The Unlikeable Demon Hunter_Sting

by Deborah Wilde

  I snapped off the radio. “Is that an actual question or are you wasting my time with hypotheticals?”

  The “Imperial March” from Star Wars blasted out. Not because I was such a fan but because most of my calls these days were on Brotherhood business. The only non-Brotherhood people who had the number were my family and my best friend Leonie Hendricks. She’d been assigned Flight of the Conchords’ “Too Many Dicks (On the Dance Floor)”–our anthem once we’d started sneaking into clubs.

  “Number’s blocked.” My stomach clenched. This had to be the call from HQ in Jerusalem that I’d been waiting for.

  Rohan slowed to a stop at a red light, then laid his hand on the back of my neck. “You’ve got this.”

  “Damn straight,” I said, though it took me another ring to steady myself and answer. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Katz.” Rabbi Mandelbaum managed to make my name sound like an insult.

  “Hello, Rabbi.” My voice remained neutral, despite my clenched jaw.

  “Wait,” he barked at me in his Russian accent.

  I traced a dick in the window’s condensation.

  There were two sections to the Brotherhood. Rasha, the hunters out there actually fighting, came from every race and religion, descendants of the original men that King David had chosen to magically fight evil. They weren’t all Jewish, and it was kind of interesting to see how far-reaching those original bloodlines had travelled.

  Then there were the rabbis, the ones who cast the spells involved in finding and inducting hunters. The overall pool of rabbis in turn, voted six of their number to form the Executive to govern and oversee everything to do with the Brotherhood. The Executive wielded a fair bit of power and Mandelbutt, as its de facto leader, had the most power of all.

  “Ms. Katz, are you still with us?”

  I added horns to my drawing. “Ever your faithful servant, Rabbi.”

  I swear I could hear him grinding his teeth long distance. “Consider this your official permission.”

  I sagged against the seat in relief. I’d been waiting for the green light to accompany Rohan and another Rasha called Drio Ricci to Prague and the film set of Hard Knock Strife. All to help my Demon Club compadres get proof that mega A-list celebrity Samson King was a demon intent on using humiliation and envy to help achieve his world domination master plan.

  Before I could thank the rabbi for allowing me to go, he blew the half point he’d earned in my estimation by adding, “Do exactly what the men say.”

  My hand tightened on the phone and I punched the seat warmer on with excessive force.

  Rohan raised his eyebrows in question but I shook my head at him. He massaged the back of my neck in calming, even strokes.

  Religious Jewish men said a daily prayer thanking God for not making them a woman. Rabbi Mandelbaum was probably more effusive than most with that gratitude. Not to mention, the Brotherhood had been a total sausage fest since King David assembled the finest men around him for his secret demon club. Many saw no reason for that to change now.

  I had to prove myself a thousand times more than any other new hunter and for most of them, I’d still never be as good as a man. I’d expected to be put on a tight leash with this mission, but this was bullshit. “I’ll make sure not to think for myself.”

  Rohan snorted, returning his hand to the wheel.

  “Good.” Mandelbutt paused and I seethed. “The Executive will be watching your performance.” Meaning he was waiting for a reason to remove me–in whatever form that took.

  “I’ll do you proud.”

  He didn’t even say good-bye, just hung up on me.

  Fuck him. I’d still been given my go ahead and that’s all that counted. “Guess who’s officially going to Prague?” I crowed.

  “I didn’t doubt it for a second.” Rohan squeezed my thigh. You’d have thought he’d ripped my clothes off, licking his way up my body given the hot, tight coil of lust that wound through me. I was seriously addicted to him. Intervention-level addiction, except for the fact that I didn’t believe in interventions. If something didn’t kill me, why stop?

  I let my legs fall open.

  Rohan swung his head my way, his amber eyes molten, until he took in my disarray, grimaced, and focused back on the road.

  “Asshole,” I said.

  “Don’t judge.”

  “But I have no other hobbies.”

  Rohan grinned at me. “Except poor character judgment since I am a prince among men.” He gestured at my towel. “The care I take with you.”

