Angry Rasha landed on me with a grunt, which did nothing to improve his mood. He barely got his feet out of the way before Leo slammed the door and hopped into the driver’s seat, Rohan tearing around to leap into the passenger side.
“Stay down!” She wrenched the engine on and peeled out.
Drio and I fell sideways. My purse whacked me in the face.
The van careened toward us, bullets blowing out our back window and spraying Drio and me with glass.
Mandelbaum must have been saving the very few Rasha he had for more important things. Guns worked just fine to kill us and it could be played as a tragic shooting. With all the gang activity in Vancouver, these things happened and people were caught in the crossfire.
Drio pushed my head down onto the seat, grabbed his black leather jacket that had fallen onto the floor of the car, and held it over us like a shield, obscuring us as targets. “You’re going to get yourself killed, you stupid demon.”
“We don’t have time for you to drive like an old lady.” Leo veered wildly, bumping over a curb and taking out two defenseless trash cans before humping back down onto the road with a neck jarring thud.
“I’m Italian,” he growled. “I can drive.”
“Yeah, like someone’s nonna.”
“We’re going to die,” I screeched, grabbing the seat so I didn’t roll off as she fishtailed it down the winding streets. There was a reason I always chauffeured us when Leo and I went out.
“And not even because we get shot! Because you’re going to NASCAR race us into oblivion—Leonie, that was almost a racoon!”
The car shuddered, making a horrible grinding noise. White acrid smoke seeped through the vents into the car from the motor overtaxing.
Bullets flew toward us in slow motion clarity, like a visual effect from an action film.
I portalled the entire vehicle out in the split second before they riddled the car.
After a moment of tense scouting to see if we really had escaped, we saw we’d ended up in the lane behind my parents’ house.
“Those bastards!” Leo stormed out of the car, checking it for damage.
We all clambered out.
“You can portal a car?” Rohan said.
“Apparently?” My legs buckled out from under me and I grabbed the door for support. “Barely.”
Rohan brushed the glass out of the back seat then ordered me to sit.
Muttering under her breath, my bestie stomped down the road.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“To find them and make them paaaaay.”
Her voice rose in a shriek as Drio tossed her over his shoulder. He marched back to the car, Leo bouncing, hanging upside down off him, her red hair flying every which way. She squirmed around, trying to get free. A curious look came over Drio’s face.
“Quit moving.” He dumped her unceremoniously next to me.
We talked her out of her blood vengeance idea, more or less, and drove the car to a Speedy Glass Repair shop where they promised to replace the windshield in under two hours.
We used the time to top up our energy with a burger run and a stop at Leo’s to raid her place for undercover supplies. Either Kyle was a demon working for Hybris and skittish after the mass slaughter of his fellow spawn the other night, or he wasn’t a demon, but was skittish because someone or something had threatened him.
Rohan and Drio were dispatched to pick up Leo’s car.
I looked at myself in Leo’s bedroom mirror, twisting from side-to-side for the full view.
“I find this offensive.” Leo frowned at me.
“I do too.” I’d borrowed her red and black flannel shirt and her “I am Canadian” red toque. “That fact that you own these items is upsetting.”
“It’s my Canada Day wear. I am a proud Canuck.”
“Who was trying to bang one of the Molson beer girls the summer after first-year university.”
She tossed her hair off her shoulder. “A rare failure.”
“Must have been the lumberjack shirt.”
Outside, someone leaned on the horn. I looked out the window. “Drio’s getting cranky. If you don’t want him here, say the word and he’s banished.”
“Exiled to an island?”
“With only rats to eat and packs of marauding wasps.”
“I may take you up on that.” Leo ushered me out of her apartment and locked up.
The Heavenly Pleasure Gentleman’s Club was a lofty name for a third-rate titty bar on the Downtown Eastside. The stoop outside the blacked-out front entrance was sticky and the inside was dim. Onstage, a large-breasted dancer ground listlessly to vapid pop and the air was fragrant with a mix of stale beer and shame.
