“Ro?”
He was lost to me, testing out chords.
Apparently not. I kissed him goodbye and portalled to the address I had for Millicent’s apartment in West Los Angeles. Portalling was a fairly gentle sensation. A slight tug from my core propelling me forward as I popped out of one place and appeared in the other.
I started strong. I’d had a good night sleep, and my detox symptoms had subsided. I fixed the address in my head, closed my eyes, and eliminated the spaces in between. Why hello, gentle tug… and whaaaat?
I stopped dead, yanked backward like someone had grabbed my waist with a giant hook.
I landed on my feet, none the worse for wear, though that would change in approximately four seconds when the big rig bearing down on me splattered me all over the California highway.
I tried to flash out.
Hoooonk!
Three seconds.
The semi’s brakes screeched; burning rubber filled the air.
Two seconds.
I was a deer in the headlights, frozen in place in the second-to-left lane of an eight-lane highway. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
The driver’s face contorted in horror. I was going to be dead, but she was going to have to live with the consequences.
Gritting my teeth, I dug deep.
I flashed out with a millisecond to spare. The truck whipped past, its rush of wind propelling me through my portal. Better for that driver to think she was seeing things than live with a death.
Trust me.
I tumbled onto the side lawn of Millicent’s place. It was another hazy, smoggy morning, already very hot and very dry, but I was shivering, bathed in cold sweat. There was no way I’d miscalculated that badly.
I checked Lilith’s prison.
The box pulsed, that oily black light spilling out from all the seams. Lilith actively trying to get me killed was bad. Was it the end of the world? Not if the familiar thin woman stepping out of a taxi had anything to say about it.
Esther had refused my offer to pick her up at the airport, saying she liked to have alone time to decompress after the stress of flying.
I bounded over and threw my arms around her, crushing her giant purse.
She pressed a hand to her heart. “You never heard of waving?”
“Yeah, but I wanted to hug you.” I took her suitcase, my adrenaline jitters from the truck episode smoothing into a warm mellow buzz at her presence.
This stubborn old witch was one of my favorite people in the entire world and having her here was a shot of hope. With the Bullseye hanging around my neck in its pendant, the sun shining merrily, and Sienna within reach, I practically skipped along the flagstone path.
Even the clatter of Esther’s suitcase wheels tapped out an up-tempo staccato.
Millicent’s apartment was actually one of two buildings on the property, each vaguely Spanish-looking, that flanked a long rectangular pool. An abundance of trees cast dappled pockets of shade and kept the complex cool. The place in question was located at the far end of the north building, with a private staircase leading to the second-floor apartment.
The gauzy curtains were cracked open wide enough to see that no one was in the living room or kitchen.
Esther pushed me behind her. “The doormat has a pressure sensitive ward on it. And that door.” She rummaged in her oversized purse for a pair of reader glasses and slid them on. “The ward on it is a thing of beauty. What a waste of talent.”
I sat down on the top stair, but didn’t even have a chance to get comfortable, before she announced, “Get up, lazy bones.”
The front door now stood open.
I stepped into the humid foyer. “What if Sienna shows up?”
“She won’t kill me.”
“How reassuring.”
“Fine. I won’t let her hurt you either.” She pushed her glasses into her hair. “Don’t let me forget these are here.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Getting old is the pits.”
The apartment had sponged yellow walls with stenciled ivy paint around the doorframes. It was an interesting choice with the red and blue modular furniture. The walls were bare, not a single personal memento in the place.
I reached for a blue glass vase filled with blue marbles. “It’s so clean in here.”
“Stop.”
I froze, bent forward, my hand hovering in mid-air and my fingertips barely touching the glass.
“Get under the dining room table.”
I did as I was told, scrunching up into a tight ball under the heavy wooden table to make room for Esther and the suitcase. “What’s going on?”
“This is an old building. They’re not well sealed. Even the tidiest housekeeper can’t prevent dust motes floating in the air. The room is glamoured.”
