The tremors increased the closer I got to the ring here in the End Zone. By the end, I was crawling on all fours, the rolling of the ground changing to sharp, shaking jolts that rattled my skull.
I grabbed onto the rock and pulled off my ski glove, running my fingertips over the rough surface, inch by careful inch. I hit a nub and pulled myself onto my knees, swearing as the latest tremor caused me to whack my elbow on the rock.
The ring was inside this little nub; the certainty of it shimmered deep in my bones. Elimination magic failed to draw it out and the rock was impervious to blasting. I lay my hand on it and sang it Lilith’s song of sorrow.
I wish I could have said that my singing swayed the heavens, bringing rays of sunlight and small magical creatures to dance at my feet, but it was more a rusty braying. When I’d finished, the ground fell still and the air was pregnant with expectation.
The nub cracked and a ring fell into my palm. Made of tarnished brass, it was nothing to write home about: a squarish man’s pinky ring engraved with the Star of David. Magic didn’t thrum off it; in fact, it was almost conspicuous in how ordinary it was.
The tremors began again, faster, more furious, the wind shrieking like a banshee, lashing at me. I shoved the ring into my zippered jacket pocket, and jumped out of the End Zone, blinking against the light.
I slid my phone from my jacket pocket. What had felt like perhaps thirty minutes had been seven hours. I stuffed it away, jamming my cold hand once more into the glove.
A Zodiac, a small, inflatable motorized boat, floated not ten feet in front of my largish ice floe. One of the figures encased in winter wear, face obscured, moved his hands.
A wave of magic knocked me to the ground, pinning my arms and legs to the snow. Let me rephrase. A wave of puny hunter magic attempted to pin me. I let the Rasha think he’d been successful.
Six figures jumped onto the ice floe.
“Do you have the ring?” The voice compelled me to answer.
Jeez. Not my friendly neighborhood Rasha torturer again.
I wanted to whip the ring out, wave it in front of him and do the moonwalk in victory, but that would be childish and give them valuable intel about the ring’s current whereabouts. I started singing “Let It Go” loudly and phonetically. Suck on that.
My lack of answers—or my singing—displeased them because the next Rasha brought out the big guns, uprooted a small ice floe with a loud groan and hurled it at me.
I held up a hand; the ice floe hung in mid-air for a second. Then I twirled my finger. The floe spun and walloped all the Rasha into the icy water.
They came up sputtering.
“Give Rabbi Mandelbaum a message for me.” I shot them the finger. A puffy glove finger but they got the gist.
Nava, out.
The boarding school was bursting with activity.
I peeked in the door to the science lab. A beaker on a Bunsen burner flamed high and then the glass exploded.
“So much for calcinated diatom granulate,” Fatima said.
They all laughed, until they saw me in the doorway. Fatima murmured something about me being directly descended from Lilith to Hua, who regarded me with a wariness that hadn’t been there all the time we’d trained and fought together.
I hoped these feelings didn’t last long because if I didn’t present myself by Satan’s deadline, he’d send his minions to drag me in by myself. My only hope of both putting Malik on the throne, and my very survival, was having my allies with me.
“Hey, Nee.” Ari swept up the glass. “What’s up?”
“Satan humbly requests my presence in two days, so we’re going to get the jump on him and go tomorrow. Will Hellgate be ready?”
The witches’ faces gleamed with the fervor of the very brainy presented with a near-impossible task.
“It’s the stabilization factor tripping us up,” Fatima said. “What if we bypass it?”
“It’s risky,” Ari said. “Then again, it’ll only take a second to go through Hellgate.”
“Calculate the point of collapse,” Hua opened a cupboard. “I’ll get another specimen.”
“Excellent. I’ll leave you geniuses to—ack!” I jumped back.
Inside the cupboard were gerbil cages, each one containing an araculum, a kitten-sized spider demon. I’d never get used to those abominations.
My brother laughed and took the araculum from Hua, dangling it in front of me. Like he’d done with house spiders far too many times during our childhood.
