Except it wouldn’t. Not if either Lilith or Sienna emerged victorious or Mandelbaum got hold of either of them. I had to take all three out to save the world.
I wouldn’t survive.
I’d loved and been loved for less than half a day and even though I was about to die, my only regret was the time I’d wasted hiding the truth of my heart. The time I’d wasted letting my pride and my fears keep me from being hurt, when I’d failed to understand that opening myself up to love wasn’t a vulnerability.
Love was strength.
It was truly go-big-or-go-home time.
“Hey, Rohan?”
He mustered up a strained smile for me. “Yeah?”
“I love you. And I love your nicknames for me. Okay, maybe not Lolita, but Sparky was pretty inspired.”
With that I cast my final spark into Lilith’s box. It was so thin that the box burned away in a wisp of smoke.
Her magic danced through my body and I lit up the night like a beacon with pure, unadulterated power. My blood was stardust, dancing with a nebula in a far-off galaxy.
I was the cosmos. I could fly. Hands outstretched, I reached for my foes. I only needed a couple of seconds and it would be done.
But like Sienna had said, the human body wasn’t designed to take that much power that fast.
Or ever. Even two seconds was time I didn’t have.
Before I could turn the magic on Mandelbaum, Sienna, and Lilith and neutralize them, that beauty dissipated into a million dark magic maggots that consumed me, threatening to flay the skin from my bones.
Lilith’s cruel laughter shivered through my veins.
My heart sped up, skipped once, twice, then fell into chaotic convulsions.
I clutched at my chest, falling to my knees, my body bowed backward.
Witches swarmed us from one side, Mandelbaum’s men from the other.
Rohan fought anyone who got between them and me.
Sienna was screaming at people to stand down and freezing anyone using magic as fast as she could, but the chaos was too much for her to fully contain. She’d stop six people and two would unfreeze and jump back into the fray.
I had my hands full battling Lilith for possession of my body. She was disoriented, attempting to gather her magic up and disengage from me, but when she couldn’t get herself out of me, she forced me out of myself.
Although being trapped in that magic prison had fucked with her abilities, I was still outmatched.
My spirit left my body with a whoosh, but the connection between my spirit and my physical self hadn’t been severed.
I dive-bombed back into my body, hitting an invisible blockade preventing me from getting in. Again and again, I attempted to regain possession.
And seconds later, there was no point.
You’d think that my death might have registered like some kind of fireworks moment: YOU. ARE. DEAD. But there was just a gentle sag-and-release feeling. An untethering.
Then a lot of shock and me staring down at my motionless form.
Rohan single-handedly carved a path to me and gave me mouth-to-mouth with a ferocity that was terrifying. Nice idea, but pointless.
Lilith flickered out of me, still incorporeal. For a woman who’d been unconscious for a month, she looked pretty good.
And pretty angry.
With a flick of her fingers, she killed a few of Mandelbaum’s men.
The witches looked around in shock.
“Get her!” one woman cried. She fell dead, as well.
Sienna sent a rush of magic toward Lilith but the stream broke into prisms that fell harmlessly to the ground like water droplets before they could find their mark. Sienna tried a second time.
“No,” Lilith said, her arm carelessly outstretched in Sienna’s direction.
Sienna shot backward.
The other witches went ballistic on Lilith, but she was still transparent, and their magic passed harmlessly through her, blowing up a nearby generator.
The lights in half of the compound died.
“I’ll deal with you later,” Lilith said to Sienna.
Had I been able to laugh at Sienna’s look of surprise, I totally would have, but the world was growing hazy and cold. Everything was gray except for a single pale silver thread connecting me and Lilith.
Lilith made a slashing motion through the thread and I shivered, like a saw was buzzing through it, but the thread didn’t break. She glared at me like that was my fault.
All around us, the rest of the rabbi’s faithful and the witches fell into chaos. No one could get to Lilith, so everyone became a threat.
