I sat across from them and ordered the tacquitos with avocado sauce, thanking the waiter for our tortilla chips and salsa. My stomach turned over at the smell of food, but if it meant keeping up “all is well” appearances in front of the demon, I’d muscle the food down with a smile on my face and ask for seconds.
Rohan popped the tab on his iced tea. “Gotta hand it to you. You’re excellent at ferreting things out.”
“What on this green and vibrant earth could you possibly want?” Baskerville frowned minutely at the tortilla-chip-and-salsa sandwich I stuffed into my mouth. “And please, spare me the posturing and the theatrics. I’ve already moved everything of value in the warehouse, so it’s no good threatening me with that.”
“Lots of on-call minions, huh?” Rohan said. “I want information. I get it, you live.”
“Information such as what?”
“Hybris.” I thanked the cook who’d placed a paper container with my two tacquitos drenched in avocado sauce in front of me, swallowed down the taste of bile, and cut off the smallest piece imaginable. “Where is she? We want every known hiding place of hers on earth, and a way to find her in the demon realm, too.”
“Oh, now I have no idea.”
Rohan jerked his hand on the kill spot and the demon flinched, all color draining from his face.
“I’m telling you the truth,” Baskerville insisted.
“Then who does? And think faster.”
“There’s an ooliach who frequents a, shall we say, less-than-top-notch establishment on Seventh Avenue called Deke’s. Go bother him.”
Something slithered against my leg and I yelped.
“Ah, yes. You might like to know that those are the poisonous barbs extending from my limbs. Pain upon pain, hellfire for days before you die. All if I so much as break the skin.” Baskerville smiled at Rohan pleasantly. “So it comes to you. Will you remove that very annoying knife or will poor dear Nava meet a slow and drawn-out end?”
Rohan retracted his blades.
“Bless your heart.” Baskerville stood up and straightened his cuffs. “And if it wasn’t already abundantly clear, please never call me again. My business is closed to you.”
I could only nod, busy forcing the tacquito down, but the moment the demon’s back was toward me, I nailed his kill spot with a thin current.
Buh-bye, Baskerville.
No one noticed the demoncide. The family had left, the cook whistled along to the mariachi music playing on his radio while he washed dishes, and the pedestrians were too pre-occupied with shopping to pay attention to what was happening inside the tiny restaurant.
Rohan raised an eyebrow.
“What?” I wiped sauce off my finger. I felt bad about killing him, but I wasn’t an idiot. I’d left Malik alive because he was too powerful and I was too drained at our last encounter to kill him. I’d pay for that when he next came after me, so I wasn’t about to look over my shoulder for another angry demon. “We couldn’t let him walk away. He would have retaliated and I’ve got enough on my plate.”
“No shit,” Rohan said, “but I thought I’d have to rationalize that fact to you after I’d killed him.”
“Yeah, we’re skipping the rationalizations now.”
Ro bussed our table, throwing out the garbage and placing the pop cans in a bin set out for recyclables. What a mensch.
My heart swelled two sizes. Maybe I could tell him now after he cleaned up my trash? Was that too weird? I mean, we’d change places before I said it. Hit the gazebo at the head of the street–that would be perfect. The thick ropy trunk of the sprawling tree with its deep roots would wave its leathery, dark green leaves at us in benediction and whatever mariachi tune floated over to us from the market would become “our song,” the one Ro would sing to me as he twirled me around the room, leaving me breathless with love and laughter.
I could tell him then.
When Ro came back, his features were grim. “I paid. Ooliach time.”
Or not.
* * *
Seventh Avenue ran through some nice areas but the closer we got to Matteo Street over in the Arts District near DSI, the more depressed it became. Various tent-cities occupied trash-strewn sidewalks in front of empty warehouses vying to be leased for film productions. Homeless people lay on the street watching planes rumble overhead, while the stench of grease wafted over everything from a nearby fast food chain.
