The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz Book 1)

by Deborah Wilde

  “Oh my God!” I squealed. “Your mom is Maya Mitra. I love her!”

  “My mom.” The smirk vanished.

  The words tripped out of my mouth, I was so psyched to be one degree of separation away from this woman. “Punk rock Indian Jewish chick who blew every stereotype out of the water in her rise to hottest music producer in the biz? You get to be related to her?!” I bounced on the bed in sheer excitement, clapping a hand over my protesting boobs.

  “And she to me,” he said dryly.

  “Whatever.” I studied him. When Rohan had first gotten famous, he’d been an extremely pretty sixteen-year-old, all long limbs, smoldering doe eyes, and his trademark platinum blond hair falling into his face, but from his tightly muscled body to his five o’clock shadow, that boy was long gone. He seemed… harder. Don’t go there, honey. Thankfully his standard issue wear of Vans, black skinny jeans, and vintage-looking weird graphic T-shirts were no longer a part of his repertoire.

  Even Leo, his super fan, might have needed time to make the connection between his past and present selves.

  I raked an approving glance over his vastly improved fashion sense, enjoying the view from the top of his fitted sweater, along his tailored black dress pants, and down to the tips of his Italian footwear. His leather jacket was tossed on my windowsill. “I didn’t recognize you without the eyeliner and glaring dye job, Rohan.”

  He tipped his head. “Yeah. Thrilled that look is immortalized for all time. Now, come on.”

  “Come on and what?”

  “Show me your power.” His hand snaked out and caught my wrist, pressing his palm against mine. Holding me in a barely contained show of strength.

  “Death wish, much? I showed you in the backyard.”

  “Barely even a tease.” He drawled the words.

  I meant to pull away but I got my directions mixed up and pushed back against the warmth of his skin. “I will fire up. I’m warning you.”

  Rohan leaned in. “Do it.” His eyes flared and I caught my bottom lip between my teeth.

  Then some last iota of common sense–and self-preservation–raised its hand. I jerked away from him. If he was a demon, I should have killed him six times over by now. What the hell was I doing? “You still haven’t convinced me that you’re not a demon,” I said, giving the evil spawn another chance for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely. “Fame doesn’t preclude that. Nor does having a super cool mom.”

  “That doesn’t, but this does.” He held up his pinky finger, showing me the same gold ring as mine, with the same engraved hamsa and blue sapphire iris, which it turns out, was standard issue. And here I’d been hoping for a succession of property-stamping jewelry as I rose through the hunter ranks.

  I fell back against my headboard. “You’re part of Demon Club. Fuck. Me.”

  Rohan oogled me. “I won’t take that off the table yet.” He propped his chin on his hands on the top of the chair.

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Did you just put me on a table?”

  “More invoked a proverbial table and a conditional ‘yet.’ The ‘yet’ is an important component of this potential event,” he said.

  You know what else was an important component? The presumptuous jerk still having attached balls for our proverbial fuck.

  “I used to write fanfic about Fugue State Five,” I said in a conversational tone.

  Lookie lookie. Return of the amused smirk. “How was I?” he asked.

  I shrugged, examining my chipped nail polish. “No clue. I wrote self-insert fanfic about the rest of your band. Zack, your keyboardist was astounding.” I drawled that last word so he’d get the full implication.

  “My keyboardist?” Rohan’s smugness was R.I.P. “But he’s gay.”

  “I assure you that didn’t matter.” I gave a self-satisfied sigh. “He succumbed to my fifteen-year-old self’s wiles.”

  Rohan straightened. “Which of my much older bandmates also succumbed, Lolita?”

  “Please. You guys were only three years older.” I twisted a dark curl around my finger. “But pretty much of all of them.” I raked a pointed look over him. “The ones worth writing about.” He didn’t react. “Though succumbing is far more innocent than you’re imagining,” I admitted.

  “I doubt you were ever innocent.”

  That was highly insulting. Did he think I’d been born this way? Please. I’d worked hard to cultivate this level of sexual awesomeness. Totally offended here. And equally turned on because he’d said it in that low rumbly voice that made me want to roll onto my back, knees falling open. If he rubbed my belly or lower, all good.

