The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Fall

by Wilde, Deborah

“What happened?” Ro held the shirt from Sienna’s scrubs out of my reach.

  “I’m not trying again. Esther forbade it.”

  He tossed it on the sofa. “And you’re listening to her? Does that mean you’ll listen to me?”

  “Situationally.” I shoved half the pile of cases at him. “Get working.”

  We created a subset of cases that mirrored what had happened to Gary. The cases were very, very mind-numbingly detailed. Most of the day later, by which point I was reading while hanging upside down off the couch, we had a plausible trail.

  “Who do you like for it?” I said.

  Rohan flipped between the various demon entries he had open on the Brotherhood database. “Hybris. A Unique demon specializing in insolence, hubris, violence, reckless pride, and general arrogance. It fits the pattern. Give the victim their heart’s desire, then take them down in a very public humiliation.” He clucked his tongue. “Very few one-on-one Rasha encounters with her. Some supposition that the kill spot may be in her trachea.”

  “Let’s phone it in.” I shuffled the relevant cases into a pile, my hands only mildly shaking at the Ethan flashback that hit in the quiet.

  Pierre answered on the first ring. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m dealing. We found a pattern starting back in the twenties. Al Capone. Bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, racketeering. He had the gall to claim he was doing a public service for the people of Chicago, since ninety percent of them drank and gambled. Said he was just furnishing them with those amusements. Feds couldn’t make anything stick. Not even the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. And then he’s brought down by tax evasion?”

  “Who else?”

  “Richard Nixon in the 1970s and his belief in his infallibility during Watergate. Colton Bannister in the 80s. Bannister was a business tycoon, who did a brutally ruthless takeover of this small mining company.”

  “Gold, right?” Pierre said.

  “Yeah. They’d found a gold mine and predicted they stood to make billions. After the takeover, the founder of the mining company was so devastated by the loss of his family’s company that he killed himself. The tycoon didn’t care. His exact quote?” I flipped through to the back page of that particular file. “‘If he didn’t have the balls, he shouldn’t have been in business.’”

  “Oui,” Pierre said. “I remember. The mine was in some country that had had peace and prosperity for two hundred years.”

  “Except as soon as Bannister owned the mine, the country was plagued with every kind of natural disaster: floods, hurricanes, mudslides.” I checked the file. “And civil unrest. Things got vicious and desperate. He had sunk a large part of his own fortune into the mine. Not only did he lose his shirt, his own family was killed in a plane crash en route to the mine. Colton was the only survivor. Awful, but it hadn’t been tagged as the result of demon activity at the time.”

  “We missed it,” Pierre said.

  I named a few other incidents then said, “Case number 230DDX.”

  Ro smirked at me, shaking his head.

  I heard Pierre type the number in.

  “That actress about ten years ago?” he said. “The imprisoned one. Big international scandal?”

  “Yeah. What was her name again?”

  “It’s written at the top of the file.”

  “Kinda smudged on my end,” I said.

  “Tabernac, you know who I mean.”

  “Yeah. I just want you to say it, Frenchie.”

  “’Annah ’Utton. Colisse, you suck.”

  I snickered, happy for any humor, juvenile or otherwise, today.

  Hannah Hutton shot to fame playing a CIA agent in a series of films. Off the popularity of that, she’d bragged she could get an audience with the dictator of a fractious Third World country during a very tense time with the United States. That she’d be the peacekeeper to tone tensions down, just like her character did. Surprisingly, she managed it–the invite part at least, as it turned out the dictator loved the franchise.

  Had Hannah stuck with chatting about the movies, all would have been well and she might even have calmed things down as a good-will ambassador, but she’d decided that playing a CIA operative had somehow made her an expert on foreign policy. Poor Hannah didn’t even get to the end of her lecture on how the dictator should behave on the world stage before she’d been arrested. She was still rotting in prison.

  “Any chance of getting to her?” I wasn’t risking portalling into an unknown and extremely dangerous environment, but Hannah was the only victim on my list who was still alive besides Gary.

  “Unlikely.”

  “Maudite marde.” I swore, earning a snort from Pierre at my exaggerated Québécois accent. Once I’d hung up, I turned to Ro. “Want to go see Gary Randall with me?”