“Too many legs!” I flattened myself against the wall, but my dumb twin showed no mercy.
I slid the Ring of Solomon onto my finger. There was no pain and I didn’t go up in flame, so another point in favor of me being dark magic-free.
And yes, it went against what I’d told Malik, but I preferred to think of it as bending that one-time use promise, not breaking it. I had to know if I could use the ring.
Did these demons have actual names or would calling it by its species type work since araculum were fairly simplistic creatures? One way to find out.
“Araculum,” I whispered, “jump on Ari’s face.”
Testing, testing, one, two, three.
The demon wrenched out of Ari’s grasp and lunged, plastering itself full on his face.
Ari’s startled, high-pitched shriek was a gift I’d treasure always. Namely because I’d just recorded it and was going to make it his personal ringtone.
“Sit on the counter,” I said.
The araculum jumped off my twin.
I slipped the ring off my finger and patted my brother’s shoulder. He was valiantly trying to get his freak-out under control, while Hua and Fatima giggled at him. “You’ve waggled your last spider at me, brother mine.”
Then I moonwalked out the door.
I called a war council with my inner circle Hex Factor members, pacing like a tiger in a cage as we ripped the plan open from every angle, punching holes in it.
We finally deemed our plan sound, but without a Hellgate that we could open on command, it was also useless. I wound tighter with each tick of the second hand.
During dinner, arranged by Ms. Clara like all our meals, Catalina presented the vial in which to collect Satan’s blood for the ritual to expel Lilith. She folded my fingers over it. “Just in case.”
Easier not to argue.
Leo staggered into the large dining hall, bleary-eyed. “Food,” she cried out.
I accompanied her to the buffet spread out over three long tables at one end, intent on round two of steak and mashed potatoes drenched in gravy.
Leo elbowed Kane and Pierre, hissing “slave drivers” at them.
“The integrated intelligence system is going to streamline things immensely,” Pierre said.
“Yes.” Kane tossed his head. “My coding is a work of genius.”
“As was everyone else’s contribution, Mr. Man. Ada rocks!” Leo crammed half a roll in her mouth.
Ari showed up close to midnight, by which point I’d practically worn a hole in the floor from my pacing. He had blue goo smeared on one cheek and a nasty burn along his jaw, but his triumphant grin lit up the room. “Good to go.”
The text alert system that Ms. Clara had set up went out to our witches. We assembled in the auditorium from all corners of the earth in record time. One day, we’d have all the witches and Rasha with us, and this room wouldn’t be big enough. I looked forward to it.
I held up the ring. “Behold the Ring of Solomon.”
Everyone broke out in whistles and applause. There wasn’t a single Rasha or witch expressing doubt or disapproval. I’d proven myself and I belonged, unconditionally. I glowed, happiness sparkling inside me.
“Let’s get the bastards,” Danilo.
“Which ones?” Cisco retorted.
“We’ve got our pick of them, that’s for sure,” I said. “I hate to kill your buzz, but Satan has given me an ultimatum to present myself in two days. Therefore, we’re going to use the element of surprise and strike
tomorrow to put Malik on the demon throne as our last line of defense against the Gates of Alexander being opened.”
The witches protested that they weren’t ready. The Rasha sat there, grim but determined.
“What do you need us for?” A witch called out. One of Jezebel’s friends. “You have your shiny new magic, Liron.”
Her bitterness was mirrored on the faces of several other witches.
“It’s a definite asset, but even with it, I can’t take on Satan and the old guard by myself, never mind all the other moving pieces. I know I’m asking a lot, but I need you. You’ve got this.” I grinned at them. “Besides, you’ll be able to lord over all the other witches that you took down Satan. How cool is that? Are you in?”
There was a tense moment of doubt but in the end, everyone stayed.
Baruch had a brief discussion with Mahmud, then rose to his feet. “Report to your team leaders who will go over the operation in detail. The stronger fighters will hold the perimeter of the throne for Malik, the rest will ward the court doors in case other demons show up. We move out at zero two hundred hours.”
