“What the fuck?” he yelled.
The demon body garnishes were gone so either Leo, Ro, or both had dispatched them, but the human bodies that had formed the heart were on fire. Black smoke billowed off the heart-shaped pyre on the pool deck, the bodies reeking of burning fat, sulphur, coppery metal, and a musky sweetness.
Leo and Rohan stood back, watching the blaze in ghastly satisfaction. A red jerry can of gasoline sat at Leo’s feet.
“Satan sent Nava a gift,” Rohan said.
“And he didn’t enclose a gift receipt,” Kane said. “What an asshole.”
I clamped my lips together; the laugh that burst out of me was half-snort.
Ari snickered, then Leo, then the laughter spread like wildfire. Our hilarity didn’t make the situation funny, but it did make it bearable enough to regroup.
The general consensus on the night? Hybris had eyes on Mandelbaum and, knowing he was going to attack, piggybacked on it for maximum damage. Neither party had counted on Satan’s little helper being there.
Raquel insisted on bringing Ms. Clara home with her to keep an eye on our friend until it was time to revive her. Baruch reluctantly agreed. Raquel and Leo exchanged contact information, while from the way the others said good-bye to my bestie, they were fine with her being on the team.
Most of the Rasha had gone back with Raquel in order to establish our new joint venture and find the rest of the hunters. Added to the list of pressing tasks was storm Mandelbaum’s hideout, round up his men, and rescue the Brotherhood rabbis if they found them. Leo was going to join them after she checked in with Harry.
Ari, with Cisco’s help, had taken Bastijn’s body to his family in Caracas via shadow transport. They’d join the others in Los Angeles.
We’d collectively decided that Drio and Rohan would continue to hunt for Hybris, while I was on Malik duty to get a concrete plan for dealing with Satan once and for all and to coordinate with Catalina about the purification ritual.
“Glad you joined us?” I said.
Leo and I sat alone at the picnic table, Rohan and Drio off doing one last check of the grounds and discussing their next steps regarding Hybris. She ran her hand over her forearm, checking for any last traces of poison.
“It’s never a dull moment with you, Nee.”
“I didn’t get to thank you earlier for getting that demon before it got me.”
“Eh. No prob.”
I rubbed my arms briskly. It was well after midnight and I was still in short sleeves and bare feet. “Can I ask one last favor? Satan won’t stop coming for me and the idea of more people getting killed in the crossfire?” I shivered. “You have access to P.I. databases or something, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Malik did a painting of Lilith called ‘Lila: On Waking.’ That might be a way to track down what name she’d been living under. If I can find her home base, maybe there’ll be something I can use to force Malik’s commitment. Anything at this point.”
“Piece of cake,” Leo said. “I’ll get Harry to help. He’s unearthed a lot of demon aliases. He can find Lilith’s.”
I squeezed her hand in thanks. “You got somewhere safe to stay?”
Leo nodded. “Do you?”
“My parents aren’t home and I could go there, but if there’s a repeat of tonight?” I shook my head. Same thing went for Rohan’s place. Too exposed.
“I’ve got a place where no one would think to find you.” She gave me the name of a motel, then paused. “You might want to bring plastic tarps.”
“Gross.”
“If you want anonymity, you gotta be willing to sacrifice.”
“You need to talk to Harry about your working conditions. It’s a wonder you haven’t picked up a flesh-eating disease or something from all those skeezy motels.”
She shrugged. “You learn not to directly touch surfaces. There are some rashes it’s best to avoid.”
“Some?” I said. “There are ones we are actively seeking?”
We chuckled, but then my eyes drifted to the gaping nothingness of the chapter house and the sound died on my lips. Mandelbaum had stolen this sanctuary from me and thanks to him, people had died tonight. Bastijn had died and Ms. Clara had come close.
I let out a strangled howl, punching the table with my fist. The tender roots that had finally taken hold in my life had been savagely ripped up and I was unmoored.
Leo examined a strand of burned hair. “Tonight wasn’t your fault.”