  We pulled up to Demon Club’s gate to be scanned. The house was situated in the Southlands area of the city on a large tract of land, surrounded by forest. Case in point, you couldn’t even see the three-story mansion made of chunky stone and large windows or any of its multiple chimneys from the street.

  “I’m not deceived by your chivalrous ways, Snowflake.” I pulled my fluffy cocoon tighter around me. “I know this is about your car, not me.”

  His aggrieved sigh was the only indication of how much he hated that nickname, short for Emo Snowflake and an homage to the emo rock band Fugue State Five that he’d been the broody lead singer of in his late teens. Or more precisely, the world-chart dominating musical juggernaut that he’d fronted.

  Retiring from that about three years ago at age twenty when he’d been inducted as a hunter hadn’t hurt his massive ego one bit. Though he’d dumped the graphic Ts, platinum dye job, and eyeliner for an improved fashion sense and a return to his inherent natural hotness.

  The black wrought-iron gate set into the thick stone fence swung silently open.

  “Why waste chivalry when I wouldn’t even be rewarded with a kiss?” Rohan sported a massive chip on his shoulder about the fact that I refused to kiss him on the lips, during sex or otherwise. One word: hook-up. The sum total of our relationship status and thus, no kissing necessary.

  Weirdly, my boundaries offended his control-freak nature.

  The rain picked up, lashing the car.

  “As if you were sharing sweet kisses with the many girls you screwed in your rock star days.”

  Windshield wipers on high, Rohan gunned the car up the remainder of the long, winding drive, past well-tended gardens and copses of arbutus and cedar trees. “You’re comparing us to tour sex?”

  “It’s all hook-ups.” I zeroed in on the line of muscle flowing from his bicep across to his pec and back to his bicep. A better panorama than anything outside.

  Rohan stopped the car in front of the house with enough force that my skull crashed back against the seat. “One-time fucks. No repeat button.”

  Glowering at him, I rubbed my head. “That doesn’t make any difference.”

  “Doesn’t it?” His tone was casual but I sidled sideways to escape the freezer-cold depths of his accompanying smile.

  I peeled myself off the passenger door. “Gearing up for a full-scale offensive?”

  Rohan cut the engine. Rain pounded on the roof and black thunderclouds seemed to press in from every direction. “If I ever go full-scale, I’ll take no prisoners,” he said.

  He’d have to do better than that.

  I let the towel flutter to the seat, giving a sultry head toss, my perky C cups front and center. Despite me still being covered with demon goo, Rohan looked. I leaned in toward him, trailing my finger down his chest. “No quarter. No mercy.”

  I’d figured our mutual attraction and constant tug-of-war to be a fairly level playing field until I’d seen Rohan in full-on rock god mode, prepping for our upcoming trip to Prague and his return to the spotlight. That’s when I’d realized my hot fuck buddy was merely swimming with me in the kiddie pool because he felt like it, and that the deep end was calling again.

  I’d had two choices: A) the sane path of ending the mind-blowing sex aspect of our leisure time or B) amping my game. In the animal kingdom, challenging an alpha was a good way to get your throat ripped out. With this kinky boy, dominance games were foreplay. Thing is, despi
te his bitching about my no-kissing decree, I didn’t see him swimming off yet. After the long dry spell of my sexual escapades, Rohan was an oasis I wanted to suck dry. As I’d barely begun to quench my thirst, no way was I the one tapping out first.

  Rohan caught my hand before it reached his jeans. Trapping it.

  I met his level stare, despite my lungs feeling two sizes too tight. Just because I refused to bow down didn’t mean this came easy to me. Still, I shivered in delicious anticipation of what he might do next–like haul me into his room and screw me seven ways from Sunday. Then again, he might drown me in the pool out back then dump me in the forest. Given the wild gleam in the depths of his gold eyes, anything was a go.

  That’s when both our phones buzzed with texts. It was Drio. Get the fuck inside.

  2

  I scratched at the vral grime coating my skin. A shower would have to wait, because the second we stepped through the front door into the foyer with its cathedral ceiling, Drio snapped, “In here,” in a way that left no room for discussion.