Deke’s was down a couple blocks from the Greyhound Terminal, not far from the huge salmon pink factory that anchored the corner at Alameda. It was dark, dingy, and smelled like old Ripple chips. And that was on the outside.
The bartender looked surprised to see us enter, probably because the closed sign and locked front door were grimy with disuse. Also because he had two heads and, I’m betting, didn’t see a lot of walk-in human clients.
Sorry. Portal-in.
“Greetings and salutations, assorted spawn. We’re looking for an ooliach,” I said.
The various fanged, horned, and snarly creatures rose as one to their feet, hooves, and crab legs.
Ten minutes later, I’d decimated the bar’s pool of returning clientele with good old-fashioned magic lightning, discovered that kishi, these two-faced hyena demons were fucking batshit but would conveniently rip each other to shreds when they bled, and determined that yes, there was in fact booze too foul for human consumption.
While I’d single-handedly dealt with the rest of the demons, Rohan had tracked the ooliach. Okay, found him face-down drunk on the bar. Given his human form was about five feet tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet, the two empty glasses in front of him constituted a bender.
The weaselly little shit–did I mention they were weasel demons?–took one look at Rohan and his Rasha ring, and sneered. “Go away. I’ve had a really bad day.”
Then he lost his balance and almost fell off the stool.
Ro steadied him–by the scruff of the neck. “It’ll be your last day if you don’t talk.”
The ooliach hiccuped, wafting pickles.
I took a large step back.
“Whaddyawant?” the demon slurred.
“Where’s Hybris?” I said.
The demon held up one of his two furry, twig-like fingers, then passed out, hitting the bar so hard, he snapped two whiskers off of his snout.
Ro grabbed his arm. “Portal us back to DSI.”
“What about your car?”
“Fuck the car.”
Fuck the car? Yikes. I portalled us.
We landed in a supply closet on the main floor. My best option for using portal magic undetected.
I was half-jogging to keep up with Rohan, hell-bent for the iron room, when he swung us into the stairwell and almost collided with Rabbi Mandelbaum.
“What’s this?” the rabbi snapped. Dude’s kippah was half-off his head and his bloodshot eyes looked one more sleepless night away from total unhingement. He turned to me. “Deal with your mission so I can have Rohan back helping me.”
Rohan bristled. “The demon on our mission killed my cousin. So I’m going to take as long as I fucking have to to find her. Got it?”
“Watch your tone, Rohan. Your disrespect has gotten out of hand.” Mandelbaum cut a sideways glance at me, before stepping aside to let us pass.
Yeah, yeah. I’m the bad guy for leading your precious hunter astray.
Dragging the limp ooliach by an arm, Rohan flung open a door, and tossed the demon inside.
Torture time had begun.
It was obvious Rohan didn’t want me to participate (and honestly neither did I) and his movements with the blade made it clear he took no joy in this, not like Drio had when I met him. I would have left Rohan to it, but when I reached for the door he stopped, words on his lips I didn’t need to hear to decipher: please don’t leave me alone, not in this darkness.
My ass went numb from the iron floor, plus weird green demon fluids that had missed the drain had soaked my shoes, but I stayed. If my boyfriend was going
to lose it, I needed to be there.
We never got Tia’s location in the demon realm, and by the time the ooliach gave up the address of her son’s place in the valley, Rohan was bathed in sweat and there wasn’t a lot left of the demon.
Rohan pulled out his phone and hit a number, ignoring the twitching creature at his feet.
“How were the funerals?” On speakerphone, Drio sounded uncharacteristically somber, the usual sexiness of his Italian-accented English muted. I couldn’t help the small stab of loss at hearing his voice for the first time since he’d become, if not my enemy, no longer my friend, either.
There was a rustling on Drio’s end. “Say something, paesano. What’s up?”
“The demon Nava and I are tracking? Hybris. She killed Asha. It wasn’t the one you were after.”
Dead silence from Drio.
The ooliach jerked and splooshed out some more gross fluid.
“I need you here,” Rohan said.
