The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-3 (Nava Katz Box Set)

by Deborah Wilde

  “Well?”

  I tried to get my throat to work. Tried to make myself move under threat of losing that hungry, intense, gorgeous focus forever. Big deal. I’d kissed before. I could do this.

  Except, if I kissed him and he pulled away, face pained, it wouldn’t just be me falling asleep unsatisfied and wrecked from my ghoul fight.

  That kind of rejection would destroy me.

  I stepped back. Rohan speared me with a hard look and left. He took Snake with him.

  14

  It took me ages to fall asleep, so when Harry called bright and early on Wednesday morning to say that Baskerville had come through, I was tempted to blow him off. Instead, I pounded on Rohan’s bedroom door.

  He poked his head out. Still surly. “Yes?”

  “Harry called.”

  It took him two blinks to understand this olive branch. He nodded. “Meet you at the car in ten.”

  The only interesting thing about the low slung, single-story house that Rohan and I pulled up to was the fact that it was protected by a Rasha ward. I crossed my fingers that it was protecting the spine. After ensuring there was no vehicle in the carport or parked directly out front, we crept around back and silently unlatched the gate.

  The ward’s faint pulsing drew me to it like a siren’s song.

  “Need more proof the Brotherhood has their fingerprints all over this mess?” I asked, as we followed the round paving stones through the slightly overgrown back lawn.

  “Yes.”

  Grr. Argh.

  The closer we got to the ward line that lay at the bottom of the back stairs, the more intense the wave of nausea and dizziness coursing through me became. This ward hadn’t been created to simply repel demons, it was intended to repel everyone. With each footfall, my entire body strained to turn around but I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.

  By the time I reached the ward line, I was swallowing convulsively to keep the bile down. Even though the demarcation was invisible, I pinpointed exactly where it started.

  Rohan jerked his chin at me. “You feel confident undoing it?”

  I’d had some rudimentary training in ward making, but I was still getting the hang of this aspect of my magic. “You do it.”

  Rohan positioned himself outside of the ward line and slashed his palm open with one of his finger blades, dripping blood while uttering a Hebrew chant.

  Nothing happened.

  I frowned at the blood seeping into the dirt. “You sure you did it right?”

  Rohan shot me an unimpressed look. “Knock yourself out.”

  I couldn’t do worse than he had, right? Reciting the Hebrew, I held out my hand, hissing as he sliced open the fleshy part of my palm. I dropped into a crouch so my blood could get nice and close to the ward line. The second the fluid connected with the ward magic, my eyes widened. While Rasha could sense a ward set by another Rasha, there was no way to tell whose blood had been used to create it.

  Except I could and I did.

  The ward magic slunk up against me like a cat demanding affection from its owner. Its thrum was a purr that vibrated from my head to my toes. Another magic joined it, dark and sinuous, probing. I’d swear it was sniffing me out.

  The ward dissipated.

  I flattened my hand against the dirt, bracing myself against the sucking pull threatening to flip my organs from internal to external from this new magic. A shockwave ripped through me, my head snapping back.

  “Holy shit,” Rohan said. “What the–”

  My stomach fell into my toes as I went into free fall, landing seconds later with a teeth-jarring thud. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision against the flash that had blinded me.

  “Took you long enough kid,” a familiar voice said.

  Dr. Gelman.

  We stood in the center of a long, narrow, open concept kitchen and living room with a sliding glass door to the backyard. Even though the room was white-walled and sparsely furnished, brightly colored cushions and an enormous photographic print of a spice market added warmth. Rohan was nowhere to be seen. Not here, not out back.

  “You didn’t do anything to my friend, did you?”

  “He’s fine. I just wanted some privacy for our conversation.” In her mid-sixties with olive leathery skin, she looked way better than the last time I’d seen her. She’d even colored out the white in her black hair. She was the picture of health. Had her cancer gone into remission?

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I’m still alive, so yes. Thanks so much for asking.” Her snark was sharp enough to sting.

  I tsked her. “You don’t call. You don’t write.”