“Booby trapped, too?”
“I can’t tell. But better safe than sorry. I need to remove the glamour from inside the room, but we don’t want to be exposed when it happens.”
“Why not?” I said.
She flexed her fingers, pushed them slowly outward, and then snapped them sharply down.
The air splintered, falling around us in translucent shards. They shattered against the wooden floor with a loud crash, melting into the wood.
I snatched a shard out of the air before it hit. Solid and deadly sharp. I tossed it out onto the floor. I was totally learning that trick.
“All clear,” Esther said.
The glamour hadn’t replaced the questionable interior decorating, but it did reveal that the walls weren’t bare at all.
They were covered in photos.
I helped Esther to her feet. “Damn, lady. You’re good.”
“You should have seen me before the cancer.” She turned in a slow circle. “I don’t sense any dark magic or other wards.” She removed the purse she’d been wearing messenger bag-style and dropped it on the sofa. “Let’s contact Sienna.”
She pulled something out of her bag.
“Whatcha got? Eye of newt? Toe of frog?” I snatched the Tupperware out of her hands and opened it. “Rugelach?!”
Esther grunted, heading into the kitchen and placing the Tupperware on the counter. “That stupid Shakespeare play set our community’s reputation back millennia.”
“That’s your takeaway? You’re bribing the Wicked Witch of the West.” I contained my pout that she never made me those stupid cookies.
“A goodwill gesture, in case she shows.” Closing the container, she dug into her pocket and pulled out a black rubber bracelet with “Fuck Cancer” in white on it. “Sienna bought this when she heard about my diagnosis. Wore it in solidarity.” She traced a finger over the embossed letters then handed it to me. “Ever since Sienna disappeared, I’ve been trying to contact her. Magically.”
“Are we talking magic voicemail, magic FaceTime, or magic email? Ooh. Or a kind of magic Snapchat dealie?”
Esther mimed for me to zip my lips. “More like a magic tap on the shoulder. They are fairly gentle and wouldn’t have worked to contact her before, but now that I have this?” She pulled out a Ziplock bag filled with small, spiky, olive green leaves. “It will amplify the tap to a punch. Hopefully, she’ll answer.”
“I’m not sure I should be part of this.”
Esther’s eyes narrowed.
I blurted out about the side effects I’d been having and my reluctance to use any more of Lilith’s magic.
“Hallelujah,” she said. “The girl sees sense. You didn’t go far enough down that path for there to be lasting effects. Once she’s out, you should be back to normal in a couple days. No magic rehab for you.”
“Is that a thing?”
“I’d make it a thing.” She unzipped the baggie and removed a leaf. “And I wasn’t planning to involve you anyway. I don’t want Sienna sensing the dark magic and coming after you.” Esther placed the leaf under her tongue, held the bracelet cupped between her palms and sent out her magic punch.
Sien
na didn’t respond.
Esther prodded me back into the living room. “Give her some time to answer.”
“Here.” I tossed her a set of latex gloves that I had stuffed in my pocket, my attention drifting between examining the dog-eared paperbacks for hidden documents and examining Tessa and Sienna’s lives unfold in photos.
There were even faded pictures featuring a slight brunette that must have been Millicent. A few showed her pregnant, but none showed her holding Sienna.
It was weird seeing a young Sienna goofing around with Tessa, who was maybe ten years her senior and as much a sister as if she’d been blood.
I’d have meted out worse on the Brotherhood if they’d taken Ari from me, so it’s not like I didn’t understand why Sienna had attacked the Los Angeles chapter. But what if in taking her revenge Sienna unleashed the apocalypse? She had to be stopped.
I multitasked, going through the contents of the apartment while summing up everything that had happened with Mandelbaum and Lilith since Esther and I had last seen each other.
I pulled the pendant out of my shirt. “These symbols are protective, not destructive, right?”
