After we cleared the retail area, we arrived at the food stalls.
Fake palm trees with fronds outlined in neon green and pink LEDs winked in the rain, and a sad bouncy castle quietly deflated in one corner, brought low by the deluge.
I followed Leo past dessert stands with fried dough, cinnamon, and sugar in various forms and cut-fruit kebabs, impressed by the hardcore determination of the soaked crowd to get their Asian food fix.
The rain was now pelting down so hard, you could taste its electric tang.
We’d lost the guys. I figured they weren’t going to turn Gremlin, so I stayed on Leo. At the first food stand with no line-up, I yanked her up to the cash and ordered squid on a stick. It was literally grilled squid legs sticking out higgledy piggledy from a thin wooden skewer. Higgledy piggledy was not a term I used lightly.
Leo downed it in a blink, followed by an order of takoyaki—octopus balls—which I ordered whenever possible for the name alone. I parked her in a shipping container which housed an ATM and ran over to a Korean fried chicken place where Rohan was in line. We stocked up on the hot nubbins of chili-sweet crispy chicken.
“This is not ideal,” he said. “It’s chaos in here.”
“It’s an adventure.”
That didn’t win me any points.
Hands full of our steam-laden orders, we elbowed our way back into the now-packed shipping container to fall on our chicken like ravenous wolves.
I blew on a nugget before popping it in my mouth. “Any ideas on what End Zone means?”
Neither Leo, now fed and able to think clearly, nor Rohan had any brilliant realizations.
Leo stuck her hand out of the shipping container. “The rain’s let up. Let’s go browse.”
“Sure,” Ro said.
“What about Drio?” I said.
“If you want to find him, feel free,” Leo said, in a tone of voice that made it clear I would totally be taking sides and my betrayal would not be forgotten.
I looked to my boyfriend for help.
“Drio’s being a dick right now.”
Not wrong, but still. He was our dick. I could chase after someone who didn’t even want me around or I could stay with my friends and keep the peace. I rubbed my thumb over the lighter in my pocket. I was a fire-tender, wasn’t I?
And Drio was one of my logs.
Grrr.
I stomped off after the errant Rasha.
There was no sign of Drio anywhere in the food section. Nor was he at the balloon pop and ball toss games attempting to win a knock-off anime character stuffie. Despite everyone being drenched, there was still an oddly festive carnival atmosphere and the rest of the crowd was having a great time.
I found Broody standing under a giant inflatable crab with about forty other people, listening to tinny K-Pop.
As soon as he saw me, he marched off, but I kept pace.
Impossibly, the sky opened up once more and it rained even harder, dumping down on us.
“Look.” I pointed at the giant plastic balls in a pool of water that people were rolling around in. “We could go in the giant balls.”
“It would be drier.” Drio stepped over a cable lying in a deep puddle. “Hope the electrical is up to code.”
I jumped as the animatronic velociraptor next to me let out an asthmatic wheeze, putting an extra kick in my step to catch up with Drio. I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Remember when we used to be friends?”
“No.”
I steered him toward a covered area with a tropical backdrop and shoved him into one of the two plastic beach chairs set up for selfies. “You risked Mandelbaum to come get me. You totally care about me.”
“You were a necessary evil to get Rohan back.”
I glared at a giggling young couple who were casting meaningful glances at our chairs until they slunk away. “Despite your best efforts, I care about you too, which is why I’m going to give you some tough love.” I boffed the top of his head.
He smacked my hands away. “What is with everyone hitting?”
“You’re hittable. You’re also mad at Rohan because he’s happy and mad at yourself because you’re not.”
“Porco Dio. It’s my turn.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I wrung out my sopping toque and lumberjack shirt, as best I could.
“You gave Kane your little talk and now he and Ari are together. Go natter at Baruch.”
“What am I, nuts? Tree Trunk is very big and he does that scary eye thing. So, you’re the lucky recipient of my wisdom,” I said. “Here goes: you’re allowed to love other people.”