  We hurried into the TV room with its brown leather man cave couches and comfortable clutter. The one place in the house that didn’t feel straight out of Exclusive British Men’s Club Monthly. Drio was perched on the fat arm of one sofa, staring in bewilderment at the massive flat screen TV mounted to the wall. “King’s holding a press conference.”

  The sexy rumble of Drio’s Italian accent combined with his olive skin, blond hair, and startling green eyes made him an irresistible combination. For most. His open loathing of me and sadistic hard-on for demon torture meant I could resist him just fine.

  I turned my attention to the screen. Samson King sat at a long table, speaking into the microphone placed in front of him, decked out in a tailored button-down that I’d recently seen on the cover of GQ. His hair was more artfully gelled than a performing boy band’s at the Teen Choice Awards. Projected behind him was a huge logo featuring a stylized red SK in the middle of a black diamond. The flurry of flashbulbs were blinding even on my side of the TV.

  “He’s still in Prague, right?” Standing, since I didn’t want to dirty the furniture, I squirmed, trying to relieve the throb in my back from my wounds.

  Rohan rummaged amidst the shit on the coffee table for a tin of salve.

  “Sì. He’s there,” said Drio.

  Samson had flown from Vancouver to Prague a few days ago to shoot the remaining scenes of Hard Knock Strife, with its age-old plot of “childhood buddies get caught up in a gangster lifestyle.” His character finds redemption in the end, scarred but wiser. In other words, total fiction.

  I sighed as Rohan tugged up the back of my sweater to gently apply the mint-based, healing gel to my skin. The relief as it numbed the area was immediate.

  Drio jerked his head toward the TV. “Watch, they’re replaying the clip.”

  Samson had the build and smug handsome looks of a rich-kid college athlete even though he was pushing thirty. The good guy with enough of a bad boy edge to keep from being too All-American, he was always up for a party–that was both his character in this flick and the essence of his brand. He gave people life at its funnest and the masses thirsted for it like water.

  Our suspicion was that Samson fed off the envy he inspired and the humiliation he drove people to in their quest to be more like him. Coupled with the number of deaths around him that couldn’t be directly linked but were too frequent and too much the inevitable end result of the misery he incited to be accidental, we had probable cause to believe him a demon.

  Emphasis on probable.

  Once we had proof that he was a demon, either his true name, form, or hard evidence about the specifics of his master plan, we’d kill him, because that was what we Rasha did.

  I barely registered the feel of Rohan dropping my sweater down, his ministrations finished, listening as Samson announced his retirement from acting to follow his interests behind the scenes. This made no logical sense. He expounded on his plans, pointing to the logo behind him and explaining his new ventures of a record label and management company, with further media expansion to come.

  Drio muted the sound, not interested in Samson introducing the two clients he’d already signed, the baby-faced teen boy that I recognized as a viral singing sensation on his left, and on his right, the jet-setting It Girl in her late twenties who was making quite the name for herself as an indie actress. Both of whom wore identical expressions of boredom until it was their turn to speak.

  Rohan tossed the salve back on the table with a clatter. “What’s King playing at?”

  I gnawed on my lip. “Signing a YouTuber hardly lines up with unleashing the apocalypse or enslaving humanity as his minions.”

  Drio snarled a ferocious torrent of Italian swear words. I was both impressed and unsettled by how long he could go without pausing for air.

  “What if we’re wrong?” I asked. “If he’s not a demon?”

  “That’s why we don’t assume anything until we have irrefutable evidence. We also don’t want our assumptions to make us lazy or complacent,” Rohan said.

  “Or tip our hand. Even if our gut screams ‘demon,’ we play it smart,” Drio added.

  “Got it.” I scratched at my skin, demon death goo flaking off me, revealing a bumpy red rash.

  “Library. Ten minutes,” Rohan said.

  A shower imperative, I sprinted up the wide, curving staircase to my bedroom on the top floor. Barely a month in to my new living arrangements, moved out of my parents’ house for the first time in my life, and I’d yet to choose the paint color to replace the bleh beige adorning my walls. Though the furniture was decent enough dark wood, and at least I had my own tiny bathroom.