“That doesn’t make it easier.”
Drio approached the picnic table, with Rohan following him. “Hybris got away, but the fight was valuable. I know her kill spot now.”
“Good for you,” Leo said dully.
He scrubbed a hand over his ash-streaked beard. “Nava had you.”
Except I hadn’t. Not when I asked for his help. Leo could have died.
“Get out of here, Drio,” I said. “Or I won’t be responsible for what I do to you.”
He nodded a couple times, almost like he’d do the same thing, and flashed out.
“Christ,” Rohan said. “Leo, let me drive you to Harry’s.”
Leo agreed. I hugged her hard. Hugged Rohan hard, too, then gave him my car keys.
While they were gone, I sat there staring at the void where the mansion should have cast a foreboding shadow over me, but there was only the masonry foundation deep in the ground to testify that it had ever existed at all.
It was so impossible to comprehend that I walked its perimeter to convince myself, flicking the lighter that Esther had left me. Part of me believed that Esther was in that tiny flame and that I was still alive because she’d been here, watching over me. Dying from Lilith’s magic, being tortured, Satan, I’d assumed that each one was the final unthinkable event, but all I got was another stepping stone into darkness.
In the end, there would be light. I had to believe that, but how many of us would fall victim to this madness before dawn came? I flicked the lighter one last time, taking comfort in the small yet steady glow that had withstood time. Funny, how even this tiny flame caused a swell of hope in my ribcage. Tiny fires, tiny bursts of hope, together they would form that vanquishing blaze.
Rohan came up beside me. “Leo’s tucked away for the night.”
I blew out a curl out of my eyes. “I could have happily killed Drio. Even if that wasn’t fair. It’s not that Leo is more important than avenging Asha.”
“Leo’s alive. For that alone, she’s the priority now.”
I bent down and picked up a burned lump that might have been the finial from the railing on the back steps. “It’s all gone. My T-shirts. Leo’s print. My beautiful tap shoes.”
The clothes, the make-up, they didn’t matter, but the personal things, like the print of Neo New York that Leo had given me for my birthday and the customized tap shoes from Ro? My eyes welled with tears and I dashed them away. “Doesn’t matter. Especially not with Bastijn…”
I hurled the lump as far as I could.
“They matter,” Rohan said.
For all that I’d bristled against the command that I had to live at Demon Club, I’d become attached to the old girl. “I don’t have a home anymore, Snowflake.”
“Yeah, you do. Anywhere I am.”
“Then take me home.”
Chapter 15
The Five Star Motel was a study in false advertising. Three of the stars in the neon sign were blown out, the restaurant offered an all-you-could-eat fish buffet that from the parking lot reeked like a salmonella extravaganza, and the pool hosted a thriving community of algae.
“I would have ponied up for an extra star,” I said, stepping over a broken bottle outside our scratched motel room door.
Oh, look. The outside was the nice part.
I eyed the brown, stained bedspread which complemented the water stains running down the stucco walls. “It doesn’t match, but it goes.”
Rohan smoothed the plastic tarp that we’d purchas
ed on our way over and now covered the bed. “Isn’t this better than a chocolate on the pillow?”
“I wouldn’t trust that anything we found here was chocolate. You want first crack at the prison shower?”
Rohan eyed the bathroom dubiously. “Sure?”
We rinsed off in record speed, doing our best to wash our filthy clothes of death and nightmares. After a quick scarf-down of roasted peanuts, three chocolate bars, and a Coke from the ancient vending machine outside the motel office, with surprisingly recent expiration dates, I yawned and spread out on one side of the plastic-wrapped bed.
We spooned to fit on the lumpy double mattress. Sleep was a nice idea, if completely elusive. The plastic rustled every time I moved, which was constantly because any little sound had me twitching like I was on speed, while Ro snored softly.
Exhaustion claimed me at some point because Leo’s text woke me up. She’d sent an address, located on one of the Greek islands.
I pecked Rohan on the cheek, who mumbled something and rolled over. “Leo found Lilith’s place. I’m going to check it out.”