“No. You have to kill Hybris.”
“Fuck, Drio.” Ro raked a hand through his hair. “You don’t need absolution. You have as much right to take her down as I do.”
“It’s not that.” Drio exhaled sharply. “If I come back, I’ll lose myself to the hate. I can’t keep living that way, Ro. It’s killing me.”
I closed my eyes against the quiver in his voice. Drio didn’t quiver. Drio was one of the deadliest people I’d ever met.
“It doesn’t mean I love Asha any less,” Drio said.
“I would never think that.” Ro sounded fierce enough to convince even Drio who gave a quiet, “okay.”
“Come back anyway,” Ro said. “You need to move on. There doesn’t have to just be one person.”
Drio’s laugh was harsh. “I wouldn’t go that far. I can’t stay stuck in the past, but maybe the present is good enough. Take that bitch down.”
“I swear it.” Rohan tucked the phone away. “Let’s go.” His eyes burned with a feverish gleam.
“Rohan.” He didn’t stop, so I put the ooliach out of his misery and followed, Robin to Ro’s totally psycho Batman.
Two months ago, I’d have fought Rohan about his behavior, but with my new in-love realization, it was hard to tell him he was wrong. He wanted to kill Hybris and get closure; I just wasn’t sure that was going to let the ugly gash he bore from Asha’s death heal cleanly.
Rohan needed to forgive, himself most of all. I didn’t know if he’d be receptive to my insights in his current frame of mind, so I supported him by portalling us.
Hybris wasn’t there but we found her son Koros in baggy pants, lounging by the pool and surrounded by succubi in thong bikinis. Maybe this was normal for the valley?
I machine gunned the females with my magic in their tramp stamps. I mean, yeah, the tattoos were offensive, but those glittery butterflies and hearts were also their kill spots.
Koros was so high, it took him a moment to notice that no one was grinding up on him anymore. “The fuck are you?”
Of course he had one of those stupid gold dental grills. I itched to kill this walking travesty so badly, but who was I to deprive Ro of the pleasure?
“Where’s Hybris?” Ro said.
“Not here.”
“I’m going to say this one more time. Where’s? Hybris?”
Koros shot him the finger.
And when Rohan left the note saying “sorry we missed you,” on the lounger, the gold dental grille kept it from flying away.
* * *
Baruch peered in through the bungalow’s window back at Dev and Maya’s, an actual worried expression on his face at the sight of Ro sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest and his shoulders slumped.
I shook my head.
Baruch turned to speak to Ari who bobbed up behind him.
Ari tugged on his ear lobe, our twin code for “I have your back.”
I gave him a sad smile. There was nothing he could do for me if there was nothing I could do for Rohan.
“How do I tell my family that I let her go?” Ro’s words startled me. He hadn’t spoken since he’d killed Koros an hour ago.
I fingered the pendant containing the Bullseye like it was a talisman. “You couldn’t have killed Tia at the cemetery. Those women had their phones out. You would have caused mass panic. You can’t beat yourself up about this.”
“Still, I should have been able to do something more than just let her walk away.”
“No.” I hugged him, his head resting against my chest since he was seated on the floor and I was on the sofa. “Remember when we found out that it was Asmodeus who’d taken Ari? You told me to take what I was feeling and let it fuel me not consume me. You gotta do the same. We’ll get her. I promise you. I promise Asha. But you need to let yourself out of this guilt prison you’ve built. Because if you don’t, then Tia wins. She becomes this specter that ruins the rest of your life and I can’t imagine Asha would have wanted that for you.”
His arms tightened around me and he dragged in a shaky breath. “Okay.”
“Go. Talk to your parents.”
“I don’t deserve you.” He stood up.
“Au contraire, baby. I’m exactly what you deserve.”
“Back soon.” He kissed me, then left wearing a troubled expression.
I called Leo from the bedroom, flopped on the bed. I squirmed over to lay on Rohan’s side. Sniffing his pillow may have been involved.
