Zander’s clothes were piled on the floor in heaps. Some looked flatter and ranker than others, so I checked pockets in those piles more quickly. With all this clothing strewn on the carpet, there wasn’t much left in his drawers. Some ratty T-shirts and a healthy stash of pot paraphernalia, including a couple of resin-caked pipes.
His few books didn’t reveal any secret documents.
Mandelbaum would have already searched the room but if the guard was there, he must not have found what he was looking for.
There was nothing under the bed or between the mattress and the frame.
I flung open the closet door, listening to Rohan being ordered away despite his best efforts to keep the guard engaged. I pushed the clothes aside and examined the walls for any indication of a hidden compartment. Zilch.
Next, I stepped into the center of the room, trying to think like Zander. He’s got hold of something that he shouldn’t. He’s worried. Paranoid? He’s definitely stoned.
I eyed the large carved hookah sitting on his dresser. The plastic pipe and mouthpiece had fallen off.
The bedroom door opened.
As the slash of light from the hallway washed over me, I snagged a couple wisps of Lilith’s magic from the hairline fracture, called up an electromagnetic field, and deflected the fuck out of that light to create an invisibility cloak. I refused to portal out before I’d checked the hookah.
The overhead light snapped on.
I didn’t dare to breathe, didn’t dare to move my eyes and check if it had worked. I could see Mandelbaum’s Rasha, but could he see me?
He looked around the room, but didn’t spot me.
Whoa. I was freaking invisible. Wait until I told Esther!
However, I didn’t know how to move around with the cloaking intact and I still took up space. In about six more steps, he’d knock into me.
Five…
Four…
He was wearing Old Spice.
Three…
I sucked in a breath, making myself as tall and thin as possible as his arm almost brushed mine.
Two…
“Pietr?”
The Rasha stopped and turned towards Mandelbaum’s voice. “In here.”
Rabbi Mandelbaum stepped into the room. “Why did you leave your post?”
Sweat ran down my back. Yay me for pulling this trick off, but I had no idea how long I could hold it.
I counted off the seconds while the Rasha told the rabbi he’d heard something, Mandelbaum told him he’d been imagining things, and they then discussed a few details about the funeral.
Ohmigod, shut up already.
At the forty-two second mark, my shield started to fail from my feet up.
It was dumb luck that they didn’t look down before leaving the room and closing the door.
I collapsed against the dresser, my entire body trembling as I shook the hookah. It was heavy and water sloshed around inside it. I held it up by my ear and shook it again. The water wasn’t just sloshing, it was quietly slapping against something.
I unscrewed the base, breathing through my mouth at the rank bong water, and flipped the carved body over. A tightly rolled paper encased in plastic had been stuffed up the hollow section. I didn’t bother examining it there, portalling out to Rohan’s car.
His hands were tense on the wheel. “Trouble?”
Other than using Lilith’s magic?
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” I clicked the seatbelt in and sank back against the seat, gripping the roll of paper. “Let’s get out of here.”
After I’d showered, changed into funeral-appropriate clothing, and chugged back a bunch of electrolytes, we sought out Baruch. The larger bungalow where he and Ari were staying had been transformed into the proverbial investigation HQ. I suspected my brother’s hand in the set up because Ari was mad for crime dramas.
War was in the air. A sharp bite in the wary looks and tense conversations, along with a gut-twisting certainty that Sienna’s attack had set a snowball of events in motion.
One wall had been cleared of artwork to make room for a giant whiteboard upon which was taped photos of all the major players, divided into one of two columns. Either they sat under Mandelbaum’s photo or Sienna’s, though most everyone was posted under the rabbi’s photo as confirmed or suspected Rasha or rabbis. My brother had written “zealot minion” for each of Mandelbaum’s posse in his neat printing.
Sienna’s associates were limited to Ethan and Tessa.
String and pushpins were used to connect various people, like Tessa to Ferdinand or Ethan to Mandelbaum.