He yawned and cracked an eye open. “Want me to come? I can put off working things out with Drio until later.”
“No. Just don’t kill the angry Italian. And tell him I want to go see Kyle tonight.” I ruffled his hair making it even more bed head. “The fun never stops.”
“Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, then bliss.” He caught my hand, giving it a tight squeeze.
“It’s my mantra, baby.”
“Wait.” He pulled me down for a proper smooch. Throwaway kisses that were dispensed freely because there was an endless supply might beat hot sexy kisses. I’d have to test both thoroughly.
The address Leo had given me led to a small cottage with colorful wildflowers running riot around the front door. The walls were white plaster and an azure blue sea danced down a hillside dotted with olive trees. I walked around the cottage sensing for wards, then up the flagstone path to the front door. On the third stone from the house, I froze, mid-stride. One more step and I’d unleash the ugly knot of magic warding the front door.
I had no way of defusing it. I held my hand half an inch from the ward. No change in the magic. I lowered it a bit more, feeling for any disturbances, any awareness of an intruder.
Slowly, I eased my hand down to the ground, until I touched the ward line. The magic recognized me as its creator. It was a hollow victory, further proof that Lilith and I were inexorably intertwined.
I strode to the front door and stepped inside.
While the furnishings were simple, they were of a high-quality craftsmanship.
There were no photos or personal mementos on the walls. I didn’t find anything useful in the living room, kitchen or bathroom, but when I got into the bedroom, magic tingled my fingertips like dowsing rods. I followed it past the elaborately carved wooden bed frame with four ebony posts and a lavender bed spread flecked with blue and white, capturing all the colors of the sea.
In the second drawer of Lilith’s art deco vanity, I found a metal box with a slight depression in the lid. When I pressed my thumb to it, the lid popped open.
Inside was a thin gold hammered circlet. I turned it over once, twice. Huh. Then, like an adult finding a forgotten childhood toy, memories rushed me like the tide. This was—I nearly dropped the circlet, blinking hurriedly.
Well, damn.
Two minutes later, Malik let me up to his apartment.
“You look more like yourself,” I commented, getting comfortable on the low, curved sofa that hugged his floor-to-ceiling windows with its multimillion-dollar view.
He rubbed a hand over his freshly shaven jaw, covered in dots of paint, his clothes and eyepatch spattered in a rainbow of colors. He picked up a palette from an easel and squirted blue paint from a mostly empty tube onto it, mixing it with his brush into a blob of white. “I feel more like myself. You, however, look like utter shite. Busy night?”
“Yeah. We were attacked. Everything I own was burned to the ground, a friend died, and one of Satan’s minions made me a heart out of people.”
Malik chuckled, dabbing color onto his canvas with broad strokes. “That’s quite imaginative for him, actually.”
I whipped the brittle circlet at him like a ninja throwing star. “If you’d stepped into the role you’d been bred for, then we wouldn’t have the current psychopathic fuck in the role of Satan. Isn’t that right, Shaitan?”
This knowledge had been dumped into my brain upon first sight of the circlet. I’d also been treated to far more information about what Lilith and Malik had gotten up to on that bed, but I’d added that to my To Do List as “things to cauterize out of my brain,” along with the sinking dread that I was going to end up with all of Lilith’s memories and knowledge, whether I wanted them or not.
Malik picked up the circlet, running his finger over the edge of the crown. “I was never Shaitan, but yes, I’d been raised with that expectation. Along with dozens of others. All the royal families raised their best to challenge the throne.”
“‘Malik’ means ‘King of Kings.’ You threw that away.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Unless you never really had a shot.”
“Any more inanities you’d like to lob my way?”
“Let’s spend a few more minutes together. I’m sure something will come to me. As soon as I kill Satan, there’s going to be a power vacuum. You need to fill it.”
“No.” He set the circlet on a nearby table and resumed painting.
“Why not? Scared you can’t win the throne or toilet bowl or whatever Satan sits on?”