  I tossed my hair. “Excellent. Assume the worst.” Straightening my legs, I crossed one over the other. Forcing them to stay closed. Then I leaned back on my elbows and gave him my best smirk. “Now, what are you doing in my bedroom?”

  I prayed he couldn’t hear how hard my heart was thumping.

  “I’m your new CO.”

  “My what?”

  “Commanding Officer.” He picked up a porcelain Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together in their finery, from my shelf. “That means you have to do as I say.”

  I leapt off the bed and snatched Fred and Ginger back. “Oh, hell no.”

  Rohan raised an eyebrow. I petted my dancers’ ceramic heads and carefully put them back as I scrambled for a somewhat less mutinous excuse. “You’re full of shit. CO’s are only appointed on missions. Otherwise, Rabbi Abrams runs the local chapter.”

  Even though not all Rasha were Jewish, when it came to running Demon Club, tracking and training the descendants, and performing rituals, David had only trusted a select group of Sanhedrin, the highest of High Rabbis. Rabbis still performed those duties today, despite the fact that the Brotherhood wasn’t technically a religious organization. Something about trade secrets and the magic involved. I suspected the Brotherhood just didn’t like change.

  “Your brother talks too much.” Rohan’s voice was a silky threat.

  I stormed over to him. “Leave Ari out of this.”

  “Or what?” He didn’t bother to hide his amusement.

  I leaned in, letting my sideboob brush against his arm. “A girl can’t give away all her secrets,” I purred. My hair teased his shoulder blades. Bad idea. This close, I could smell him, a blend of musky cologne with an underbite of iron that had skyrocketed to being the sexiest scent I’d ever inhaled.

  “That a challenge?” He tucked a strand behind my ear, his face tilted up to mine.

  I refused to back down, no matter how I longed to brush my tingling skin and capture the sensation for a moment longer. This was all an act, albeit one that got results. Rohan’s player ways were the stuff of well-documented legend.

  Maybe that’s how he killed demons. He hit them with the look and the grin and then, when they fell to their knees in a puddle of feels, ripped their hearts out.

  I wasn’t going to fall quite so easily. “Nope. Wouldn’t want you to tax yourself, Rock Boy.”

  His jaw tightened. Swinging his leg off the chair, he stood up abruptly, forcing me to scramble back to avoid being clipped on the underside of my chin.

  I stared up at his good six inches on my five-foot-eight self.

  “Tomorrow. 9AM at the chapter house,” he ordered. “Get Ari to drive you if you don’t know where it is.” Rohan sauntered over to the open window, all lethal elegance. “And Lolita? Don’t even think about blowing me off.” His smile was ruthless. “Remember, I know where you live.”

  With that he jumped out the window and into the night.

  5

  Monday morning, I slammed back two chilled Diet Cokes, my surefire technique for bright-eyed, bushytailedness after a sleepless night. I’d applied a generous smear of fresh aloe under my cloth sports bra, and popped a couple of painkillers in preparation for the day to come. I’d even prepared a demon hunter kit: water bottle, trail mix, aloe fronds, a box of salt, a pen, and an unused Moleskine journal, all thrown into my messe
nger bag.

  Dad drove me. He’d pulled chauffeur duty since I hadn’t had the heart to ask Ari. “Nervous?” he asked.

  “Nope.” I adjusted the A/C vent. Events of the past twenty-four hours had coalesced into a hard ball of pissed off in my chest. “I am going to kick ass and take names.”

  I adjusted the vent again because I couldn’t find the sweet spot of cool air. A stoplight turned yellow, then red in front of us, and I kept fumbling with the A/C. Take three’s the charm.

  Dad reached over and stilled my hand. “Nava.”

  “Okay, maybe I’m a bit nervous.”

  “I think that’s a good sign. It means this matters.”

  No, it means this might be my last day on earth. I gave my dad a weak smile.

  The rest of the ride was silent except for his execrable musical choices. Every now and again, I wiped my sweaty palms, hoping Dad wouldn’t comment.

  My imagination ran riot on what our local Demon Club chapter might look like. I’d gotten as far as a stone fortress with archers on the ramparts and boiling pitch down the walls, all of which would be unleashed at the sight of my estrogen-laden fineness, before I shut that shit down. It was just a house, right?