“Yes. They’re keeping the Bullseye safe.” Esther ran a thumb over the front, then dropped the pendant lightly against my chest. “I want Lilith out of you today. The vessel is in my purse and the others are on stand-by to portal in. Raquel said we could go to her place when we were finished and get it done.”
I carefully replaced the books I’d searched through and hugged her again. Shouldn’t this dark magic leaking into me make me want to get all destructo, instead of wanting to put on my sweats, watch Super Bowl commercials, and cry?
“Don’t get weepy.” She stepped back with a pat to my shoulder. “Isaac and I were on the same flight. That man snores like a stuffed-up elephant. He was vibrating my seat at the back of the plane.”
“Don’t mock Rabbi A.”
“I’ve known the man for over forty years. I’ll mock all I want.”
“He must be here for Mandelbaum’s big meeting.”
“Mandelbaum.” Esther examined the entertainment cabinet. “He’s been harassing Raquel.”
“Raquel held her own. But yeah, he’s on the warpath for witches.”
“He’s on the warpath to find one he can use. He doesn’t give a damn about us other than how we can serve him.”
“If Sienna targeted the Brotherhood because of what happened to Tessa, she’ll go ballistic if he hurts any innocent witches,” I said.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
We had no luck in the living room, so we moved into the kitchen, methodically searching every drawer and cabinet.
I rummaged through the junk drawer. There were old chopstick packages, a cloth measuring tape, a tiny battery-operated fan, and a rolling pin.
“As soon as Lilith’s out, I’m going to take everyone out for a fancy dinner. All the witches, and Rabbi A, and Ari, and Rohan, and Baruch, and Kane and the L.A. Rasha. Oh, and Maya and Dev.”
Esther opened a drawer revealing pots and pans inside. “How are you going to pay for it all?”
“Rohan obviously. We’re celebrating his girlfriend being alive.”
“He’s a lucky man,” she said wryly.
“Right?” I opened the freezer. There was a freezer-burned bag of corn and a cloudy tray of ice. “This is pointless.”
We hit the jackpot in the bedroom.
“It’s like conspiracy central.” I whistled at the grainy photos of an Area 51-esque compound in the desert that were tacked to the walls. All the angles were covered: from aerial views to shots from every side taken using a telephoto lens.
A huge map of the California desert was also pinned up, with sections crossed out in marker. It was exactly what Bastijn had been doing to find Sienna and would have been funny if it wasn’t a hunt for a powerful witch mirroring a hunt for a secret compound.
“Fuck.” Esther picked up a crescent moon pendant from the dresser.
I scurried over because she didn’t drop F-bombs.
“Is that the necklace Tessa was wearing in the photo I have of her and Ferdinand?” I sniffed the air. “I smell bitter lemon.”
She pressed down on one of the points of the pendant and it popped open, revealing a narrow hidden compartment filled with a pale yellow powder. The smell of bitter lemon intensified.
“Erocine powder,” she said. “Its organic base is a mild toxin, but according to lore, witches would combine it with dark magic and let it sit, growing in potency until it matured to full power on the summer solstice. It would have been bright yellow at that point and instantly fatal.”
“Does it lose its strength? Because it’s almost white again.”
Esther closed up the pendant. “Yes. Erocine powder was banned by our community about a hundred years ago. Tessa may have been planning to use it on Ferdinand.”
“Or Mandelbaum. It would make sense. She hated Rasha and here was the leader. She could have gone along with his plans as a way of getting close enough to take him out. Pity.”
“Condoning murder now, are you?” she said.
“Meet the man and then get back to me.” I photographed the compound photos.
“Finish up and we’ll head to Raquel’s. I’ll meet you in the living room.”
“On it.” I sent the photos to Ari, with a short note explaining where I’d found them and that we needed to know where and what this place was.
“Where are my damn glasses?” I heard Esther say.