Any known motive had been written down in dry erase marker under the photo. While there was a detailed agenda for Mandelbaum, only the word “revenge?” was ascribed to Sienna. It wasn’t enough to find Sienna before Mandelbaum did; we also had to untangle how everyone fit together.
Danilo and Cisco were on their phones, checking in with trusted Rasha and getting flight details.
Bastijn stood next to a large map of Los Angeles hung on another wall, consulting a list of places pinned along the side and marking off the ones where they’d already searched for Sienna. They’d combed the city, even intimidating various demons, hoping for any bead on her whereabouts, but she was a ghost.
Baruch was on his phone as well, deep in a rapid-fire Hebrew conversation. Rabbi Mandelbaum’s screaming voice was bellowing out of the other end.
It had to be killing him to be stymied by the witches.
Ari waved us over to the large conference table that had replaced the sofas. He dug through a stack of color-coded files, each one neatly marked with the name of one of the players.
“Check it out.” He slid an orange folder with Rabbi Wahl’s name over to me. “Oh, and hey, Nee?” He tugged on his earlobe. “Fuck those reporter scum.”
“Thanks, Ace.” I scanned the top sheet summary and whistled. “Wahl is Ex-Mossad?”
“Part of an assassination cell,” he said.
“How did you get this?” Rohan asked. “It’s got to be classified.”
My brother jerked his chin at Baruch, his eyes gleaming in fanboy adoration. “Dude has friends in high places.”
Rohan tapped a date typed on the paper. “Wahl came to L.A. two years ago, but he left the Mossad ten years ago. What’s he been doing all that time?”
Ari dug out another couple of pages and lay them on the table. “Not proof, just conjecture. This is a list of everywhere we could place him. And this?”
It was a half-dozen news clippings about the deaths of politicians, high-ranking military, and behind-the-scenes powers players around the world. They matched up with Wahl’s travel.
“Mandelbaum has a hit squad?”
All activity screeched to a stop. Like I heard the record scratch. Everyone stared at me.
“Care to repeat that? I don’t think they heard you in the main house,” Rohan said. “Do you think that all of his crew was involved in shit like this?”
“Yeah.” Ari tapped the pages into a neat line. “You know what this means, Nee? Ilya was no innocent. With everything he’s done, Mandelbaum wouldn’t have had him taken out for just being spacey the past few days. This isn’t on you.”
He meant well.
“It’s a clusterfuck out there.” Cisco tossed his burner phone on the table. “All the chapters are edgy. Rumors are floating around of attacks that never materialize.”
“Sienna is playing cat and mouse,” Bastijn said.
“I hate being the mouse,” Danilo grumbled.
“Anything on the coroner’s report?” I’d passed on the information Raquel had given me the night of Zack’s event.
“The estimation of when Tessa got those bruises matched up with the fight Zander and Ferdinand had,” Ari said. “We spoke to the witch that handled the autopsy for Raquel and she admitted that Sienna had contacted her soon after Tessa’s death for the same autopsy request. When she heard that the head of the coven here had already asked for it, Sienna th
anked her politely and said she’d get it from Raquel. But here’s the thing. The witch said that when she was doing the autopsy, she had the strongest sensation of being watched.”
“She probably was,” I said. “Either Sienna was there cloaked somehow, or she’d put something in place to alert her. Magical tracking wouldn’t be tough for her.”
Baruch clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “Rabbi Wahl’s funeral has been postponed until 3PM. They’re expecting a large turnout and want it to be the last funeral of the day.”
There went my Sunday.
“Next item,” Baruch said. “Rabbi Mandelbaum has called the Executive and the other rabbis to Los Angeles for a meeting on Tuesday. We don’t know if his men have found Sienna, but everyone needs to be prepared for an acceleration of events.”
“Are we going to be present at this meeting?” Cisco asked.
“We haven’t been invited, which doesn’t mean I’m not going.” Baruch’s blue eyes darkened in menace and my heart leapt into my throat.
I held the folder up like it could protect me if he raged out.