“Great. When I find one I want to love, I’ll send you a postcard.”
“You were awful to Asha, Ro was awful to Asha, and ultimately, neither of you were responsible for her death.” I grabbed his soggy shirtfront. “Even believing it was your fault, you pushed hard for me to treat Rohan right before we were even together, but now that you actually see him being happy, you can’t stand it, and you want to know why?”
“Let me guess. I like Leonie and I’m mad at myself that I’m betraying Asha.” He pushed my hands off him. “I’m not some Hollywood cliché.”
“You’re not mad about the betrayal, you’re terrified to care about someone, again. No, scratch that. Scared shitless because you do and that’s what you’re so mad about.”
“Yeah, you’ve got me pegged.” He blew all his sarcasm points with how tensely he held himself.
“There’s no way you didn’t know she was a half-demon,” I said. “So, why’d you lose it when you found out? Did you need plausible deniability? Because that’s a pretty fucking shaky defense.”
He stiffened for a brief second. “You’re talking out your ass.”
“That’s it, isn’t it?” I got up in his space. “You were hoping to bury your head in the sand and deny what was really going on, justifying it to yourself that Leo was a PD and didn’t matter.”
He balled his hands into fists, his expression fiercer than I’d ever seen it. “She mattered, okay? Are you satisfied? Leonie mattered. And I hate myself for it because Asha’s lying cold and dead in the ground and my anger is all I had left of her.” His voice cracked. “I couldn’t even remember her voice until Hybris…”
I caught his sleeve but he shook me off, his hands up, and disappeared into the crowd.
I stood there numb and full of regret for pushing him, until the giggling couple returned, and I forced myself to move. I pushed my worry down into a tight anxious knot, and went to make sure I didn’t fuck things up with Leonie and Rohan.
Getting Leo to forgive me cost me twenty-four dollars in dessert items, another thirty-three bucks humiliating myself at the balloon pop game with only a Pokémon-esque charm bracelet to show for it, and a burst of embarrassing photos of me posing in a dinosaur egg that immediately got posted to multiple social media channels. It also helped that I’d apparently totally failed with Drio and I groveled profusely.
“I forgive you, but you’re on probation with my love.” She accepted the cotton candy with flashing pink LEDs embedded in it that I’d bought her like it was her royal birthright and flounced off toward the Pretty Nails stall, her faux-Pokémon bracelet jingling.
“I’m out of cash,” I told Rohan. “Can I buy forgiveness in blow jobs?”
“That’s… tawdry.” Rohan sounded even more affronted than when I used the “sidekick” designation.
“You’re right.” I sighed, glancing around for any sign of Drio, worried about him wandering around this place, broken and alone.
“Hey, Sparky?” Rohan mimed shooting me in the heart, fingers cocked like a gun.
I pressed a hand against my chest, stumbling back with a theatrical groan.
He caught my hand, swinging me into his chest. “I love you. And I love that you care enough about your friends to make sure they’re okay.” He kissed me.
“You’d better,” I mumbled when I came up for air, but I rewarded him with another kiss for h
is honesty.
“I’m still taking the blow jobs, though.” Winking, he slapped me on the butt and went after Leo.
I could live with that.
Shockingly, Drio waited for us by Leo’s car when we got there a couple of hours later. He stuck out his hand. “Sorry, man.”
Ro shook it. “All good.”
“I’m sorry, too, Drio,” I said. “Honestly.”
“Forget it,” he said.
There was no contact between Drio and Leo, but baby steps. I sat in the front seat with my bestie and cranked the heat to dry out.
The rain had stopped, but rolling dark clouds imparted a claustrophobic tension to the night, the slick streets amplifying the whir of tires on concrete. Even Vancouver’s lights as we drove home over the Oak Street bridge were muted.
“If I’m ever not-dead and headless, promise me you’ll put me out of my misery, Nee,” Leo said. “I’ll even anoint you in gold dust for your good deed.”
“You think it’s funny?” Drio snapped.