  “Now?”

  “Better than sitting and dwelling on horribleness until Baruch comes back. Besides, with Boris Badenov coming to town, we need something to report on.” I clapped my hands. “Can we have code names? I can be Moose and you can be Squirrel.”

  Rohan gathered up the laptop, carefully winding the plug. “You wanna be an ugly beast with knobby knees? Knock yourself out.”

  “Moose aren’t ugly. They’re majestic Canadian animals. Anyways, why does it matter to you? You’re Squirrel. The sidekick.”

  Ro tipped my chair sideways, knocking me on my ass. “Again with the sidekick designation? If anyone’s the sidekick, it’s the moose. Rocky and Bullwinkle. Squirrel goes first.”

  I scrambled to my feet, my arm punch failing to wipe the smirk from his face. It was very important I had higher status in this code name designation. We’d be revisiting this once I’d had a chance to think through my argument. “So, Gary?”

  “Are you up to portalling to Tampa with a passenger?” Rohan said.

  “No need. He’s still here. Even though his contract was signed, he hadn’t yet flown out to Florida for training camp. Pierre got me his apartment details. If you’ll drive us over, I’ll beam us up.” I nudged his leg with my foot. “You cool with that?”

  I’d been with Ro the first time I’d ever portalled. Accidentally. To say it had been a shock was an understatement.

  “I’m cool with any magic you’ve got.” His posture was relaxed and his expression sincere.

  My stomach unknotted.

  “Does he have bodyguards? Nurses?”

  I shook my head. “No bodyguard, but a nurse in shifts. We can handle a nurse.”

  “Sienna’s a nurse,” Rohan said.

  “A Muggle nurse,” I amended. “We got this covered.”

  12

  The nurse in question was a bearded, six-foot-four lumberjack of a man whose biceps were bigger than my thighs. The only reason we got the jump on him when we portalled into the thirtieth-floor suite was that he was busy changing Gary’s morphine drip.

  Rohan injected the nurse with Methohexital, a fast-acting sedative with a brief window of action that we’d picked up at Demon Club La La Land on our way over. I’d made Ro go in and get it without me because I wasn’t ready to revisit the scene of the tragedy.

  The chemical kicked in, and in seconds, the nurse went limp.

  Ro slid him to the bedroom floor and set an alarm. “Five minutes.”

  I ran over to the closet, flipping through Gary’s clothing for the jacket he’d worn the night he was injured.

  Gary shifted, groggily opening his eyes. “Erik?”

  The jacket wasn’t in the bedroom. He might have tossed it, or sent it to be cleaned, but events were so recent that I doubted he’d had a chance to do either.

  I stood over the bed. “Not Erik.”

  “Are you an angel?” Gary slurred.

  Rohan snorted and I stepped on his foot.

  “Check the hall closet,” I said quietly, then turned my attention back to Gary. “Yes. I’m an avenging angel.”

  I checked Gary’s drip. High was good, tripping balls high was better, since he’d never remember us. OD
high, however, if we’d accidentally interfered with something Lumberjack Nurse Erik had been adjusting, was not how I wanted this to play out. His drip didn’t seem to be flowing too fast or have an air bubble and I had to trust the dosage was correct.

  Gary nodded, like that made perfect sense. “Kill the person who destroyed my career.”

  “That’s right, Gary. I’m going to smite them.”

  “Because I was the best hockey player ever.”

  “Let’s not go that far,” I said. “You were grandstanding on your breakouts, rarely passing the puck to better positioned players.”

  “You’re a mean angel.” Gary frowned.

  Rohan entered the bedroom, jacket in hand. He unscrewed a mason jar with a mix of Snowdonia Hawkweed, salts, and water that we’d doctored up.

  “Three minutes.” He painted the mixture on Gary’s jacket in order to do the magic signature spell.

  “The best hockey player ever,” I repeated with forced enthusiasm. “Back to the night you got hit–”

  “Where are your wings?” Gary flapped his arms in slow-motion.

  “I left them at home. Stay with me here. On the video, you spoke to a woman. Right before you tripped off the curb. Who was she?”

  He crossed his arms. Missed and whacked himself in the chest. “No wings. You’re not an angel.”