My friends were Team Alpha. Kill the old guard. Naturally, I demanded the right to kill Satan myself. If he intended to make this him or me, then I’d show him exactly who he was dealing with.
My witch team had been reassigned to Raquel, since they wouldn’t be fighting Satan with me. Meantime, I called Malik and gave him the location to meet up with us.
Fatima, Hua, and Ari had deemed this one ward spot in Bavaria our best bet to cross through in terms of a whole bunch of sciencey things that made me glaze over. I armored up with a few well-chosen and hidden emergency items, made sure I had my lucky lighter, and away we went.
The location was fairly nondescript: a mossy stump in a German forest that we’d easily portalled to.
Rohan placed his hand on my back. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Malik arrived immediately after us, accompanied by a platoon of ashut, those leathery winged monsters I’d fought when Satan had first come after me. He was really selling the idea of him being Team Satan, but he also knew we needed to conserve our magic for the throne room, so what was his plan to disarm these demons?
“Attack,” Malik commanded with a wave of his hand.
Say what? This was not the plan.
“Fucker!” Rohan lunged for Malik but was ambushed by two ashut.
“Team leaders, regroup,” Baruch yelled, charging the demons.
“Go for the wing membranes!” Had I been by myself, I could have gotten most of them with one strike, but that would hit my own team.
Bad enough Malik had set the ashut on us, he then grabbed me by the shoulders, blowing my perfect shot on one of the demons. “Satan’s calling.”
The shocked faces of my team were the last thing I saw before Malik opened a portal and tossed me in.
I was buffeted by the electric storm that raged within its confines. Impossible to say how long I tumbled around like laundry in a dryer as the storm scanned me for my right to cross. Except I didn’t have dark magic or a demon signature.
I couldn’t get free, couldn’t help my friends.
This sentience at the heart of the storm reached deep inside me and ripped me apart atom by atom. The pain seared through me in an endless current, electrocuting me. Time receded into a confused jumble with every part of me that dissolved away. With my last sliver of awareness, I grabbed hold of all my bits, meticulously gathering each molecule, and carefully binding it to myself. It was like playing a cosmic game of Pac-Man, scurrying to stay ahead of ghosts eating me up.
What are you? The storm asked me.
It opened two portals: one back to the forest and one to the demon realm.
“Nava Liron Katz,” I yelled into the void. “Let me through.”
The forest side rushed toward me and I screamed in frustration.
“I demand passage or you’ll answer to Satan himself!”
The storm paused, leaving me hanging suspended, then it spat me out onto a white, marble floor.
Malik jerked me to my feet. “Satan, we have come.”
He dragged me through the vast, airy space of the demon court, past blue-and-gold tiled fountains burbling next to beds of strangely beautiful spiky blood-red flowers as big as basketballs. The reddish wooden ceiling was a dizzying carving of whorls and swirls, a match to the forty-foot doors behind us.
Trees hung heavy with dark purple fruit that perfumed the air with blackberry, yet failed to hide the pervasive foul reek, born of evil, that all demons exuded. It was the first time I’d ever smelled that and I could have lived without that new perception.
There were no demon courtiers, whispering and tittering, trying to capture their liege’s favor. The place was empty, save for a dozen zire demons who flanked the throne in dispassionate silence. They exhaled malevolence with every breath, an innate fact of their existence.
My attempt to look upon the collective glory of their evil got no farther than their twisted and hunched shoulders. Individually, they were menacing, together they were a hive of deep, ancient, and unyielding malice held barely in check.
With one word, they would blot out any goodness in my soul. I feared that if I met their eyes, I’d be lost.
Malik halted our progress about twenty feet from the throne. Made of white wood, the throne had a two-foot high base, simple to the point of unassuming.
In contrast to the other demons, Satan was a mishmash. His body was the fire of the universe in an astonishingly chiseled six-pack. His pitch-black raven’s head was the portent of death, topped with the same heavy ram’s horns as the zire.
None of his parts fit together properly, and the overall effect might have been almost comical, had it not been for his eyes.