  “Snippy today, are we? Why are you breaking in to my sister’s place?”

  “Sister?”

  She pointed to a group of photos hanging on the wall. Most showed a woman who looked remarkably similar to Dr. Gelman, just older. Several of them featured my Gelman as well. The first time we’d met, she’d said that her sister had dated Rabbi Abrams years ago, I’d just never imagined she meant in Vancouver.

  “I came for a gogota spine,” I said. “Got one or both?” I was no longer certain of the spine’s proximity. Gelman might have created the ward to protect herself while she hid out.

  She dropped into a chair with a lithe movement. It was great to see her so healthy. “You’ve been a busy little worker bee. Yes, I have the spine, but I want something in return.”

  “What?”

  “The Vashar.”

  “I don’t have it anymore,” I said. “I had to hand it over to Rabbi Abrams.”

  “Right.” She rubbed her forehead. “But you can get it back. You will get it back if you want the spine.”

  “I can’t and it’s unreasonable of you to keep that spine from me. I’m trying to help you. Prove the witches’ innocence.”

  “I need the amulet.” Her Israeli accent got much thicker when she was mad.

  The sliding glass door exploded inward.

  Screaming, I ducked, throwing my hands up over my face. Glass bit into my exposed flesh and lodged in my curls. Dozens of drops of blood welled up on the backs of my hands, calves, and the skin at the V of my throat. Bad day to wear a skirt.

  Two figures in head-to-toe black stepped into the room.

  Gelman chanted. The couches flew together stacking one above the other and barricading us from our ambushers before bursting into flame.

  The two stepped through the flaming sofa wreckage like the fire was a gentle summer’s mist.

  Gelman grabbed my arm and pushed me down hallway into an office. Her hands trembled as she slammed the door and locked it. “You’ve led the Brotherhood to me.”

  “I didn’t! I swear.”

  Her fingers bit into my wrist, her panic palpable. “The Vashar. We need to get it, now.”

  “The spine first.”

  “After.”

  The back of my neck prickled. I looked from Gelman to the locked door. The locked door beyond which I heard nothing. Not intruders. Not even a fire alarm. I sniffed. No burning sofa, just the faint tang of lemon polish.

  The attack had been an illusion.

  I blasted whoever–or whatever–this was back against the far wall.

  Fake Gelman’s glamour fell away, revealing a whip thin demon with a pronounced Adam’s apple. His expertly tailored pinstripe suit even had a pressed triangle of a handkerchief in the pocket. The picture of a 1950’s Southern gentleman, except for the snout and iridescent blue skin.

  “Baskerville, I presume. Good idea faking me out but you dropped the follow through.”

  The demon pushed to his feet. “It was worth a try.”

  I pulled my sleeve over my hand, brushing at the glass embedded in me. Too bad that exploding door part had been all too real. When that didn’t work, I called my magic up, letting it build under the surface of my skin. Closing my eyes, I pushed the magic out through my pores, envisioning it pushing the slivers out of me. A throbbing buzz
shook me from head to toe like a swarm of bees being expelled from my body. I blinked my tears away, shaking myself off like a dog to get the last of the glass out. “How did you know about the Vashar?”

  “I wouldn’t be worth my weight in blood if I didn’t, child.” Baskerville’s voice was honey-smooth, tinged with a hint of the Deep South.

  “Didn’t you get the collar we retrieved for you?”

  He gave an elegant one-shouldered shrug. “I did. But it lost its luster once I possessed it.”

  “Tough titties. Where’s the real Dr. Gelman? Or her sister?” Until I knew for certain whether the witches were innocent, I still wasn’t ready to see Gelman, but I didn’t want her hurt either.

  “Out?” the demon said. “I have no idea. The house was empty.”

  “So how did you get in?”

  “That was all you, chérie.” He tugged on his pressed cuffs. “You so helpfully dropped Dr. Gelman’s ward, allowing me to waltz right in.”

  Except I’d felt a second magic. “You overlaid her ward with some kind of spell of your own to bring me to you, didn’t you?”

