“I told you she had a flowchart,” I said, off of Rohan’s look of surprise. I handed him a plain bagel, but he refused it, taking one of those gross all-dressed ones.
“I’m living dangerously,” he said.
Drio clanged around in the kitchen.
“I think he’s trying to make himself coffee.” I nudged Leo with my elbow. “Can we invite the sad puppy in?”
“Go nuts.” She tried to leave, but I clamped down on her thigh and called Drio.
He warily poked his head into the room, then shot us a contemptuous smile. “How cozy.”
I held out the remaining coffee to the giant jerk. “Caffeine. Plus, there are really good bagels. Jew-made ones, not the white-bread travesties you goyim think are bagels.”
Drio didn’t move.
“Take a damn bagel, Drio.” Rohan sipped his coffee. “You’re gonna need your energy going after Hybris.”
“Fuck that.”
“You need to be the one to kill her. I’ll help, but Nava gets first priority on my time until Satan’s dead and all this shit we’re dealing with is sorted.” Rohan ran his thumb around the edge of the lid. “No, that’s not all of it. I’m too much of a liability to lead this.”
I threaded his arm through mine and pressed it to my side.
“It’s great you trust me to do the job, but—”
“Fucking hell.” Leo beaned Drio with a plain bagel.
“Cazzo! Stop hitting me.” He ground the bagel under his boot.
Rohan let out a pained moan at the mess.
“Then get your head out of your ass. You only fight when it’s easy.” Leo hopped off the bed and got all up in his space. “This demon killed the woman you loved. You don’t want to avenge her?”
Drio pushed her back about a foot. “It’s none of your business.”
Rohan opened his mouth, but I stuffed a piece of bagel in it.
“No, it’s not my business,” Leo said. “You made damn sure of that.”
“I wasn’t the lying spawn,” he said. Damn, Drio. It was nice knowing you.
“I’ve spent my entire life hiding who I am from everyone,” she said. “What gave you the right to be told upfront? And also, you’re a shitty, shitty hunter if you didn’t put it together.” She balled up the empty bagel bag. “Congratulations, you were born human. Well, I choose my humanity. It’s a privilege and a fight every single day for me to hold onto it. I used to think you valued that kind of struggle, but you don’t even understand it. You won’t even fight for the woman you love.”
Ro leaned over to murmur in my ear. “Is she talking about Asha or—”
I elbowed him. “Since Rohan and I so inconsiderately fell asleep last night, perhaps you two could update us on any intel we’ve missed. Starting with, what day is it?”
Leo wrestled her anger under control. “It’s Thursday, August 17.”
My team had stormed the compound about a week ago. “At least I didn’t lose months.”
“You lost enough,” she said.
When Drio hadn’t heard from Rohan about meeting up, he’d reached out to Leonie to see if she could track him through her private investigator network.
“He didn’t even say ‘hello.’” Leo swiped some crumbs off the bed into the crumpled bagel bag. “Or take two seconds to think about the best way to tell me that Sienna’s crew had overthrown the Brotherhood and my friends were missing, so that I wouldn’t have a heart attack.”
“There was no best way.” Drio drank the coffee he’d finally accepted from me. “I was locked out of the Brotherhood database and all my resources and I had no way of knowing Ro’s last location. I couldn’t find Ms. Clara or Helen or anyone else to help me.”
Leo blew him a kiss. “Delighted to be your last resort.”
Drio leaned against Ro’s dresser, his shirt riding up his stomach. “I could just kill you.”
My fingers dug into Ro’s thigh. I swear, was normal flirting this annoying? Surely Snowflake and I weren’t this much of a pain to listen to.
“And deprive yourself the pleasure of lording my impending death over me on a regular basis? I think not,” Leo said.
“Fucking hell, focus on the mission,” Ro said.
“Does anyone even know if Ms. Clara is okay?” It hadn’t even occurred to me that she could be a target. I drummed my fingers nervously on the covers. “Did Sienna imprison the admins with the rabbis?”