“It’s my chance to see who his allies are,” he said. “The second we have hard proof of what he’s done, we’re forcing him and the Executive out. No more rabbis in leadership and Rasha on the street. The Brotherhood needs to be more collaborative and hunters need to take a more active role.”
He got my vote for leader. The other men nodded at his words.
I half-raised my hand. “I checked Zander’s room. I was hoping for details about what they were up to or even where Wahl and Ferdinand had been conducting their business. Mandelbaum’s men were modifying demons, but we still don’t know where.”
“There has to be some kind of base,” Rohan said.
“I looked as well,” Bastijn said. “I never found Zander’s laptop and his phone got destroyed in the attack.”
Mandelbaum must have confiscated the computer the second he got to Los Angeles.
“I did, however, find this.” I pulled two sheets of stapled paper out of my pocket, unfolded them, and smoothed out the crease. They smelled faintly of bong water.
Cisco peered over my shoulder. “A lease agreement. Who’s Millicent Daniels?”
“Millicent is Sienna’s birth mother. Someone went to the trouble of continuing a lease in a dead woman’s name. Probably Tessa, and now likely where Sienna has been hiding out.” I explained about Tessa and Sienna growing up in the same foster home. “I bet this was what Ferdinand wanted to give to Mandelbaum. We dodged a bullet.”
Cisco put his two fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. “Heads up, people. We have an apartment to check out.”
“You can’t go,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Danilo kissed each of his massive biceps. “Bring it.”
“I’m serious. You guys are no match for a witch with dark magic. Not to mention there could be deadly wards on this place that none of us can sense. Don’t underestimate Sienna. We need to be smart about this.”
“How?” Cisco said.
“Let me call in my friend. Dr. Gelman.”
“The one that helped induct Ari?” Bastijn crossed off the last area on the list of possible Sienna hideouts. “Can she be trusted on this?”
“I trust her with my life. She can check out the apartment with me and if need be, we’ll call in reinforcements.” I’d need the other witches here for my Lilith extraction anyway.
“You don’t mean us, do you?” Bastijn said.
“Nope. Ladies-only on this one.” Stepping outside for a bit of privacy, I quickly updated Esther on what we’d found.
She agreed that she should be there with me. Apparently, Rivka had gotten back from London with the vessel to contain Lilith, so Esther would bring that along. Afterwards, we’d meet with the other witches and we’d get Lilith out of me once and for all.
Oh… good. “When can you get here?”
“Hmmm.” I heard the clacking of a keyboard. “I can get a flight tomorrow afternoon. I don’t want to portal because I’ll need all my strength.”
“Fair enough. I’ll see you then. And, Esther?”
“Yes?”
“I’m really glad you’re coming. I miss you.”
“Sentimental nonsense,” she said. “You just saw me days ago.”
She totally missed me too.
20
The moment I stepped back inside, Cisco stuffed me into a chair next to Rohan. I sent Ro a questioning look and he shrugged.
Cisco opened the fridge. “Happy engagement!”
The L.A. contingent broke into hoots and whistles as he set a cake shaped like a semi-erect penis down in front of me.
Ari merely shook his head while Baruch looked profoundly disturbed.
“You people are children,” Baruch said.
“Tree Trunk, do the naughty edibles upset you?”
Baruch scowled at me and decamped into his bedroom.
“I mean, he’s not wrong to flee.” I grimaced at the cake.
It was a flesh-colored atrocity, complete with chocolate sprinkles on the balls for pubes. The words “To Have and To Hold” were written in icing script along the shaft.
“You really shouldn’t have,” Rohan said. The guys knew perfectly well that it was a fake engagement.
“I know.” Cisco looked smug. “That’s what makes me so great.”
“Putting the ejaculating in congratulating,” Danilo said.
Bastijn snickered. “Chevere.”
Danilo and Bastijn fist-bumped.
“Pucker up.” Cisco knelt down with his mouth close to the tip. “You’ll get a special surpriiiise,” he sang.
“Herpes?” I said.
Danilo laughed. “We should have had it rigged with those spicy cinnamon schnapps.”
