Nava Katz Box Set 2

by Deborah Wilde

  “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 M
onday 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?

  “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 ou
t, 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.

  Sienna 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.”