“We think some of the staff from Jerusalem HQ was locked up,” Drio said. “Everyone else was told to leave their chapters, but they weren’t harmed. I suspect Ms. Clara is in hiding.”
Ro swirled the last of his coffee around, looking pensively into his cup. “The Jerusalem people must have been involved with Mandelbaum’s plans.”
Sienna didn’t hurt innocents, but she’d imprisoned a lot of people I cared about.
I crawled over Rohan and pushed the curtains aside, opening the window wide and letting the wind sting my face.
“How did you stay free and clear of Sienna?” Rohan said.
“Harry got me from Rome to Vancouver on a fake passport,” Drio said.
I turned to see Leo mime shooting herself in the head.
“I’m going to owe the old man, aren’t I?” I said.
“Resign yourself to indentured servitude.” She tipped back her drink. “Harry and I couldn’t find anything about the fight through our usual channels. In fact, the only gossip was old news. Hybris is still demon non grata. Otherwise, all chatter from the demon realm had stopped, which was really weird. Informants were gone, nothing on the demon dark web. Harry said he’d never seen anything like it.”
“A Rasha-witch fight wouldn’t shut the demons up,” Ro said.
“No,” Drio replied. “Which means there’s something else going on, and we’re in no position to track or fight whatever it is.”
Ro and I exchanged a look.
“What?” Drio said.
“Satan wants to knock me up.” I filled them in on what had happened.
“You didn’t think to mention this yesterday?” Leo said.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. Plus, I really wanted to get laid.”
Drio rolled his eyes. “Get behind wards. Really fucking strong ones.”
“I’m not going to cower and hide. There’s too much to deal with.” I glanced at the “Fuck Cancer” bracelet. “After the demon dark web, what happened next?”
“I tried the witches,” Leo said. “Dr. Gelman.”
My smile caught and died. “You mean Rivka.” I pressed my fist to my lips. “I missed Esther’s funeral.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Nee.”
I opened my mouth to mumble some platitude of thanks, but what came out was a roared shriek. She’d died on my watch and I hadn’t even been there to pay my final respects. I could tell myself that neither were my fault until I was blue in the face, but it was a cold fucking comfort. I’d failed her.
Rohan rubbed my back until I ran out of steam. “You okay?”
“No.”
“You okay enough?”
I shrugged and lay my head on his shoulder.
“We caught our first break talking to Rivka,” Leo said. “One of Sienna’s bunch defected after what happened, and told Rivka about the fight and that Rabbi Mandelbaum had taken your dead…” She squeezed her take-out cup hard enough to rip a hole in it. “…dead body with him in the Tomb.”
“She also told us about Ro and the dark magic.” Drio’s voice was granite. “Rivka got hold of Raquel and that’s when we found out you were being an A.W.O.L. asshole.”
Rohan pitched his cup across the room into the trash. “How did you find where Mandelbaum had taken Nava?”
“Drio didn’t know of any Brotherhood safe houses,” Leo said, “but the rabbi couldn’t have travelled too far from the compound because Sienna was likely monitoring all the roads. And the Tomb wouldn’t have been subtle cargo.”
“Sienna’s ex-lackey said more men had shown up to
help Mandelbaum.” Drio said. “It wasn’t more Rasha because most of us had been taken by the witches, so who?”
Leo practically bounced on the bed telling me this next part. “Harry and I checked into mercenary circles and found a lot of talk by a bunch of ex-Mossad guys about Imperial County Airport, just outside Brawley, California.” That explained the dudes with guns playing for Team Mandelbaum. “We got our IT nerd to hack into the CCTV cameras in Brawley and run facial recognition software on some of the more likely players. Yesterday, we got a hit on a warehouse. That’s where we found you.”
“Owned by a shell company,” Drio said. “We compared its records to the compound. Same owner. The warehouse was built first, about seven years ago, but it was still closer to a town and thus more susceptible to discovery. Mandelbaum must have moved to the compound in the middle of the desert to be free from prying eyes, but kept the warehouse for back-up.”
“Seven years minimum. That’s how long Mandelbaum has been working to bring his plans to fruition,” I said. “No wonder he’s so tense.”
