mad that I didn’t tell you? Why aren’t you disputing my theory or blaming me or something?”
“If it comes to it, I’ll assign plenty of blame.” His eyes glinted. “But not to you. You don’t blame someone for wanting to know the truth.”
“You’ve come a long way from wanting me dead.”
“Oh, I still want you dead, bella.” He chucked me under the chin. “Just for different reasons.”
“Should I consider you helping me as my birthday present?”
“No.”
I clapped my hands. “Because you bought me something?”
“No.” He turned his back to me and resumed climbing. “I’d have to like you to spoil you.”
“Like Leo.” I stuck out my tongue. “Yeah, yeah, I know all about your ways, Mr. Hand-Printed Scarf.”
He stopped in the doorway of his bedroom, momentarily stunned. “What?”
I saw my chance and took it. “If exposing corruption in the Brotherhood isn’t helping me, what would you call it?”
Drio’s features twisted with pain for a moment and I held my breath thinking that I’d finally get some insight into what made this guy tick. He was such a mass of extremes, but he kept having my back.
I caught his hand. “I’m really truly sorry.”
He stared at our connected hands like they didn’t compute, then gently shook free. “Forget it.”
He shut the door. One way or another, I was going to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Drio Ricci. And make it up to him for hurting his feelings, since I now resided in the bizarro-world where his feelings mattered.
“Nava?”
At the sound of Rabbi Abrams’ voice, I hustled back downstairs, pathetically happy he’d called but equally worried he’d told Mandelbaum and I was now going to be forcibly rehabilitated for my own good. “Yes, Rabbi?”
“Esther wants to see you.”
“You talked to her? Not the Brotherhood?”
“Navela.” Even his myriad of wrinkles frowned at me. “I didn’t speak to the Brotherhood about this. I wouldn’t endanger you and everything you’re doing to get to the bottom of this.” He sounded supremely cranky.
I rolled onto the outsides of my feet, a smile breaking free. “I didn’t doubt it for a second.”
The hospital ward fluorescents cast a cold, grim light over the pale green walls, painted with sunflowers in some misguided attempt at “cheerful.” The strained manic grins on their flower faces only achieved “constipated,” pairing well with the stench of antiseptic and misery permeating the place.
A warning sign in electric yellow proclaimed that the patient inside was in isolation and listed the conditions of entry, such as no flowers or fresh fruit.
I donned the scrubs and gloves that the sign instructed me to don. The thirty-something black nurse in pink floral scrubs checked me over then pushed the door open, watching me through the window in the door. I smiled at her until she turned away and headed back to the nurse’s station.
Dr. Gelman was a fragile waif in her hospital bed. Her black hair was shorter and patchier with more white streaks in it then the last time I’d seen her, while her olive leathery skin was red and angry like it was sunburned, making her look a decade older than her mid-sixties.
I dug my nails into my palms because tears were really a threat and she’d kill me. Adopting my snarkiest pose, I tsked her. “You don’t call. You don’t write. You neglect to give me the heads up about evil witches.”
“Snippy.” The oxygen mask over her mouth made her Israeli-accented voice harder to understand, though the face mask tied over my mouth muffled my words as well.
I sat down in the chair beside her bed, trying not to focus on the bank of monitors and medical equipment surrounding us. “You okay?”
“I’m still alive, so yes. Thanks so much for asking.” Her sarcasm was sharp enough to sting.
“You were the one that so thoughtlessly crashed her immune system and didn’t return my calls.”
Her laughter died, coughs racking her body. I poured her some water from the carafe on the table by her bed, and holding the plastic cup to her lips, kept one hand on her back to prop her up. She was light as a feather. This woman who had single-handedly teleported me into weird caves below Prague just for funsies. Who had the most knowledge of magic of anyone I’d met. Who, right now, was shaking in bed, coughing violently into her hand as the nurse glared daggers at me through the door window for possibly bringing in some unknown contagion.
Was it possible for this to get more shitty?
“Damn chemo,” Gelman said, another coughing spasm overtaking her.
“I can come back another time.”
She shook her head, pushing the cup away. She placed her hands on her chest like she was helping her ribcage expand. “What’s so urgent?” I hesitated and she snapped at me. “I’m not dead yet. Speak.”
I caught her up on everything about my witch and Brotherhood suspicions in a ma
tter-of-fact voice. Hoping if I didn’t get emotional, I wouldn’t raise her blood pressure too badly. “Do you believe me?”
None of the monitors blared. Go me.
The door opened and the same disapproving nurse came in, now wearing a mask and gloves. She switched out Gelman’s empty IV bag for a full one. “Visiting hours are over.”
“This is Nava,” Gelman rasped.
“The one and only,” I added.
The nurse closed the curtains around the bed, even though there were no other patients in the room. “Good job getting Esther attacked by a demon.”
Gelman shot her an unimpressed look. “Play nice.”
“I never meant for that to happen,” I said.
“Uh-huh,” the nurse said. Gelman poked her. “Fine. I’m Sienna.” Another poke. “Old woman, you’re annoying me.” Sienna tugged her gloves off, loosening Gelman’s hospital gown so she could tug the front of it down. The skin on her chest was dry and flaky.
Sienna placed one hand on Gelman’s heart and the other on her back. “What do you want now, Rasha?”
“Perhaps as a witch,” I said, “you could be a bit more supportive of the first female hunter? Sisterhood and all that.”
Sienna threw me a mocking smile. “Aren’t you a special Snowflake?”
I swallowed my snarky retort. Choked on it, but swallowed it. I needed Dr. Gelman’s help and antagonizing her fellow witch wasn’t the way to do it.
“A witch is binding demons,” Dr. Gelman said.
Sienna whistled. “You sure?”
“We are.” Gelman’s tone left no room for doubt.
Relief swam down to my toes. “Who has the ability to do that?” I said.
“No one now,” Gelman said.
“The witches who knew how to do that are long dead. Which you’d know if you had a clue about magic,” Sienna said.
“Even I only ever heard of one in my lifetime. Millicent Daniels. Died half-crazed with her obsession,” Gelman said.
“Did you know her?” Sienna asked.
Dr. Gelman shook her head. “I’d only heard stories.”
“Addictions never end well.” I watched Sienna because she didn’t seem to be doing anything except standing there touching Gelman, which was super creepy. “What are you doing? Because that was not on the sign’s allowed activities.”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 94