“Gross.” Ari stood up. “I’m out. I can’t unsee my sister getting jizzed.”
“Fair point,” I said. “But I’m not planning on—whoa. Okay.”
Cisco had shoved Rohan’s chair directly in front of the blow hole. “No offense, kiddo, but you are not the photo opp that I ponied up big bucks for.”
“Yet you still insist you’re straight,” Bastijn said, musingly.
Rohan rolled out his shoulders. “When you guys are lying awake at night lonely and depressed because you will never find anyone whose mouth is a marvel like mine, don’t come crying to me.”
“A marvel, huh?” I said.
He winked at me.
“That’s the spirit.” Cisco got his phone ready.
“Wait.” I got out my phone, too.
“So predictable.” Rohan bent over and opened his mouth.
Cisco hit the little pump. The cream stuttered out like penile dribble. “Huh.”
He pumped it again. Nothing.
Once more with feeling.
The pump rumbled.
Rohan ducked.
The cream jetted out over Rohan’s head, hitting Danilo in the stomach.
Bastijn hooted. “I knew you liked it messy, chamo.”
Danilo didn’t miss a beat. He swiped his finger through the cream and licked it off with relish.
Then Rohan one-upped him and did the same.
Cisco pretended to wipe tears from his eyes. “I can die happy.”
I checked the burst of photos I’d taken. “Me too.”
“Had I known we were having this kind of party, I’d have come back sooner.” Kane lounged in the doorway.
I was hit with three unassailable facts. First, Kane was drunk, swaying on his feet and reeking of booze.
“Fucking hell,” Ari said, having left the bedroom at the sound of Kane’s voice.
Second, Kane was dressed in all-black. No fashion nightmare, just pure badassery. Had the apocalypse started?
Ari examined Kane with a similarly wary look.
And third, from his messy hair, post-coital glow, and oh yeah, the giant hickey on his neck, he was freshly fucked.
“What
did you find out?” Baruch strode out of his room.
Kane blinked because he’d just seen Ari come out of there as well. He grabbed an unopened bottle of beer from the table, twisted off the cap, then dropped into a chair and plunked his feet on the table.
“Raise your hand if you knew Ethan was part of the swinger community.” No one did. “Did none of you ever see the tattoo on his inner thigh? Male symbol with two female symbols?”
“Oh,” Ari said.
“Really? You’re the one that gets it?” Kane chugged some beer.
“Wasn’t looking at his thigh,” Danilo said.
“Is that why you wanted to see the tattoos?” I said.
“Tattoos and scars can tell you a lot about a person. If you know to look.” He shot a scathing glance at everyone.
“How is poking around in the man’s private life relevant?” Cisco said.
“Kane.” Baruch took his beer away. Kane swiped for it, but Baruch held it out of reach. “You’ve had enough.”
“I trolled the local scene,” Kane drawled. “Your boy had some interesting tastes.” Danilo bristled at him, but Kane just rolled his eyes. “Calm down. I’m hardly one to judge.”
“No kidding,” Ari said.
“Heard that,” Kane sang. “I found Ethan’s preferred hangout and that he’d gone to play there the night before the attack, then I charmed the security footage out of the bouncer and–” At Ari’s snort, Kane raised his eyebrows. “You want me to continue or not?”
“By all means,” Ari said.
Kane tipped back onto two legs of the chair. “The footage isn’t monitored and luckily, I got it before it reset and was recorded over. Guess who brushed past Ethan on the street when the club let out that night? One touch and bam. Sienna.”
“That’s hardly earth-shattering.” Bastijn waved a dismissive hand at him. “We know she forced him.”
“Not enough for you?” Kane thunked his chair back onto the floor. “Then how about this? For the past couple of years until about four months ago, your boy was making himself a nice little witchy side income to the tune of two grand a month.”
Baruch wrote everything Kane said under Ethan’s photo.
“Doing what?” Rohan said.
“No clue? But whatever it was, he was doing it for Tessa.”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Fall Page 20