  One of three chapters in Canada, along with Toronto and Montreal, the one here in Vancouver provided training to any initiates and support to any Rasha living or working on a mission in western Canada.

  All too soon, we hit Southwest Marine Drive, a street of wide-spaced mansions hidden behind tall hedges and fencing. A few more winding turns later, and Dad pulled up to a half-open, wrought-iron gate set into a high stone fence. A dense press of Evergreens swayed in the distance.

  My nerves flared back up into overdrive.

  Putting the car in park, he leaned over to press a kiss to my cheek. “Go get ’em, honey.”

  My hand stilled on the seatbelt release. “How about we grab a mocha first?” Not that I needed any more caffeine.

  “Sorry, kiddo. They’re waiting.”

  He pointed out the window at Rohan, now slouching against the fence, his hands jammed into the pockets of his worn yet no doubt expensive jeans. He probably practiced that pose in the mirror, aiming for maximum bicep bulge under his fitted charcoal gray T-shirt.

  Rohan raised his eyebrows at me like I was late and needed to hurry up. That tiniest of gestures packed with maximum arrogance. My heart relaxed back down out of my throat, my hands balling into fists as I got out of the car. Bite me, rock star.

  I said good-bye to Dad, waving until he’d turned the corner.

  Baruch jogged down the driveway to us. His hair floated loose in black waves around his shoulders. It matched his all-black attire of board shorts and a long sleeved tee with DSI printed in small white block letters over his heart.

  David Security International was the Brotherhood’s public persona. Having an actual company provided a cover for everything from liaising with suppliers to allowing Rasha to answer the question of what they did for a living. Most importantly, it gave them access to high-level places and people that might provide valuable intel for their real business of demon hunting. They’d always had proxies like this. Back in the middle ages it was a knight’s order–not the Templars. In Victorian times, they owned gentlemen’s clubs. Nowadays, it was an elite security organization.

  Eying Baruch, I totally bought him as a top level security expert. Aside from the bare feet. Nice calves, dude.

  “Boker tov,” I said, punctuating my good morning wishes with a salute. I glanced down at a skittering sound by my feet to find two kitten-sized, fanged spiders with glowing red eyes charging at me.

  I bolted past Rohan onto the property, screaming.

  Baruch caught me, turning me around. “Look.” Despite throwing themselves at the open gate, the spider demons were being repelled, as if bouncing off an invisible rubber shield. “Wards,” he explained. “Keeps out anything with even a drop of demon blood.”

  Feeling braver, but no less disturbed because big-ass spider demons, I inched closer. “Kind of stupid to attack Demon Club, especially when they can’t get in.”

  “Araculum aren’t known for their brains.” Rohan grabbed one of the hairy leggy fuckers in mid-repel, handing it over to Baruch, who pinned it, immobile, in one hand.

  I jumped back. “What happened to them not getting through?”

  “Of their own accord. We can bring them in just fine.” Rohan’s lips curled in a small smirk. “They don’t like that much.”

  I pressed in closer to Baruch, who despite holding a demon, seemed like the safer of the two Rasha to hang with right now.

  Baruch pointed to the araculum’s rows of eyes, currently trained with laser focus on me. “See that?”

  “Creepy show and tell time?” I asked.

  The araculum growled. A million nails raking down a chalkboard fed through a broken, scratchy windpipe filter, the noise hooked into the base of my spine.

  Its friend ramped up its pointless attempt to get through the wards.

  Baruch shook the fiend that he held. “Sheket!”

  “Bevakasha. Hey!” I sang, finishing off Baruch’s “quiet” with a “please.” He shook his head at me. “What?” I said. “I went to Jewish camp.”

  “Araculum store images for later replaying,” Baruch said. “Bottom feeders farmed out to gather intel. But what exactly?” he added in a murmur, jamming his thumb into the underside of the demon’s neck.

  It spasmed, keening.

  Expression grim, Baruch jerked the still convulsing creature toward us. A series of images flashed across its rows of eyes as if from a stuttering projector. They were playing too fast for me to make sense of them but Rohan glared at me.