  The sole personal touch I’d given the room was to hang my large framed poster of Gregory Hines caught by the camera in mid-tap step, his face lit up in glee. I hadn’t gotten around to unpacking two of the five Rubbermaids I’d carted my belongings over in, but the other three did a pretty epic job exploding out over every surface. Folding and organizing were for saps. I preferred hunting and rooting, the thrill of the never-ending treasure hunt for my personal belongings.

  Stripping down, I tossed my clothes in the trash and stepped under the hot spray in the small black-and-white tiled bathroom. I used to go through clothes because I hated the visual reminder of bad decisions when wearing hook-up togs more than once. At least the wear and tear of killing monsters left me with no regrets. Though demon kills required lube job levels of skin maintenance.

  To celebrate the Executive sending me to Prague, I yanked on the T-shirt Leonie had bought for me. Tight, bright, and hot pink, its glittering silver letters proclaimed “50% boobs. 50% sarcasm. 100% new breed of hunter.”

  What’s a girl without a tagline?

  Technically, Leo wasn’t supposed to know about the Brotherhood. The Mafia were a bunch of gossipy soccer moms compared to the code of silence the Brotherhood demanded. While DSI–David Security International–a.k.a. the global security firm the Brotherhood ran had a respected rep in high powered circles, it was a closely guarded secret that its man candy employees were demon hunters. Or that demons even existed.

  Scrunching some mousse into my hair, I snagged my hair drier for a quick blow so I didn’t head downstairs dripping.

  Part of our secrecy was maintained by the fine job the Brotherhood did, and part of it was due to natural human desire to explain away anything vaguely monstrous with “rational” explanations, i.e. any reason that wasn’t supernatural. Humans’ determination to live within our comfort zones was not to be underestimated. It worked in the Brotherhood’s favor.

  My three-minute patience of hair drying achieved, I threw on some eye make-up.

  I would never have told Leo about any of it if our reunion meeting after about a year and a half of radio silence–mostly stemming from the bad place I’d been in after high school–hadn’t come with the mind-blowing discovery that she was half-goblin. Goblins were tricksters and smooth talkers, so co
mbined with the sperm donor’s glamouring ability to present as human, it left Leo’s mom thinking (bitterly and to this day) that she’d succumbed to the charms of a very handsome rogue for an unforgettable one night stand.

  Leo, who only had a human form and no glamour abilities of her own, hadn’t enlightened her mom. Luckily, her sole visible redcap goblin features were a propensity to white chin hair, shortness, and a fascination for fussy jewels that had never made sense in our teens. Otherwise, her long straight red hair, funky style, and incredible confidence were pure awesome woman.

  Given Leo’s half-demon status, she was well aware of Rasha. Though she’d been shocked to find out that I, of all people, was the first chick to be among their number.

  I glanced back into the bedroom at my alarm clock. Thirty seconds to spare to Rohan’s deadline. I hustled out of my room, finger-combing my still damp curls, anxious for this meeting with Rohan and Drio and the specifics of my cover assignment.

  Forrest Chang, the film’s director and a huge Fugue State Five fan, had invited Rohan to write the theme song. Meanwhile, I was going in under the guise of Rohan’s groupie, a role that Rohan was having altogether too much fun lording over me. Supposedly this cover story allowed him to stick close to me as I gained Samson’s attention, but I had my doubts. This wasn’t the eighteenth century and I wasn’t chattel.

  Drio was posing as part of Rohan’s entourage without the backstory of blowing him on a regular basis, so why couldn’t that be true for me as well? Go for fiction not imitating life. By the time I was halfway down the stairs, I’d resolved to bring this matter up at the start of our meeting.

  The front door slammed open and Kane stormed in, bleeding from a gash to his temple. Japanese-Canadian and silky-hot with a tendency to shirtlessness, he could have been naked right now and all anyone would have noticed was the anger rolling off him in waves.

  I came to a screeching halt.

  Kane raked a hand through his spiky black hair. “Swear to God, babyslay, I will kill him myself, he pulls this shit again.”