Four Rasha grabbed Rohan and started beating the shit out of him. His wound opened up, but Rohan was in berserker mode, fighting to get back to my body.
I tried to stop them, but I floated right through the chaos.
Like all cockroaches, Mandelbaum had managed to keep himself alive and untaken. He scuttled out to grab my dead body.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Sienna said.
Everything crawled into slow motion: the black light erupting from her hands, hissing and snapping toward me, Rohan’s distorted and drawn out “No!” as he flung himself sideways and knocked me loose from Mandelbaum, the dark magic that enveloped Rohan instead of its intended target.
From my fading consciousness’ vantage point, hovering over the compound, I watched the world snap back into real time.
Lilith stood stock-still with an expression of intense concentration, her ghostly image slowly growing more solid.
Sienna glanced over her shoulder at Lilith, then scooped me up and stuffed my dead body into the Tomb of Endless Night.
A broken scream tore from Rohan’s throat, his body on fire with black magic that danced over his skin. His gold eyes slithered with dark serpents.
Mohawk Witch gasped. “Sienna. What have you done?”
Sienna didn’t answer, staring at Rohan with horror stamped over her features.
Go big or go home had reached its tragic consequences. We were all going down.
Even lifeless and outside my own body, I swear I felt tears running down my cheeks.
The Tomb slammed shut, nulling Lilith’s magic.
Her translucent form disappeared from the courtyard. She was the architect and she’d designed a very fine product that stood the test of time and the most powerful magic a human had ever possessed.
Hers.
Her time was up, but so was mine.
I winked out of existence.
There was no white light. No fiery pits either.
Just nothing.
Until I came to with a gasp, my nose pressed against the inside of the Tomb door. Somehow it had gotten open again, just a hair, just enough to let me see outside. I couldn’t move my hands or my body. Lilith must have kickstarted my heart and brought me back to life, but gasping and shaking was all I had energy for.
I couldn’t even budge this damn door on my own.
If you’re alive, I stay alive, Lilith whispered sadly in the back of my head. It wasn’t just our magic that had bonded. Our consciousness or essence had bonded as well. Her barely-there life force mingled with mine.
Was I even still me?
I tried to yell, but my throat was dry and raspy.
If Sienna heard me, she did nothing. Men and women fell to the ground in cascades of magic outside, the action happening faster than my rebooting brain could process.
There was, however, one thing I could see perfectly, even though it haunted me: Rohan, still engulfed in Sienna’s twisted black flames, crying out like a man in Hell. Like he was being taken apart, consumed from the inside.
I struggled, thrashed, yelled, but I was too weak and it was useless.
Finally, a shadow blocked my view. Thank God. Help was here. I was nearly crying with relief.
Rabbi Mandelbaum leaned down to meet my eyes, head bruised and wrist still bent unnaturally, and hissed, “You’re mine now.”
The sliver of light vanished
as the door clicked closed and my world went dark.
End of Book 5
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Burn
Chapter 1
“Come on, Avon. You can’t be late for your own performance.” Cole pushed his glasses up his nose with a little face scrunch, unwilling to cross the threshold into the Zone of Chaos, a.k.a. my bedroom.
I dug through the pile of workout clothes on the closet floor and tossed a couple Ziplock bags over my shoulder. The one containing hair spray, gel, elastics, and bobby pins hit my fluffy area rug with a quiet thunk, while my jumble of make-up, false eyelashes, and glue sailed onto my mattress.
“One second.”
“Let’s go already. Parking is a bitch at the—” Cole’s irritation cut off with a yelp as a tangle of duct tape and extra shoelaces flew through the air to wing him in the shoulder.
I sat back on my calves. “I can’t find the shoes you—”
“I what?”
I shook my head to clear it. “My custom leather taps. I need them for this performance.”
“Dropping pricy hints for your next birthday? Noted. Meantime.” He nudged my dance bag across the floor. “Your shoes are in here. You put them in last night.”