  “Very good.”

  I made a “wrap it up” motion. “Is the spine here or not?”

  He flashed me an enigmatic smile and snapped two of his three fingers. The air shimmered and then crumpled like a veil falling to the floor, revealing a modified gogota demon standing between the desk and the bookshelf.

  I shrieked.

  Baskerville clamped his hands over his large flappy ears, similar in appearance to those of Wallace from Wallace and Gromit.

  My feet, legs, torso, all went concrete-heavy. The sensation crawled up my throat, clogging my airways.

  “Sensitive hearing,” he said. “Please keep it down.”

  I blinked my eyes to indicate my agreement, since I couldn’t move my head to nod. His eyes narrowed, then the feeling just kind of fell away. I sucked in a breath, the jittery motion jump starting my heart, and sidled closer to the gogota.

  Evil dude was not looking too hot. About my height, his body was no longer a plump sausage–more shriveled like a leftover wiener past its expiration date. A dull sheen lay over his charcoal gray fur which had acquired mottled white streaks. He vibrated seizure-fast but remained rooted to the spot, his long, sloth-like fingers and toes twitching. The demon stood half-bowed over as if succumbing to the weight of the metal spine that was no longer shiny.

  “This is the demon that attacked Gelman?” I said. Baskerville nodded. “How did you get it?”

  “Not important.”

  He’d totally kidnapped it.

  I circled the gogota, ready to access the magic humming under my skin, and choking on the stench of baby powder and sweaty baseball mitt undercut with rot pouring off the demon.

  The gogota’s single glassy eye tracked my progress and his blood red lips seemed to be mouthing something over and over again.

  Having the entire modified demon and not just its spine might go a long way toward determining once and for all whether the Brotherhood was involved. This demon was my one lead to expose Mandelbaum, heal the rift between Ari and myself, and show up all the hypocrisy within the Brotherhood–starting with the second-class status of yours truly.

  “We good here? The gogota for the collar?”

  Baskerville pursed his lips. “Very well.”

  I left the gogota locked in the office, counting on it not having the fine motor skills with those sausage fingers to turn the tiny tab in the knob and unlock the door.

  “Pleasure doing business with you.” This was the point where I should have killed Baskerville since the only good demon was a dead one, Leo excepted, but his resourcefulness might prove useful another time. “Lucky you, you get to live.”

  Life became a little bit more gray with each passing day.

  I escorted him out the shattered sliding door, glass crunching underfoot. The couches were intact, however.

  The back gate banged open and Rohan stormed in, his face and arms covered in scratches. Twigs and bits of frothy leaves were stuck in his hair. As soon as he saw the demon, he broke into a run, blades out.

  “And that’s my cue.” Baskerville disappeared.

  Rohan swiped at the empty air, swore, and then glared at me. “You let him get away?”

  “His future value outweighed killing him.”

  “Based on your decades of experience.”

  “Based on my gut. I’m not completely useless at this either. Besides, if you’re jonsing that hard for a demon, I’ve got another one.”

  “Of course you do.” He raked his fingers through his hair, dislodging shrubbery.

  I snickered. “Where did he teleport you?”

  Rohan’s gaze flicked to the neighbor’s hedges peeking up above the fence. He rubbed the side of his head. “The old lady that lives there is really mean. She clocked me for disturbing her stupid Viburnums. Don’t laugh,” he said, jabbing a finger at me, then chuckled, shaking his head as I brushed the remaining foliage off him.

  “Come on.” I took his arm. “You’ll want to see this.”

  Unlocking the office door was as easy as one, two, three, blast. The door crashed open into the wall. I grimaced. That was going to leave a dent. Though it was still hanging on its hinges so my master control had reached new heights.

  The gogota rushed Rohan, grabbing him around the neck with his long, sticky fingers.

  Rohan’s iron blades shot out of his body.

  “Don’t kill it!” I shoved Rohan off-balance.

  “Why not?” Rohan failed to disengage from the demon.