“Where are you?” I said. “I hear muzak.”
“Grocery shopping. I’m glam like that.”
“Can you go sit in your car or something?”
“Why?”
“Ro spoke to Drio.”
“Good for him. Debit please,” Leo said to the checkout person.
I had half her attention at best right now, but as I told her about Tia and Asha, the silence on the other end grew more focused.
“He doesn’t want to come back from Rome to avenge the great love of his life.” Leo slammed her car door. “And?”
Why was I surrounded by stubborn people? Soon as this mission was over, I was going to get a group of easygoing friends. “Did you hear the rest of it? The part about the hate killing him?”
“You know what I didn’t hear? Any mention of me.”
“Leo.”
“No,” she growled. “I can’t go there.”
“He’s not going to kill you. He won’t even hurt you. I really believe that.”
“He already hurt me. I didn’t expect him to be in love with me, or even get over Asha. If I’d had someone like that, I’d love her forever, too. But all he saw when he threatened me was a PD. After everything that had been building between us, he looked at me and saw scum.”
“To be fair, we kind of dropped a bomb on him.”
“Are you taking his side?”
“I’m always on your side. I just think that if you have a chance at love you should take it.”
“I’m living the Cole years all over again.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have Rohan who’s stupid for you. Yay, you. You were exactly like this when you were with Cole, trying to get everyone else around happily settled. Don’t, Nee. You can’t expect us to find that just because you suddenly did.”
“Maybe you would if you actually put yourself out there.”
“You of all people cannot be saying that to me.”
“And yet, here I am. Yes. Drio was a big idiot and walked away while Rohan gave me chance after chance. But I almost lost Ro and I don’t want you losing out. So you get me pushing you because I’ve watched you find reasons not to get involved with lots of great people.”
“I was involved with Madison.”
“You used Madison. Mutually used,” I amended. “You said it yourself. You and she had sexual chemistry and a solid friendship and it was never going to be more than that. Which is fine but there was no need to commit and that’s why you didn’t run from her.”
She made a noise to
interrupt me, but I barreled ahead.
“Think about it. Drio wouldn’t have even given you a warning if he wasn’t stupid for you, too. Call him. Text him. Make contact.” The quality I’d sensed in Drio’s voice was now painfully clear. “He sounded so lonely.”
“Have you spoken to him?” she said.
“No.”
“Have you told Le Mitra you love him?”
“Who said I did?”
She waited me out.
“Okay, yes. I totally love him, but how did you know?”
“Know that you love him or know that you haven’t told him?” she said.
“Both. Either.”
She waited me out again.
“Whatever. Are you going to call Drio?”
“No chance. You’re incredibly irritating, but I love you. Schmugs.”
“You’re incredibly annoying, but I love you, too.” I sighed. “Schmugs.”
I tossed the phone on the bed right as the front door to the bungalow opened, grateful I was spared having the most important three words of my life being overheard like cheap gossip.
“In here,” I called out.
Ro lounged in the doorway, looking a tad emotionally frayed.
“How’d it go?”
“Shitty, but cathartic, if that makes sense.”
“It does.”
We went back to his house for the night, because as Ro said, he had good whiskey, and between learning about Asha and Ethan, he was drinking himself into a stupor. “Tonight is my next Thursday, Sparky.”
“Rage away, Snowflake. I’ll keep you safe.”
I cut him off when he had to be cut off, covered him with a blanket when he passed out, and held him tight all night. And I may have whispered that I loved him a time or two, hoping it made it into his dreams and took away some of his pain.
23
Rohan was up early on Monday morning, seated at the piano determined to nail Asha’s song. “After I kill Hybris,” he said, “I’m going to write a reprise to ‘Asp’ that will go after ‘Slay,’ the final song. Then the story will be finished.”
It would be wonderful if he could write his way into closure, though I doubted it was that simple. Hmm. This wasn’t the moment to gloat that my song was on the album, but was it the moment to tell him how I felt?
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Fall Page 23