I pulled them out. Black worn taps. Not purple and red saddle shoes with a red heart.
“These aren’t them. They don’t fit anymore.” My voice caught on a half-sob.
Cole crouched down next to me and slid one onto my left foot. “They fit fine.”
I ripped it off. “They don’t.”
Yeah, I was being sulky and kind of childish, but I was a performer. Performers needed the right tools to put on a good show and the shoes I was looking for and annoyingly not finding were it for me. The old shoes would be okay, but I intended to set the world on fire.
“You want to try dancing your heart out in front of a crowd wearing shoes you don’t feel absolutely confident in, be my guest,” I said.
Cole put the shoe away, then grabbed my hair and make-up accoutrements, and snagged my costume bag from a chair. “Take a moment and breathe. You’ve got this. I’ll meet you at the car.”
I dropped my face into my hands. This wasn’t my pre-show jitters that I fed off to give my tapping an exhilarating edge. This was a full-blown nightmare of being backstage with the lights dimming and the audience shushing, the first notes about to play, while I stood there in the wings, all my moves forgotten.
Get it together, Katz. People were counting on me to nail this performance. I jogged down to the car, trying to weave my nerves into something more productive.
My phone beeped with a flurry of texts from Leo and my family, even my mom, telling me to break a leg. Nothing from Ari, though. I’d give him shit later when he got home from… I frowned. Where was he?
When I slid into the passenger seat of his hand-me-down clunker, Cole made a big production of ceding control of the radio dial. “M’lady.”
“M’thank you.”
“Dork.” He pulled away from the curb.
I fiddled with the cracked plastic knob, but every radio station was static. I was about to shut it off when I caught the faintest strain of a melody that filled me with hope, light, and deep anxiety. I gripped the dashboard.
“Let’s slay all our demons
I’ll lay down my knives
For you, I’ll lay down my knives.”
Cole groaned and snapped off the dial. “This emo crap can’t be helping your state of mind, babe.”
I scrambled to twist the knob back on, but the song had vanished. Just more static. I spun through radio stations and got nothing.
“Comebackcomebackcomeback!”
Deep in my core, a spark caught with an agonizing electric snap. Current snaked over my body and a scream tore from my throat.
“I know I’m good,” said a Southern Californian drawl that was dry with amusement, “but I didn’t even touch you.”
I clutched his biceps. My body relaxed and my heart slowed its galloping.
Rohan.
I opened my eyes and wriggled closer to him, my cheek finding his solid pecs the perfect pillow. A dusting of dark hair tickled my nose. “If you can’t tell the difference between an orgasm and a nightmare, you might need to rethink your technique.”
He rolled me over and pinned me against the cool sheets, edging one knee between my legs. “Yeah? You think I need practice?”
I ran my hands down his bare skin to his hipbone. “I mean, it does make perfect. And you are kind of anal about your technique.”
“You’re getting kind of anal, too,” he snickered.
I brushed my fingers over his erection and he hissed. “That’s right, buddy. You can crack jokes or go for door number two.”
Rohan waggled his eyebrows.
Groaning loudly, I flopped onto my back.
Ro stretched out against me, his lips brushing mine.
If I lived until ninety, I would never tire of feeling him fitted against me. How the ridge of his hip pressed into my soft curves. He was like my own personal docking station. He recharged me, but he always left me better than I was: singing a little louder, shining a little brighter.
“You looooove me,” he said.
“Weellllll.” Now it was my turn to hiss as he slid a finger inside me. My nipples tightened, and a drugged lust snaked through my veins.
“You are positively dripping with love for me.”
“You’re hopeless,” I laughed, squirming against him as he stroked Cuntessa. I brushed my breasts against his chest, loving the fierce rumble he made.
“Say it,” he growled, though he was grinning.
His love shone in the twinkle of his eyes and in the way that he stoked the fire in my body with awed adoration. We were going to grow into that old couple who always held hands and giggled at some inside joke as they tottered along at a snail’s pace.