Removing all the female staff and the handful of male customers from the equation left me with two options for Kyle: a large Asian bouncer or the gangly bartender in the Metallica T-shirt and a ballcap with the Vancouver Canadians baseball team logo.
I said a few words under my breath and flicked my fingers, putting to use a trick that Esther had taught me. The air along the side of the bartender’s neck shimmered, indicative of a glamour.
Ding! We had a winner.
I bellied up to the bar.
“What can I get you?” Kyle said.
“My girlfriend and I were just out and about.” Oot and aboot. I laid my Canadiana on thick. “Someone told us there’s a Cold Beer and Wine place where I could get a two-four.” A twenty-four pack of beer. “But I think they was shittin’ me, eh.”
“Where you here from?”
“Guess.”
When his first three guesses were all Saskatchewan based, I told him I was from Regina and was rewarded with a “Me too, eh!” Rapport established, I tried to further our connection with some lies about going to the University of Regina but this guy went to U.B.C. and was working here because the tips were good and the owner didn’t care if he studied while the bar was slow.
I asked to bum a dart off him—a smoke—before I went back to my friend. This wasn’t any great deduction on my part. He had the baked-in nicotine funk of a committed two-pack-a-day man. For the record, I’d Googled that inane slang term because we didn’t use it here on the West Coast.
He replied that he was going on a smoke break and I should come.
I followed him into the surprisingly clean alley, where he immediately bolted.
“Running north toward Alexandra,” I said into the tiny mic that Leo had provided. “Demon.”
By the time I caught up to Kyle, Rohan had him pinned to an alley wall.
“Don’t kill me. I’m just a student. I’ve never hurt anyone.”
“Shut up, demon,” Drio said.
“Only a quarter.” Kyle struggled hard, but Ro and Drio held him tight.
I showed Kyle the matchbook. “How do you know Dr. Markovic?”
His pupils went so dilated with fear that only the thinnest sliver of green showed.
“Hey, look at me. It’s okay.” Leo stepped directly in front of the quarter-demon. “I’m half. Answer the questions, and you’ll be fine.”
“What are you?” he asked.
“Redcap goblin. You?”
“Lesny. But I’m not like them. I wouldn’t. I’m human.” He clutched Rohan’s sleeve. “You have to believe me.”
“I do,” Rohan said.
Leo flashed him a grateful smile before turning back to Kyle. “Your mom is a half-lesny? I didn’t think there were females of those.”
Kyle slumped against the wall. “You really didn’t know? You didn’t hurt him?”
“What are you talking about?” Rohan said.
“My mom is human.”
Drio edged in close to Kyle’s face. “You’re lying. He would have disappeared when he died. That was a human body we found.”
Kyle notched his chin up and met Drio’s eyes. “No. It wasn’t.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, rocking back on my heels, while Leo clapped a hand over her mouth. We’d fou
nd what appeared to be a human body because Dr. Markovic hadn’t been dead when we found him.
Ro released Kyle, his expression stricken. “We didn’t know.”
“My cousin…” Kyle started shaking.
Drio flashed out, returning a moment later with a new bottle of bourbon he’d swiped from somewhere. He cracked the cap and pressed it into Kyle’s hand. “Drink.”
Leo sucked on her lip, watching Drio through narrowed eyes.
Kyle took a few swigs and wiped his mouth with his hand. “The blood runs through my cousin as well. He had to… put my father to rest.”
“Oh fuck,” Ro said.
My ignorance didn’t excuse that I’d left Kyle’s father suffering in terrible agony and compounded things by making Kyle fear for his own life now. I wanted to apologize profusely and leave him to his grief, but Josip had sent us to him and we still needed answers. I just didn’t know how to broach the topic with Kyle standing there crushed by loss, his gaze vacant.
Leo snatched the precariously dangling bottle away from him.
“Kyle. Listen to me.” Drio gripped his shoulders. “I know who killed your dad. She killed my girlfriend. His cousin.”
Kyle looked to Rohan who nodded.
