“You read as her.” Her disbelief was clear.
“Lilith’s final act was to curse me to broadcast her magic signal.”
“And you intended to use that to pull a fast one.” Her eyes glittered.
My body tried to obey the “run” command from my brain, but I still couldn’t move.
“Esther wouldn’t want my blood on your hands,” I gasped.
Sienna got scary quiet. “That’s your last one. Don’t use her again.”
Her magic fell away and I doubled over, rubbing my chest.
“You’d really let us all die because you can’t bear to harm your precious Rasha?” she said.
“You are such a hypocrite,” I said. “For someone who claims to care so much about the witches’ share, where did your dark magic come from? You had to be siphoning it off the witches. Rasha could have used that magic to kill more demons.” I balled my fists. “Esther could have used that magic to heal… Fuck!”
My barb found its mark. Sienna winced, but I felt no triumph.
I stalked off and found a gnarled tree to sit under. My calming breaths failed to quell the snapping hiss of my internal fire. I wrapped my arms around my knees, my head resting on top of them. With this silver magic of mine, I had dark magic now as well thanks to Lilith, but I hadn’t asked for it. Sienna had actively sought it out, knowing what that meant.
The spongy ground next to me depressed with a weight.
“There’s an argument to be made about the greater good.” Sienna leaned against the knotty trunk, staring up at the sunlight dappling through the leaves. “I know this, because when Esther got sick, I used it on myself pretty much every day to justify my actions, even knowing how dire things were.”
Birds chirped and a peal of giggles floated over from the playground, but Esther’s death was a throbbing knot in my chest and I wanted to rage that the greater good was bullshit.
A weight settled on my heart. “I missed her funeral.”
“I went.”
“Ballsy.”
“Not really. I hid.” Sienna ripped out some grass stalks. “Maybe I am a hypocrite for taking more than my share, but I’m part of a line of women who did it precisely because this day was coming. Our dark magic should have re-stabilized the wards, but it’s not enough.” She poked at an ant with one of the grass stalks, redirecting its path. “We need to restore them to their original strength. Patching the wards is no longer an option.”
“You mean seal them for good?” That would solve my Satan problem.
“We can’t. The wards function as a balance of good and evil. No one knows how they were created, but there are more demons than those of us with magic to fight them, so by making it hard for the demons to cross, the wards give us a chance to keep evil in check.”
“Then the rift is symptomatic of the bigger problem.”
Sienna nodded. “If the rift opens, the flood of demons crossing will topple the wards for good. But even if we seal that rift, we still need to restore the wards to their full strength. As more Rasha drew upon our magic, the weaker our healing powers became and the weaker the wards then became. Over the years, more demons created more rifts to cross over, which weakened the wards further. And the weaker the wards…”
“The system went out of whack. Like a flapping fan belt. Hence the mega-rift.”
“Right,” she said. “Once this rift has been closed, we must shore up the wards to their original strength because if they fail, demons will have free dominion on earth.”
“How can the collective Rasha magic make a difference when all the witches working together, especially with you and your fellow Slytherins on the job, can’t?”
Sienna pushed her fingers into her short dreads.
The ground cracked and split. Tree roots shot up from the fissure. I rolled sideways and scrambled to my feet.
“Stop defending the hunters! They are unnatural and their existence fouls the wards. We witches are the only ones who should ever have had this power.”
“Blame your goddess,” I said. “Lilith is the one who created Rasha.”
“And King David was the one who twisted that gift, appropriating the magic forever.”
The fissure grew wider.
I jumped away from the hole under my feet. “There has to be another way.”
“Can you find it before this rift opens?” She inhaled deeply and waved a hand, eradicating the crack in the ground.
“What about the Ring of Solomon?” I told her Mandelbaum’s plans. “He hasn’t let go of his idea to seize power. I’m not sure how this all fits, but he’s been working toward this goal for too long to abandon it and the ring has somehow become key. He was willing to double-cross a dangerous demon for its possession.”
“What does it do?”
“I don’t know. Yet.” I added off her eyeroll. “But it must have incredible power.”
“He forced Tessa to bind demons.” Sienna pursed her lips. “Maybe it does that.”
“Could you use demon magic to fix the rift and restore balance to the wards?”
“Demons heal themselves, so they have healing magic,” she said. “But how many demons would we need? Would some work better than others? And how are we supposed to test this? Keep dragging them here and hope something works? You claim you give a damn about humanity, but you’re not willing to make the necessary sacrifices.”
“It’s not like I’m holding out on you. Even if I agreed with this plan, which I emphatically do not, I have no idea how to take their magic away.”
“I should take Lilith’s magic from you. I saw how strong you were in the compound.”
I held my ground, despite wanting to wrap my arms around myself and yell mine! “I only have a fraction of her power anymore.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s too late. I could only take it when she was alive and you two were separate entities.”
There went that hope.
“Can you at least tell me how to shut off the magic signal I’m giving off as her?” I said. “She’s your goddess. You’ve got to know something about her.”
“And I should share, why?”
“Satan thinks I’m Lilith and he plans to breed her to create a race of super-demons, with or without her consent. Whatever you think of me, you don’t want that being loosed upon the world.”