  I blinked, suddenly backlit by a harsh white light. “Seriously?”

  Ro shrugged, the flashlight of his phone trained on me. “Try speaking in a more Heavenly voice.”

  He held the jacket up to me, now pulsing blue. Demon magic. Gary’s fall hadn’t been an accident.

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you?” I said, squinting.

  “Who are you speaking to?” Gary said. Ro was in the shadows and Gary couldn’t see him.

  “God,” Ro boomed out.

  I mimed gagging.

  “Ohhh.” Gary’s eyes bugged out. He also drooled a bit.

  “Gary Randall, you must cooperate,” Ro said in that same stupid voice.

  Much as I wish Ro’s egomania had spectacularly backfired, it did the trick because Gary nodded at me eagerly. As eager as possible given he was moving slower than molasses. “I’ll help you smite them, angel. What’s your name?”

  “Angelika,” I said at the same time that Ro said, “Charlie.”

  “Hi, Charlie.”

  “You’re not helping,” I hissed at my dumb boyfriend, who was silently snickering and holding up two fingers. Great. “Hi, Gary. Who was the woman? What was her name?”

  Even if we got an alias, it might be traceable.

  “Tia. She was so excited for me.” His head lolled back.

  We were losing him to the drugs. I slapped his cheek. “Stay with me, dude. Can you describe Tia? How’d you meet her?”

  “Met that night. Headed to different bars so texted later to meet up.”

  “One minute,” Ro murmured.

  “Do you still have the texts? Or a photo?”

  His eyes fluttered shut.

  “Thirty seconds,” Ro said.

  Gary grabbed my arms and I jumped. “Angel, make me better. Miracle me to play again.” There was such sorrow in his voice.

  I’d been so focused on what a douche he’d been in his hockey career that it hadn’t hit me that his dreams were dead. And as awful as that was, I couldn’t lie and pretend I could fix this. It would be too cruel when he realized that nothing had changed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said gently. “I can’t.”

  The alarm beeped, but Lumberjack Nurse Erik didn’t stir.

  Gary sighed, his shoulders slumping. Then he perked up. “S’okay. Once I get through rehab, I’m gonna act. I’m hot.”

  My sympathy leeched away.

  “Good for you, buddy,” Rohan pronounced.

  I grabbed Gary’s phone off the nightstand. “Give me your password.”

  Erik rustled at Ro’s feet.

  Ro crouched down, ready to administer a carotid sleeping hold to buy us a few extra seconds if necessary. “Hurry.”

  Four times I asked for and was given a wrong numeric code for Gary’s phone. Apparently, he changed it a lot. It wasn’t his birthday, wasn’t his home address, wasn’t some part of his phone number.

  Two more tries before the phone was disabled. “Focus, Gary.”

  His reply? A loud snore.

  What could it be? What did I know about him? He was arrogant and the code was six digits. “What day was he signed to Tampa?” I said. “Do you remember?” Luckily, Rohan did. I typed the day, month, and year in. “Fuck.”

  “Your Canadian is showing,” Ro said. “Gary’s American. Month then day.”

  I typed it in and was rewarded with his home screen. No photos but there was a text chain. I fired off a quick text wanting to chat. It was delivered, proving the number was still in play.

  Erik snorted back into consciousness, slowly blinking up at us. “Who are you?”

  “God,” Ro boomed, shining the light in the nurse’s eyes. “We are the glory you are not fit to gaze upon.”

  I rolled my eyes and portalled us out of there.

  Seated in the Shelby once more, I emailed Pierre the phone number I’d texted, asking if he could track the phone’s location since no one had responded to my text.

  We drove back to Casa Mitra in silence. I rolled the Shelby’s windows down, drinking in the city at night. I preferred L.A. this way with all her lit-up signs competing for attention and telling her story.

  Back at the bungalow, we made a fresh pot of coffee and rolled up our metaphoric sleeves. Rohan propped a pillow under his head and stretched out on the couch with a laptop balanced on his chest.

  Curled up in the comfy plush chair I’d pulled up beside him, I yawned, taking a swig of my lukewarm java. “Look at that.” I yawned again. “Sorry. It’s Hybris’ Roman name.”