Leo honked at the slow driver in front of us and swerved into the next lane. “Yeah, I think me having to plan around that possible fate is pretty fucking hilarious. Besides, he was a PD. What do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“You really see the dark side of things, don’t you?” Ro asked her.
She glanced back at him in the rearview mirror. “Sometimes I feel like I exist slightly off-center from everyone else. I might be at the beach and it’s this gorgeous day and I’m having fun, but on some level I’m aware of the dark cracks that run through the world. There’s not a lot of behavior that surprises me.”
“Do all demons feel this?” I said.
“I don’t know. I’ve always wondered if I see light and dark at all times because that’s what I am.”
“Light and dark!” I grabbed the dashboard, causing Leo to swerve into the next lane.
“What is wrong with you?” she said, wrenching the wheel and straightening the car out.
I phoned Sienna, using the number that she’d called Ro’s phone from. “The wards.” I didn’t even give her a chance to say hello. “Magic is finite, but we’ve had it all wrong. Rasha aren’t the problem.”
“Are you still defending—”
“Shut up! Rasha don’t matter because they have witch magic. The wards are the balance between witch magic and demon magic, but then Lilith and who knows how many others dipped into dark magic, stealing from the pool of magic at large. Including demon magic. Every time any witch with dark magic fortified the wards, she was actually weakening them.” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Yes, Rasha made it worse because they only had a fraction of witches’ magic to fight the demons and so more demons got through, pouring more poison into the wards. But they’re not the threat and you need to release them. The real reason the wards need to be reset is because magic needs to be reset. Our wards, our world is out of balance because of you. You and every single woman who worshipped at the cult of Lilith.”
“Us,” Sienna said pointedly.
“What?”
“Your magic comes from Lilith, the biggest dark magic hoarder of us all. It’s just as problematic.”
My hand drifted to the lighter in my pocket. “You’re right. I’m part of this problem as well, but I’m willing to get rid of any trace of dark magic that I have. Are you?”
Sienna hung up on me.
I texted my revelation to Raquel.
“That’s troubling,” Leo said.
Rohan leaned forward between the seats. “You sure about this?”
“I’ll verify later. Go into the Zone, but yeah.”
“Go into the right headspace?” Drio said.
“No. The Zone. It’s what witches call the dimension or whatever where the wards—Holy crap. The End Zone.”
“Is there a physical place the wards end?” Leo merged into the flow of cars on Southwest Marine Drive.
“I dunno, but the other witches should.”
Drio, Ro, and I parted ways with Leo at my parents’ place. I couldn’t stay at that disgusting motel again, especially not after the day I’d had. I’d risk it. The plan was to get a good night’s sleep, then I’d portal Ro and Drio to Dr. Markovic’s tomorrow, before coming back for Leo to take her to Los Angeles.
The witches needed to pony up some answers.
Ro’s bedtime routine took longer than mine, so I was flaked out on my mattress by the time he was ready.
“You paying up tonight?” he said. “Oh. Nope. You’re drooling.”
“Mmmmggghhhgbbh.”
He climbed under the blankets with me, and might have said good-night, but sleep dragged me backward into its sticky embrace and I was out.
Rohan was still asleep when I woke up, a curl of foreboding snaking through me. My dream danced just out of memory, but it hadn’t been pleasant. His breathing was even and slow, his long lashes a dusky sweep against his dark skin.
I nuzzled his neck and he rolled over, throwing an arm over me. That simple touch unfurled inside me like a silk ribbon, blowing away all worry. His chest rose and fell under my cheek, our legs tangled together.
Dawn melted away, the pink and orange glow through the slit in the curtains mellowing into filtered sunlight.
We made quick work of breakfast and hit the road. I deposited Drio and Ro in Dr. Markovic’s apartment, which was a floor-to-ceiling clutter of books and papers.
“My last driver provided bottles of water,” Drio said. “You’re getting one star.”
“Ha. Ha. I’ll be back as soon as the meeting is over.” I kissed Ro. “Good luck getting through all this.”