Chuckling, I headed down the hallway after her and stepped into the living room doorway. “On your…”
Esther pressed one hand to the bloody gaping gash across her throat, blood spilling through her fingers like silk. She reached out for me with the other, her fingertips grazing mine before she crumpled to the ground next to her purse.
“…head.”
I shook my head, not computing. Not Esther and not Oskar, standing in the open front doorway.
Esther gave a gasping wheeze like a slow pressure cooker decompressing. Her eyelids fluttered and she fell still.
“Stop it.” I fell to my knees, shaking her.
Oskar flung green magic at me. It passed over my head to hit the wall, eating through the plaster.
I blasted him into the kitchen, clamping my left hand against Esther’s throat and attempting to use my healing magic to fix her.
To get her to breathe.
Blood coated my hands, viscous as molasses. Its hot sickly stench turned my stomach. I sealed her flaps of skin together and pressed my lips to hers to give her mouth-to-mouth.
Breathe.
She refused to obey. I fixed the image of Lilith’s box in my mind and swiped inside the hairline fracture to grab a metaphoric fingerful of Lilith’s magic straight from the source. Like stealing batter from a magic cookie bowl.
I couldn’t get into the box. I could only access those wisps that were doing fuck-all.
Breathe.
Oskar jumped me, knocking me sideways. He grabbed my head and slammed it onto the ground, face first.
My vision doubled and a tinny ringing sound overpowered everything else. His acid magic sizzled through my scalp, hot rivers of lava burning their way into the side of my head. My hair fell to the ground in charred clumps.
I’d barely pushed myself up before he yanked my head back again.
My electric magic exploded over my skin, crackling away like a bonfire.
“Shut it down.” Still standing behind me, he clamped my jaw, twisting my face up to his. “Or I’ll melt that pretty face of yours before I kill you.” His flat, expressionless eyes belied any promise of compassion.
I snapped his hold, twisting out from under him to slam my palm against his heart that beat strong and steady.
He didn’t transform before my eyes to a flickering life force. No, Oskar remained flesh and blood, reminding me how human he was. Should I memory wipe him? Or should I cross that one remaining line and purposef
ully take a man’s life?
Keep my last vestige of humanity or enact the only justice Esther would ever see?
I was breathless, caught between these two versions of myself, swept away by loss and hurtling toward the unavoidable. The inescapable.
I flooded him with my magic. This was worth becoming a monster for.
Oskar twitched and danced; his flesh bubbling from a light pink sunburn to black ash.
I poured more power into him, blinking against the electric magic pouring out of me, and then against the split-second image of Sienna standing there poker-faced.
His life drained from his body. I drank it in like an elixir until my puppet on a string thrashed one last time and his heartbeat stopped.
I hadn’t even needed any of Lilith’s magic to do it.
Outside, a car blasted The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” Light glinted off the photographs and dust motes danced through the air, beautiful, fat, silvery dots lazily bobbing in a sunbeam like it was an ocean.
I retrieved Esther’s purse from under Oskar’s body. Something jangled inside. “If those are her glasses, you’re in so much trouble,” I sang.
I fished around in the contents, finding the oval, clay vessel to contain Lilith.
“Silly me. Your glasses are still on your head.” I smiled at Esther.
She smiled back, but not with her mouth, with the second set of smeared red lips Oskar had given her across her throat. The ones made deeper red and black by the acid burn that had torn her flesh apart and still hissed, dully.
I grabbed a raggedy tea towel from the kitchen and tied it around her neck like a scarf.
“Very jaunty.” I kissed her forehead. Closed her eyes.
Once upon a time, I’d killed my first demon and called my brother to come save me. I knew better now. A phone call that could fix everything was a lie because there were certain things that could never be saved.
Esther’s life.
My innocence.
Funny, what you didn’t realize you had until it was gone.
I looked back at the mess, knowing it was my duty to clean up, that this was part of my job and that I ought to be able to do it alone. Then I shucked my burner phone out of my pocket and punched in Ro’s contact with shaky fingers.
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Fall Page 24