She tapped a finger against her lip. “Not a lot is known about Lilith. Most of what I could tell you involves dark magic, but there is a story that Lilith survived because she learned how to jump bodies.”
I snorted. “Like a parasite.”
“It was an honor and the host had to accept Lilith’s request. Not a verbal request, a magic one.”
“She’s trying to take me over? Never gonna happen.”
“She might have intended to, after you’d unleashed her full power, but now it’s most likely that this is the last vestige of her that somehow got stuck on loud. I don’t know how you shut it off.”
I’d find a way.
Sienna looked at me shrewdly. “Use Lilith for good. Lilith made the Rasha and she might know how to unmake them.”
“I don’t have her memories.”
“Not consciously.”
“You’re not rooting around in my brain.” When Lilith had been trapped inside me, the insidiousness of her direct line into my head had almost driven me mad. Then Mandelbaum had tried to break my brain with torture and drugs. Well, I’d survived them both. I’d fought for the sanctity of being alone in my own head and having control over my mind and my thoughts and no one was going to take that away from me ever again.
Neither of us budged.
“Could you stop me?” she said.
“Try and let’s find out.”
The air hung heavy, thick and charged. Even the wind held its breath.
A bright red ball rolled into the trees with us, a lanky boy running after it. He scooped it up, gave us a nervous glance, then dashed back to the safety of his waiting friends.
�
��You can save us or you can doom us,” Sienna said. “Your call.”
That was exactly what worried me.
Chapter 7
Neither Rohan nor Drio were anywhere on the grounds at Demon Club. I portalled into the Vault in the basement of the mansion and gathered a few things from the weapons room, before creeping up the stairs to the ground floor where Ms. Clara’s office and the conference room were located. With my back pressed against the wall, I peered around the corner like a seasoned TV cop.
I cleared the floor; no one was on it.
A floorboard above creaked. The library. I straightened my holster with the tranquillizer darts and pulled the tranq rifle from where it was slung across my back. We didn’t tend to use them with demons because they were unpredictable with demon physiology and you had as much chance of hyping them up as knocking them out.
A human, however, would drop like a rock. Bonus: I wouldn’t accidentally use too much magic on them.
Careful to avoid all the creaky parts of the stairs, I hopscotched up to the main floor and snuck down the hallway to the library. I didn’t hear voices, but with the door closed, the room was soundproof.
Balancing the rifle on my shoulder, I flung the door open, shooting at the first movement that caught my eye.
Drio blurred out of sight, the dart thunking into the wall behind him. He dropped the armful of books he’d been holding and turned on me like an enraged bull. I could practically see steam coming out of his nostrils, his bellow a curse-laden Italian.
Baruch strode across the room, plucked the rifle from my hands, and snapped it in two.
“That was a perfectly good tranquilizer gun.” Ms. Clara jabbed him in the chest. “You’ll be filling out the paperwork for that. In triplicate.”
Baruch snorted and tossed the halves on the ground.
I blinked stupidly at the bickering twosome. How were they here?
“Nee.” Ari stumbled back a step, letting out a huge breath.
He was wearing his “chemist” T-shirt that I’d bought him on our sixteenth birthday after Dad had shown us all the old Monty Python movies. The one that read “We are the chemists who say” and then the periodic table element “Ni” for nickel. I’d lost count of the number of late-night talks we’d had with my twin sprawled at the end of my bed, wearing that shirt, but since it had gotten faded and stretched out, it had been relegated to a drawer.
Ari had no way of knowing what had happened to me after his imprisonment, but if there’d been no sign of me at Demon Club, then he’d assumed the worst.
I shrieked and launched myself at my brother. He caught me, laughing, while I hung off him like a baby monkey.
“Uh, hel-lo.” Kane crossed his arms. “Don’t use up all your love on him.”
“Phrasing,” Ro chided, entering the room with two six-packs: one of beer and one of Coke. He set them on the table, then joined Drio, quietly discussing Hybris’ last known locations.
I slid to the floor. “How did you get free?”
“In a nutshell?” Kane ticked items off his fingers. “It took Baruch breaking his collarbone—”
“What?!” I’d never heard Ms. Clara yelp.
“And your brother being a giant idiot and burning himself out EC’ing everyone away once we’d broken out of our cell.”
“Who was I supposed to leave behind?” Ari said.
Kane shrugged. “Bastijn had lived a full life.”
“Get over it already. It was one night.”
“Two years ago. We know.” Baruch scowled at them. “If I have to hear this fight one more time I’ll knock your heads together.”
“At least you slept during our captivity.” Kane dropped into a chair with a huff and cracked a Coke. “Your snores could level buildings.”
Rohan winked at me. “See how much fun you missed this afternoon?”
I cleared my throat. “The escape?”
“As I was telling Ro and Drio,” Ari said.
“Before your insane sister shot me,” Drio grumbled, spreading a world map out on the table and tossing Rohan a marker.
“I missed, you big baby,” I said.
“We broke out about four hours ago.” My brother walked over and stole Kane’s Coke. He took a sip.
Kane pouted, resting his cheek on Ari’s hip.