“I swear to you that we will find her and destroy her, but you have to help us. Do you know anything about Hybris?”
Kyle’s face crumpled. He took off his ballcap, squeezing the brim tightly. “No. Nothing about her. All I know is the message Otac gave me.”
“Tell us,” Leo said. “Please.”
“May the…” Kyle waited expectantly.
The rest of us exchanged puzzled glances.
“Force be with you?” Rohan said.
Kyle jammed the ballcap on his head.
“I have to go back to work,” he muttered and loped off.
What was the rest of the phrase? Would my mom know?
Mom. Of course.
I cut across the street, slamming the hood of the car who braked hard, and darted inside the club.
Kyle was behind the bar, slicing limes on a cutting board.
“May the flop be with you,” I said.
“Flop?” Leo was right behind me, with Ro and Drio on her heels.
“It’s a Texas Hold’em thing. Mom and Dad used to play it all the time when I was younger and Mom played it with her colleagues at conferences. Right?”
“Right,” he confirmed.
“Was that the message?” Rohan asked.
“No.” Kyle swept the limes into a small bowl. “‘The End Zone.’”
“Like a hockey reference?” I said.
“Or football?” Rohan said.
“A place, maybe?” Leo pulled out her phone. “Damn. There’re tons of them. All sports bars.”
“Does it mean anything to you?” I said.
Kyle shook his head. “But it’s important. Otac got really excited about something a couple of months ago. He wouldn’t say what, then he started getting paranoid about others finding out. When I spoke to him right before he…” Kyle swallowed. “He was burning his research on whatever he’d learned.” Kyle lowered his voice, even though the bar was mostly-empty. “He told me to give you that message because he trusted your mother.”
Kyle lined up five shot glasses on the bar, expertly filling each with a shot of whiskey. “You’ll get Hybris?”
“One hundred percent,” Drio said.
Kyle nodded and held up his glass. “To my father.”
We clinked glasses, echoing the toast, and shot back our drinks.
“Who’s the executor of your dad’s estate?” Drio said.
“I am. There’s not really any money.”
“Not for that,” Drio said. “Hybris has been after this ring for a while. She might have approached him before this. Maybe there’s something in a calendar or his papers about her. Something that wasn’t directly connected to the research he burned but would still provide a lead.”
Kyle gave permission for Drio and Ro to go to Josip’s place in Dubrovnik.
I was turning The End Zone problem over and coming up blank. “Anything else you can tell us about the Ring of Solomon? Like, have you ever heard of Gog and Magog? Can the ring bind them?”
Kyle removed the empty shot glasses. “The boogeymen locked up behind the gates? No idea if the ring could control them.”
“You know about the gates?” Drio said.
“They’re like the demon version of the haunted house on the hill. You know, demons dare each other to touch it, but no one has the guts to actually go inside. Or in this case, cross the many wards that have all but buried the gates.”
“How come you know about this and I don’t?” Leo huffed.
“Because I lived near them. Count yourself lucky you never had to,” Kyle said. “That place isn’t kind to people like us.”
“What place?” I asked.
“The demon realm.”
Chapter 17
All of us were subdued as we walked back to Leo’s car. I was busy assembling a list of questions for Malik. If the demons kept the Gates of Alexander sealed behind wards, Mandelbaum would have his work cut out for him finding and opening them. Unless he made a deal with the devil.
Oy vey.
“Portal us to Markovic’s apartment,” Drio demanded.
“I’m wrung out and starving,” I said.
“You can eat after.”
I’d dealt with Malik, learned my beloved Rabbi A had been memory wiped, and that we’d left Dr. Markovic alive and suffering because we hadn’t recognized that he was a half-demon. I swallowed the bile at the back of my throat.
“I’m not your fucking Uber, Drio. I’m done for today.”
“We could all do with a change of scenery,” Rohan said.
“Sure. Take a night off,” Drio said. “What does Asha matter?”
Ro slammed Drio up against the side of Leo’s car, his blade to Drio’s throat. “Say that again.”