I threaded my fingers into his hair, pulling his face close to reassure myself he was here. For as long as possible, I wanted us to stay like this, where he was my entire world. “I love you so much, Rohan. And I need you inside me.”
“Patience, sweetheart.”
“Please. Now.” My ribcage constricted and I held his forearms tighter so he couldn’t fade away.
Rohan wrapped his hand around mine, pressing it to his heart as he knelt on the bed and pushed inside me. But he didn’t move, just demolished me with a single volcanic gaze, his eyes amber rum and cinnamon.
I bucked my hips and he cocked an eyebrow at me.
“Oh good,” I said. “You remember you’re here. Inside me.”
“I could never forget that.” He fucked me in a lazy tempo. Something in my chest eased as Rohan leaned down to whisper in my ear and I laughed as his stubble tickled my neck. This was it, this was perfect.
“You’re my heart, my home. I love you, Lilith.”
I gasped, my lungs seizing.
The world was burning and I burned with it. Flames of orange and red surrounded me like a funeral pyre. The blaze popped and snarled. I thrashed, twisting, fighting to get free, but I was held fast.
Hotter and higher the fire danced. Molten agony coursed through my blood.
“Lilith, speak with me.” Rabbi Mandelbaum pried my eyes open, his rank breath hitting my face. When the world slid into focus, there was no fire. No Rohan. Just a cold, clinical room with a worked-up rabbi in a fancy suit. “I command you!”
Immediately, I wished I was dreaming again. Because no matter how bad the dreams were, they couldn’t hurt more than the truth.
The last time I’d seen Rohan, he was convulsing with the dark magic trying to take over his body.
My brother and my friends were imprisoned.
And I lay strapped to a metal table in a damp concrete room surrounded by a variety of mad scientist machines, each one colder, more soulless, and more pain-inducing than the last. Blackish-green mold streaked the bottoms of the walls like a child’s finger painting.
If I were to approach
my situation rationally, as much as one could approach “where the fuck is the all-powerful witch who is supposed to be intimately co-habiting with me?” in a rational manner, I’d have concluded that Lilith had checked out. Either gotten out of me somehow or died when the Tomb of Endless Night nulled her magic, neither of which helped my situation.
An olive-skinned Rasha clamped his meaty hand over my mouth and nose and a too-familiar, scathing magic rode me like its prison bitch. No matter how many times this happened, I never got used to it, always bristled at the way it flared from his skin like B.O., snaked up my nostrils, and seeped through my lips.
I gagged, tasting motor oil, and tried to cough the magic out but ended up swallowing more of it.
“Do you know where the ring is?” the Rasha said.
His magic compelled me, and as much as I tried to fight it, I shook my head in answer.
“She’s lying!” Mandelbaum slammed his hand down on the metal table and I flinched against the straps.
“She can’t lie. My magic prevents that.”
“Then you didn’t give her enough.”
The taste of motor oil grew stronger. “Is Lilith connected to the Ring of Solomon?”
I pressed my lips together. These fuckers didn’t deserve to know a damn thing. But the harder I clamped my mouth shut, the more my eyeballs bulged out and my internal organs were buffeted like Dorothy’s house in the tornado. The word “yes” burst forth, mumbled against his palm.
Mandelbaum smirked. “I knew it.”
“Her skin sparked,” the Rasha said. “She’s burning through the suppressant again.”
“Double the dosage.”
“I’ve been giving her the maximum safe limit. Doubling it could kill her.”
The rabbi shrugged. “Then it kills her. But not before you get answers. Understood?”
The Rasha grabbed a leather strap from the cart and tied it around my upper arm. He reached for a syringe filled with blue liquid, but hesitated.
“I don’t have all day,” the rabbi ordered.
The Rasha shot the drug into my vein.
Bzzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzzzzzz. A segmented fly arm about the length of a javelin and studded with hundreds of tiny hairs, waved at the edge of my vision.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 146