  “Because having all of the demon to examine could give us a total picture of what was done to it and how.” My eyes watered from the demon’s stench. Grunting, I heaved on the window clasp, wrenching it open and gulping down fresh air.

  Rohan sliced off the gogota’s arm. It came off the demon but remained stuck around Rohan’s throat like the ultimate goth accessory.

  The gogota started freaking out, yelling “Gel. Man. Gel. Man.” and running in circles, his head swiveling around looking for his target.

  “He’s still trying to kill her,” I said. Once fixated on a task, a gogota would try to complete it until he was dead, and given that this one was probably bound by magic to carry it out, the impulse must have been twice as strong.

  “Gel. Man. Gel. Man.” The gogota’s cries increased.

  The front door opened. Oh shit. Gelman’s sister was back. If she was a witch like Gelman, this B&E was not what I wanted my first impression to be.

  There was a shriek of rage. That would be the destroyed sliding door.

  “We need to get out of here,” I hissed.

  Rohan plowed into the gogota with his shoulder like a linebacker, knocking him back a half-dozen feet. Of course, thanks to the glue-like slime the demon secreted, Rohan was once more stuck to the damn thing, but that did help him steer the gogota toward the window which was our only way out.

  Footsteps thudded closer. “I’m calling the cops.”

  I slammed the office door, blasting the heavy filing cabinet across the room to block it.

  Rohan punched the gogota in the face. It didn’t shut the demon up.

  Gelman’s sister banged on the door. “Open up.”

  We attempted to wrestle the demon out the ground floor window. Get a five-foot-eight moving sausage with flailing arms, okay, arm, and try to shove it through a half-open window while your partner is stuck to it. See how far you get.

  “Fuck this,” Rohan said, and jerked himself, me, and the demon sideways out the window.

  We landed in a pillowy heap. Pillowy for me. Less so for Rohan and absolutely not at all for the demon, who’d ended up at the bottom of our dog pile.

  We wrestled the demon out the side gate and over to Rohan’s car. He had to cut himself free of the gogota, the two of us stuffing the demon into his trunk with our magic and a tire iron. Rohan bitched about the damage to his precious Shelby until we’d screeched out
of the alley when he switched it up to bitching about my driving.

  My reminder that his eyes were stuck together with gogota goop and I was the better driver option was scoffed at.

  I stuck to five kilometers below the speed limit, my eyes darting to the rearview mirror in time with the thumps emanating from the trunk and jolting the entire car. “The mandated procedure for being pulled over with a decaying irate demon in the trunk would be what?”

  Rohan laughed, more pained than in hilarity, prying his sticky eyelashes open. His entire front was coated in a rapidly hardening sticky goo, every little movement going “crack.”

  The gogota shrieked. I glanced into the windows of the neighboring cars but no one seemed to notice. Or they just didn’t care. Blessings on human indifference. “I could call Leo. She might know somewhere safe to stash it.”

  “No.” Rohan wiped more demon goo off with his sleeve. “We’ll put him in the iron room where we can keep an eye on him.”

  “Are you insane? We can’t bring him into the house.” My voice had risen about two-octaves.

  Rohan patted my back like I was going to panic. I opened my mouth to snap at him, except my lungs had constricted and my vision had blurred and yup, he was right. I was about to panic. I leaned in to his touch.

  “Freaking out?” he said.

  “Yes. Jump in, the water’s fine.”

  “Just get my baby home in one piece.”

  I crafted a taunt about his concern for my well-being, then didn’t bother. He was talking about the car.

  “That room is the safest place for the demon,” he said. “Rabbi Abrams doesn’t go in there and the room is soundproofed so no one in the Vault will hear the gogota screaming. Besides,” he ripped a strip of goo off his arm and winced, “maybe the demon will break free and kill us before we get back to Demon Club and we won’t have to worry about sneaking him in.”

  I patted his knee. “Your cynicism is catching up to mine. It’s so close it’s passing me a baton.”

  “Yeah, you’re a real gold medalist that way.” He rolled down the window and flung the hardened goo out.