“That’s one word for it,” Rohan said.
I picked up the “Fuck Cancer” bracelet. “Time for another ping.”
Drio kicked Ro’s shoes toward the bed. “Get your ass up. We’ve got a demon to kill.”
Leo pointedly did not watch him go, gathering up our trash. “I’ll dump this.”
Well, that was all very enlightening.
A phone rang, startling us.
Rohan rooted around in the pants he’d been wearing last night and pulled out his burner. He frowned at the screen. “Hello?” He burst into full bladeage. “The fuck are you calling for? No. You can’t speak to—”
A shower of sparks exploded out of his phone. Rohan swore and dropped it.
“Put her on,” Sienna said on the other end.
I gingerly picked it up. “Hello?”
“You wanted to talk? Talk.”
Chapter 6
“I want the Rasha back.” I helped Ro stomp out the sparks singeing his carpet.
Sienna snorted. “For someone who’s supposed to be dead, you’ve got a lot of opinions about things.”
“Meet me and I’ll share every single one of them.” I grabbed my leggings and slid them on.
“What makes you think I won’t kill you?”
“Whoa. When did we escalate to killing? I was supposed to turn myself over to you, not be executed.”
“Yeah, well you messed up my plans,” she said.
“And you took my friends. Call us even.”
“Is that what this is about? You want to negotiate? You have nothing to offer me.”
“You’ll have to meet to find out.” I could lead her to Mandelbaum to avenge Tessa.
Sienna muted the phone, returning a moment later. “Fine. I have something I want you to see.”
I motioned to Rohan for a pen, writing the GPS coordinates she dictated on my hand. “One more thing.”
“With you? Shocking. And no.” She hung up.
I tossed Rohan his phone.
He examined it carefully before sticking it in his pocket. “You’re going to meet her alone?”
The dark magic writhed in his eyes, his body so tense that he was barely keeping it in check.
“Hey.” I lay my hand on his cheek and forced him to meet my eyes. “Sienna isn’t going to hurt me right now and she won’t let Satan take me. I’m too valuable a piece to lose.”
Since my magic healing was falling down on the job and the caffeine hadn’t helped with my headache, I checked my purse. There was a small brown pill at the bottom that sparked a dim Ibuprofen memory, so I dry-swallowed it.
“What if you’re outnumbered? You’re not infallible.”
“No,” I said. “But I have a lot to live for. Okay?”
His irises died down to a muted gold and he exhaled. “Okay.”
I linked arms with him. “Come on, Snowflake. Let’s gather our friends before they kill each other.”
Vancouver was on fire.
Alright, not the Metro Vancouver area, but much of the rest of the province, hit by scattered wildfires whose smoke blew south to engulf the city in a haze that turned the late August skies a dreary November gray, the sun a red blazing ball in the sky. It smelled like sour chemicals and burning wood.
The smoke cast a pall over the city and set an ominous tone for this meeting. I’d already dropped Leo off downtown since I didn’t want her crossing the wards of the chapter house. Her gayborhood off Davie Street was oddly pedestrian-free. Guess most people didn’t want their every breath to have the same rasping roughness as a committed nicotine addict’s.
Drio, Ro, and I landed at the back end of the Brotherhood property. We no longer had control of Orwell, the Brotherhood’s intel system, and Sienna controlled the other chapters, so it was down to the library at my Demon Club to provide a break in tracking Hybris—provided the place was witch-free.
“There and back,” Ro said.
“I’ll be careful and you remember that this is just recon. No charging in without me if you spy witches.” I punched Drio. “You too. Any witch is more powerful than you and Sienna’s crew probably have dark magic of their own.”
“Your Spidey sense didn’t clue you in?” Drio said.
“No, it short-circuited on what an asshole you are.”
“Enough,” Rohan said “Go. We’ll suss out the situation here.”