  “Petulantia. Tia. Nicely done, witch girl.”

  “Imagine how amazing I’d be with sleep.”

  Pierre texted that Tia’s phone had been located in a dumpster in Burbank. Dead end.

  Rohan paged through Gary’s file. “Let’s check his friends’ social media accounts. Maybe one of them got a photo of her.”

  Gary had been with two buddies that night, also players from his Junior hockey team. One of them had no social media presence other than a pretty sparse Twitter account with some game results, but the other one’s Instagram was a shrine to his own shirtlessness combined with snaps of himself with every girl he’d ever wanted to bang. Or, in many cases, given the follow-up pix of them in bed, had.

  “A douche, but a predicable douche, which works for us.” Rohan showed me the photo he’d found. Captioned #wingman, it was a photo of this friend, Gary, and Tia, recognizable in the same clothes as from the video footage.

  Tia was about five-foot-ten, willowy, with long, black hair.

  “Celebration selfie,” I said, smushing my cheek up to Rohan’s.

  Right as I snapped it, he kissed me. The phone tumbled from my hand and hit the carpet with a gentle thump. My arms snaked around his neck and my world fell away under the taste of him, like every bad thing had been erased, like it was just us, forever.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Hello?” Baruch called out.

  Ro mimed shooting himself in the head. “To be continued. Coming, man.”

  Ro let Baruch in while I posted some more smug bullshit. Come and get me, Tia.

  “Greetings and salutations, Tree Trunk. Whoa. You look terrible.” I’d never seen him with bags under his eyes, a stoop to his shoulders, and smelling a bit rank in clothes he’d obviously slept in. At least they weren’t the same ones he’d fought Ethan in.

  “This is the first time I’ve left the chapter since the attack,” he said.

  Ro arranged for a late supper, which Baruch gratefully accepted. He unwrapped the foil from the plate Billie had brought him, thanking her for the steak and potatoes and picked up his knife, sawing away at the
slab of meat.

  “Witches. Tell me everything you know about them.”

  “We use elimination and infusion magic but Rasha only got the bit pertinent to killing demons.”

  “Elimination magic is negative?” Baruch said.

  “Not at all. There’s no value judgment either way.” I squirted ketchup onto the French fries that Ro had thoughtfully procured for me. “Portalling is elimination magic. So is healing if it’s killing disease. A lot of witches work in medical research.” I explained about how there was one magic pile and the more Rasha drew from it, the weaker the witches were. That was why they couldn’t just magically cure AIDS or cancer, but they could look for magic-infused chemical cures.

  “Sienna was a nurse,” he said.

  “Could that be relevant to her agenda?” Rohan said.

  “Which one?” Baruch said. “Attacking Rasha or binding demons?”

  “Sienna being a nurse is relevant because by all accounts, she was dedicated and great at her job. Everyone at the hospital adored her.” I munched a fry. “It’s hard to reconcile that person with someone who would unleash demons.”

  Baruch swallowed the half a steak that passed for a bite in his reality. “Table it until her motives are clearer. Infusion magic. Examples?”

  “Witches infuse the earth. Heal toxic land, repair blighted crops. A lot of us work in agriculture, medicine, engineering, geology, all types of sciences geared toward keeping the earth and her inhabitants as healthy as possible.” I dragged a fry through the ketchup. “I keep circling back to Tessa. That whatever the reason Sienna did this, it’s tied to Tessa.”

  “Sienna used dark magic to kill three people,” Rohan said. “She’s out for revenge.”

  “I’m not excusing that, but it was three specifically targeted people who are probably guilty of something. DSI was full of employees–if she wasn’t being careful, she could have easily taken out a dozen people. She didn’t. Nor did she hurt the witches that went looking for her in Jerusalem. She’s incredibly dangerous, but not bloodthirsty.”

  Baruch snorted. “That remains to be seen.”

  “Binding demons is dark magic, but it’s still elimination magic,” Rohan said, snagging a couple of fries. “Taking away free will. That’s what Sienna did to Ethan with this attack, which means we’re all vulnerable. It would be a point in favor of telling Mandelbaum what we know, except it’s countered by the hell-no negative that he’ll then do whatever it takes to find her.”