A trickle of pee ran down my leg. He was the darkness that devoured, the wellspring of all evil, and dark lord of his dominion. I was an insignificant speck who existed at his pleasure.
“Lilith-no-more.” He narrowed those terrifying eyes on me like a laser. “You have power. But will it suit my purposes?” His gaze flayed me open.
I clawed at my cheek, dragging my fingers down. My breath came in rasps and gulps.
What is your pronouncement, master? The zire spoke as one.
“She’ll do.” Satan snapped his fingers.
A wedding chuppah appeared, adorned with those spikey, blood-red flowers.
My clothes were replaced by a diaphanous wedding dress, shot through with gold threads that resembled serpents, the world visible through the filmy gauze of a wedding veil.
One of the zire, now wearing a black rose boutonniere, produced a chalice made of black glass and wrapped it in a black cloth which he set before the chuppah.
“I understand my gifts were not to your liking,” Satan said. “I hope our wedding fulfills your dreams, my bride.”
Wrapping my arms around myself, I fought the hysterical laughter that rose up inside me. Satan wasn’t going to simply rape me and breed me, he meant to thrust this grotesque parody upon me, a perversion of my love for Rohan. I’d dreamed of having two ceremonies, where Ro would break the glass to the happy cries of our friends and family for the Jewish one, and in the Hindu one where we’d circle seven times around the fire, pledging ourselves to each other before having a reception that went on for hours with tons of laughter and great food and dancing.
My heartbeat thrashed in my ears and I was paralyzed by the purest instance of terror I’d ever experienced.
I fumbled for Malik, seeking comfort or assurance.
“Sorry, petal.”
My brief spurt of hope died as Malik forced me closer to that vortex of evil. “My lord, you must know the truth.”
Satan’s guard pressed in on us, but Satan raised his hand and they stopped in a loose semi-circle around us, waiting.
“This is Nava Katz,” Malik said. “The perversion who seeks to kill you. I left the witches and Rasha she brought with her a
welcome party, and I offer you their corpses as a token of my loyalty. I also offer you this.” He held up a familiar bronze ring, a pained expression on his face from handling it. “The Ring of Solomon, which I have divested her of. It will no longer trouble our kind.”
“Destroy it,” Satan commanded.
“No!” I shot at both Malik and Satan’s wood throne, but the marid avoided my blow and the throne didn’t burst into flame. My magic bounced off an invisible ward around the base and decimated one of the trees.
Malik melted the ring down to a bronze lump.
Power rolling off my skin, I rushed him. Two zire caught me and drove their magic into me, piercing me with a vile toxin that ate my magic with the same snapping teeth as the fog that horrible night. They forced me to my knees, the wedding veil getting wrenched off. Strands of my hair were snarled in the comb.
Satan tsked me, that quiet sound a deadly promise of retribution that left me quaking.
“This human deceived us all.” Malik spat contempt. “She imprisoned Lilith inside her body and stole her magic, obliterating Lilith entirely. Now she dares wield her power against you.”
Malik’s face suffused with hate. “I loved Lila and you killed her.” He bowed before his king. “Use her, break her, but I implore you, Satan, let me be the one to end her after an eternity of horror.”
Still on my knees, I struggled against the magic pinning me in place. “You wouldn’t let Lilith’s magic be used like that.”
“You were quite outspoken against the idea initially.” Satan produced an eyeball, the match to Malik’s. He rolled it back and forth along the arm of the throne under his fingers.
Malik flinched and I relished the cruelty he’d suffered.
“I thought Lilith lived.” He kicked me in the ribs and I doubled over. “You and your grandiose ideas of saving the world. I want you to know exactly what you’ve unleashed onto your precious humans.”
I broke free for one spectacular moment, determined to take out anyone I could. I made it as far as the ward line at the foot of the throne before one of the demon guard stepped on me, holding me captive under his long, bony foot.
“She’s pitiful. And a lot of trouble.” Satan turned his glower from me to Malik. “You should have spoken up sooner about her.”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 169