  “It met with Asmodeus,” he said.

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “No, but Asmodeus probably sent them here, scouting for information on who killed his children,” Baruch explained.

  Rohan shot me a pointed look. “That would be you.”

  My stomach twisted into knots worthy of any BDSM Dom. I let out a squeaky “eep.”

  “Ro.” Baruch’s chastisement was no less effective for his calm tone.

  Rohan gave an annoyed sigh.

  Baruch punched the demon in the left side of its head. Its eyes widened, briefly, comically, then all light and life faded as the demon disappeared with a pop and a puff of wiry hairs. Baruch brushed his hands off.

  I gave him a shaky smile. “Tree Trunk, you’re my hero.”

  Behind me, someone gave a snorting laugh. “Oh my God! I’ve been trying to place him for three years now. It was less celebrity, more Ent. My bad.”

  My mouth fell open. The voice belonged to a Japanese guy, probably in his mid-twenties, with spiky hair and a sculpted body. How could I tell? He was only clad in tight black shorts, black combat boots, and a smattering of silver dust across his bare chest. Accessorized with cool nipple rings and a giant coffee cup in one hand that he sipped at. He stepped on the remaining araculum’s head without pause as he swaggered onto the property, not even bothering to confirm that he’d killed the demon. Which he had.

  “Mtsots li ta-zain,” Baruch replied. He pressed his hand to a scanner on the inside of the fence and the gate swung shut.

  The new guy made a kissy face at him. “Promises, promises.”

  “What’d he say?” I asked.

  In response he jammed his tongue in his cheek, miming a blow job. Then he mouthed the words “suck my cock.”

  Ooh. I clapped my hands. “Say it again, slowly so I can learn,” I told Baruch.

  “Rohan,” Baruch said, “kill him and bring her to the Vault.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like the same thing,” I said, watching with dismay as Baruch stalked up the drive.

  New guy shrugged. “In your case, they’ll still leave a body for the family to claim.” He didn’t seem particularly upset about his fate. I liked him.

  Rohan took my elbow to steer me to this Vault, but I tugged free. “Don’t
be rude. Introduce me to my new best friend.” I turned my back on Rohan in anticipation of the intro, resisting a giggle as I felt him bristle behind me.

  “Nava Katz, Kane Hashimoto. Kane, Nava. Our newest Rasha.”

  While Rohan delivered my credentials in a disgruntled voice, Kane eyed me up and down, took another sip of coffee, and then apparently finding me worthy, held out his hand to be kissed. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

  I complied with the obligatory respectful pressing of lips to skin then pressed Kane’s hand to my heart. “Please tell me you don’t have a boyfriend.”

  Kane ran a hand along his body in show model form. “Like I could limit this prize to one lucky winner.”

  Oooh. How much would Ari adore me if I set them up? Probably not at all but Kane looked like serious fun. I grinned at him.

  “You’re nowhere near as uptight as the other twin,” Kane said.

  I flung an errant strand of hair out of my face, planting my hands on my hips. “You better not be dissing my brother.”

  “As if I’d waste my time.”

  “Ari should be the one here,” I said, starting my plug to put the rightful Katz child in his chosen place.

  A flash of… guilt? agreement? crossed Kane’s face. “The power has spoken.”

  I let out a frustrated breath. Stonewalled again.

  Rohan tugged on my arm, having reached the end of his limited patience. “Come on, Lolita.”

  I blew Kane a kiss and skedaddled after broody.

  We headed deeper onto the property, walking–or in my case, jogging–past towering Cypress and Arbutus trees dotting a perfectly manicured lawn. I gave a low whistle at the amount of land the Brotherhood owned. “This is like a whole city block.”

  “Deep pockets.” Rohan rounded a corner and a massive 1920’s brick manor, flanked by two long, raised beds, their flowers in bud, came into view. It wasn’t Windsor castle but it still qualified for mansion status.

  Messenger bag pressed to my chest, I craned my neck up to take in the arched doors, beveled bay window in the turret, and multiple chimneys. Impressive, but with nary an archer or vat of boiling pitch in sight. My shoulders relaxed out of my ears. “Gatsby throw a party or two here?”