“I’m a simple marid. I enjoy good wine, painting, and making love. Not looking over my shoulder all the time.”
“But it’s okay for Lilith to live that way?”
He peered at me from around the canvas. “Technically, you’re the one living that way. As we’ve established, Lila is gone.”
“To be clear, you won’t take on the mantle that was expected of you?”
Malik snapped the circlet in half, strolled over to me, and dumped the pieces in my lap.
I pulled out a gaudy paper crown from a fast food kid’s meal that Cole had bought for me on our first date and that I’d had rolled in my shorts back pocket, hidden by my T-shirt. I’d quickly swung by my parents’ place to grab it. “Excellent. Since you have no interest in playing by the establishment rules, you’re free to make your own.”
Standing up, I settled the crown on him with a little pat.
Malik whipped it off like I’d dumped a batch of lice over him.
“Ari was raised with an expectation, too,” I said. “You know what came along with that?”
“I couldn’t begin to imagine.” He returned to his easel.
“A lifetime of indoctrination. If you spent your life being trained to be the ultimate demon leader, then you spent your life being schooled in rules and etiquette, but you walked away from it.”
“The politics and constant challenges held no appeal.”
“Mmm. Perhaps. The demon realm must have freaked out when you didn’t take the throne and went to live on earth. How common.” I widened my eyes. “Were you branded a traitor for turning your back on your destiny? That must have been tough.”
Malik looked away from his canvas, just long enough to scowl at me. “You pity me? How dare you.”
Picking up the paper crown, I straightened out the folded-up ruby that adorned it. “When I lost my dance dreams, I figured that my only other option must be being a fuck-up. All or nothing. The Brotherhood maintained that Rashas could only be men or nothing. Life is not all or nothing. Look at me. A demon hunter, a witch. I’m forging my own road and living life on my terms. You could do that.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not. You were born for more and you can have it.” I scooted over to see what he was painting but only caught the edge of thick, vibrant strokes.
He slapped paint onto the canvas. “Why are you pushing so hard for me to
have this power?”
“Better the devil I know. Literally. You genuinely enjoy earth and humans. Aspects, anyway. That puts you miles ahead of whoever we could end up with.” I set the paper crown on my head at a rakish angle. “One of us is going to have to kill the other. With you as Satan, it’ll give us something to look forward to. Come on. I can’t believe I have to convince you to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Or what? You’ll kill me? You and what demon army?”
Malik was silent for a moment, the swish of his brushstrokes the only sound. “Do you have any idea what’s involved in taking the throne?”
“No, tell me. Is Satan really that scary? I haven’t heard of him here on earth since Adam and Eve’s time. A lot of temptations are ascribed to him, but I couldn’t find any concrete record of evildoings.” I’d looked him up before the chapter house had burned down.
“Satan doesn’t leave the demon realm,” Malik said. “He doesn’t need to. He’s the spider in the center of a web, pulling on one thread to arrange a mudslide after an earthquake to wipe out a region, sending whispers along another into the ear of a despot to commit genocide. Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Khan, Hitler.”
“Hitler was Samson King’s doing.”
“On whose orders? Nothing happens that he doesn’t have a say in. And it’s not just about Satan. You’d have to kill all his guards.”
“I’ll have to do that anyway.”
“They’re the upper echelon of Hell and eat runty little witches like you for breakfast.”
“Pfft. We time our attack for after I secure the Ring of Solomon. Then I can keep all the demons away from you.”
Malik shook his head. “That ring has been lost for centuries. Even if you do find it, you’re not bringing it into the demon realm.”
“You don’t even like most demons. Why do you care?”
“Don’t test me on this, petal.”
I snorted. “You won’t hurt me because you won’t hurt Lilith.”
“I won’t physically hurt you, for now, but hurt comes in a lot of forms and I did swear to rain it down on you. I could have a lot of fun with your brother. Or keep that lovely PD as a toy. I can give Satan the keys to your undoing and I will if that ring gets anywhere near me.”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 161