I didn’t expect the GPS coordinates to take me to an enormous playground. Toddlers bounced and swung while older kids ran shrieking through a colorful waterpark. There were pedal boats on a pirate lagoon, massive tubes to crawl through, mini golf, long plastic slides in primary colors bumping over man-made hills, a kids’ monorail, climbing walls, a playground made of faux logs to look like some kind of pioneer land, and dozens of other insanely cool attractions.
It was the nirvana of playgrounds. The hyperactive kids knew it and so did their weary parents trying to pack up and go home.
Families chatted in what might have been Dutch while the smell of fries made my stomach growl.
My angry fire rose up to choke me, lush and darkly sinister. I’d defended Sienna as a protector of innocents and now she planned to use children to catch me off-guard?
Sienna waited for me by the go-kart track, in jeans and a blouse with bumblebees dotted on it. I snatched her up and portalled us into the copse of trees over to the side of the track, before she’d had a chance to register my appearance. The playground was still visible but we were more or less sheltered from prying eyes.
I rooted her to the ground and hoped my strategy worked. “You disappoint me, Sienna. What have you done with the Rasha?”
“Lilith?” Her breath caught.
Good. This Lilith mess was finally proving useful. Now to get some answers.
Sienna bowed her head. “Help me, goddess. Show me how to revoke the Rasha’s magic before time runs out.”
What was she doing to them? I reined my power in. “Explain.”
Sienna slashed the air and the world shifted, once more transporting me to the in-between place I’d first seen in Rohan’s backyard.
A massive rift, about ten times the one I’d faced with Satan’s minions, floated above the ground, so large that it cleared the top of the tallest trunk. Its raw edges were red with scabby, mottled streaks. A milky liquid dripped onto the ground, searing the grass to a carpet of dust.
Demons crowded in on the other side.
I was barely able to breathe, my heart in my throat. I whipped around to the playground, where children still laughed and ran about, oblivious to the danger. Fluffy clouds drifted in a blue sky dotted with soaring birds and a squirrel ran up the trunk of a nearby tree, but above the rift, all was gray and lifeless.
“When did this happen?” Sweat trickled down my spine.
“It didn’t exist six months ago. By the time we caught it, it was already the size of a garden shed and just kept growing despite all our efforts. It s
hould have taken centuries to get this big. The drain from Rasha has overtaken our ability to maintain the wards. The hunters’ magic must be purged.”
One of the demons ran towards the rift and slammed off the Saran Wrap-like barrier.
I flinched, covering quickly with a burst of angry magic. Lilith wouldn’t have been afraid.
The demons skittered back, then pressed en masse against it. One demon clipped another when he tried to rip the barrier open. The first demon screeched, burst into a flurry of claws and attacked.
The fight rippled back through the rabble. As they picked each other off, they winked into oblivion, but with so many of them there, a few dozen dead didn’t make a difference.
A flood of small, beetle-like demons scurried up the barrier, knocking their antennae against it. The barrier undulated.
I held my breath, but the membrane stayed strong.
For now.
How would Lilith counsel? “The Rasha magic runs through the bloodlines. Had I the ability to end their line, I would have done so years ago.”
Sienna drew an “X” in the air and the rift vanished, leaving us once more in the woods with the playground beyond. “It has to be possible. We can figure this out. We must. If we don’t remove the Rasha magic before this rift opens, it won’t be a few demons coming through. All Hell will break loose.”
Even if she was right, was it possible to take someone’s magic without hurting them? Killing them?
“That is not the way.” I did my best goddess-pronouncing-judgement voice and everything.
Sienna’s eyes narrowed. “Nava.”
Invisible concrete filled my body from the toes up, like a mobster disposing of a hit. I wasn’t sure if the whizzing noise humming in my ears was from her magic or the go-karts whipping past in the distance.
I sent my magic into hers like a knife, sharpening my blade as I cranked higher and higher.
“What did you do to Lilith?” she said.
“She died in the Tomb.” I hit level eight. Silver magic blinded me and my throat clogged up with the taste of burned metal. I thrashed against my invisible bindings, my heartbeat random and sluggish. At level nine, my stomach dropped into my toes, similar to cresting that first big hill on a rollercoaster.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 152