I muscled in between them. “How about we grab a bite, decompress from the constant nightmare of the past couple days, and relax?”
“Great idea!” Leo’s voice was chirpy, but she was white-knuckling the strap of her purse. “What did you have in mind?”
“The Richmond Night Market. Largest night market in North America, bitches! Fun times ahead.” I man-handled Drio into the car.
Fun suffered a bigtime setback right off the bat. My brilliant proposal to share local culture and cuisine had failed to account for an accident on the Oak Street Bridge that doubled our journey time from about half an hour to just over an hour.
Leo’s half-demon metabolism required constant food, which we didn’t have, and her hunger levels were becoming dangerous to those of us trapped in this vehicle with her.
Drio bitched about my stupid ideas and Rohan told him to back off and lose the attitude. That escalated to Drio elaborating on all the ways Rohan was now pussy-whipped, while Rohan stared out the window, refusing to engage, which goaded Drio more.
From my vantage point in the backseat with him, Ro was barely holding himself in check. His fingers were digging into his thighs, his lips pressed together.
Leo and Drio might as well have been in separate cars for their pointed lack of interaction.
My stomach was a twisted mess. Just as I was considering portalling out and everyone else be damned, we hit the line-up for the turn-off onto the road to the parking lot. Not even the parking lot itself.
The car came to a complete stop.
Leo lasted all of five minutes before she pulled an impressive U-Turn, barely missing plowing into a truck hauling Porta-Potties. Yelling at me to find another way in or the nearest SkyTrain, she rage-drove through the streets of Richmond.
Flustered, I attempted to find the nearest SkyTrain station on my phone. My first three attempts led us back to that same turn-off, Leo’s driving becoming more and more aggressive, and Drio’s muttered sniping and Rohan’s pointed disinterest fraying my last nerves.
We pulled into the Aberdeen Mall with its awesomely cheesy musical fountain, excellent Japanese dollar store, and enormous Asian food court. I’d have gladly eaten there, but all the stalls were already closed. Google Maps showed me a twenty-minute walk back to the Night Market, which I gamely shared with Leo, aware I was taking my life into my hands.
She snapped a “fine” at me, but luckily, about a block away from our parking spot, we found a SkyTrain station.
We stood in separate spots on the platform. Leo was starving and homicidal, while Drio shot daggers at Ro whose “I’m so unaffected” smirk was so irritating that even I was tempted to wipe it off his face. Mostly, I tried to make myself invisible.
None of us spoke for the one-stop ride to the market.
We stepped out of the train car with the rest of the market-bound crowd, making our way along the final two blocks. The trip was still salvageable. It was a beautiful September night and good food beckoned.
A drop of rain hit my face. I stepped up my pace and hoped the others hadn’t noticed.
Once past the casino, the approach to the market was through an enormous dirt parking lot. Scratchy loudspeakers hawked all the fabulous wares that we absolutely had to check out, while smoke and the smell of grilled seafood hung over everything.
The rain picked up. By the time we’d made it through the winding dirt path for the line-up and in through the front gates, my hair was plastered to my scalp and water was running down my back.
People were squished five-deep in the open mouth (complete with pointy teeth) of the life-sized plastic T-Rex head that was a selfie spot, trying to stay dry. A growl worthy of any demon rolled out of that bunch when we got too close seeking shelter.
Why did the Night Market have a dinosaur theme? Why had it had a duck pirate theme in previous years? It was the Night Market. You rolled with it.
A gust of wind lashed the rain across our faces.
“Great idea,” Drio snarked. “I’m feeling so relaxed right now. We should have done the downpour tour weeks ago.”
“Fuck off.” I jumped a puddle, hurrying after Leo who looked like she might eat someone.
We passed the myriad of stalls selling socks, cell phone cases, plush onesies, beauty products, cheaply produced T-shirts with images of celebs like Justin Timberlake, Trump, Obama, or Taylor Swift, and the military surplus booth selling knives and bear spray.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 163