“Nuh-uh. I’m the cute relationship twin,” I said.
Kane stuck his tongue out at me. “Not anymore.”
The other men agreed with various murmurs of assent. Even Ms. Clara chimed her agreement. Only my very smart boyfriend disagreed.
“Rolita is adorable. Plus, we have a celebrity name.” Rohan stopped circling places on the map and arched an eyebrow imperiously.
Drio snapped his fingers. “Focus.”
“We’re two hot gay guys who show massive amounts of PDA.” Kane pumped his fist in the air. “We win.”
Ari ruffled his boyfriend’s hair. “To answer the impending questions: no, we didn’t see any of the other Rasha or rabbis; no, we don’t know where they are; and yes, we know where we were held. Outside Los Angeles. I transported everyone a short distance away, then we ran through some suburb until we found a school bus that Danilo hotwired. He drove us into the heart of the city until we were sure we weren’t being followed at which point we scattered and went to ground. We have burners to stay in touch.”
“Did Sienna hurt you?” I said.
Baruch, Ari, and Kane exchanged a look.
My face crumpled.
Ro pulled me into his arms. “Let them tell you.”
“Sienna… experimented on us,” Baruch said.
Kane threw his arms wide. “Castration,” he whispered theatrically.
“The hell?!” I broke free of Ro’s grip.
Ari elbowed Kane. “Not literal castration. She tried to hobble our magic, but she couldn’t. We’re okay.” A shadow passed over his face. “Most of us. We lost Zvi.”
Baruch gripped the edge of the table. Zvi was the Israeli Rasha who’d shared chocolate with me.
“I’m sorry, Baruch,” I said.
He nodded, brusquely brushing a hand over his face. Drio slung an arm over his shoulder.
“Ro said you met with Sienna.” Ms. Clara said. Her eyes kept darting to Baruch. “Do you know why she’d want to take away Rasha magic?”
I explained about the tipping point, the rift, and restoring the wards. What if somewhere in my subconscious I did know how to take their magic without hurting them? Sienna wasn’t going to stop until the wards were reset. If tapping in to Lilith’s memories was possible, and I could prevent more deaths, wasn’t it my moral duty to do so?
But did that duty override my right to protect my mental safe place? If I let someone poke around in my head, I’d be at their mercy. I shuddered.
On the other hand, what if we discovered that only death would end Rasha magic? I refused to be a mass murderer. And what else might Sienna find? Lilith’s power had been off the charts and she’d managed to keep herself alive for centuries. I didn’t want to be the one who handed Sienna dangerous knowledge best left buried.
My headache worsened.
“The wards need to be returned to their original strength or humanity is screwed,” I said, “but that doesn’t give Sienna the right to forcibly null your magic.”
“Fucked up as it is,” Ari said, “at least she’s trying to do something about it.”
“‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,’” Ms. Clara said. “Or good women.”
Bitter acid churned in my stomach.
“Is it too much to ask for the bad guys to be overtly evil?” Kane pushed away his drink. “Noble villains can bite my fine ass.”
“You need to get the others out.” Drio rubbed a hand over his chin, studying the map. “Before more hunters are killed.”
Or all of them.
“That will be our first priority,” Baruch said.
“What happened with Lilith?” Ari said. “
Is she out of you?”
“In the sense that she’s no longer alive, yes.” I presented my situation, including the Satan complication in as dispassionate and succinct a fashion as possible.
“Beg pardon?” Kane said.
I gagged on the amount of salt fumes coming off of my friend’s skin from his magic poison, scared to look at my brother in case this time my bombshell had killed him.
“No,” Ari said calmly. “That’s not happening.”
“Boy I adore,” Kane said, “you can’t just will it away.”
“I’m not. You have a plan?” he asked me.
“Working on it.”
“You’ll tell us our roles?”
I nodded.
“You’ve got her six?” he said to Ro.
“Do you even have to ask?”
“Then we’ll handle it,” Ari said.
Baruch cracked his knuckles. “Ben zona! Of course, we’ll handle it. It will be fun.”
Drio tapped the map. “Hybris could be here.”
Rohan and I looked at the location he indicated.
“Historically, a place where demons go to lay low,” Ro said.
“Yeah,” Drio said. “I have some connections there. I’ll check things out and if there are any leads, call you in.”
“We should put an extraction plan in place for when we find the other Rasha,” Ari said.
“And somewhere to stay,” I said. “This’ll be the first place Sienna comes looking for you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Kane flung himself over the table.
“I agree,” Ari said. “I’m not running.”
“We can’t go on the run and keep investigating,” Rohan said. “Either we hide properly or we stand our ground.”
Thank goodness Rabbi Abrams had fortified the chapter house.
“Demon Club it is. Want to go with me to go see Mom and Dad?” I asked Ari. “We should probably tell them we’re alive and I need Mom’s professional assistance.”
“Oh shit.” Ro pulled out his burner and jogged off.
“Golden Boy won’t be so golden anymore,” Drio called out.
I tugged on Drio’s sleeve. “Have you spoken to them? Are Dev and Maya safe?” I was worried about their well-being and about my boyfriend going off the deep end if they weren’t.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 153