“Good luck to you, too.”
I portalled directly into Leo’s apartment. After dragging her out of bed by one leg, I lured her into her galley kitchen with the lattes and muffins I’d brought, keeping a safe distance until the beast had been fed.
“Remember that time we went camping at Hicks Lake, got really high, ate our entire stash of food, then found out we had a flat that stranded us for almost twenty-four hours?” I said.
Leo stuffed some muffin into her mouth. “I still have nightmares about it,” she said, spraying crumbs.
“How close was I to being eaten?”
She leveled me with a serious look. “You don’t want to know.”
One thing about Leo, she got ready in no time flat. I’d barely finished my latte before she was flitting around her living room, putting on the last of her funky silver jewelry over her flirty polka dot sundress. “Alrighty, Jeeves. I’m ready.”
“Still not an Uber.”
Leo snickered. “I’m getting you one of those ‘Take Transit Home’ T-shirts.”
“Enjoy the ride.” I picked up my suitcase that Leo had brought in from her car.
“Mind the gap and enjoy the ride.” She jumped on me, piggyback style. “Move out.”
The Rasha and witches who’d agreed to work with us had set up shop in a private boarding school in Brentwood, California that had gone under several years ago. The once wide lawns and neat rows of raised flower beds on the small campus were now scraggly weeds providing hiding holes for local wildlife.
We waited at the front gates as directed.
Ari let us in. “Stick to the pavement. There are magical booby traps all over the place.” He gave Leo a thin leather bracelet with distinct green beads woven into it.
“Are we going steady?” She put it on, next to the fake Pokémon bracelet that I’d won for her. “Ooh. Can I tell Kane?”
Ari rolled his eyes. “It’s from Raquel. The place is warded up, but this will let you stay here without any bad effects.”
Leo blinked, like she was caught off-guard by the kindness. “I’ll have to thank her.”
Rasha and witches patrolled the grounds in pairs, making no effort to be subtle about their presence. They’d also fixed the school’s security system, training cameras all over the property. Anyone attempting to enter the grounds who shouldn’t be the
re would regret it.
“Any attacks yet?” I said.
“Not on us,” my brother said. “Sienna took out some of Mandelbaum’s mercenaries in retribution for him stealing the rabbis.”
“Someone’s bound to come knocking soon,” Leo said.
Ari took my suitcase, grabbed me by the elbow and hauled me up the drive. “Guess who reached out to me?”
I grabbed Leo’s hand, both of us jogging to keep up with him. “AT&T?”
Leo snorted.
Ari gave me a flat stare. “Malik. He had a little problem to work on with me. How to combine chemistry and magic and open a rift into the demon realm for witches and Rasha to get through. Sound familiar?”
“Hypothetically, yes. And we’re calling it Hellgate. Any progress?”
Geeking out trumped annoyance. “Two of the witches here are chemists who’ve done a lot of research into the intersection of chemistry and magic, so I asked the women to spearhead this initiative.”
Poor Baruch. Seems he’d lost his fanboy to the witches.
“Getting off on it so hard, you giant dork,” Leo said fondly.
“What about using the existing giant rift that the demons are trying to open into our world?” I said.
“The one crawling with demons? No, thanks,” Ari said. “It’s best to draw as little attention as possible to ourselves when we cross.”
The graffiti-tagged main building had plywood boarding up about a third of the windows, and water stains running liberally down the outside walls. Had there been no available crack houses to move into?
“In thanks for bringing you together with your fellow magic science tribe,” I said, “you may buy me no less than three waffle breakfasts at Stacked.”
Ari made a pfft sound. “I deserve all the breakfasts. Working with Malik to put him on the throne? Seriously?”
“Yes. It’s the smartest course of action, but if I’d known he was going to reach out, I’d have given you a heads-up. I’m sorry he surprised you.”
“I’m not the one whose forgiveness you need.”
Kane stalked out the front door of the boarding school and pointed at me. “You’re dead to me.”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 164
